June 2, 2025 • 51 mins
Bruce and Clark explore career development and the physical toll of work while dealing with their own injuries—Bruce recovering from toenail surgery and Clark nursing a broken toe.
• Career advice for a 22-year-old uncertain about pursuing entrepreneurship or college
• Testing business ideas through small, time-boxed experiments instead of all-or-nothing approaches
• Whether career passion is achievable for everyone or just a luxury for the privileged
• Finding satisfaction in work that might not be your passion but provides life stability
• The feasibility of finding strictly eight-hour jobs with good boundaries
• How different industries structure work hours and expectations
• Wellness tips including turmeric for inflammation, proper sleep during illness, and unexpected health benefits
• The importance of taking action rather than getting stuck in analysis paralysis
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
Oh, he's back.
Oh, I'm going up.
Yeah, I'm not going up.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
I'm not standing yet.
Speaker 1 (00:13):
But I am getting close to standing.
It's almost there.
Why are you not going up?
Speaker 2 (00:20):
Still having issues.
Speaker 1 (00:22):
Oh boy, well, before your thing, I have an injury,
but I'm playing through it.
This morning, when I was goingto my garage gym to work out, I
was stepping over a piece ofexercise equipment that's metal
(00:45):
and I kicked it with the ringfinger, with the ring toe of my
foot, oh, and I'm pretty sure Ifractured the tip of my toe.
Oh no, so I thought it wasbeing a baby because we had a
busy morning.
So, like I went and didsomething, I was like, okay,
maybe, I just like stubbed itkind of.
I took my sock off.
(01:05):
The thing is black and blue andvery swollen.
Speaker 2 (01:08):
You need to go to the doctor.
You had to get that whole thingx-rayed, I bet you I think so.
Speaker 1 (01:14):
I'm going to like play it out and wait till
tomorrow.
Speaker 2 (01:25):
But the moral of an email.
I'm Bruce and I'm Broken ToeClark.
Vibe, check how am I doing?
Speaker 1 (01:34):
Yes, you first.
Speaker 2 (01:36):
I had my toenails sawed off this week.
Speaker 1 (01:39):
Wait, wait, wait, all , all of them.
Speaker 2 (01:43):
My two big ones.
My two big ones.
I No'm not bleeding at themoment oh my gosh, are you
serious?
Speaker 1 (01:52):
well, I remember you very gave us this vibe check
prior where we're starting tolike dig in and like you're like
, I gotta do the ingrowns.
Speaker 2 (01:59):
Yeah, so I finally did something about them.
Uh, maybe, just you know, if,if you are slightly squeamish,
skip ahead five minutes, trustme.
So for the rest of you, buckleup.
Here we go.
Uh, it starts.
It starts with a needle that isas long as your pinky, uh, but
(02:21):
it is, it's long as your pinky,but it's like it's tiny, teeny
tiny.
There's like a little fishingline and they, they just shove
that thing directly into yourtoe and it goes so deep you feel
it on the other side of yourtoe, so like I feel it on the
bottom of my toe and it's comingthrough on the top and they're
just like numbing me withanesthetic and just moving it
around.
It's like they're playinghamburger hamburger or hot dog.
Speaker 1 (02:47):
Like are you going towards the front, Like if this
is your top.
People can't see this.
No hot dog Okay.
Speaker 2 (02:52):
So they just go right on the top.
They take the top, yeah,straight to the top needle going
around the bone, just feelingme up with anesthetic on both
sides the most painful thingI've ever felt in my life.
So, with anesthetic on bothsides the most painful thing
I've ever felt in my life.
So I now have a barometric forwhat a 10 on the pain scale
feels like.
That's it.
They give you seven minutes forthe anesthetic to start numbing
(03:14):
you a bit so you can be likeokay, I'm not going to feel when
they start chopping.
Apparently, I had a reaction tothe anesthetic and just passed
out oh, my gosh, are you serious?
And so I came in and they'relike hey, are you okay?
I'm like, uh, so you likeblacked?
Speaker 1 (03:31):
out and you're like I did.
Speaker 2 (03:33):
Oh my.
So they brought me some waterand I perked up, and then they
came in and, uh, you know, they,they proceed to uh, start
chopping and on the on the lefttoe I can feel nothing.
And you know, I don't want tomake it too graphic for y'all,
but just basically, they'reremoving the borders of my
toenails.
So you know, use yourimagination.
They're using these littlescissors and they're just
clipping down the toe all theway down to the very bottom, and
(03:56):
then they pull out a nice long,thin piece of nail.
So now my toenail.
You're looking down.
Speaker 1 (04:04):
I watched all of it.
Yes, I saw.
Did they give you the option Iwanted?
To pass out a second time didthey give you the option to say
we're gonna put the curtain upor do you want to watch?
Did you say I?
Speaker 2 (04:15):
was they.
I was propped up.
I really didn't have a choice.
It was like either look at the,the nail and look at them, and
we were talking about moviesthat I saw over the weekend the
whole time, which is added tothe experience, um, cause it was
Memorial day, uh, so you know,saw multiple movies, the old AMC
.
So by the time they get to thesecond toe, there's a problem,
(04:36):
which is I can feel everythingthey're doing and now I can tell
you what an 11 on a paint scale.
And I'm like, I'm trying toscream, but I'm like they're
like are you?
It's supposed to beuncomfortable, does it hurt?
And I'm like well, the, Ididn't feel anything on the left
toe, I feel everything.
I feel everything.
So they numb me up again andthen they go back again and I
(04:59):
still feel it and I'm like, okay, I still feel it.
It really hurts, like I want todie.
Uh, so it took a third, a thirdtime of them showing that
needle into my toe.
Oh, my gosh, then be able tochop away and remove the nail.
Uh, so I am currently bandaged.
I can't walk.
It takes me like a minute to godown the stairs.
(05:21):
I'm, uh, I'm the most uselesshuman being on the planet.
I feel so bad for my wifebecause I'm like I need water.
Can you get me water?
I just it would be so difficultfor me to get to the, the, the
fount of liquid.
So, uh, yeah, I'm on day threeof healing, fortunately.
Fortunately, mybrother-in-law's a podiatrist
and, uh, sending him pics of myfeet and he's like, oh, you're
(05:44):
doing good, it's getting better.
It does feel like it's gettingbetter every day, but still
still feel it right now.
So I'm not standing.
You sent him feet pics.
Is that what you're telling me?
You're sending bloody feet pics.
Yeah, yeah oh yeah dude, I'mseated and and it's kind of sad
(06:05):
I get off work.
So after this pod I'm going toget off work and I'm literally
just going to go lay on thecouch and prop my feet up.
And people in the old moviesare like I just can't wait to
get home and prop my feet up.
And I've never really been oneto be like I just can't wait to
prop my feet up.
But it feels so good Becausewhen you're sitting in a chair
all the blood's going to yourfeet and you just you feel the
throbbing.
(06:26):
But I'm going to be able to godownstairs and just prop my feet
up and and just sit in acomfortable position and I can't
wait.
It feels so good.
Speaker 1 (06:36):
Lovely.
I have so many thoughts andfollow-up questions.
Firstly, what's the recoverytime for this?
Seven days, Okay, I mean stillthat's quite a long time to not
be able to.
Speaker 2 (06:50):
Yeah, I am halfway there.
Speaker 1 (06:53):
Oh man, did they offer you like hey, we can do
them in two different sittings,or we can do them all in one, or
no?
Speaker 2 (07:00):
They didn't offer.
They do a thousand of these,like, apparently the guy who did
mine's done like a thousand ofthese things, like you do them.
Wow, it's.
It's normal for people who getin grounds.
I guess I just I'm finallycatching up to the rest of
society, wow is this?
Speaker 1 (07:18):
is this like a?
It's a complete reset, and whenthey grow back you, you should
be okay, or are?
Speaker 2 (07:24):
you like there is a chance.
Okay, there is a chance, and ifthat happens I'll get it done
again and they'll use a chemicalto cauterize the area.
Uh, but they don't do that thefirst time.
They do it Got it yeah.
Speaker 1 (07:39):
Oh man, that's rough man.
Speaker 2 (07:53):
That is rough, man.
That is rough, like you alwayshear, like old forms of torture,
right?
It's like ripping offfingernails can't stand still,
uh, it hurts so much to stand,uh, with my nails the way they
were.
So I got it done for, you know,my own well-being, uh, and so I
, you know, can work effectively.
But, uh, let me tell you, man,this has been a painful journey,
(08:15):
very painful, holy cow, I'mjust exhausted all the time.
Now it's it's impacted myproductivity because I'm just
tired, like in the healingprocess.
Speaker 1 (08:25):
I can't wait I can't wait to be through this yeah,
I'm in no way comparing my toebeing broken to this, because
that sounds a hundred billiontimes like mine still hurts,
like right now.
I'm sure it does.
But wait, it hurts, but it'snothing like what you're saying,
like that really sucks it's.
Speaker 2 (08:44):
Uh, I'm not gonna belittle your pain because I'm a
broken toe is probably verypainful, but let me tell you it
hurts yeah I bet it hurts.
Speaker 1 (08:55):
The last like six days, seven days of my life I've
been sick and that's my voicesounds a little weird.
That's why we missed.
The episode last week is one Ihad a big launch.
Immediately.
I'm wondering if, like youprobably had this too, like you
have something you're buildingup to and you're like, all right
, got to hit this date, got tolaunch this project.
All the excitement is there andI feel like your body and your
(09:16):
brain put that together andthey're like I'm not going to
let you get sick or let you restuntil this moment.
Like you kind of build that andyou force your body into that
mode.
The day of launch, whenever allthe checks were done, everything
was looking good.
I instantly started feelingsick, like throat hurt, and I
was like, oh no, oh no.
(09:37):
So halfway through the day,things were luckily going really
, really well at the launch, I'mlike I'm done, like I'm going
to be out for the next five days.
So all Memorial day weekend Iwas in.
What reminded me of this is youwere saying you have to like
sit down all the time.
I was laying on the couch or inbed just dead for like the last
five days, and that's what wemissed last week.
But it's crazy Cause likelaying down, you think it sounds
(10:00):
great?
Oh yeah, you just lay aroundand like watch stuff all day.
My it sounds great, oh yeah,you just lay around and like
watched off all day.
My hips were hurting, my backwas hurting because I just had
no energy to walk around and bea normal human being.
I actually slept worst becausemy body was in pain from not
moving around.
Speaker 2 (10:15):
As a frequent sick person, and this is a tip for
everybody.
Uh, let me just, I'm gonna, I'mgonna give you two
life-changing tips that havereally helped me in the last
year with with any sickness.
Maybe it'll help you.
One have NyQuil around liquidform right Like have it around
do the full dose every nightuntil you're better, and like
(10:39):
it's a sedum in it, ben, it'sgoing to ruin your liver, like
so is everything else, you'reall going to die.
Like the momentary ability tosleep through the night One it's
going to help you get betterfaster, because if your sleep is
getting interrupted you're notrecovering.
So like the second I start likeeven if I have like a little
tiny cold, I will go to bed atnine o'clock.
(10:59):
I'll do like a big dose andI'll do the full adult size dose
of NyQuil and generally, if Ican catch it early enough, like
two days, I'm better.
Yeah, other big thing and thisis something I've learned
recently and it's not just helpwith sickness itself, with
everything, including like painin my toes.
Every morning I've gotten offcoffee but I make a chai tea and
(11:21):
in the chai tea I put a lot ofturmeric and a lot of clove and
you can actually get clove frompumpkin spice, so it's pretty
tasty.
Some people don't like turmericand some people don't like the
fact that turmeric can stainyour teeth and other things,
which is like whatever, I don'tcare If I have yellow teeth, I
have yellow teeth.
You know I'm a human being.
(11:46):
But turmeric isanti-inflammatory and like clove
and all the spices in chai,just very good for you and my
toe pain actually reduced.
When I get sick now I don't getthe headaches anymore and it's
because I have so much turmericin my system, acting as an
anti-inflammatory, that it isjust vastly improved.
My quality of life, my qualityof life.
I'm solving all kinds ofproblems with ancient herbs here
(12:07):
.
Speaker 1 (12:09):
One last tip, one last tip this is a recent
development.
Speaker 2 (12:13):
I'm just going to give you.
This is the Bruce's health tipssection.
Believe it or not, tequila is aprebiotic and, if you can see
where I'm going with this, Ihave never had better gut health
than when I started making oldfashions with tequila.
Just gonna throw that out there.
Uh, I use casa noble reposadois the brand, is the, uh, the
(12:36):
sub brand kind of tastes likepeanut butter, it's it's quite
tasty.
But more importantly, I Iactually went and bought a
bottle because my friend told meit's prebiotic and it helped
him tremendously with his uh,his digestion and like, lo and
behold, this is the first thingI've ever really tried that has
actually helped me on thedigestive front and like, I feel
great like tequila at night,try tea in the morning with
(12:59):
turmeric.
I've got my life figured out.
I finally have the solutions toeverything.
If you'd like, you can buy mysupplement package that I'm
going to start selling Halftequila, half turmeric chai.
Speaker 1 (13:12):
Okay, you're on to something.
You're on to something.
The corporate strategy Wellnesspackage.
Wellness package.
It will keep you in the game.
We got to get on this.
You're alive, you will be great.
You will keep you in the game.
We got to get on this.
Stay alive, you will be great.
Speaker 2 (13:28):
You will feel better than you've ever felt in your
life.
Speaker 1 (13:31):
It's going to say starting to feel sick, going to
bed, and then it's like a thingof NyQuil.
This is a genius idea.
It's trying to avoid sickness.
Speaker 2 (13:42):
Don't mix the tequila with the NyQuil.
Do not, don't do that.
No, don't do that.
But uh, you know, on the welldays you can do the tequila, and
then on the not well days, thenyquil, and then every day you
do the chai with the turmericand the pumpkin spice.
Oh, I also like to mix in thisis the other pro tip with the
chai I do a spoonful of localhoney, because if you eat local
honey it helps your allergies.
(14:04):
So I'm just getting all of thewellness benefits in my first
drink of the day, and then Iclose up the drink of the day
with heavy alcohol.
Speaker 1 (14:18):
I love it.
I love how you're just you knowsharing this information with
us.
I agree on the NyQuil thingchanged.
I'm a frequent sick person.
Speaker 2 (14:26):
It's a game changer it sucks.
Speaker 1 (14:28):
My wife always says if you lived pre the 20th
century you'd be dead.
Same.
She literally was like youwouldn't have survived.
And I totally agree with herSame.
And so I do a concoction.
I think I've mentioned beforeit's like zinc vitamin like a
concoction.
I think I've mentioned before islike zinc, uh, vitamin C
overdose.
Like I take in way too muchvitamin C and then like
(14:49):
multivitamin every day and thenI do the local honey thing.
Like I do everything I can toavoid sickness.
Always wash your hands, nevereat food from your hands, Always
use a fork and a knife.
Like I just try to doeverything to not get sick.
So NyQuil, like when I foundthat out I was like I can sleep
because that's the worst partabout being sick.
You can't sleep because you'resniffling, you're coughing,
whatever NyQuil, just if youhave never tried it, it knocks
(15:11):
you out.
Like I took it the other nightwhen we were watching our shows
and, out of nowhere, like 10minutes after I took it, I was
passing out.
I didn't even realize it.
Speaker 2 (15:30):
Like it just hits you so hard that you just start
knocking out and my wife was,like you need to go to bed.
It's great, and I mean like Iwould never, ever, recommend you
use this as a sleep aid,outside of being sick, cause,
like you know that it's not goodfor you, but it is good for you
in the sense that it helps yousleep when you're sick, which is
the hardest time.
Like it's hard for me to sleepwith my toes, like the blanket
brushes my toe the wrong way andI wake up and I'm like in
excruciating pain.
So, like you know, I'm notusing it for this specifically,
(15:51):
but like it is so helpful whenyou are coming out of the cold,
the flu, covid, what have you?
It works and getting rest getsyou better so much quicker.
Speaker 1 (16:01):
Yeah, and then obviously drink lots of water,
yeah, tons and tons of liquids,water.
You know, bc, branch chain,amino acid, like whatever you
got.
Basically just hydrate, hydrate, hydrate.
You should be peeing every 30minutes.
And also you take nyquil atnight and you sleep at least six
hours, like you're gonna getbetter a lot faster, because I
used to be, out like when I wasyounger.
I would be out for like a wholeweek because my, my immune
(16:24):
system just sucked so bad same.
When I turned to be an adult, Ifound out about nyquil.
I get better in half the timenow because I can actually sleep
, yep I love it.
Speaker 2 (16:31):
Start mixing in that turmeric.
I guarantee you you'll getbetter, even faster.
Speaker 1 (16:35):
Try it, try it, turmeric okay, I'm gonna get it
out.
We need to make our own mix.
Speaker 2 (16:40):
You know how they have, like that mushroom rice,
mushroom coffee and there's mudwater, mushroom tea.
We need to make our ownwellness mix.
It's the Corporate StrategyWellness Morning Mix.
We can just make bank.
Speaker 1 (16:55):
That's what I'm saying Stay healthy, stay in the
office.
Speaker 2 (16:58):
Stay healthy Get promoted Corporate Strategy.
This wellness could have beenan email.
Speaker 1 (17:05):
This wellness could definitely have been an email.
This wellness could definitelyhave been an email.
So I want to keep asking morequestions, but I feel like this
podcast is going to be an hourlong Just us talking about
wellness tips.
Speaker 2 (17:12):
So we should probably talk about something that
people care about, huh what doyou think, yeah, we should, we
should.
So, uh, I was actuallyproducing the career advice,
career guidance subreddit whichwe used to pull from in the days
of this pod and, like I saw acouple of topics that we could
do, like you know, a couple ofresponses to what do you say?
What do you say, clark?
Speaker 1 (17:33):
Let's do it.
Let's do some fun ones.
We'll do a little bit of a,probably just a couple.
Speaker 2 (17:37):
We'll do a handful and mix them how do you even
know what career you're meantfor?
Speaker 1 (17:44):
Oh my gosh, the first one off the bat Loaded.
Speaker 2 (17:50):
All right, I'm going to give you some contest,
honestly so lost right now andcould use some perspective from
people who figured this out.
I'm 22.
I've been working in a busserat the keg for the past two
years.
It's not crazy, but the tipsare decent and I managed to save
up around 6k, which feelspretty good for someone.
My age.
Thing is I have no clue what Iactually want to do with my life
.
Part of me wants to start myown business, like maybe food
(18:10):
trucks, small cafe, always beeninterested in restaurant
industry, think I have some goodideas.
My savings plus maybe a smallbusiness loan, I can make it
happen Something exciting aboutbeing my own boss.
But then there's this voice inmy head saying I should go to
college, get a real education,have a backup plan.
My friends went straight touniversity and are graduating
with degrees, and here I amstill clearing tables, wondering
if I'm wasting.
My potential Problem is I don'tknow what to study.
(18:31):
At the same time, I'm terrifiedof failing when I blow all my
sailings on a restaurant thattanks.
In six months at least, withcollege, I'll have a degree at
the end.
How do you figure out whatyou're supposed to do?
Is there something wrong withme for not having it figured out
by now.
Speaker 1 (18:45):
My general advice to this is life is about doing, not
analyzing, not questioning.
Like you don't find out andyou'll never like you can get
advice from people.
I don't.
I'm not saying advice is a badthing, but I think a lot of
people get stuck in the analysisparalysis.
I'm going to question every way.
(19:05):
I'm going to do you know,months of research into this.
I'm not going to make anydecisions until, like, I
understand everything and choosethe right path, like to be
honest with you, it's all awaste of time.
Like start taking action anddoing and that's how you're
going to figure it out.
And, to be honest, I don'tthink you really can figure out
when you are just graduating oryou're young of like, what your
(19:27):
career path should be.
It's about trying things andfinding the intersections of
what are your interests, whatare you good at, and the overlap
of oh fireworks all around me.
I must be saying something good, thank you.
Speaker 2 (19:38):
Clark has triggered his Apple animations.
Speaker 1 (19:41):
I've never done that one, but I think it's like Venn
diagram Passions, slash,interests, what you're good at
and then what your context is,where in the world you are, how
old you are, what education youhave.
Put those all together and useAI honestly to give you some
suggestions and go try stuff.
That's my suggestion.
Speaker 2 (20:00):
I'm going to add on to Clark's suggestion, except
for the use AI part, because Ithink that's you know I'm never
going to tell you to use AI, butwhat I will tell you is and we
talked about this on the podwith Mr Capitalist Correspondent
Alex Restrepo before how muchdoes luck factor into things?
And I think about this personspecifically, like I don't know
you, I don't know your path, Idon't know the future, and
(20:22):
that's a problem.
Right Like this person coulddump their 6k of savings into a
food truck and right place,right time, right recipe, right
strip of land to park the truckon, hit it big, become a
national sensation, go big onTikTok.
Like everything could fall inplace for them.
Or they could do the exact samething at a different location
(20:44):
and get nothing and blow that 6K.
So much of this comes down tolike what you said doing right
Like there's no guaranteedrecipe for success.
And I think getting stuck in theanalysis paralysis part is a
doomed affair.
Like all you're going to do isend up, uh, wasting time
(21:05):
thinking about wasted potential,which creates more time wasted,
whereas there's a middle groundto this.
You don't dump 6k into the foodtruck.
Instead, you do 1k and maybeshow up to your local farmer's
market with your recipe and, hey, am I getting business?
Am I getting repeat customers?
People leave me reviews Like doI have a shot here with, with
(21:27):
my idea, my recipe, what haveyou?
Start to build up your socialnetwork.
Start to build up your brand.
Figure out what works, figureout what doesn't.
You still got 5k that you canrely on for.
You know, going to night schooltrying out other like don't
limit yourself to one big idea.
You know Clark is a bigproponent of this as a product
(21:48):
manager which they're only goodfor one thing, which is defining
MVP, minimum viable product.
And I would say you're farbetter off going and testing a
lot of different MVPs, seeingwhat works, than saying, hey,
I'm going to go big on this onething and then, when it blows up
because I'm unlucky, like now,my life is ruined.
Speaker 1 (22:06):
Right, I agree, or you spend too much time.
You know, and I think that's toyour point.
Like the MVP concept, it's allabout validating hypotheses or
assumptions you have.
Or is it viable?
And like you won't know untilyou try.
But you need a time box thattry of.
At the end of the day, if you'regoing to do your own business.
(22:27):
It's like do I have somethingpeople want?
Am I solving a problem peoplehave or am I providing a service
that helps people?
And like if you think there'ssomething out there but you
don't try it, you'll never know.
Like you'll never know ifthere's actually any demand out
there.
And so that's why I think yourtime box is like, hey, I'm going
to spend.
If, like, you've got 6K here,I'm going to spend $1,000.
I'm going to spend four weeks.
(22:48):
I'm going to go to these foodmarkets or whatever.
I'm going to see if people areinterested and if I can generate
demand.
And if I hit a goal of X amountof dollars like if I get my
$1,000 back in sales, thatproves to me I should just go
all in.
If I don't, I'm going to go toschool and that means you've got
a bias for action.
You've got a time box.
You're not bankrupting all yoursavings and you're going to
(23:09):
learn what the right path isright there.
So in four weeks you shouldhave your answer.
Am I going all in on the foodtruck or am I going to school?
Speaker 2 (23:17):
Love this.
I love this because I thinkwe've given this person like
actual actionable steps that canlead them to figure out like,
hey, maybe you should go toschool instead.
Maybe this is not the rightpath.
You also are going to learn somuch in doing this activity
about your own work preferencesand what you like.
It's the.
You know we talked about thisbefore.
(23:37):
My biggest takeaway from theUnsubtle Art of Not Giving an F
the book is you think you wantto be a rock star until you
realize all of the work you needto put in to being a rock star
and then you realize I actuallydon't want to be a rock star, I
just like the fictional,fantastical idea of being a rock
star Like this gets you a nicelittle simulation.
You get a taste of the work andmaybe that work doesn't taste
(24:00):
so good to you and maybe maybeyou are a candidate to go
corporate, maybe you're acandidate to go do something
completely different.
But it's little tests, it'slittle tastes.
Don't take the whole enchilada.
Speaker 1 (24:11):
I love that.
And before we go on the nextone, the last thing I'd say is
you also might find out whatpeople want is different than
what you thought they want orwhat you should be doing.
And then you're saying I'mactually going to pivot a little
bit.
I'm going to have a stand atevery farmer's market I can find
because I'm generating a lot ofdemand.
Screw the food truck, I'mfarmer's market business.
Now you might find that out,and that is another way to look
(24:31):
at it.
Even though the food truckthing didn't work out you didn't
exactly hit those goals youactually found more demand doing
something else.
So go try that for a couple ofweeks, see how it goes.
Speaker 2 (24:42):
Completely agree, love it.
I saw this one.
We have to talk about it.
Um, is anyone else starting tofeel like career passion is just
a luxury for the privilege?
I think this is a goodfollow-up to the previous one.
Genuinely curious.
Everywhere you turn linkedinyoutube, even some job
interviews.
It's all about find what youlove and do that.
But in reality, how many of ushave financial breathing room to
(25:03):
experiment until we find ourpassion?
Most people I know, myselfincluded, work to survive, pay
rent, deal with debt, helpfamily Passion feels like a
buzzword used to guilt us intothinking we're failing if we
don't do what we love for ournine to five.
So here's the question Is ittime to stop selling the dream
of passion-driven careers andstart normalizing work as work?
Or is the real value in holdingout for what you love?
Speaker 1 (25:24):
Ooh, this one's interesting.
I kind of want you to go firston this one.
Speaker 2 (25:27):
Yeah, I mean so.
For for me, my immediateresponse is maybe and I.
I think that's a very fairanswer because I don't love what
I do.
I don't love the industry thatI'm in Like, love is a strong
word but I'm pretty good at itand I don't hate it and I can
(25:51):
enjoy the work I do, maybe like50% of the time, most days, like
I can say oh, you know, I can,I can crank on a blog, a paper,
what have you?
And I'm not wanting to jump outof a window, right, I don't
love it, but I'm good at it andI know what I'm doing and I can
be successful and I can grow mycareer and I can.
You know I need to leave andfind another job else where I
(26:12):
can.
There's a comfort in my workand also I know that at five
o'clock I can close the lid,walk away, go, prop my feet up,
let my toes drain and I can behappy.
That's a comfort that I livefor.
We talk a lot about CAC on thispodcast culture, autonomy,
compensation.
What we don't talk about is thewhen I'm not CACing, I'm
(26:34):
relaxing, which is, you know, aterrible way to say relaxing.
It's very important to me thatI have a comfortable home life
and if I was doing what I wantto do, which I think I want to
make computer games like videogames I would be poor and I'd
probably working like 12 plushour days grinding trying to
(26:55):
meet a deadline for a game thatmight be a total failure.
It's what I think I want to do,but at the same time I give up
all of my life comfort doingthat.
So I think the question is notlike is the passion job dead?
It's.
Is that really what you want to?
Speaker 1 (27:11):
do.
What do you think, clark, is itgoing to be what fulfills me as
a human in my career?
Or is it a means to an end?
Like I just need to do this tomake my paycheck to.
(27:34):
You know, have a goodretirement when I get to that
age to provide for my family?
Like, if you just look at workthat way, you can still find
things like you said, that youlike you might not love every
aspect of the job, but it's notbad.
It's kind of like my job too.
It's like I don't absolutelylove it.
There are moments that I love.
(27:54):
There are also moments that Ihate violently.
I violently hate certainmoments that I have to go
through, but at the end of theday, like helps me provide for
myself Overall, not bad.
Like beats being a plumberthat's like one of my favorite
stories and favorite lines islike someone like Bill Belichick
, coach of the Patriots.
One night, it's like midnight,and one of the players walks in
(28:17):
because he forgot something inthe locker room.
He like walks in and the playerwalks in and he like sees the
light on in the film room and hewalks in and the coach is
sitting in there late at nightall by himself just watching
film and the guy's like, coach,what are you doing here?
Like it's almost midnight andthere's no one else here and
he's like beats, being a plumber, I'll see you tomorrow.
It's like he actually lovesthat.
(28:38):
But he's also saying like thisis way better than anything else
that I could be doing otherwise, so it's not that bad Like I'm
happy with it.
Speaker 2 (28:48):
I mean, you know, if we could do this full time which
we can't because we've not made, you know, a dime in over a
year from this podcast but like,if we could do this full time,
oh, I'd be such a happy person,right, like I would.
I would expand, I would figureout a way to like make this a
whole thing that we could do andyou know multiple shows, we do
(29:09):
true crime, murder mysteries,for you know all the sickos out
there like a way to make it work, I would love that.
But at the same time, likewe've we've done 160 something
episodes of this show and again,we've, in the last year, have
not made a dime.
So, yeah, you got to berealistic.
You have to say, like, am I?
Am I happy with my life, notwith my work?
(29:32):
Am I happy with my life?
And that's got to be thequestion to be able to answer.
And I think people get way toohung up on the idea of being
happy at work or finding the jobthat makes them happy as work.
Because, just like the previousone, so much of this is
luck-based, so much of this isthat lightning in a bottle, the
magic, the luck of the draw,like you cannot guarantee
success, no matter what you do.
Speaker 1 (29:54):
Yeah, and again this goes back to that, to your point
on a great follow-up question,because you won't know till you
try.
So if you think there'ssomething out there that you
would absolutely love, so if youthink there's something out
there that you would absolutelylove, like you should go do it.
Your time is limited, likethat's one thing that we all
have in common.
We only have so much time.
So go try it, find out, takecalculated risks.
I'm not saying quit your jobright now or spend it all on the
(30:16):
lotto.
Take calculated risks,depending on your contacts.
But go try it and figure out.
Do I love it, do I not?
And even if you do somethingyou love, there are going to be
aspects that you don't love.
Like there's nothing.
I mean, unless you're super,super lucky.
I don't think there's a singleperson in this world that is
like I've loved every singlesecond of my working career, no
matter what.
Like there's no way anybody hasever felt that way.
(30:36):
So just know, like that nirvanadoesn't exist.
Maybe it does exist for oneperson in the world, maybe in
history of time.
Speaker 2 (30:44):
I don't even know Cause.
Like you look at, like, so you,you know I'm one of my favorite
musicians is Trent Reznor, uhthe the, the man behind the mask
of nine inch nails.
And like if you, if you listento him talk like he's not
cranking out nine inch nailsalbums every year.
He does a lot of film scoresnow.
(31:11):
And like, if you listen to himin interviews, it's like it
sounds like it's kind of amiserable process sometimes.
Like even you know he's makingmusic year round.
But like making Nine Inch Nailsmusic that that requires a
special energy attitude and youknow output.
And like I think, if you, if youlook at anyone that you respect
, or like you think they mustreally love their job and you
listen to them talk about theirwork, you will find there's a
special kind of misery forpassion-oriented work too,
because are you living up toyour own expectations?
(31:31):
Like being your own boss isgreat, but like what if you know
you have something within youthat you want to create that
makes the world a better place,but you can't do it right?
Like nothing is perfect.
No one loves their job 100 ofthe time?
And I think you can like, likeI said, you can find
satisfaction and happiness and ajob you don't even love like a
(31:54):
job you tolerate.
You could say I'm good at this,this doesn't bring me a lot of
strife, this doesn't bring me alot of pain.
There's low stakes, I get paidwell, I get get time off.
This is awesome.
I think we prioritize the dreama little too much.
It might be a uniquely Americanproblem because we've had this
whole idea of the American dreamand you can find success and
(32:15):
anyone can be a millionaire inAmerica.
I'm very curious to ourEuropean listeners, or just
non-American listeners Is thisthe way you feel about finding,
you know, finding success inyour, in your own countries, or
is this like a uniquely Americanthing?
Speaker 1 (32:30):
I agree and I think it's also like, as I think about
that it's it's probably justdue to like social media and
technology Like you have so muchmore awareness and instant
gratification that nobody's everreally had.
So like your level ofsatisfaction is like the best
thing in the world out there forwhatever you're interested in.
You never have to see the badparts of that.
(32:52):
And I think that's part of it,too, is like you always see the
best thing.
It's like back then, you know,before all this, you never got
to see those things, so yourexpectation was reality of your
current context, for what youcan see you didn't know anything
else, right?
And so now I think this isbecoming more and more prevalent
, because we see the best thingand what it could be, and the
dreams and the bars are set high.
Speaker 2 (33:14):
I think one of the greatest tricks ever played on
mankind and society was when westarted letting outside sources
tell us how to feel.
Right, when you look at newsand the media and this whole
idea of like well, I saw it onTV, so it must be true.
I saw it on the news, it mustbe true.
(33:34):
Like, oh, bill Gates startedMicrosoft in his garage.
That means I can do that too,it's like.
But you only have 1% of thestory.
And it got worse once westarted looking at, you know,
social media.
Uh, now reality TV.
Like, we took all these conceptsthat used to be very much a a
(33:55):
business savvy individual can gooff and create a business right
time, right moment.
Create Microsoft in theirgarage.
That's not repeatable.
Like, that's not something thatanyone can go and do.
And then you look, we have allthese reality tv shows of like
you know, um, what is it?
Shark tank keeping up with thekardashians?
Like all these, you can make itor you can be rich and you can
(34:18):
be happy.
And then it's, it's amplifiedby social media and just the
lies that you're being pouredinto your eye holes as you
scroll.
None of it's true, none of it'sreal.
Don't fall for it.
Like go out and have a humanexperience and realize like
there are more people just likeyou that feel the way you do
than there are on social media,telling you the lies that you're
(34:38):
you're consuming.
Like don't let that influenceyour happiness.
Speaker 1 (34:43):
A hundred percent agree and don't get.
And don't get caught in thetrap of always consuming, never
doing.
I think that's what a lot ofpeople do now.
It's like you're always justwatching and you're like man, I
wish I could do that.
It's like it goes back to whatwe were just saying try.
If you're not doing, you willnever get a chance at the 1% of
people who do that amazing thingthe Bill Gates or whatever.
You don't see the billions ofpeople who've tried to do that
(35:05):
same thing and failed, but atleast they tried.
And I think that's what it goesback to is like don't just watch
and consume.
It's like go, do and you'll.
You might get lucky if you'reright place, right time, context
is correct.
You don't know what the futureis, but to your point, it's like
for those 1% of people, theyhave the right mixture of, you
(35:27):
know, time, idea and the alsothe work they put in the work to
actually do it.
And that unique applicationduring that context was because
what led to their success.
But again, that's the pointzero, zero, one percent.
But they did and that's thepoint go do.
Speaker 2 (35:41):
That's exactly it.
I think this last one, last one, is a good end cap to these
topics.
Is it delusional to want a jobthat is strictly eight hours?
Briefcase emoji.
Star emoji, flower emoji.
I need opinions, or maybe alittle reality check.
So is it actually possible toget a job that's strictly eight
(36:02):
hours?
Only eight hours?
I don't mind paid overtime.
I'm a dream girly who reallyprioritizes well-being.
Bathtub emoji, candle emoji.
So is it realistic?
Or am I being completely delulu?
Speaker 1 (36:16):
laughing, crying emoji I guess I have to go first
if we're trading.
For me it's hard and I imagineyou the same, like I don't
half-ass things, I onlywhole-ass things.
(36:36):
So like turning my brain offfor something I spend eight
hours on, even if it is eighthours on a day, is hard, even if
I end the day and like I walkaway, like my brain and my
subconscious are still solvingproblems and processing the day,
and like things hit me when I'm, when I'm just hanging out with
(36:58):
my wife and we're watching oneof our favorite shows or
something that I'm just like ohyeah, I forgot about.
Like this, this and this, outof nowhere they'll hit me.
Or oh, I can solve that bydoing this, and then I just
write them down real quick andput it to the side because
otherwise it will plague me.
Or I'll wake up in the middleof the night and be like oh, I
got an idea for this and so like.
It depends on the type of personyou are.
Some people can like totallydisassociate, but it's hard for
(37:19):
me to do that when you spend alot of time doing something and
you're doing it Now.
In terms of like time allocated, I think it is totally possible
to like work, work and setboundaries and work less than
eight hours a day for your joband still provide a lot of value
and move up the career ladder.
It's not easy.
You've got to be veryintentional and deliberate about
your time and know what valueadd activities are and what
(37:41):
value attracting activities are,and where you're wasting time
and where you should be spendingtime.
And it's not easy.
It's kind of like rocketscience.
You don't know what thosethings are because you don't
have all the context and youdon't understand everything
perfectly because that'scorporate.
But I think it's totallypossible to keep your work
window within, or less than,eight hours.
Speaker 2 (38:01):
Absolutely agree.
I was going to say just aresounding yes to this question.
And again it's going to comedown to preference, like, what
do you want to do?
Because if you get like a dataentry job or if you're like an
AI tester and all you're doingis just sending testing prompts
all day, you likely have a quota, you likely have a certain
amount of things you're expectedto do and you might not even
(38:22):
work eight hours.
Like, in all honesty, if you'reable to kind of crank through,
get these things done, you mightclock out two hours early.
Uh, and if you're on salary, itmakes no difference, right?
Like, if you're if your salary,you get your job done within
the window you're, you're donefor the day.
If you're on a time clock, thenyou just wait and burn the
clock and read a book or scrollreddit or do whatever it is you
(38:42):
do.
It's absolutely possible to getthis.
Now, I think it's important welook at this from a CAC
perspective.
When you're searching for thatperfect nine to five, you might
have to give something up on thecompensation side.
You might have to givesomething up on the challenge
side of the autonomy side.
Usually those kinds of jobs theones that are very strict with
(39:05):
their time.
They're a little bit lessautonomous.
Like when I was a groundskeeper, I worked six to three every
day, every day, guaranteed Iwould be done at three o'clock.
There was no.
There was never an opportunityto stay late and do overtime,
except to pay me if I didovertime and they didn't want to
do that.
So, like there are blue collarjobs, you're guaranteed to work
(39:27):
minimum hours because they don'twant to pay overtime.
There are salary jobs.
You know, office jobs might notbe fun, might not be the most
interesting thing where they're.
Hey, you check your brain atthe door, you show up, you do
your job, you pick up your brainas you leave.
It's menial work, but you'reonly going to work eight hours.
And then there's, you know myjob, which most days I'm able to
(39:50):
work eight to five, eight tofour.
I'm feeling, you know, likeI've got my stuff done.
And then there's days I go workconferences and I'm literally
working 17 hour days, right,because, like I'm expected to be
on the job doing the work.
You know, there's days I go dofilm shoots and it could be a.
I'm at the studio at seven andI'm I'm not done till seven at
night, like it depends, but I'mokay with that because it's not
(40:13):
an all the time thing.
And then there's jobs in thevideo game industry where you're
expected to work 18 hours a daybecause you're making video
games and they take advantage ofyou.
So like there is a spectrumthat you can fall into and again
I think it comes down to yourcomfort and what you're willing
to put up with.
But you can absolutely find ajob that meets that requirement.
Speaker 1 (40:33):
And I don't think there's a, I don't think there's
a parallel with like I don'tthink there's a salary cap to
say like once you hit the salaryrange, it's definitely not the
eight hours.
Like I think this goes youcould work maybe four hours a
day and be making buku bucks.
It's about the value you'readding.
Right, and I think that's whatit goes back to, is what you
were saying.
(40:53):
If you're, if you're an hourlyworker, you know, at Mickey D's
flipping burgers, like you'reprobably working eight hours and
you're cutting your brain offand that's it.
Or six hours or whatever, likethat's all, that's all you do.
You can't go home and likethink about how you flip burgers
better, or toss the buns in themicrowave, like your brain
probably will never think aboutthat again because it's just
robotic action.
But at the end of the day it iseight hours.
(41:15):
So if you're like saying I wantto turn off my brain, I want to
go, just do a salary and hourlywage and opportunity
perspective most likely.
But you could also find jobslike ours where technically we
are Monday to Friday and we alsoare technically nine to five,
(41:39):
but our job and our role is notlooked at hours, put in it's
value added, doing the importantthings.
And that's what's great aboutour jobs it's autonomous.
We decide and we help shapethat value.
So, to your point, like somedays I could work three hours
and then the next day, like justyesterday, or yeah, yesterday,
because today's Thursday,yesterday, like I had a 13 hour
(42:02):
day just of different meetings,meeting with people across the
globe, but today I only workedprobably four hours because I
took time off this morning and Ibalanced my schedule to say I'm
going to take time off thismorning because I worked a
ridiculous day yesterday and allmy value add activities are
taken care of.
It's like you know what that is.
But some weeks are going to bebrutal, some activities are
going to be brutal and it justdepends on where the value is.
(42:23):
But you can balance that to getto a good work-life balance,
which is where you have to beintentional and deliberate about
your time.
Speaker 2 (42:32):
Totally not a Delulu request at all.
Horns emoji wink emojibriefcase emoji.
Speaker 1 (42:38):
Bathtub emoji zucchini emoji Bathtub emoji.
Speaker 2 (42:43):
Absolutely, I mean heck, you can go work for a spa.
That I mean if.
If you are really looking tolike kind of double cash in, go
get a job at a spa where you're.
You're gonna have an hourly,you know rate, but then you get
the perk of you can use the, theuh facilities either at a
discount or for frizzo, uh anduh.
Get the best of both worlds onyour, your lunch break go take a
(43:07):
bath.
Better plan.
Go work there for a year.
Figure out how they work andwhat works about this place.
Come up with a better businessmodel Cheaper, faster, better.
Go start your own.
Put them out of business.
Hire them at a cheaper rate.
Now you've got this setup, youdon't have to do anything.
Speaker 1 (43:25):
Just have them do all the work and you the setup.
You don't have to do anything.
Just have them do all the workand you just say just keep doing
what you were doing before, I'mjust not part of it anymore.
You get a free spa out of thisFree spa and no work Less than
eight hours.
Yeah, what is it?
What's that big hype book thatwent around for years?
The four hour work week, orwhatever.
Speaker 2 (43:46):
Oh, my gosh, I don't know.
I mean, if I could, I did not,but if I could magically rewire
my brain, I would learn financesoftware and become a fintech
sales engineer, because thoseguys make stupid money and don't
(44:07):
have to work at all.
You just like, oh, I'm going toSC for this fintech software
and like, I'm not going to makeas much money as my sales rep,
but I'm still making way moremoney than anyone on God's green
earth selling stupid frickingstock software.
And you do like two or threehours of work a week, my gosh.
Speaker 1 (44:24):
I've got a buddy who does that and it's.
He is all just aboutcompensation.
He's like I do the value addactivities.
I don't do anything to help theteam.
I'm not doing trainings, I'mnot updating wikis.
I'm selling the software andI'm getting off the calls with
the clients who drive in therevenue.
Speaker 2 (44:41):
And if it's not in that?
Speaker 1 (44:42):
criteria.
I'm not doing it.
And he's like, if I close thesales, I make the money and I'm
happy and I'm out, and thatcould be a one hour day, a one
hour a week.
Yeah, it's wild.
Speaker 2 (44:50):
So if you want my full advice, go do that, if you
have the aptitude for it,because you'll never work a day
in your life.
Speaker 1 (45:02):
Yep, truly, it takes hard work to get there, though
you ready to grind for a bit,but once you master it, it's a
great skill to have.
Speaker 2 (45:11):
I think I think we did good, I think we solved some
problems.
Speaker 1 (45:15):
I think we did.
It was great.
I was a lot of fun.
I liked the rapid fire ones.
You know the dedicated topicsare great, but also the rapid
fire, I think, gives a lot oflike, good feedback to, I'm sure
, what a lot of people arethinking of.
Speaker 2 (45:27):
Yeah, on the fly, I like that too, and we should.
We should bring this back everyonce in a while.
It's kind of hit up the oldcareer guidance subreddit and
see what people are, see whatthey're dealing with, because I
don't, if it doesn't come fromour discord, I don't know, I
don't know what do we get to?
Speaker 1 (45:43):
use our own brains.
Speaker 2 (45:47):
That's hard.
That is hard.
Hey, how do you join theDiscord?
Speaker 1 (45:51):
It's really really hard.
It's so difficult.
You don't even want to do it.
I'm doing reverse psychology.
Edit this part out.
It's so difficult, youdefinitely don't want to do it
and honestly it kind of sucks inthere, so just don't go there
at all.
But if you are interested, justwherever you're listening to
this on, just scroll down withyour finger, with your scroll
wheel.
(46:12):
There's a link tree there's alittle hyperlink.
It's going to be blue.
If you don't know what ahyperlink is, it's going to be
blue, it's going to beunderlined.
If you click it, it takes youto a page that has so many
different buttons on it and oneof them will say join our
discord.
I don't know if that's actuallywhat it says, but probably
something like that.
If you click on it, instantaccess.
You can stay anonymous.
(46:33):
That's the best part about itis like you don't even have to
tell us who you are or everchime in.
You can literally just stalkand gain value from our discord
and be a little leech, a valueleech in there.
Speaker 2 (46:44):
There was a huge discussion last week about AI
Like it was pages long.
Very depressing to witness.
Get in here, join us, bedepressed with us about how AI
is going to ruin all of our job.
I disagree.
Speaker 1 (46:59):
I loved it.
I loved it.
I love the conversation becauseit validated myself for
everything that I've talkedabout AI, about I saw our
discord community start sayingmaybe maybe Clark is right about
AI being okay and not slop Iloved.
Speaker 2 (47:15):
It Felt like slop to me.
Speaking of slop, we also liketo play a game in our discord.
It's called what do you mean,where we describe things that
were previously talked about onprevious episodes in meme form,
with our mouth holes.
So we do have one that wasposted in regards to last week's
(47:38):
episode or two weeks ago'sepisode, and I believe it is my
turn to do it.
Oh, let's go, let's go, we'vegot a couple, so I'll do them
both.
The first one comes frombourgeoisie correspondent,
capitalist correspondent, alShapo.
He says it's a gentleman, abearded gentleman with long hair
(47:59):
, looks like he might be fromolden times, holding in his hand
a glowing orb.
And he's looking at thisglowing orb, smiling, and
someone says to him yo, I thinkReturn of the King is a pretty
cool guy.
It kills orcs and doesn'tafraid of anything.
And obviously, this guy holdingthe orb is none other than
(48:23):
Strider who, if you listened tothe previous episode, we found
that people at a tech conferencedidn't know his name was
Aragorn.
So good callback, good meme.
We've got one more that I wantto hit us on.
Ooh, yes, hosted by our goodfriend Ika.
Two gentlemen in an office,nerds, nerdy nerds, beards,
(48:47):
glasses.
The nerd works right, someone.
One leans in and says the otherhow do I get to the deep web?
And then the other nerd hoodieup, lantern out from under his
desk Follow me, I will show youthe way and accurate.
That is how you get to the deepweb.
So thank you, as always, forbringing the memes.
(49:08):
We love them.
Keep doing them.
If you got a meme from thisepisode, you can go on that
channel and post it.
Do it.
We also have our Is it Me or Isit Corporate?
Anonymous posting channel whereyou can actually post anonymous
confessions and we will readthem and respond to them in real
time.
So do that as well.
Speaker 1 (49:27):
Great job, bruce, you crushed it.
Yeah, it's actually funny, thismeme, like the setting of it,
you know who I'm talking about.
At a previous company, like oneof our co-workers office always
had the light off.
It would just scattered stuffeverywhere, which reminds me of
this and I felt like when I wentin there he would look at you
with his long black hair and youwould feel like you're going to
(49:51):
the dark web you know who I'mtalking about but seeing this
meme just reminded me of thatmoment.
Every time I went in that room,I felt like I was doing
something I shouldn't be doingand about to get into it yeah,
it's.
Speaker 2 (50:03):
Uh, they did a good job recreating that aesthetic.
Uh, maybe maybe they didn'trecreate it.
If you know what I'm saying,maybe they might live it.
Uh, I think that does it forthe show.
So, if you like the pod, jointhe discord play.
What do you mean?
Give us your confessions.
There is a mirror.
As a corporate, you can checkout our swag store we got swag.
You can check out our.
(50:24):
Buy us a coffee if you want tosupport us.
Like I said, we haven'treceived any money in a long
time.
Doing a show for free, justdoing a show.
Do a show 160 somethingepisodes, still paying out of
our pockets.
Uh, alternatively, if you wantto do a surreal, solid, you can
share this with your friends.
I think that's the mostimportant thing we can do.
It's a word of mouth marketedpodcast only.
So hear us.
If you like us.
If you don't like it, share uswith your enemies.
(50:44):
It's.
If you don't like us, share uswith your enemies.
It's really easy.
Just be like hey, I think youneed this and they probably do,
so send them our way.
But I think that'll wrap thingsup for this week.
Per usual, don't go herdingcats.
I'm Bruce and I'm Clark andyou're on mute.
We'll see you next week.
Oh, he's back.
Oh, I'm going up.
Yeah, I'm not going up.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
I'm not standing yet.
Speaker 1 (00:13):
But I am getting close to standing.
It's almost there.
Why are you not going up?
Speaker 2 (00:20):
Still having issues.
Speaker 1 (00:22):
Oh boy, well, before your thing, I have an injury,
but I'm playing through it.
This morning, when I was goingto my garage gym to work out, I
was stepping over a piece ofexercise equipment that's metal
(00:45):
and I kicked it with the ringfinger, with the ring toe of my
foot, oh, and I'm pretty sure Ifractured the tip of my toe.
Oh no, so I thought it wasbeing a baby because we had a
busy morning.
So, like I went and didsomething, I was like, okay,
maybe, I just like stubbed itkind of.
I took my sock off.
(01:05):
The thing is black and blue andvery swollen.
Speaker 2 (01:08):
You need to go to the doctor.
You had to get that whole thingx-rayed, I bet you I think so.
Speaker 1 (01:14):
I'm going to like play it out and wait till
tomorrow.
Speaker 2 (01:25):
But the moral of an email.
I'm Bruce and I'm Broken ToeClark.
Vibe, check how am I doing?
Speaker 1 (01:34):
Yes, you first.
Speaker 2 (01:36):
I had my toenails sawed off this week.
Speaker 1 (01:39):
Wait, wait, wait, all , all of them.
Speaker 2 (01:43):
My two big ones.
My two big ones.
I No'm not bleeding at themoment oh my gosh, are you
serious?
Speaker 1 (01:52):
well, I remember you very gave us this vibe check
prior where we're starting tolike dig in and like you're like
, I gotta do the ingrowns.
Speaker 2 (01:59):
Yeah, so I finally did something about them.
Uh, maybe, just you know, if,if you are slightly squeamish,
skip ahead five minutes, trustme.
So for the rest of you, buckleup.
Here we go.
Uh, it starts.
It starts with a needle that isas long as your pinky, uh, but
(02:21):
it is, it's long as your pinky,but it's like it's tiny, teeny
tiny.
There's like a little fishingline and they, they just shove
that thing directly into yourtoe and it goes so deep you feel
it on the other side of yourtoe, so like I feel it on the
bottom of my toe and it's comingthrough on the top and they're
just like numbing me withanesthetic and just moving it
around.
It's like they're playinghamburger hamburger or hot dog.
Speaker 1 (02:47):
Like are you going towards the front, Like if this
is your top.
People can't see this.
No hot dog Okay.
Speaker 2 (02:52):
So they just go right on the top.
They take the top, yeah,straight to the top needle going
around the bone, just feelingme up with anesthetic on both
sides the most painful thingI've ever felt in my life.
So, with anesthetic on bothsides the most painful thing
I've ever felt in my life.
So I now have a barometric forwhat a 10 on the pain scale
feels like.
That's it.
They give you seven minutes forthe anesthetic to start numbing
(03:14):
you a bit so you can be likeokay, I'm not going to feel when
they start chopping.
Apparently, I had a reaction tothe anesthetic and just passed
out oh, my gosh, are you serious?
And so I came in and they'relike hey, are you okay?
I'm like, uh, so you likeblacked?
Speaker 1 (03:31):
out and you're like I did.
Speaker 2 (03:33):
Oh my.
So they brought me some waterand I perked up, and then they
came in and, uh, you know, they,they proceed to uh, start
chopping and on the on the lefttoe I can feel nothing.
And you know, I don't want tomake it too graphic for y'all,
but just basically, they'reremoving the borders of my
toenails.
So you know, use yourimagination.
They're using these littlescissors and they're just
clipping down the toe all theway down to the very bottom, and
(03:56):
then they pull out a nice long,thin piece of nail.
So now my toenail.
You're looking down.
Speaker 1 (04:04):
I watched all of it.
Yes, I saw.
Did they give you the option Iwanted?
To pass out a second time didthey give you the option to say
we're gonna put the curtain upor do you want to watch?
Did you say I?
Speaker 2 (04:15):
was they.
I was propped up.
I really didn't have a choice.
It was like either look at the,the nail and look at them, and
we were talking about moviesthat I saw over the weekend the
whole time, which is added tothe experience, um, cause it was
Memorial day, uh, so you know,saw multiple movies, the old AMC
.
So by the time they get to thesecond toe, there's a problem,
(04:36):
which is I can feel everythingthey're doing and now I can tell
you what an 11 on a paint scale.
And I'm like, I'm trying toscream, but I'm like they're
like are you?
It's supposed to beuncomfortable, does it hurt?
And I'm like well, the, Ididn't feel anything on the left
toe, I feel everything.
I feel everything.
So they numb me up again andthen they go back again and I
(04:59):
still feel it and I'm like, okay, I still feel it.
It really hurts, like I want todie.
Uh, so it took a third, a thirdtime of them showing that
needle into my toe.
Oh, my gosh, then be able tochop away and remove the nail.
Uh, so I am currently bandaged.
I can't walk.
It takes me like a minute to godown the stairs.
(05:21):
I'm, uh, I'm the most uselesshuman being on the planet.
I feel so bad for my wifebecause I'm like I need water.
Can you get me water?
I just it would be so difficultfor me to get to the, the, the
fount of liquid.
So, uh, yeah, I'm on day threeof healing, fortunately.
Fortunately, mybrother-in-law's a podiatrist
and, uh, sending him pics of myfeet and he's like, oh, you're
(05:44):
doing good, it's getting better.
It does feel like it's gettingbetter every day, but still
still feel it right now.
So I'm not standing.
You sent him feet pics.
Is that what you're telling me?
You're sending bloody feet pics.
Yeah, yeah oh yeah dude, I'mseated and and it's kind of sad
(06:05):
I get off work.
So after this pod I'm going toget off work and I'm literally
just going to go lay on thecouch and prop my feet up.
And people in the old moviesare like I just can't wait to
get home and prop my feet up.
And I've never really been oneto be like I just can't wait to
prop my feet up.
But it feels so good Becausewhen you're sitting in a chair
all the blood's going to yourfeet and you just you feel the
throbbing.
(06:26):
But I'm going to be able to godownstairs and just prop my feet
up and and just sit in acomfortable position and I can't
wait.
It feels so good.
Speaker 1 (06:36):
Lovely.
I have so many thoughts andfollow-up questions.
Firstly, what's the recoverytime for this?
Seven days, Okay, I mean stillthat's quite a long time to not
be able to.
Speaker 2 (06:50):
Yeah, I am halfway there.
Speaker 1 (06:53):
Oh man, did they offer you like hey, we can do
them in two different sittings,or we can do them all in one, or
no?
Speaker 2 (07:00):
They didn't offer.
They do a thousand of these,like, apparently the guy who did
mine's done like a thousand ofthese things, like you do them.
Wow, it's.
It's normal for people who getin grounds.
I guess I just I'm finallycatching up to the rest of
society, wow is this?
Speaker 1 (07:18):
is this like a?
It's a complete reset, and whenthey grow back you, you should
be okay, or are?
Speaker 2 (07:24):
you like there is a chance.
Okay, there is a chance, and ifthat happens I'll get it done
again and they'll use a chemicalto cauterize the area.
Uh, but they don't do that thefirst time.
They do it Got it yeah.
Speaker 1 (07:39):
Oh man, that's rough man.
Speaker 2 (07:53):
That is rough, man.
That is rough, like you alwayshear, like old forms of torture,
right?
It's like ripping offfingernails can't stand still,
uh, it hurts so much to stand,uh, with my nails the way they
were.
So I got it done for, you know,my own well-being, uh, and so I
, you know, can work effectively.
But, uh, let me tell you, man,this has been a painful journey,
(08:15):
very painful, holy cow, I'mjust exhausted all the time.
Now it's it's impacted myproductivity because I'm just
tired, like in the healingprocess.
Speaker 1 (08:25):
I can't wait I can't wait to be through this yeah,
I'm in no way comparing my toebeing broken to this, because
that sounds a hundred billiontimes like mine still hurts,
like right now.
I'm sure it does.
But wait, it hurts, but it'snothing like what you're saying,
like that really sucks it's.
Speaker 2 (08:44):
Uh, I'm not gonna belittle your pain because I'm a
broken toe is probably verypainful, but let me tell you it
hurts yeah I bet it hurts.
Speaker 1 (08:55):
The last like six days, seven days of my life I've
been sick and that's my voicesounds a little weird.
That's why we missed.
The episode last week is one Ihad a big launch.
Immediately.
I'm wondering if, like youprobably had this too, like you
have something you're buildingup to and you're like, all right
, got to hit this date, got tolaunch this project.
All the excitement is there andI feel like your body and your
(09:16):
brain put that together andthey're like I'm not going to
let you get sick or let you restuntil this moment.
Like you kind of build that andyou force your body into that
mode.
The day of launch, whenever allthe checks were done, everything
was looking good.
I instantly started feelingsick, like throat hurt, and I
was like, oh no, oh no.
(09:37):
So halfway through the day,things were luckily going really
, really well at the launch, I'mlike I'm done, like I'm going
to be out for the next five days.
So all Memorial day weekend Iwas in.
What reminded me of this is youwere saying you have to like
sit down all the time.
I was laying on the couch or inbed just dead for like the last
five days, and that's what wemissed last week.
But it's crazy Cause likelaying down, you think it sounds
(10:00):
great?
Oh yeah, you just lay aroundand like watch stuff all day.
My it sounds great, oh yeah,you just lay around and like
watched off all day.
My hips were hurting, my backwas hurting because I just had
no energy to walk around and bea normal human being.
I actually slept worst becausemy body was in pain from not
moving around.
Speaker 2 (10:15):
As a frequent sick person, and this is a tip for
everybody.
Uh, let me just, I'm gonna, I'mgonna give you two
life-changing tips that havereally helped me in the last
year with with any sickness.
Maybe it'll help you.
One have NyQuil around liquidform right Like have it around
do the full dose every nightuntil you're better, and like
(10:39):
it's a sedum in it, ben, it'sgoing to ruin your liver, like
so is everything else, you'reall going to die.
Like the momentary ability tosleep through the night One it's
going to help you get betterfaster, because if your sleep is
getting interrupted you're notrecovering.
So like the second I start likeeven if I have like a little
tiny cold, I will go to bed atnine o'clock.
(10:59):
I'll do like a big dose andI'll do the full adult size dose
of NyQuil and generally, if Ican catch it early enough, like
two days, I'm better.
Yeah, other big thing and thisis something I've learned
recently and it's not just helpwith sickness itself, with
everything, including like painin my toes.
Every morning I've gotten offcoffee but I make a chai tea and
(11:21):
in the chai tea I put a lot ofturmeric and a lot of clove and
you can actually get clove frompumpkin spice, so it's pretty
tasty.
Some people don't like turmericand some people don't like the
fact that turmeric can stainyour teeth and other things,
which is like whatever, I don'tcare If I have yellow teeth, I
have yellow teeth.
You know I'm a human being.
(11:46):
But turmeric isanti-inflammatory and like clove
and all the spices in chai,just very good for you and my
toe pain actually reduced.
When I get sick now I don't getthe headaches anymore and it's
because I have so much turmericin my system, acting as an
anti-inflammatory, that it isjust vastly improved.
My quality of life, my qualityof life.
I'm solving all kinds ofproblems with ancient herbs here
(12:07):
.
Speaker 1 (12:09):
One last tip, one last tip this is a recent
development.
Speaker 2 (12:13):
I'm just going to give you.
This is the Bruce's health tipssection.
Believe it or not, tequila is aprebiotic and, if you can see
where I'm going with this, Ihave never had better gut health
than when I started making oldfashions with tequila.
Just gonna throw that out there.
Uh, I use casa noble reposadois the brand, is the, uh, the
(12:36):
sub brand kind of tastes likepeanut butter, it's it's quite
tasty.
But more importantly, I Iactually went and bought a
bottle because my friend told meit's prebiotic and it helped
him tremendously with his uh,his digestion and like, lo and
behold, this is the first thingI've ever really tried that has
actually helped me on thedigestive front and like, I feel
great like tequila at night,try tea in the morning with
(12:59):
turmeric.
I've got my life figured out.
I finally have the solutions toeverything.
If you'd like, you can buy mysupplement package that I'm
going to start selling Halftequila, half turmeric chai.
Speaker 1 (13:12):
Okay, you're on to something.
You're on to something.
The corporate strategy Wellnesspackage.
Wellness package.
It will keep you in the game.
We got to get on this.
You're alive, you will be great.
You will keep you in the game.
We got to get on this.
Stay alive, you will be great.
Speaker 2 (13:28):
You will feel better than you've ever felt in your
life.
Speaker 1 (13:31):
It's going to say starting to feel sick, going to
bed, and then it's like a thingof NyQuil.
This is a genius idea.
It's trying to avoid sickness.
Speaker 2 (13:42):
Don't mix the tequila with the NyQuil.
Do not, don't do that.
No, don't do that.
But uh, you know, on the welldays you can do the tequila, and
then on the not well days, thenyquil, and then every day you
do the chai with the turmericand the pumpkin spice.
Oh, I also like to mix in thisis the other pro tip with the
chai I do a spoonful of localhoney, because if you eat local
honey it helps your allergies.
(14:04):
So I'm just getting all of thewellness benefits in my first
drink of the day, and then Iclose up the drink of the day
with heavy alcohol.
Speaker 1 (14:18):
I love it.
I love how you're just you knowsharing this information with
us.
I agree on the NyQuil thingchanged.
I'm a frequent sick person.
Speaker 2 (14:26):
It's a game changer it sucks.
Speaker 1 (14:28):
My wife always says if you lived pre the 20th
century you'd be dead.
Same.
She literally was like youwouldn't have survived.
And I totally agree with herSame.
And so I do a concoction.
I think I've mentioned beforeit's like zinc vitamin like a
concoction.
I think I've mentioned before islike zinc, uh, vitamin C
overdose.
Like I take in way too muchvitamin C and then like
(14:49):
multivitamin every day and thenI do the local honey thing.
Like I do everything I can toavoid sickness.
Always wash your hands, nevereat food from your hands, Always
use a fork and a knife.
Like I just try to doeverything to not get sick.
So NyQuil, like when I foundthat out I was like I can sleep
because that's the worst partabout being sick.
You can't sleep because you'resniffling, you're coughing,
whatever NyQuil, just if youhave never tried it, it knocks
(15:11):
you out.
Like I took it the other nightwhen we were watching our shows
and, out of nowhere, like 10minutes after I took it, I was
passing out.
I didn't even realize it.
Speaker 2 (15:30):
Like it just hits you so hard that you just start
knocking out and my wife was,like you need to go to bed.
It's great, and I mean like Iwould never, ever, recommend you
use this as a sleep aid,outside of being sick, cause,
like you know that it's not goodfor you, but it is good for you
in the sense that it helps yousleep when you're sick, which is
the hardest time.
Like it's hard for me to sleepwith my toes, like the blanket
brushes my toe the wrong way andI wake up and I'm like in
excruciating pain.
So, like you know, I'm notusing it for this specifically,
(15:51):
but like it is so helpful whenyou are coming out of the cold,
the flu, covid, what have you?
It works and getting rest getsyou better so much quicker.
Speaker 1 (16:01):
Yeah, and then obviously drink lots of water,
yeah, tons and tons of liquids,water.
You know, bc, branch chain,amino acid, like whatever you
got.
Basically just hydrate, hydrate, hydrate.
You should be peeing every 30minutes.
And also you take nyquil atnight and you sleep at least six
hours, like you're gonna getbetter a lot faster, because I
used to be, out like when I wasyounger.
I would be out for like a wholeweek because my, my immune
(16:24):
system just sucked so bad same.
When I turned to be an adult, Ifound out about nyquil.
I get better in half the timenow because I can actually sleep
, yep I love it.
Speaker 2 (16:31):
Start mixing in that turmeric.
I guarantee you you'll getbetter, even faster.
Speaker 1 (16:35):
Try it, try it, turmeric okay, I'm gonna get it
out.
We need to make our own mix.
Speaker 2 (16:40):
You know how they have, like that mushroom rice,
mushroom coffee and there's mudwater, mushroom tea.
We need to make our ownwellness mix.
It's the Corporate StrategyWellness Morning Mix.
We can just make bank.
Speaker 1 (16:55):
That's what I'm saying Stay healthy, stay in the
office.
Speaker 2 (16:58):
Stay healthy Get promoted Corporate Strategy.
This wellness could have beenan email.
Speaker 1 (17:05):
This wellness could definitely have been an email.
This wellness could definitelyhave been an email.
So I want to keep asking morequestions, but I feel like this
podcast is going to be an hourlong Just us talking about
wellness tips.
Speaker 2 (17:12):
So we should probably talk about something that
people care about, huh what doyou think, yeah, we should, we
should.
So, uh, I was actuallyproducing the career advice,
career guidance subreddit whichwe used to pull from in the days
of this pod and, like I saw acouple of topics that we could
do, like you know, a couple ofresponses to what do you say?
What do you say, clark?
Speaker 1 (17:33):
Let's do it.
Let's do some fun ones.
We'll do a little bit of a,probably just a couple.
Speaker 2 (17:37):
We'll do a handful and mix them how do you even
know what career you're meantfor?
Speaker 1 (17:44):
Oh my gosh, the first one off the bat Loaded.
Speaker 2 (17:50):
All right, I'm going to give you some contest,
honestly so lost right now andcould use some perspective from
people who figured this out.
I'm 22.
I've been working in a busserat the keg for the past two
years.
It's not crazy, but the tipsare decent and I managed to save
up around 6k, which feelspretty good for someone.
My age.
Thing is I have no clue what Iactually want to do with my life
.
Part of me wants to start myown business, like maybe food
(18:10):
trucks, small cafe, always beeninterested in restaurant
industry, think I have some goodideas.
My savings plus maybe a smallbusiness loan, I can make it
happen Something exciting aboutbeing my own boss.
But then there's this voice inmy head saying I should go to
college, get a real education,have a backup plan.
My friends went straight touniversity and are graduating
with degrees, and here I amstill clearing tables, wondering
if I'm wasting.
My potential Problem is I don'tknow what to study.
(18:31):
At the same time, I'm terrifiedof failing when I blow all my
sailings on a restaurant thattanks.
In six months at least, withcollege, I'll have a degree at
the end.
How do you figure out whatyou're supposed to do?
Is there something wrong withme for not having it figured out
by now.
Speaker 1 (18:45):
My general advice to this is life is about doing, not
analyzing, not questioning.
Like you don't find out andyou'll never like you can get
advice from people.
I don't.
I'm not saying advice is a badthing, but I think a lot of
people get stuck in the analysisparalysis.
I'm going to question every way.
(19:05):
I'm going to do you know,months of research into this.
I'm not going to make anydecisions until, like, I
understand everything and choosethe right path, like to be
honest with you, it's all awaste of time.
Like start taking action anddoing and that's how you're
going to figure it out.
And, to be honest, I don'tthink you really can figure out
when you are just graduating oryou're young of like, what your
(19:27):
career path should be.
It's about trying things andfinding the intersections of
what are your interests, whatare you good at, and the overlap
of oh fireworks all around me.
I must be saying something good, thank you.
Speaker 2 (19:38):
Clark has triggered his Apple animations.
Speaker 1 (19:41):
I've never done that one, but I think it's like Venn
diagram Passions, slash,interests, what you're good at
and then what your context is,where in the world you are, how
old you are, what education youhave.
Put those all together and useAI honestly to give you some
suggestions and go try stuff.
That's my suggestion.
Speaker 2 (20:00):
I'm going to add on to Clark's suggestion, except
for the use AI part, because Ithink that's you know I'm never
going to tell you to use AI, butwhat I will tell you is and we
talked about this on the podwith Mr Capitalist Correspondent
Alex Restrepo before how muchdoes luck factor into things?
And I think about this personspecifically, like I don't know
you, I don't know your path, Idon't know the future, and
(20:22):
that's a problem.
Right Like this person coulddump their 6k of savings into a
food truck and right place,right time, right recipe, right
strip of land to park the truckon, hit it big, become a
national sensation, go big onTikTok.
Like everything could fall inplace for them.
Or they could do the exact samething at a different location
(20:44):
and get nothing and blow that 6K.
So much of this comes down tolike what you said doing right
Like there's no guaranteedrecipe for success.
And I think getting stuck in theanalysis paralysis part is a
doomed affair.
Like all you're going to do isend up, uh, wasting time
(21:05):
thinking about wasted potential,which creates more time wasted,
whereas there's a middle groundto this.
You don't dump 6k into the foodtruck.
Instead, you do 1k and maybeshow up to your local farmer's
market with your recipe and, hey, am I getting business?
Am I getting repeat customers?
People leave me reviews Like doI have a shot here with, with
(21:27):
my idea, my recipe, what haveyou?
Start to build up your socialnetwork.
Start to build up your brand.
Figure out what works, figureout what doesn't.
You still got 5k that you canrely on for.
You know, going to night schooltrying out other like don't
limit yourself to one big idea.
You know Clark is a bigproponent of this as a product
(21:48):
manager which they're only goodfor one thing, which is defining
MVP, minimum viable product.
And I would say you're farbetter off going and testing a
lot of different MVPs, seeingwhat works, than saying, hey,
I'm going to go big on this onething and then, when it blows up
because I'm unlucky, like now,my life is ruined.
Speaker 1 (22:06):
Right, I agree, or you spend too much time.
You know, and I think that's toyour point.
Like the MVP concept, it's allabout validating hypotheses or
assumptions you have.
Or is it viable?
And like you won't know untilyou try.
But you need a time box thattry of.
At the end of the day, if you'regoing to do your own business.
(22:27):
It's like do I have somethingpeople want?
Am I solving a problem peoplehave or am I providing a service
that helps people?
And like if you think there'ssomething out there but you
don't try it, you'll never know.
Like you'll never know ifthere's actually any demand out
there.
And so that's why I think yourtime box is like, hey, I'm going
to spend.
If, like, you've got 6K here,I'm going to spend $1,000.
I'm going to spend four weeks.
(22:48):
I'm going to go to these foodmarkets or whatever.
I'm going to see if people areinterested and if I can generate
demand.
And if I hit a goal of X amountof dollars like if I get my
$1,000 back in sales, thatproves to me I should just go
all in.
If I don't, I'm going to go toschool and that means you've got
a bias for action.
You've got a time box.
You're not bankrupting all yoursavings and you're going to
(23:09):
learn what the right path isright there.
So in four weeks you shouldhave your answer.
Am I going all in on the foodtruck or am I going to school?
Speaker 2 (23:17):
Love this.
I love this because I thinkwe've given this person like
actual actionable steps that canlead them to figure out like,
hey, maybe you should go toschool instead.
Maybe this is not the rightpath.
You also are going to learn somuch in doing this activity
about your own work preferencesand what you like.
It's the.
You know we talked about thisbefore.
(23:37):
My biggest takeaway from theUnsubtle Art of Not Giving an F
the book is you think you wantto be a rock star until you
realize all of the work you needto put in to being a rock star
and then you realize I actuallydon't want to be a rock star, I
just like the fictional,fantastical idea of being a rock
star Like this gets you a nicelittle simulation.
You get a taste of the work andmaybe that work doesn't taste
(24:00):
so good to you and maybe maybeyou are a candidate to go
corporate, maybe you're acandidate to go do something
completely different.
But it's little tests, it'slittle tastes.
Don't take the whole enchilada.
Speaker 1 (24:11):
I love that.
And before we go on the nextone, the last thing I'd say is
you also might find out whatpeople want is different than
what you thought they want orwhat you should be doing.
And then you're saying I'mactually going to pivot a little
bit.
I'm going to have a stand atevery farmer's market I can find
because I'm generating a lot ofdemand.
Screw the food truck, I'mfarmer's market business.
Now you might find that out,and that is another way to look
(24:31):
at it.
Even though the food truckthing didn't work out you didn't
exactly hit those goals youactually found more demand doing
something else.
So go try that for a couple ofweeks, see how it goes.
Speaker 2 (24:42):
Completely agree, love it.
I saw this one.
We have to talk about it.
Um, is anyone else starting tofeel like career passion is just
a luxury for the privilege?
I think this is a goodfollow-up to the previous one.
Genuinely curious.
Everywhere you turn linkedinyoutube, even some job
interviews.
It's all about find what youlove and do that.
But in reality, how many of ushave financial breathing room to
(25:03):
experiment until we find ourpassion?
Most people I know, myselfincluded, work to survive, pay
rent, deal with debt, helpfamily Passion feels like a
buzzword used to guilt us intothinking we're failing if we
don't do what we love for ournine to five.
So here's the question Is ittime to stop selling the dream
of passion-driven careers andstart normalizing work as work?
Or is the real value in holdingout for what you love?
Speaker 1 (25:24):
Ooh, this one's interesting.
I kind of want you to go firston this one.
Speaker 2 (25:27):
Yeah, I mean so.
For for me, my immediateresponse is maybe and I.
I think that's a very fairanswer because I don't love what
I do.
I don't love the industry thatI'm in Like, love is a strong
word but I'm pretty good at itand I don't hate it and I can
(25:51):
enjoy the work I do, maybe like50% of the time, most days, like
I can say oh, you know, I can,I can crank on a blog, a paper,
what have you?
And I'm not wanting to jump outof a window, right, I don't
love it, but I'm good at it andI know what I'm doing and I can
be successful and I can grow mycareer and I can.
You know I need to leave andfind another job else where I
(26:12):
can.
There's a comfort in my workand also I know that at five
o'clock I can close the lid,walk away, go, prop my feet up,
let my toes drain and I can behappy.
That's a comfort that I livefor.
We talk a lot about CAC on thispodcast culture, autonomy,
compensation.
What we don't talk about is thewhen I'm not CACing, I'm
(26:34):
relaxing, which is, you know, aterrible way to say relaxing.
It's very important to me thatI have a comfortable home life
and if I was doing what I wantto do, which I think I want to
make computer games like videogames I would be poor and I'd
probably working like 12 plushour days grinding trying to
(26:55):
meet a deadline for a game thatmight be a total failure.
It's what I think I want to do,but at the same time I give up
all of my life comfort doingthat.
So I think the question is notlike is the passion job dead?
It's.
Is that really what you want to?
Speaker 1 (27:11):
do.
What do you think, clark, is itgoing to be what fulfills me as
a human in my career?
Or is it a means to an end?
Like I just need to do this tomake my paycheck to.
(27:34):
You know, have a goodretirement when I get to that
age to provide for my family?
Like, if you just look at workthat way, you can still find
things like you said, that youlike you might not love every
aspect of the job, but it's notbad.
It's kind of like my job too.
It's like I don't absolutelylove it.
There are moments that I love.
(27:54):
There are also moments that Ihate violently.
I violently hate certainmoments that I have to go
through, but at the end of theday, like helps me provide for
myself Overall, not bad.
Like beats being a plumberthat's like one of my favorite
stories and favorite lines islike someone like Bill Belichick
, coach of the Patriots.
One night, it's like midnight,and one of the players walks in
(28:17):
because he forgot something inthe locker room.
He like walks in and the playerwalks in and he like sees the
light on in the film room and hewalks in and the coach is
sitting in there late at nightall by himself just watching
film and the guy's like, coach,what are you doing here?
Like it's almost midnight andthere's no one else here and
he's like beats, being a plumber, I'll see you tomorrow.
It's like he actually lovesthat.
(28:38):
But he's also saying like thisis way better than anything else
that I could be doing otherwise, so it's not that bad Like I'm
happy with it.
Speaker 2 (28:48):
I mean, you know, if we could do this full time which
we can't because we've not made, you know, a dime in over a
year from this podcast but like,if we could do this full time,
oh, I'd be such a happy person,right, like I would.
I would expand, I would figureout a way to like make this a
whole thing that we could do andyou know multiple shows, we do
(29:09):
true crime, murder mysteries,for you know all the sickos out
there like a way to make it work, I would love that.
But at the same time, likewe've we've done 160 something
episodes of this show and again,we've, in the last year, have
not made a dime.
So, yeah, you got to berealistic.
You have to say, like, am I?
Am I happy with my life, notwith my work?
(29:32):
Am I happy with my life?
And that's got to be thequestion to be able to answer.
And I think people get way toohung up on the idea of being
happy at work or finding the jobthat makes them happy as work.
Because, just like the previousone, so much of this is
luck-based, so much of this isthat lightning in a bottle, the
magic, the luck of the draw,like you cannot guarantee
success, no matter what you do.
Speaker 1 (29:54):
Yeah, and again this goes back to that, to your point
on a great follow-up question,because you won't know till you
try.
So if you think there'ssomething out there that you
would absolutely love, so if youthink there's something out
there that you would absolutelylove, like you should go do it.
Your time is limited, likethat's one thing that we all
have in common.
We only have so much time.
So go try it, find out, takecalculated risks.
I'm not saying quit your jobright now or spend it all on the
(30:16):
lotto.
Take calculated risks,depending on your contacts.
But go try it and figure out.
Do I love it, do I not?
And even if you do somethingyou love, there are going to be
aspects that you don't love.
Like there's nothing.
I mean, unless you're super,super lucky.
I don't think there's a singleperson in this world that is
like I've loved every singlesecond of my working career, no
matter what.
Like there's no way anybody hasever felt that way.
(30:36):
So just know, like that nirvanadoesn't exist.
Maybe it does exist for oneperson in the world, maybe in
history of time.
Speaker 2 (30:44):
I don't even know Cause.
Like you look at, like, so you,you know I'm one of my favorite
musicians is Trent Reznor, uhthe the, the man behind the mask
of nine inch nails.
And like if you, if you listento him talk like he's not
cranking out nine inch nailsalbums every year.
He does a lot of film scoresnow.
(31:11):
And like, if you listen to himin interviews, it's like it
sounds like it's kind of amiserable process sometimes.
Like even you know he's makingmusic year round.
But like making Nine Inch Nailsmusic that that requires a
special energy attitude and youknow output.
And like I think, if you, if youlook at anyone that you respect
, or like you think they mustreally love their job and you
listen to them talk about theirwork, you will find there's a
special kind of misery forpassion-oriented work too,
because are you living up toyour own expectations?
(31:31):
Like being your own boss isgreat, but like what if you know
you have something within youthat you want to create that
makes the world a better place,but you can't do it right?
Like nothing is perfect.
No one loves their job 100 ofthe time?
And I think you can like, likeI said, you can find
satisfaction and happiness and ajob you don't even love like a
(31:54):
job you tolerate.
You could say I'm good at this,this doesn't bring me a lot of
strife, this doesn't bring me alot of pain.
There's low stakes, I get paidwell, I get get time off.
This is awesome.
I think we prioritize the dreama little too much.
It might be a uniquely Americanproblem because we've had this
whole idea of the American dreamand you can find success and
(32:15):
anyone can be a millionaire inAmerica.
I'm very curious to ourEuropean listeners, or just
non-American listeners Is thisthe way you feel about finding,
you know, finding success inyour, in your own countries, or
is this like a uniquely Americanthing?
Speaker 1 (32:30):
I agree and I think it's also like, as I think about
that it's it's probably justdue to like social media and
technology Like you have so muchmore awareness and instant
gratification that nobody's everreally had.
So like your level ofsatisfaction is like the best
thing in the world out there forwhatever you're interested in.
You never have to see the badparts of that.
(32:52):
And I think that's part of it,too, is like you always see the
best thing.
It's like back then, you know,before all this, you never got
to see those things, so yourexpectation was reality of your
current context, for what youcan see you didn't know anything
else, right?
And so now I think this isbecoming more and more prevalent
, because we see the best thingand what it could be, and the
dreams and the bars are set high.
Speaker 2 (33:14):
I think one of the greatest tricks ever played on
mankind and society was when westarted letting outside sources
tell us how to feel.
Right, when you look at newsand the media and this whole
idea of like well, I saw it onTV, so it must be true.
I saw it on the news, it mustbe true.
(33:34):
Like, oh, bill Gates startedMicrosoft in his garage.
That means I can do that too,it's like.
But you only have 1% of thestory.
And it got worse once westarted looking at, you know,
social media.
Uh, now reality TV.
Like, we took all these conceptsthat used to be very much a a
(33:55):
business savvy individual can gooff and create a business right
time, right moment.
Create Microsoft in theirgarage.
That's not repeatable.
Like, that's not something thatanyone can go and do.
And then you look, we have allthese reality tv shows of like
you know, um, what is it?
Shark tank keeping up with thekardashians?
Like all these, you can make itor you can be rich and you can
(34:18):
be happy.
And then it's, it's amplifiedby social media and just the
lies that you're being pouredinto your eye holes as you
scroll.
None of it's true, none of it'sreal.
Don't fall for it.
Like go out and have a humanexperience and realize like
there are more people just likeyou that feel the way you do
than there are on social media,telling you the lies that you're
(34:38):
you're consuming.
Like don't let that influenceyour happiness.
Speaker 1 (34:43):
A hundred percent agree and don't get.
And don't get caught in thetrap of always consuming, never
doing.
I think that's what a lot ofpeople do now.
It's like you're always justwatching and you're like man, I
wish I could do that.
It's like it goes back to whatwe were just saying try.
If you're not doing, you willnever get a chance at the 1% of
people who do that amazing thingthe Bill Gates or whatever.
You don't see the billions ofpeople who've tried to do that
(35:05):
same thing and failed, but atleast they tried.
And I think that's what it goesback to is like don't just watch
and consume.
It's like go, do and you'll.
You might get lucky if you'reright place, right time, context
is correct.
You don't know what the futureis, but to your point, it's like
for those 1% of people, theyhave the right mixture of, you
(35:27):
know, time, idea and the alsothe work they put in the work to
actually do it.
And that unique applicationduring that context was because
what led to their success.
But again, that's the pointzero, zero, one percent.
But they did and that's thepoint go do.
Speaker 2 (35:41):
That's exactly it.
I think this last one, last one, is a good end cap to these
topics.
Is it delusional to want a jobthat is strictly eight hours?
Briefcase emoji.
Star emoji, flower emoji.
I need opinions, or maybe alittle reality check.
So is it actually possible toget a job that's strictly eight
(36:02):
hours?
Only eight hours?
I don't mind paid overtime.
I'm a dream girly who reallyprioritizes well-being.
Bathtub emoji, candle emoji.
So is it realistic?
Or am I being completely delulu?
Speaker 1 (36:16):
laughing, crying emoji I guess I have to go first
if we're trading.
For me it's hard and I imagineyou the same, like I don't
half-ass things, I onlywhole-ass things.
(36:36):
So like turning my brain offfor something I spend eight
hours on, even if it is eighthours on a day, is hard, even if
I end the day and like I walkaway, like my brain and my
subconscious are still solvingproblems and processing the day,
and like things hit me when I'm, when I'm just hanging out with
(36:58):
my wife and we're watching oneof our favorite shows or
something that I'm just like ohyeah, I forgot about.
Like this, this and this, outof nowhere they'll hit me.
Or oh, I can solve that bydoing this, and then I just
write them down real quick andput it to the side because
otherwise it will plague me.
Or I'll wake up in the middleof the night and be like oh, I
got an idea for this and so like.
It depends on the type of personyou are.
Some people can like totallydisassociate, but it's hard for
(37:19):
me to do that when you spend alot of time doing something and
you're doing it Now.
In terms of like time allocated, I think it is totally possible
to like work, work and setboundaries and work less than
eight hours a day for your joband still provide a lot of value
and move up the career ladder.
It's not easy.
You've got to be veryintentional and deliberate about
your time and know what valueadd activities are and what
(37:41):
value attracting activities are,and where you're wasting time
and where you should be spendingtime.
And it's not easy.
It's kind of like rocketscience.
You don't know what thosethings are because you don't
have all the context and youdon't understand everything
perfectly because that'scorporate.
But I think it's totallypossible to keep your work
window within, or less than,eight hours.
Speaker 2 (38:01):
Absolutely agree.
I was going to say just aresounding yes to this question.
And again it's going to comedown to preference, like, what
do you want to do?
Because if you get like a dataentry job or if you're like an
AI tester and all you're doingis just sending testing prompts
all day, you likely have a quota, you likely have a certain
amount of things you're expectedto do and you might not even
(38:22):
work eight hours.
Like, in all honesty, if you'reable to kind of crank through,
get these things done, you mightclock out two hours early.
Uh, and if you're on salary, itmakes no difference, right?
Like, if you're if your salary,you get your job done within
the window you're, you're donefor the day.
If you're on a time clock, thenyou just wait and burn the
clock and read a book or scrollreddit or do whatever it is you
(38:42):
do.
It's absolutely possible to getthis.
Now, I think it's important welook at this from a CAC
perspective.
When you're searching for thatperfect nine to five, you might
have to give something up on thecompensation side.
You might have to givesomething up on the challenge
side of the autonomy side.
Usually those kinds of jobs theones that are very strict with
(39:05):
their time.
They're a little bit lessautonomous.
Like when I was a groundskeeper, I worked six to three every
day, every day, guaranteed Iwould be done at three o'clock.
There was no.
There was never an opportunityto stay late and do overtime,
except to pay me if I didovertime and they didn't want to
do that.
So, like there are blue collarjobs, you're guaranteed to work
(39:27):
minimum hours because they don'twant to pay overtime.
There are salary jobs.
You know, office jobs might notbe fun, might not be the most
interesting thing where they're.
Hey, you check your brain atthe door, you show up, you do
your job, you pick up your brainas you leave.
It's menial work, but you'reonly going to work eight hours.
And then there's, you know myjob, which most days I'm able to
(39:50):
work eight to five, eight tofour.
I'm feeling, you know, likeI've got my stuff done.
And then there's days I go workconferences and I'm literally
working 17 hour days, right,because, like I'm expected to be
on the job doing the work.
You know, there's days I go dofilm shoots and it could be a.
I'm at the studio at seven andI'm I'm not done till seven at
night, like it depends, but I'mokay with that because it's not
(40:13):
an all the time thing.
And then there's jobs in thevideo game industry where you're
expected to work 18 hours a daybecause you're making video
games and they take advantage ofyou.
So like there is a spectrumthat you can fall into and again
I think it comes down to yourcomfort and what you're willing
to put up with.
But you can absolutely find ajob that meets that requirement.
Speaker 1 (40:33):
And I don't think there's a, I don't think there's
a parallel with like I don'tthink there's a salary cap to
say like once you hit the salaryrange, it's definitely not the
eight hours.
Like I think this goes youcould work maybe four hours a
day and be making buku bucks.
It's about the value you'readding.
Right, and I think that's whatit goes back to, is what you
were saying.
(40:53):
If you're, if you're an hourlyworker, you know, at Mickey D's
flipping burgers, like you'reprobably working eight hours and
you're cutting your brain offand that's it.
Or six hours or whatever, likethat's all, that's all you do.
You can't go home and likethink about how you flip burgers
better, or toss the buns in themicrowave, like your brain
probably will never think aboutthat again because it's just
robotic action.
But at the end of the day it iseight hours.
(41:15):
So if you're like saying I wantto turn off my brain, I want to
go, just do a salary and hourlywage and opportunity
perspective most likely.
But you could also find jobslike ours where technically we
are Monday to Friday and we alsoare technically nine to five,
(41:39):
but our job and our role is notlooked at hours, put in it's
value added, doing the importantthings.
And that's what's great aboutour jobs it's autonomous.
We decide and we help shapethat value.
So, to your point, like somedays I could work three hours
and then the next day, like justyesterday, or yeah, yesterday,
because today's Thursday,yesterday, like I had a 13 hour
(42:02):
day just of different meetings,meeting with people across the
globe, but today I only workedprobably four hours because I
took time off this morning and Ibalanced my schedule to say I'm
going to take time off thismorning because I worked a
ridiculous day yesterday and allmy value add activities are
taken care of.
It's like you know what that is.
But some weeks are going to bebrutal, some activities are
going to be brutal and it justdepends on where the value is.
(42:23):
But you can balance that to getto a good work-life balance,
which is where you have to beintentional and deliberate about
your time.
Speaker 2 (42:32):
Totally not a Delulu request at all.
Horns emoji wink emojibriefcase emoji.
Speaker 1 (42:38):
Bathtub emoji zucchini emoji Bathtub emoji.
Speaker 2 (42:43):
Absolutely, I mean heck, you can go work for a spa.
That I mean if.
If you are really looking tolike kind of double cash in, go
get a job at a spa where you're.
You're gonna have an hourly,you know rate, but then you get
the perk of you can use the, theuh facilities either at a
discount or for frizzo, uh anduh.
Get the best of both worlds onyour, your lunch break go take a
(43:07):
bath.
Better plan.
Go work there for a year.
Figure out how they work andwhat works about this place.
Come up with a better businessmodel Cheaper, faster, better.
Go start your own.
Put them out of business.
Hire them at a cheaper rate.
Now you've got this setup, youdon't have to do anything.
Speaker 1 (43:25):
Just have them do all the work and you the setup.
You don't have to do anything.
Just have them do all the workand you just say just keep doing
what you were doing before, I'mjust not part of it anymore.
You get a free spa out of thisFree spa and no work Less than
eight hours.
Yeah, what is it?
What's that big hype book thatwent around for years?
The four hour work week, orwhatever.
Speaker 2 (43:46):
Oh, my gosh, I don't know.
I mean, if I could, I did not,but if I could magically rewire
my brain, I would learn financesoftware and become a fintech
sales engineer, because thoseguys make stupid money and don't
(44:07):
have to work at all.
You just like, oh, I'm going toSC for this fintech software
and like, I'm not going to makeas much money as my sales rep,
but I'm still making way moremoney than anyone on God's green
earth selling stupid frickingstock software.
And you do like two or threehours of work a week, my gosh.
Speaker 1 (44:24):
I've got a buddy who does that and it's.
He is all just aboutcompensation.
He's like I do the value addactivities.
I don't do anything to help theteam.
I'm not doing trainings, I'mnot updating wikis.
I'm selling the software andI'm getting off the calls with
the clients who drive in therevenue.
Speaker 2 (44:41):
And if it's not in that?
Speaker 1 (44:42):
criteria.
I'm not doing it.
And he's like, if I close thesales, I make the money and I'm
happy and I'm out, and thatcould be a one hour day, a one
hour a week.
Yeah, it's wild.
Speaker 2 (44:50):
So if you want my full advice, go do that, if you
have the aptitude for it,because you'll never work a day
in your life.
Speaker 1 (45:02):
Yep, truly, it takes hard work to get there, though
you ready to grind for a bit,but once you master it, it's a
great skill to have.
Speaker 2 (45:11):
I think I think we did good, I think we solved some
problems.
Speaker 1 (45:15):
I think we did.
It was great.
I was a lot of fun.
I liked the rapid fire ones.
You know the dedicated topicsare great, but also the rapid
fire, I think, gives a lot oflike, good feedback to, I'm sure
, what a lot of people arethinking of.
Speaker 2 (45:27):
Yeah, on the fly, I like that too, and we should.
We should bring this back everyonce in a while.
It's kind of hit up the oldcareer guidance subreddit and
see what people are, see whatthey're dealing with, because I
don't, if it doesn't come fromour discord, I don't know, I
don't know what do we get to?
Speaker 1 (45:43):
use our own brains.
Speaker 2 (45:47):
That's hard.
That is hard.
Hey, how do you join theDiscord?
Speaker 1 (45:51):
It's really really hard.
It's so difficult.
You don't even want to do it.
I'm doing reverse psychology.
Edit this part out.
It's so difficult, youdefinitely don't want to do it
and honestly it kind of sucks inthere, so just don't go there
at all.
But if you are interested, justwherever you're listening to
this on, just scroll down withyour finger, with your scroll
wheel.
(46:12):
There's a link tree there's alittle hyperlink.
It's going to be blue.
If you don't know what ahyperlink is, it's going to be
blue, it's going to beunderlined.
If you click it, it takes youto a page that has so many
different buttons on it and oneof them will say join our
discord.
I don't know if that's actuallywhat it says, but probably
something like that.
If you click on it, instantaccess.
You can stay anonymous.
(46:33):
That's the best part about itis like you don't even have to
tell us who you are or everchime in.
You can literally just stalkand gain value from our discord
and be a little leech, a valueleech in there.
Speaker 2 (46:44):
There was a huge discussion last week about AI
Like it was pages long.
Very depressing to witness.
Get in here, join us, bedepressed with us about how AI
is going to ruin all of our job.
I disagree.
Speaker 1 (46:59):
I loved it.
I loved it.
I love the conversation becauseit validated myself for
everything that I've talkedabout AI, about I saw our
discord community start sayingmaybe maybe Clark is right about
AI being okay and not slop Iloved.
Speaker 2 (47:15):
It Felt like slop to me.
Speaking of slop, we also liketo play a game in our discord.
It's called what do you mean,where we describe things that
were previously talked about onprevious episodes in meme form,
with our mouth holes.
So we do have one that wasposted in regards to last week's
(47:38):
episode or two weeks ago'sepisode, and I believe it is my
turn to do it.
Oh, let's go, let's go, we'vegot a couple, so I'll do them
both.
The first one comes frombourgeoisie correspondent,
capitalist correspondent, alShapo.
He says it's a gentleman, abearded gentleman with long hair
(47:59):
, looks like he might be fromolden times, holding in his hand
a glowing orb.
And he's looking at thisglowing orb, smiling, and
someone says to him yo, I thinkReturn of the King is a pretty
cool guy.
It kills orcs and doesn'tafraid of anything.
And obviously, this guy holdingthe orb is none other than
(48:23):
Strider who, if you listened tothe previous episode, we found
that people at a tech conferencedidn't know his name was
Aragorn.
So good callback, good meme.
We've got one more that I wantto hit us on.
Ooh, yes, hosted by our goodfriend Ika.
Two gentlemen in an office,nerds, nerdy nerds, beards,
(48:47):
glasses.
The nerd works right, someone.
One leans in and says the otherhow do I get to the deep web?
And then the other nerd hoodieup, lantern out from under his
desk Follow me, I will show youthe way and accurate.
That is how you get to the deepweb.
So thank you, as always, forbringing the memes.
(49:08):
We love them.
Keep doing them.
If you got a meme from thisepisode, you can go on that
channel and post it.
Do it.
We also have our Is it Me or Isit Corporate?
Anonymous posting channel whereyou can actually post anonymous
confessions and we will readthem and respond to them in real
time.
So do that as well.
Speaker 1 (49:27):
Great job, bruce, you crushed it.
Yeah, it's actually funny, thismeme, like the setting of it,
you know who I'm talking about.
At a previous company, like oneof our co-workers office always
had the light off.
It would just scattered stuffeverywhere, which reminds me of
this and I felt like when I wentin there he would look at you
with his long black hair and youwould feel like you're going to
(49:51):
the dark web you know who I'mtalking about but seeing this
meme just reminded me of thatmoment.
Every time I went in that room,I felt like I was doing
something I shouldn't be doingand about to get into it yeah,
it's.
Speaker 2 (50:03):
Uh, they did a good job recreating that aesthetic.
Uh, maybe maybe they didn'trecreate it.
If you know what I'm saying,maybe they might live it.
Uh, I think that does it forthe show.
So, if you like the pod, jointhe discord play.
What do you mean?
Give us your confessions.
There is a mirror.
As a corporate, you can checkout our swag store we got swag.
You can check out our.
(50:24):
Buy us a coffee if you want tosupport us.
Like I said, we haven'treceived any money in a long
time.
Doing a show for free, justdoing a show.
Do a show 160 somethingepisodes, still paying out of
our pockets.
Uh, alternatively, if you wantto do a surreal, solid, you can
share this with your friends.
I think that's the mostimportant thing we can do.
It's a word of mouth marketedpodcast only.
So hear us.
If you like us.
If you don't like it, share uswith your enemies.
(50:44):
It's.
If you don't like us, share uswith your enemies.
It's really easy.
Just be like hey, I think youneed this and they probably do,
so send them our way.
But I think that'll wrap thingsup for this week.
Per usual, don't go herdingcats.
I'm Bruce and I'm Clark andyou're on mute.
We'll see you next week.
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