The Dark Side of Fame No One Warned Me About…

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Rare Things is a podcast for those who refuse to settle for ordinary and crave perspectives that challenge the status quo. Each episode dives into conversations where rare perspectives create extraordinary lives. We talk to people who have done RARE things, defying the odds, challenging the status quo, and turning their wildest dreams into reality.

[SPEAKER_00]: Should people get to know their heroes?

[SPEAKER_01]: My dream is to make movies in Hollywood.

[SPEAKER_01]: And when I saw these people that we love and admire on our TV screens that turns out that they are involved in the extraficking, that I was like, oh my gosh, my heroes, there was a moment of questioning, do I still want to go there?

[SPEAKER_01]: Do I still want to be in Hollywood?

[SPEAKER_01]: So I just got back from speaking at three events in a row this week, which doesn't actually happen that often, but just all happened to be in one week.

[SPEAKER_01]: It was crazy.

[SPEAKER_01]: And a question that I got from someone in the audience like teaching about how to grow your audience and how to drive traffic, how to build a relationship online, build influence through social media.

[SPEAKER_01]: They were like, how do I do this without feeling like I'm bragging?

[SPEAKER_01]: And my answer to that was, what's wrong if you are bragging?

[SPEAKER_01]: And I think people who are good should be louder because people who are bad are loud and it's a good point actually.

[SPEAKER_01]: If you're obsessed and passionate about something, please, it is your more obligation to be loud about it, and you should break about what you're good at, which is a bit of a segue into something that's really top of mind and top of news.

[SPEAKER_01]: Right now is what's being revealed in Hollywood and these people that we love and admire on our TV screens that turns out that they are involved in some extraficking.

[SPEAKER_01]: And it's made me, I mean, we've talked about my dream is to make movies in Hollywood.

[SPEAKER_01]: And when I saw that, I was like, oh my gosh, my heroes.

[SPEAKER_01]: There was a moment of questioning.

[SPEAKER_01]: Do I still want to go there?

[SPEAKER_01]: Do I still want to be in Hollywood?

[SPEAKER_01]: And as I thought about it more, I thought about my answer to that guy in the audience of good people should be louder.

[SPEAKER_01]: But also, if there's this undertow of,

[SPEAKER_01]: Like, I don't even know to call that is that evil then maybe good people just can't make it there.

[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know what do you think about that?

[SPEAKER_00]: Well, what do you, what do you think about the whole Hollywood thing then?

[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, just to put it back on on what you like does it make you want to stay in Hollywood?

[SPEAKER_00]: Because in the same breath, I, I feel, I kind of feel like it's like I watched some employee in Panerabred.

[SPEAKER_00]: uh... is a video is a tiktok oh so like when did you work at panare no no no is today i was watching a tiktok in this in panare bread employee was going ballistic like punching one of the customers and like throwing things and all the rest of the customer yeah all the customers tackled this employee when nuts and uh... in person is a panare bread employee but i think there's a tendency to say well because of that all of this is wrong

[SPEAKER_00]: That's what I'm saying, it's like, I don't think it poisons the whole thing.

[SPEAKER_00]: It depends on...

[SPEAKER_00]: is at the head of the snake doing it because of so the rest of the body is probably participating.

[SPEAKER_00]: But if it's just some offshoot, you know, I'm saying if it's like one or two people, I don't think Panera bread makes bad sandwiches just because one person with psycho.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's that one person.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, that's just a poor hiring choice.

[SPEAKER_00]: Right, poor hiring choice in a very well, will Smith and Ditty and, you know, looks like maybe Michael Jackson and all these people are, and we've all kind of suspected it.

[SPEAKER_00]: You know, I've suspected it.

[SPEAKER_00]: How come these Epstein things are so hard to find?

[SPEAKER_00]: Why is that list not?

[SPEAKER_00]: You know, I know we're recording this before the election barely, but like, that stuff is, there's, it feels like there's a bubble about to pop.

[SPEAKER_00]: A lot of bad stuff's about to come out.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's already happened and people are about to get, you know.

[SPEAKER_00]: But does that mean Hollywood is bad?

[SPEAKER_00]: Like if to give up the dream just because someone else squandered their shot.

[SPEAKER_00]: I don't think so.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's, but I'm sure it taint's it.

[SPEAKER_00]: You know how the death of the hero.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_01]: And they say, don't meet your heroes.

[SPEAKER_01]: I'll let you down.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I've been meeting some heroes lately and I've had incredible experiences, but also when the rug is pulled out from under you and you see these things that you just never expected.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's like, wait, what is true?

[SPEAKER_01]: And we,

[SPEAKER_01]: I was so blindsided, especially after 2020 to find how mainstream media and the powers that be are gaslighting or changing.

[SPEAKER_01]: changing perspectives by just there's this invisible puppeteer that's pulling strings back there that's like I don't it's hard to know what's what's real that sometimes having a little homestead off grid and isolating sounds kind of nice so what is my playing right now where did you had go with it then like is it still something I mean

[SPEAKER_00]: I have no doubt you're gonna be in Hollywood.

[SPEAKER_00]: And it's something I had to like emotionally prepare for when we first started dating.

[SPEAKER_00]: It wasn't, oh, I wonder if she'll ever get in.

[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, what a nice dream.

[SPEAKER_00]: It was more like, I know who you are.

[SPEAKER_00]: I know you go get what you want and because you work for it and you relentlessly manifest and network and use your superpowers towards it, you know, and it's like such a, so it was more like I had emotionally prepare for it.

[SPEAKER_00]: How's it?

[SPEAKER_00]: Well, this is the first time though, I've ever heard you say, like questioning the dream.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, if there's always the question of the dream when things feel hard that you're like, oh, okay, is this our direction to go?

[SPEAKER_01]: But sure.

[SPEAKER_01]: This one rocked me a little bit more because you hear the things of like, I mean, when I went to LA a few months ago for a kind of just exploratory meetings, that yeah, things like that, um, I had some, I think well-meaning, but jaded people that had

[SPEAKER_01]: Finne around Hollywood that were like they'll cue you up and spit you out and don't go out alone and I was like I don't receive that.

[SPEAKER_01]: I appreciate you But no, that's not That's not what I'm going out to attract or expose But then I'm like is there truth to it?

[SPEAKER_01]: I also think that if I hadn't done the

[SPEAKER_01]: mental emotional spiritual work.

[SPEAKER_01]: Like if if I went into Hollywood in my early 20s, it would be a completely different situation because of the mirror that I am like what what I would reflect back in that that it probably would have been very dangerous.

[SPEAKER_01]: I was very approval seeking and could have gotten caught up in some really bad situations.

[SPEAKER_00]: Sure.

[SPEAKER_00]: Just because of

[SPEAKER_01]: being naive.

[SPEAKER_00]: Sure.

[SPEAKER_01]: But then it's like, you don't know your naive when you're naive.

[SPEAKER_00]: Mm-hmm.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's the worst form of my, yeah.

[SPEAKER_01]: Naive a day.

[SPEAKER_00]: Naive a day.

[SPEAKER_00]: Naive a day.

[SPEAKER_00]: Uh, so then does it change the dream or emboldened you?

[SPEAKER_01]: What has helped is some meetings that I've had recently and I don't want to name drop, but I'll just say like I've had meetings with a woman in particular that worked in Hollywood big status in the 90s.

[SPEAKER_01]: Now she's retired.

[SPEAKER_01]: She still is working in

[SPEAKER_01]: She works for a big record label and she still has her hands and a lot of things.

[SPEAKER_01]: She's very much now focused on like philanthropy.

[SPEAKER_01]: She's made a lot of money.

[SPEAKER_01]: She's been a lot to go with it.

[SPEAKER_01]: And she really encouraged me that I can produce my own work.

[SPEAKER_01]: And me in my 20s if I would have pursued the dream then, I would have been.

[SPEAKER_01]: the starving artist archetype hat in my hands please choose me I'll do whatever it takes all can tort myself you need a dumb blonde I'll be a dumb blonde oh you need a whatever like I would contort myself to fit whatever I think that they would have wanted and um she really validated and encouraged and empowered me that how I'm entering it now and entering the dream now is I have like I she's like your a producer

[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, look at my business, look at my YouTube channel, I made a documentary and my first one, one awards at film festivals and was seen by people at Paramount and got some incredible introductions.

[SPEAKER_01]: And it was so great to have that reflected back to me because I don't think I

[SPEAKER_01]: I think that that's like what I'm holding on to now is I'm like, I don't know for sure what I'm stepping into it's a world I haven't entered before and there's there's more caution now with like,

[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know, it turns out it was that being cheesy.

[SPEAKER_01]: Did it all work out the way it's supposed to be?

[SPEAKER_01]: Because even any things that I've stepped into that were dangerous or regrets, you don't regret them because you need, like I wouldn't trade Omaha, where I was before I ended up in Boise, who I was with praying it up with you, the divorce that I had to go through to be able to go to the therapy, they brought me to you, here us this.

[SPEAKER_01]: So, all this to say, there's been a yield sign that has shown up in front of my dream, but at the same time, there's a different, I guess, energy attached to it.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I think also through faith and evidence of previous challenges, it's

[SPEAKER_01]: It hasn't put it, it hasn't been a stop sign.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's been a yield sign.

[SPEAKER_00]: I think it's a great way to say it, because there's a route I want to take down with this.

[SPEAKER_00]: Let's say it'd be hard with this.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's like, should people meet their heroes?

[SPEAKER_00]: Should people get to know their heroes?

[SPEAKER_00]: What does it do to the dream?

[SPEAKER_00]: Does it change the dream?

[SPEAKER_00]: I think it does.

[SPEAKER_00]: And it's not that it changes the dream in terms of what you want.

[SPEAKER_00]: But I think it does, one of my favorite quotes from a guy when I coached by for a long time, several years ago he said, I had just experienced the death of the hero.

[SPEAKER_00]: And he said, well, what do you expect?

[SPEAKER_00]: And I was like, what do you mean?

[SPEAKER_00]: And I was not the reaction.

[SPEAKER_00]: I was assuming, and from him, you know?

[SPEAKER_00]: And he said, Stephen, we don't make gods of men.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I think that's one of the things that can be dangerous is when our dream, we get really crystal clear on the dream, but then we just step back and recognize that we can't go and place any amount of responsibility or burden on another human being to get us with our dream.

[SPEAKER_00]: And the person isn't the dream.

[SPEAKER_00]: You know what I mean?

[SPEAKER_00]: Otherwise, it's a house of cards.

[SPEAKER_00]: So with this Hollywood dream, which I still believe that you will do, it kind of reminds me of the conversation I had with my dad.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's when I was getting get married.

[SPEAKER_00]: And...

[SPEAKER_00]: And I was talking about like, hey, then why'd you do this?

[SPEAKER_00]: How can we do that?

[SPEAKER_00]: It was that part of life when he started questioning like, how come I was raised this way versus this way?

[SPEAKER_00]: Or why did you take this route?

[SPEAKER_00]: And I wasn't critiquing.

[SPEAKER_00]: I was literally just inquiring, right?

[SPEAKER_00]: Where was your mind at when you parented me like this versus that?

[SPEAKER_00]: And after a while, my dad stopped me.

[SPEAKER_00]: He looked at me and he goes, hey, I didn't do perfect.

[SPEAKER_00]: I expect you to do better than me.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's actually your job to go further than I did.

[SPEAKER_01]: Your parents have told me that I asked them last week.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_01]: I asked them, because I was visiting your parents and just having them in town.

[SPEAKER_01]: So I stayed at their place even though you weren't there.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I asked them, what did you have to unlearn from your parents for you in your parenting?

[SPEAKER_01]: And, um, one of the things that they said was, you know, there's sometimes there's different values in the generations, put that doesn't mean that anyone's wrong or anyone's right.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's just, in general, as parents, we all want our kids to do better than we did.

[SPEAKER_00]: And it's part of the job of the generation, the younger to own that.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so maybe applied to this very same scenario.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's like, okay, here's what those before is it did pertaining to the dream, the path that was laid.

[SPEAKER_00]: I like this part of the path that took, ooh, hate that part.

[SPEAKER_00]: You know what, and now say, you know what, I'm gonna go and do better than the generation before.

[SPEAKER_00]: So to speak, those before me,

[SPEAKER_00]: And it's my job to go further than they did.

[SPEAKER_00]: And it's not a comparison thing.

[SPEAKER_00]: But there's, I think the beauty of it is as pioneers and innovators and rare things is we are definitely going to look at those who went before us.

[SPEAKER_00]: And it is impossible to not see their faults.

[SPEAKER_00]: Like you're going to see the faults and some of them are really bad.

[SPEAKER_00]: And then we step back and say, well, I'm going to go forward and I'm still going to go after the dream, but I'm not going to let, you know, just because it's almost like, I was talking about this with the girls.

[SPEAKER_00]: I was like, do you ever see one of those rules in adult will make where, you know, some kid goes nuts and throws something at the wall.

[SPEAKER_00]: Therefore, no one's allowed to touch that object anymore or whatever, you know what I mean?

[SPEAKER_00]: It's like one of those rules where it's like,

[SPEAKER_00]: That's not a game over game over forever.

[SPEAKER_01]: You broke the vase and now no one's playing anything anymore.

[SPEAKER_00]: Well, like even in our neighborhood, right?

[SPEAKER_00]: Like, all right, everyone has to put their basketball hoops in their garage at night.

[SPEAKER_00]: And the main neighborhood is like, what's why?

[SPEAKER_00]: Just because one person did something weird.

[SPEAKER_00]: You know, I mean, it's like one of those rules.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I think it's easy in our visions and our dreams to say, because X happened.

[SPEAKER_00]: Uh, by association, not causality, I'm going to go make a rule that is not real, you know, and shift the dream.

[SPEAKER_00]: But I actually think a lot does is refine the dream.

[SPEAKER_01]: And then there's two directions you can take.

[SPEAKER_01]: You can agree with the random rule that has been set by someone more than people also question it.

[SPEAKER_01]: And the people that question it can be part of changing it or potentially even making art out of it because one thing that started to come to me is you're saying that I sound like a fool.

[SPEAKER_01]: My documentary, the first documentary made was about cancel culture.

[SPEAKER_01]: And usually,

[SPEAKER_01]: artists create art pertaining to something that they have experienced or that they are questioning to explore it.

[SPEAKER_01]: We write love songs because it's an emotion that we want to be able to, whether it's therapeutically, overcome experience.

[SPEAKER_01]: And maybe this has just because this has been strong on my mind lately, maybe that's an invitation to the next topic that I explore.

[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, we've, you and I we've been involved with Operation Underground Railroad and several months ago when Tim Ballard was being dragged through the mud and all the accusations, which now have publicly.

[SPEAKER_01]: Uh, they put a lot of them have been, I don't know what the word is shot down like these women were lying.

[SPEAKER_01]: They were trying to take them down.

[SPEAKER_00]: Is it organized to tack against them?

[SPEAKER_01]: And it's like, is that evil like why, why would someone do that and target a person who is

[SPEAKER_01]: Captain America like someone who is saving children without being asked to he is putting his life on the line his family's like like imagine being his wife that when he goes out on a On a raid, I don't know if that's the word that you call it, but like when you go when he's gonna go expose these Petophiles and just Dylan Yes, I'm actually in border like imagine being the wife that's like I'm grateful to be married to a man that is

[SPEAKER_01]: changing and saving lives, and there are decades of people who may never even know his name that were impacted by what he did that day.

[SPEAKER_01]: But is he going to come home to my family tonight?

[SPEAKER_00]: Right.

[SPEAKER_01]: Like he sacrificed so much, and then to have that.

[SPEAKER_00]: Get your rugs in the mud.

[SPEAKER_01]: And ruined financially.

[SPEAKER_01]: And his reputation and like that stuff you can't you can't put the toothpaste back in the bottle.

[SPEAKER_01]: There's people that still believe it.

[SPEAKER_01]: And media sources that will still perpetuate it and I remember circling on that for a long time that it was so outraged and angry and.

[SPEAKER_01]: I'm getting a little emotional now like and I actually I was gonna say I've never met him.

[SPEAKER_01]: I've met him briefly once and Just following him and knowing the story is funny.

[SPEAKER_01]: You and other one of these like heroes that you never met But you feel like you know them because you follow them and they're kind of a peripheral part of your life because of the impact they've made on you and Yeah, I don't know maybe I'm getting that this is gonna be a topic that I'll explore a care about Yeah, make some art around

[SPEAKER_00]: I think that it's important, the whole don't meet your heroes is a very victim mentality of our goals.

[SPEAKER_00]: Well, it's a stand-back and say, if I meet my hero and I don't like who they are, if I can't mean, it's like, what, like everyone, nobody's perfect, you know, and then we make gods of men put them on a pedestal.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's like when you and I meet someone out in the grocery store walking around like,

[SPEAKER_00]: Mark, are they Jackson, Thieflarsin?

[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, my gosh.

[SPEAKER_00]: And it's like, come on, you know, like, I get that.

[SPEAKER_00]: And but sometimes it's so easy to put someone on a pedestal and then to find out their human can be detriment.

[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I've gone through that.

[SPEAKER_01]: And the pedestal is a disservice to both sides.

[SPEAKER_00]: Both sides.

[SPEAKER_01]: And when the people say, don't eat your hero, they're attaching some kind of a meaning to it that

[SPEAKER_01]: If you meet your hero and it's amazing.

[SPEAKER_01]: Great.

[SPEAKER_01]: If you meet your hero and it's not amazing.

[SPEAKER_01]: Great.

[SPEAKER_01]: I've met celebrities that weren't what I hoped they would be sure.

[SPEAKER_01]: But that's also, again, a disservice to both sides.

[SPEAKER_01]: Why did I have an expectation of them just because I've seen them on a screen or on a stage.

[SPEAKER_01]: They're human.

[SPEAKER_01]: uh, I've seen, I'm thinking of one person in particular that, um, he came into the studio one day when I was working at their radio station in Toronto and he was like, you know, fresh off the airplane, lots of fans, autographed please room, and he was like, ah, and that's the energy that came in like as he walked through the door as I got to see him and it was,

[SPEAKER_01]: And it wasn't what I would hope it would be like, hi, so I didn't even know the way that I would be to him.

[SPEAKER_01]: Well, he doesn't owe me anything.

[SPEAKER_01]: And my, I think I was like 20 or something like that.

[SPEAKER_01]: My 20 year old self was like, at the time, oh, he was kind of a jerk.

[SPEAKER_01]: And then over time, I realized,

[SPEAKER_00]: Dude might be tired.

[SPEAKER_01]: He might be tired.

[SPEAKER_01]: He might have just gotten a phone call, they didn't watch it.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I was signing a ton of other things.

[SPEAKER_01]: I actually had a woman that I remember this moment.

[SPEAKER_01]: It was during a Mastermind, I was actually during the two comic book crews.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I was like in the thick of my divorce and it was my I didn't realize how hard that event was going to be for me because it was my first time in public after announcing my divorce and I got a lot of attention and it was attention that was uncomfortable because it was like I'm so sorry and I was like I was really I remember that stunned by it yeah it was sticky gross sympathies it was like you're wounded animal

[SPEAKER_01]: And it's weird though, because it's like, you don't ignore it, but you also don't want to say the right thing.

[SPEAKER_01]: My best advice for how to

[SPEAKER_01]: I acknowledge or respond or be there for someone when they're in a time of need, whether that's sadness or also happiness, but really it's usually a time of grief, is ask them, how can I be the best friend for you right now?

[SPEAKER_01]: What kind of friend do you need me to be right now?

[SPEAKER_01]: I thought that every, because my answer is different than what yours probably is and I remember talking to my friend Mandy and saying that that that's my go to now is if friend is grieving, how can I be a friend for you right now and my answer would be come over, let's eat some good food, talk to me and she was like, oh, I would want you to sit by beside me and say nothing.

[SPEAKER_01]: I was like, really?

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, that's what she wants.

[SPEAKER_01]: I had no idea, but that's how to ask.

[SPEAKER_01]: Anyway, on this cruise, I remember that we were on the beach.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I was talking to Dave Woodward.

[SPEAKER_01]: I love him so much, miss him.

[SPEAKER_01]: And we were having an emotional conversation about it and he was so wonderful to me as Davis and just pouring into me and there were some I was telling them about some things that I had lost in the divorce like things that I had that now we're not in my home anymore and he was like I got it and he replaced them and he like bought these new things for me which.

[SPEAKER_01]: That's right incredible so sweet and right.

[SPEAKER_01]: Right after that conversation, I met this woman and I was like emotional as I'm kind of getting right now.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I was not present in the conversation because that just happened.

[SPEAKER_01]: And she was like, hi nice to meet you and I was like, hi.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I just wasn't all there and she told me later that she thought that I was dismissing her and that I wasn't very nice.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I was so glad that we had a conversation later that had redeemed that, that she told me that.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I was like, oh, I was just in a moment of grief.

[SPEAKER_01]: That had nothing to do with you.

[SPEAKER_01]: And she, like, she acknowledged it.

[SPEAKER_01]: She's like, I recognized later that I judged where you're at.

[SPEAKER_01]: And then later, I found out that you were going through a divorce.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I had no idea.

[SPEAKER_01]: So I was lucky for me that I had the opportunity to redeemed that.

[SPEAKER_01]: But also, things like that probably happen every single day that you don't know, and so it goes both ways.

[SPEAKER_00]: I think it's important when you meet someone that you've looked up to or maybe consume a lot of the content or whatever it is to recognize that they're not always on stage, you know, they're not always performing and that stage is a performance.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so it's not to say that you're being lied to either, but there's...

[SPEAKER_00]: You know, the human human I was I had someone say something very somewhat of me who was like I met you and I know if I liked you it was weird as a DM I got like a couple months ago.

[SPEAKER_01]: Thanks.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, like it was really nice those out of the blue and the person DMed me and said, I know you don't know me, but I've held a lot of anger against you for the while or resentment.

[SPEAKER_00]: I recognize now you're going through a lot of stuff, but also that I made a weird expectation out of you and realized that you were human being and didn't, and you were probably going through a lot of stuff.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I just want to thank you for your work and things you've done.

[SPEAKER_00]: I was like, you know, I don't I don't know what you this person is.

[SPEAKER_00]: Well, I still don't remember the name, but just that,

[SPEAKER_00]: I think that's the attitude to take, and I think it's one of the tough parts about things like cameras now, is that it's a tendency to just be- We are under a microscope.

[SPEAKER_00]: Right, all the time, and it's like, no, just like, hair down moments, too.

[SPEAKER_00]: There's like human moments.

[SPEAKER_00]: There's the full range of experience going on for every single person.

[SPEAKER_00]: I don't think I'd excuse this thing like crazy crap in Hollywood, right?

[SPEAKER_00]: But I don't think it's fair to say, don't ever meet your heroes.

[SPEAKER_00]: Why?

[SPEAKER_00]: To the ones that are inspiring you, but eventually what I've noticed is that the inspiration like drip IV runs out.

[SPEAKER_00]: And you can no longer go off the back of what someone else did, and you have to learn to plug into your own power source, you know.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I think that involves refreshing vision and knowing what your purpose is.

[SPEAKER_00]: And it's an emotional stand-up that happens because you can't get your vision off the back of the person who first inspired you, right?

[SPEAKER_01]: How's a good mic drop?

[SPEAKER_00]: Because you can't.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's not their job to save you.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's not their job to handhold you.

[SPEAKER_00]: And it's literally all on you.

[SPEAKER_00]: And whoever first placed that first epiphany in our brains,

[SPEAKER_00]: We thank them for it, but do not place the responsibility of gaining that on their shoulders also.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I think it's the mentality between, yeah, I say this to a lot of my clients, you're Frodo.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm Gandalf.

[SPEAKER_00]: You're going to carry the ring to Mordor.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm going to guide you.

[SPEAKER_00]: I cannot move your legs for you.

[SPEAKER_00]: I will hear not save you, I'm not here to save you if you think that's what you bought.

[SPEAKER_00]: I owe you a refund and you are not supposed to be this program.

[SPEAKER_00]: I'm not here to save you, no one's coming to save you, but I'm a guide and I'll be right here, but I'll never take a step further than I'm going to take with you or that you take a, you know, never more than one step that you take.

[SPEAKER_01]: Amen.

[SPEAKER_00]: Right, and I think that there's that tendency with, especially with cameras and a short form and all the sliced out we have now where everyone can see, you know, to look at it and then we start making gods of men and saying, wow, they got it all together.

[SPEAKER_00]: Nobody does.

[SPEAKER_00]: In your experience, this Hollywood thing is going on.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's probably going to go on for a while.

[SPEAKER_00]: And my guts tell me there's a lot more.

[SPEAKER_00]: There's a lot more, and it's what's been hidden.

[SPEAKER_00]: And we can't kind of feel it, especially this last president of the cabinet.

[SPEAKER_00]: There's a lot going on.

[SPEAKER_00]: And it's sticky and messy and gross, and people deserve justice.

[SPEAKER_00]: And how does that affect your vision for moving forward?

[SPEAKER_00]: Is it refining?

[SPEAKER_00]: To make the question more clear, like, is it like a, let's take a knee and take a second to recollect kind of a thing or press forward or what are you feeling?

[SPEAKER_01]: Um, you know that Mr. Rogers quote, looks like find the helpers.

[SPEAKER_01]: Have you heard that one?

[SPEAKER_00]: No.

[SPEAKER_01]: All right, let me Google it so I can say what it is.

[SPEAKER_01]: Siri, where are you?

[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, here he is.

[SPEAKER_00]: Get her mom.

[SPEAKER_01]: Your mom.

[SPEAKER_01]: Mr. Rogers, find the helpers.

[SPEAKER_01]: When I was a boy, and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, look for the helpers.

[SPEAKER_01]: You will always find people who are helping.

[SPEAKER_01]: To this day, especially in times of disaster, I remember my mother's words, and I'm always comforted by realizing that there are still so many helpers, so many caring people in this world.

[SPEAKER_01]: I didn't grow up with Mr. Rogers in Canada.

[SPEAKER_01]: We had Mr. Dressup, you had a tickle trunk.

[SPEAKER_01]: love Mr. Dressup.

[SPEAKER_01]: I met him once when I was like six.

[SPEAKER_01]: That was my first hero than I met, I guess.

[SPEAKER_01]: Speaking of, I remember the first time that I watched the Mr. Rogers documentary.

[SPEAKER_01]: I cried for a couple of days because I was so touched by his message.

[SPEAKER_01]: I didn't grow up with Mr. Rogers and I was like,

[SPEAKER_01]: I missed out.

[SPEAKER_01]: Here's this man that every single day says, I love you exactly as you are and I'm like imagine if my five year old me heard that every day there's this one scene.

[SPEAKER_01]: Oh my gosh anyone listening to this you have to just find on YouTube it's this beautiful video of Mr Rogers talking to a young boy who's in a wheelchair and

[SPEAKER_01]: He's singing their singing song together.

[SPEAKER_01]: It's you.

[SPEAKER_01]: I like just the way you are.

[SPEAKER_01]: And I watched that on repeat for days and cried over it and it really touched a soft soft part of me and there was this longing for something in my childhood that I didn't have.

[SPEAKER_01]: So Mr. Rogers also had a lot of struggle to get public broadcast PBS funded.

[SPEAKER_01]: And imagine if he would have not done it because of people that said, no, or people that were in a higher power that thought that they should do things the way they wanted to.

[SPEAKER_01]: And my parents gave me a book that it was crazy because it was after I had this like.

[SPEAKER_01]: So I wonder if my parents, I wonder if my parents think that I'm special.

[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know why that thought came in my mind.

[SPEAKER_01]: Of course, I get repaired as, but I was like, I've never heard my parents say those words.

[SPEAKER_01]: And like a week later, my parents gave me this book that was Mr. Rogers on the front.

[SPEAKER_01]: And the book is called You Are Special.

[SPEAKER_01]: Like some kind of crazy,

[SPEAKER_01]: universe message there like got me right when I needed it.

[SPEAKER_01]: Anyway, I've gone quite quite the tangent here, but I don't even know what we're talking about.

[SPEAKER_01]: Mr. Rogers, look for the helpers.

[SPEAKER_01]: The helper.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_01]: So actually, I was in a think tank yesterday for my business and had these amazing entrepreneurs around me and they asked the question of what would you do if money was no?

[SPEAKER_01]: issue and what would you do if you had bajillions of dollars and I just started rattling off and there were things that actually kind of surprised me.

[SPEAKER_01]: I was like I would invest so much more in the content side of the business because I would just want to keep putting out content to keep reaching people.

[SPEAKER_01]: Like I would more videographers, script writers, YouTube team just keep building and I would want to invest in like really amazing talented people with amazing stories and then

[SPEAKER_01]: I want to help girls with period poverty, that one really when we went to Africa and I didn't even know the word period poverty before that.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I was a thing.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_01]: And for anyone listening that doesn't know what that is, it's girls in the global countries that they can't afford.

[SPEAKER_01]: if I'm in hygiene products and so when they can't they won't go to school so they don't get they don't get the education they need to better their lives or in a worst case scenario they will sell their bodies and that's how they will afford their lifestyle or the need the care the things that they need the feminine hygiene products and that like devastated me and so I

[SPEAKER_01]: by this and because we went to this federal school in Africa and Nairobi and I was like what would it cost to fund this whole school with these ruby cups that are reusable and they were like actually for this school and like the five girl schools in this area it would actually only be $12,000.

[SPEAKER_01]: Well like $12,000 I can raise that.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah that's easy.

[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_01]: I want to make billions of dollars so I can help girls like that.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_01]: We took a total weird turn on this.

[SPEAKER_00]: I actually got some more angles I can bring it.

[SPEAKER_01]: Great.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_00]: So a couple of years ago.

[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know.

[SPEAKER_00]: I know you remember it's very well.

[SPEAKER_00]: I was experiencing a serious death of the hero.

[SPEAKER_00]: And there's an hotel room.

[SPEAKER_00]: Couldn't sleep.

[SPEAKER_00]: is like blind rage and I smashed my laptop.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I remember that I really freaked you out.

[SPEAKER_01]: And it was, yeah, I've never seen you like that before.

[SPEAKER_00]: I didn't, it was almost so automatic.

[SPEAKER_00]: It was like, it was, I felt.

[SPEAKER_00]: like my dream was being taken from me and powerless against it.

[SPEAKER_01]: I don't even remember what triggered it.

[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, I know exactly.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I was going to get on stage the next day.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I've reflected back many times on why that happened.

[SPEAKER_00]: And

[SPEAKER_00]: And a lot of it was the death of the hero.

[SPEAKER_00]: And a lot of my identity was wrapped up in a vision, but a hero other than myself, getting me there, right?

[SPEAKER_00]: And so when you experience the death of the hero, and it was a moment where I recognized that I had become accidentally co-dependent on the hero to get the dream.

[SPEAKER_00]: And that's, it was a healthy unraveling in the long run, very painful in the short term.

[SPEAKER_00]: That's when I guys said, we don't make gods of land.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I was like, gosh, I didn't know that was a freaking did that.

[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[SPEAKER_00]: Right, and so it's very common to have an identity crisis, I believe, in pursuit of a dream, and pursuing a dream is gonna require tons of identity crisis.

[SPEAKER_00]: There's a, there's a, there's a common exit, I just did it today, an exercise with a client where they didn't really know the dream customer was.

[SPEAKER_00]: And sometimes it's easier to realize who the dream customer is not.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so I'll sit down with them and I say, who do you not want to work with?

[SPEAKER_00]: Who do you offer not for?

[SPEAKER_00]: And we make the antithesis of the dream, which is the nightmare, right?

[SPEAKER_00]: Create the nightmare custom or profile.

[SPEAKER_00]: And in doing so, we often will find a very clear dream customer starts to arrive up, you know, rise because we now know what we don't want.

[SPEAKER_00]: And I found that in doing like any kind of identity work in, you know, the stuff with Hollywood, the things that we're doing, any kind of dream stuff, any hiccup along the way,

[SPEAKER_00]: All it's doing is it's challenging us on how bad we want it.

[SPEAKER_00]: And it's also allowing us to say, this is what we don't want.

[SPEAKER_00]: And so we're creating a...

[SPEAKER_00]: We're creating a list of like, okay, I still want that, but not like that.

[SPEAKER_00]: I don't want that route, you know?

[SPEAKER_00]: And so I think it's one of the healthy ways to approach, say, hey, I'm still.

[SPEAKER_00]: Identity crisis is totally normal and then you pursue, you're gonna change tremendously and just like, 10x is easier than 2x.

[SPEAKER_00]: You are going to change significantly for any major goal you're going for.

[SPEAKER_00]: It's a little impossible to not.

[SPEAKER_00]: So you will change a fill of earth moving beneath you.

[SPEAKER_00]: But anytime a hero, because I went through this also, back when I was working with,

[SPEAKER_00]: like 10 years ago, back when it was Russell and I started meeting the heroes and reading, meeting the people of the books I had been reading in college, it inspired me and meeting, and I met a lot of them at a very short amount of time and so I was meeting a lot of these heroes and I experienced death of the hero again.

[SPEAKER_00]: We're building funnels for a lot of famous, big, big people.

[SPEAKER_00]: People that I couldn't believe that I was just like arms like the way from, you know, and

[SPEAKER_00]: I remember it actually affected my vision because I was like, well, I don't want to be successful because I don't want to end up like that.

[SPEAKER_00]: And it was an inappropriate tie and an inappropriate relationship and assumption.

[SPEAKER_00]: It was also me making a god out of a man, right?

[SPEAKER_00]: And it was me.

[SPEAKER_00]: I didn't recognize that's a lot later, but it's like I had to refresh my dream, my vision.

[SPEAKER_00]: And ultimately, I think the reason it's so painful is because it means you have to sit back and actually ask who am I?

[SPEAKER_01]: Mm-hmm.

[SPEAKER_01]: What do you want?

[SPEAKER_00]: I am blank and actually answering that question is often harder than saying what our vision is Is the self-discovery process that just forces you to go into when you actually meet the hero and it's not what you wanted it to be And even if it is, I think it's good to keep going through that that almost a healthy tailspin as you change

[SPEAKER_00]: Thanks for listening to Rare Things, you know your rare otherwise you wouldn't listen to this.

[SPEAKER_00]: And you're meant for greatness, and you also know your ideas, unique perspectives, and drive make you rare for a reason.

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