Tina Howard and Ben Cat look back on their twenties and share what they'd tell their younger selves. Ben drifted through college without a clear major; Tina switched from psychology to business. Both say the same thing: stop rushing for answers, find good people around you, and listen to your gut instead of just following others.
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Foreign. Welcome to freedom vlog number 83. Knowing what you know now, what would you advise your 20 year old self? Thank you for joining us. I'm Tina Howard, CEO of Freedom Real Estate Group and the family of companies. We also have Mr. Ben Cat with us today. Ben is part of the investor relations team of Freedom Capital Investments. Hi Ben.
Hello everybody.
All right, let's jump in. Introduce us to the 20 year old Ben Cat. Did you know what you wanted to be?
Not at all. I was in college. I only went to the college because my three brothers had gone to the same college and my parents years before had gone to that college. So it was the easiest route. I was still figuring it out and for many years afterwards I was still figuring it out.
What did, did you pick a major at first or you're just going.
It was, yeah, it was just the college. It was a faith based college and so I was just taking subjects in that area and it's interesting but it wasn't something that you live off of necessarily. But I was just biting my time opening up the new packages of life and seeing what came each day.
Yeah, I think a lot of young, younger folks do that. Just try something out while they're thinking things over. You know. That's why I jumped into school as well, because I really didn't know. All right, great. Speaking of that, let me see, what was I doing? I was speaking at school. I was studying psychology at the time. I picked it because, because I was always the ear people always came to for advice or to vent or you know, whatever. I mean, for as long as I can remember, even itty bitties, you know, people are like telling me about their playground troubles. I've always been interested in the mind and how it works and stuff and, and why people do what they do. So I just, I picked that. And since you studied psychology, how, how.
Am I feeling today?
You're feeling confident and relaxed and ready to share. Drop some knowledge bombs on our feet.
Start off in psychology, but was there any direction beyond or was it just like day by day and you're seeing what happens?
Yeah, day by day. I, there were some course, some of the courses that I enjoyed like the development, the developmental one where you know, you learn how to the brain first forms in the womb and, and developmental things. I didn't, I did enjoy that, but I didn't end up sticking with it. Real estate kind of got my attention pretty early on and I switched to, I actually switched to business. But you know, another story for another day. 20 year old Tina was all about psychology. And you know, that was my path at that point. And I stuck with it for a while, but it didn't, it didn't stick. I didn't hold my interest. Okay, now with what the other piece of this is. With what you know, now what is one piece of advice you'd give your 20 year old self today?
I think it would be. It's tough to narrow it down to one. One is, you know, relax. Yeah, relax. Don't be. You know, I watched a lot of TV and movies and I'm like, rocky, I'm gonna figure this out. I'm gonna go, you know, and that would be like, okay, come on, just take it month by month, year by year, let's figure it out. And I think the other thing would be just to surround myself with people, which I was doing in the direct sales field, but to surround myself with people who could, you know, direct me in the way that would be high probability for turning out.
Well, yeah, that's pretty huge. So relax. Meaning you don't have to have it all figured out right this hot second. Just kind of figure it as you go. Make the best decisions as you can as you go. I like that. And then surrounding yourself with people that influence. Infin. Influence you to the positive is, Is another huge one. And it's something that I had on my list as well. So we're, we're both agreement on that. But if I had to narrow it down to one. I gave this a little bit of thought. I recently read a book, into the Magic Shop and it was written by a neuros. Neurosurgeon. So you know, I'm interested in the brain and everything. And I was like, okay, let's. I'll see what this is about. And I really enjoy it. And there's a brief little kind of formula that he talks about, but one of the pieces was to open your heart whenever you're thinking about maybe a decision you're trying to make or, you know, what path you want to follow, or you know, maybe a goal you want to set. Just whatever, right? When you're in that contemplative state and thinking about things, to open up your heart first and how that is an important piece of the puzzle. And so I would tell my 20 year old self to learn how to do that and to learn how to, to hear that voice versus listening to other people, you know, listening to like parents, a lot of young, young folks, 20, 20ish. The 20 people feel like they have to listen to what their Parents say and things like that. But I would argue that listening to your heart and developing that ability would have saved me a lot of trouble looking back over the years. Anyway, that was the one piece. All right. Anything else you want to add before we wrap up this vlog episode?
So when you say saved your trouble, does that mean it would have saved you from false starts going down in this direction or that direction? You go, I'm not interested in this at all.
Yeah, exactly. Like, listening to what you know, I had the typical parents, lawyer, doctor, get a degree, la la, la. Right. And so I decided on psychology because, you know, for the reasons I stated earlier. And I just wasn't. My. My heart wasn't in it. Like, I felt like I was bored, really. Not to say that the subject matter wasn't fascinating to me, because I do. I like people tick. It's just I couldn't imagine myself as a career going forward with it. Like, I didn't think I could do it every day, you know, day in and day out. So things like that, just as a little example, or choosing the people that are around you, you know, or like, really everything. Listening to others was a big thing. And I feel like if I had listened more to my gut and my intuition and myself, I would have. Would have. It wouldn't have taken me so long to get to where I'm at right now. Alrighty. Well, thank you, everyone. This has been a vlog number. What was it again, Ben? Vlog number 83. And this has been Ben and Tina. And we'll see you on the next one. That is, if Coco ever invites us to do another one of these. Remember, everybody, invest smart and live happy. I like the double thumbs up. Bye, everybody. Bye for now.
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