92: Adulting to Win: Powerful Questions and Pivotal Plot Points with Paul Angone

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What's next? This is a question we're all having to ask and answer more frequently. I'm Jenny Blake, your host of the Pivot podcast and author of Pivot. The only move that matters is your next one.

For show notes from this episode, visit pivotmethod.com podcast. If change is the only constant, then let's get better at it. Here we go.

Hello everyone. I am so excited to have a longtime friend, Paul Angoni, here with me today. Paul is a voice to and for the millennial generation. He created AllGrownUp.com in March of 2011, which is how we first connected. Paul actually wrote for Life after College for many years because our books are practically siblings in this space. And he has proven time and time again that he knows how to create sticky, highly shareable content for the 90 million plus that make up the millennial generation. With articles like 25 signs, you're having a quarter life crisis and 21 secrets for your 20s spreading like Internet wildfire. The second article actually landed him a book deal called 101 Secrets for your 20s, which launched his foray into self employment in 2013 and will be sold at near you starting in May, which is so exciting. Paul is also the author of all grown up, Searching for Self, Faith and a freaking Job and his latest book, the topic of today's show, 101 questions you need to ask in your 20s, and I'm assuming 30s, 40s, and beyond. Paul, welcome to the show.

Thanks, Ginny. That was a great intro. I appreciate it.

What inspired you to look at the power and importance of good questions? Why write a whole book about it?

Yeah, that. That is a great question. See, you're already doing it, Jenny. You know, where, where would we be? Where would we be without great questions? I mean, seriously, we wouldn't. And. And it pulls out. I mean, it really is the difference between having a very surface answer or a very deep answer. Right? And it's usually prefaced by the question that is being asked to bring us to that place. And so I think for a lot of us, especially in our 20s, our 30s, but in our entire lives, we're on this search for answers. And especially in your 20s, when you're trying to figure out what you're gonna do with your life, who you're gonna marry, where you're gonna live, what's your career gonna be like. There's a lot of questions in there, but it's asking the right questions so that we're hopefully pointing our ship in the right direction. Cause if we're starting with a bad question or a faulty question or a faulty premise, then we might.

But it might be progress in the complete opposite direction that we actually wanted to travel in. So then it's actually the opposite of progress. We're actually going backwards. But we never knew it because we didn't start with some really good questions to begin with.

And it's so true that we can't even begin to understand ourselves until we have the awareness to ask the questions.

You're right.

The answer is not going to be there necessarily right away.

No. And I think a lot of us, we get stuck with the big broad question of, you know, how am I going to make money?

Right.

Or who am I? Or who am I? Or how am I going to be successful? Which even that question, you know, as we all know, well, we got to break that down. Well, what is your definition of success? Is it your parents version of success? Is it your version of success? Is it what it. What does that mean? When you get down to the why, you know, and I know why, you know, finding your why is becoming big. Now we're talking about that a lot, but really that's the essence. That's the main question is, okay, not the what and the how, but the why. Why. And let's drill that down to even, you know, and taking that to relationships, you know, why do you want to marry this person? You know, and this, this goes into all facets of our life.

I love how one of the categories of the book, there's four of them, they're Adulting to Win, Careerish, Relationshiping and Signature Sauce.

Yeah, all. All four categories. Yeah. Kind of just trying to encapsulate all of life in one book.

I want to give people too, a sense for the types of questions because I kind of expected book would be just big open ended, pretty serious questions like, you know, why do you wake up every day? And big ones, the big ones are because of what, challenging. But Paul throws in some funny ones too. So we have what's the best way to break up with myself? Am I struggling to make it appear like I'm not struggling if I'm going to pursue a big dream. Am I willing to drive a 1993 Honda Civic hatchback with no power steering, no air conditioning and no right mirror? For 15 years.

We even talked about how you and your wife lived in a closet. Slept in a closet.

We did. We didn't live. Yeah, we had our bed in a closet and we had two kids and they had the master bedroom and we slept in the master bedroom closet that was large, but let's be honest, it was a closet. And then the Honda Civic one that you mentioned, that's obvious, that's a very literal description because that's still. The car that I Drive is a 93 Honda Civic hatchback that I was given in high school. And, and so yeah, that was kind of drilling down that, that one and all this, in this, you know, what are you willing to sacrifice, especially if you're going to pursue something bigger. And for me, that was always writing books, being a published author, speaking, creating my own career. But there was a lot of sacrifice along the way, as I'm sure many of you know as well. So it's that idea of what are you willing to sacrifice and then what are some non negotiables that you're not willing to sacrifice. So both on both kind of the same plane of the question, but different sides of the question of okay, I'm willing to sacrifice not being able to drive a nice car or not having nice stuff all the time, but what am I not willing to sacrifice? Well, I'm not willing to sacrifice my family and not spending time with my family. So that's a non negotiable for me. So I'd much rather do that and not make as much money than driving a really nice car, but not seeing my family as much. So that's how it works for me. But again, it's going to be different for each one of us when we ask ourselves that question.

When you lived, I keep saying lived.

My goodness, it's pretty true.

When you slept in the closet with your wife. This was after you quit your job, right?

Yeah, this was after. This was that kind of. And I'm sure many of us can relate if you've done entrepreneurial stuff and if you tried to go full time on your own, there's kind of that weird awkward stage I think for a lot of us, and maybe it's that way all the way through, but the stage where you're transitioning from full time salary work and I was doing the Side hustle. All along I was growing the platform and I got a book published when I was still working a full time job. But at some point I had to make the leap and I wasn't making the same amount of money that I was with my salary. So it was definitely a leap. So there's definitely those few years, it was a good two, three years when we were kind of doing whatever it took to cut back on expenses. And that meant living with my wife's parents for a short season, about eight months. And that was a little rough living back with your wife's parents when you have two kids yourself. And then that meant sleeping in a closet because we couldn't afford like a gigantic place in San Diego because it's kind of expensive. So yeah, we've made a lot of those sacrifices along the way and it taught us a lot, it trained us, it grew a lot of humility and perseverance, but it also motivated us to keep working hard so that we didn't have to stay in that place.

How did you know when it was time to take the leap?

You know, I just, I couldn't manage both worlds anymore at the same time and do them both well.

Yeah, that's exactly how I felt too.

Yeah, it's just, it was just too much. It was just very clear. Either I'm going to get fired at some point from my job because I'm just not going to be able to sustain it, or I just have to give up the dream, which was, you know, writing and trying to help really 20 somethings. That was my goal. You know, broken, hurting, frustrated, confused. 20 somethings. Because that's how I felt for many years of my twenties. So that was always my dream. I want to help that person because I know what it's like. And when I had my first book come out, 101 Secrets for your 20s.

It was successful, but as many authors know, it wasn't runaway. Change your whole life, you get to sit on the beach. Now successful. It wasn't selling a million copies, but it was at least enough momentum that say, hey, there is really something here. We have a book deal, things are growing. But yeah, we got to either make a choice, we got to put our money where our mouth is for the cliche phrase. And so we just went for it. And thankfully I have an amazing wife and spouse who is willing to take risks with me. And we're really partners in everything too. She edits everything I write. She's really my business partner as well as my spouse as well as the mom of my kids, we kind of do every facet of life together in certain ways.

One thing I love is that we talked about some of the sacrifices you've made after quitting your job and to get this business off the ground. But before we hit record, you were telling me about how you and your wife make a point to both work part time so that you can both be home with the kids in alternating times of the day and week.

Yeah, you know, I. Maybe this. I think this is a definitely more pro. Prototypical millennial thing. You know, if we're going to generalize millennials, I think we're trying to change, or we're just continually changing the dynamic of what does it mean to raise kids? And for us, one of our goals, you know, when we asked that question way back when, of, you know, what do we want our life to look like, it was this vision of both being able to raise our kids. So not me just raising our kids or not her just raising our kids or not having somebody else raise our kids, we're like, if we can make it work, we would love it if we could both raise our kids. And so that's what we've done to varying levels of success throughout our 10 years of marriage is going back and forth where she's working part time, I'm working, and right now she works about four hours a day. I'm working in the mornings and the evenings, but then I watch our kids during those four hours. And so we have this kind of trade off. You know, it's like you're passing the baton many different times throughout the day, except your baton is, you know, toddlers and crying kids, you know, so it's an interesting way to do life, you know, and it's not simple, and we could probably be making more money if we weren't doing it this way. But, man, I'm really thankful that I get to, you know, take my kids on a walk at 11 in the afternoon and just hang out with them and get to know them and be there for them as much as I can.

I think it's so beautiful how you've applied that. You're right. It's kind of this.

Even if it's not limited to millennials, it's that the time we're in is about more creative approaches to life and work. And so to hear how creatively you're approaching family, just family and child rearing is really cool. And hearing you say that you and your wife individually, you could probably earn more and get more done if neither One of you was splitting the time. But that, that doesn't. That's only consider success in terms of money and a material progress, let's say. But what you're incorporating is this priceless quality time into the equation where your kids get to have both parents so present.

You're right. And, and again, I'm not saying this is, this is the answer, or, oh, if you're not doing this, you know, oh, you're missing it. You know, we each have to do our own thing and make it work in our own way. But I guess it gets back down to kind of where you started. It's. It's those questions that we're asking that are bringing intentionality to our choices, you know, because, because, because we're all intentional in some way. I think the problem is most of us are intentionally unintentional. So it's kind of. We kind of get into that habit of letting life just happen to us, and it's like we're powerless. You know, it's like, oh, well, I got promoted and it happened. I couldn't turn it down, and Now I'm working 75 hours a week, but what do I do? I couldn't have changed things. Well, that might be true and it might not be true, you know, but let's ask some questions about that. Let's bring some intentionality, some intentional intentionality into figuring out, okay, is this really the path you want to be on? And if it's not, you know, how you so accurately put in your book, you know, those pivot moments. And really it's those pivot moments where you're asking really good questions and then you're making a slight pivot based on your answers. That's hopefully setting you in a better direction than you were previously.

I love this idea of questioning assumptions. I'm just reading a book called when the Body says no. Understand? I'm going to, to paraphrase the subtitle because I don't remember off the top of my head, but something like the Stress disease connection by Dr. Gabor Monte, who's written two other fascinating books on ADD and addiction. The addiction one is called in the Realm of Hungry Ghosts. In any case, it's a digression. It's interesting what you said about just questioning assumptions. I remember when I worked at Google, I had a thyroid problem and not to mention breakouts all the time, acne. And my doctor at one point said, is this stress related? Or if this is stress related, try to reduce stress.

Yeah.

And I remember thinking, that's just not an option. Like I don't quit my job. And I didn't even question.

Yeah.

How I was working. I did. It wasn't at that time almost felt like a non negotiable because I wouldn't even ask the question.

Yeah.

How could I reduce stress? It just felt like the water I was in, like a fish in a fish tank. It's. Yeah. Was.

Yeah. It's very powerless. It strips you of all your power in.

Choosing your future or writing your future, you know, and figuring out, okay, what is the story that I want to write or tell? You know, not literally, if you're not a writer, not literally telling that story, but in your own life. Like, what story is that? And you're right. I think sometimes most of the time we feel helpless or we feel powerless. When that's not the case at all. It just, it's maybe it's fear in some ways.

Yeah. I was going to say it takes courage to ask these questions because sometimes I think sometimes asking questions like these is lifting up a rug in the psyche of our brain. What is under that rug? What have I under there for years and years?

Totally. You got to, you know, and I actually reached out to, you know, I know one of our mentors, both of us, somebody who inspires us, Seth Godin, who I'm sure inspires many people who listen to this podcast. But I reached out to him for this new book and asked him what's the most important question 20 somethings and 30 somethings should be asking. And his response was instant and it was very on point. And to preface my email to Seth, I was very afraid to email Seth. We've known each other a little bit. We've emailed back and forth. I've never been able to meet Seth in person. It's not like we're bff. So I was nervous to email Seth Godin and ask him this question. And then his response was perfect. It was, what is fear holding you back from doing? Is it worth it?

And it was like he read my mind even when I emailed him, you know, that I was emailing him with a lot of fear that I don't want to waste Seth's time. What is he going to think of me? All these things, but his response is, you know, what is fear holding you back from doing? And is that worth it? And I think if we get down to that second part of Seth's question and what we were just talking about, you know, most of the time, if we sit down and think about it, like, is my health, you know, is my health. Is my. I'm breaking down health wise, or my marriage is breaking down or is my. I'm never seeing my kids, Is that worth it? And I think a lot of times we'll get down to the root of it and say, no, it's not worth it. It's not worth it. So what do I need to change and how do I do that? Let me start doing that.

So good. I loved your Seth Godin story about how you almost didn't email him and then to get this response back, what is fear keeping me from doing? Is it worth it?

I mean, it was spot on, you know, and that's been a fun part of the book too, is that I incorporate, you know, it's not like I'm just the pinnacle of wisdom. And I have. So I incorporate questions from Oprah and Conan o' Brien and Seth Godin and hall of Fame quarterback Kurt Warner. And I even throw a Winston Churchill question in there from a graduation speech that he did. So I bring in some other pillars of wisdom. Maybe a little bit wiser than me when trying to get down to again, what are this progression of questions that we should be asking to just have a more fruitful life, to feel more at peace, to be comfortable in our own skin, so to speak.

I recently had Elizabeth Grace Saunders on the show to talk about her book Divine Time Management. And she talked, we talked about the role of faith in her business and putting it forward. And I know you. Your dad was a pastor.

Yes.

What role has faith played for you in your books and your business? Yeah. That's part two of the question. Did you ever think about becoming a pastor?

That is a good question. I did. I did at one point think I was going to be a pastor. And the person that talked me out of that was my dad.

Yeah.

Although being a writer and a speaker is not that different, let's just say.

Yeah. And it is similar in a lot of ways. And I love getting to do what I do. And I could never be a pastor. I have huge, you know, I've seen what it's like to run a church and all that that entails, and I just don't think it would be a good fit for me. And I also like speaking to people from all backgrounds and faiths. And I love being able to inspire and encourage and give hope to people from all different backgrounds, which I don't think happens all the time in church for the most part. It's usually for a certain set of people and you're all speaking kind of the same language, you know, and especially in a Christian background, it's, you know, we call it like Christianese or you throw out the certain same Bible verses. It's like, take this Bible verse twice in the morning and you'll be fine by night, you know. And that was a real struggle of mine for a little bit of time was I wanted to get more authentic. I wanted to get down into kind of the nitty gritty and the struggles and the pain and the frustration and, and who's really talking about this authentically? And so that's what I try to do in my writing. And I do bring in faith to a certain.

Point because it's a part of my story, it's still a part of my story.

And so I do incorporate that in what I write. But it's always my goal to reach people, to reach 20 somethings, to reach anybody that's hurting and hopefully to doing it in a way that's accessible.

But you know, it's never going to be perfect. And if you look at even some one star reviews of, you know, of course every Author knows their one star reviews, right, Ginny?

If you look at one star reviews, like my first book, 101 Secrets yous 20s, where I do talk about faith and it's just part of my story. I talk about it, it's an important part. And one review that's one star says, you know, I can't believe this guy talked about faith and God. I hate religion, I hate God. I felt, you know, this is a bunch of crap. So that was a one star review. And then another one star review was, oh, I thought this guy was a Christian. He's like a heathen. He's talking about all these other things. I hated this book. So it was two one star reviews about religion, but on complete opposite sides of the spectrum. So you're never going to please everybody. But you know, again, authenticity I think is really important, especially for anybody that's a voice that is influencing, that is trying to lead people in whatever capacity. Obviously authenticity is huge. And so yeah, it's a natural part of my life. I can't hide it. But it's also not something that I'm trying to, you know, I'm trying to convert everybody to a certain faith. You know, I want to encourage and inspire and bring people hope and bring people to, you know, deeper thinking about what they believe and why do they believe that instead of again, just unintentionally saying, well, I don't really know What I believe. Well, why? Let's talk about that.

I really like how you're describing it as an aim at authenticity. And you would call it signature sauce. That for you, Because I've read your work for a long time. Faith is part of your signature sauce. It's not all of who you are, and I really like how you work it into your books without. It's just part of your story. It's who you are. It's something that guides you, but it's not overly the focus or, like you said, trying to convert people. It's just part of your story. And I like that you don't feel the need to hide it or feel that you have to check it at the door somehow. So way to go on living your signature sauce.

Thank you. You know, and I think that's true for all of us. And like, you mentioned the signature sauce metaphor. You know, I came up with that when trying to. Trying to break down vocation or calling or just, you know, who you are, what you're going to do, you know, getting down to those questions, but trying to figure out a way to break it down even more. And that's where that signature sauce idea came in. You know, this idea that we're all master chefs in the kitchen, and we're all bringing these different ingredients together, these different flavors, and we're trying to figure out, okay, what is the. What is my signature sauce? What is the flavor that I'm going to give to the world that maybe nobody else can? What is my unique signature sauce? And it takes time, and it takes a lot of experiments and failures and, you know, sauces that go up in flames. You know, if you. If I love watching, you know, the Netflix series the Chef's Table, I don't know if you've seen any of those, Jenny.

Great.

Oh. Because it's just, you know, from an artistic craft standpoint, it's really breaking down their story of these master chefs, and. And a lot of it is their story of struggle and their story of, well, I, you know, I wanted to start a restaurant like my parents did, and that completely failed. And then they go off into, like, the desert experience, right. Almost all of them, where they go away for two years or they go away and then they figure out their own unique flavor, which is typically just bringing out the best of their culture or the best of who they are and just owning it and presenting it in a unique way. So for anybody that is writing or creating or starting a business, watch the chef's Table, because it's super inspiring. But then it became that metaphor, you know, again, that deeper metaphor of for all of us, you know, bringing those ingredients together of your values, of your strengths, of your skills, of your story and where you've come from, of your pain and frustration that you've had to work through. Because a lot of the times that becomes your passion and your purpose is helping other people with that pain and frustration. So I love that idea of us being master chefs. And even to quote a line from Seth Godin, again, you know, that it's. It's easy to fall, follow a cookbook with instructions to follow, but it's really hard to find a chef book.

That's great.

You know, that's great. That's up to each of us. We got to create that chef book. That's. That's for you, that's for me, that's for everybody listening. Create your chef book.

One thing that can get in the way of that is something you call an additional kind of OCD obsessive comparison disorder.

Yes.

Please explain, because I think so many of us fall into this from time to time.

Gosh. It never goes away, right? I mean, I don't know if you.

Do it, Ginny, but I even have OCD in this. Well, both forms. But in this sense, with my former self, like sometimes I'll be like, well, two years ago and yeah, yoga, I could have done this. And lately I haven't been going as much. It's crazy, right?

Yeah. Right? Or, yeah. Or even. Yeah. With this and even comparing your own books. Like, like I do that. Like, this book was more successful than this book. And no, I hope this book is more, you know, and you're like, now your own books are, you know, and so it never stops.

There's never that mentioned social media.

Oh, gosh. And. And that's what kills us, you know, and. And I often say, you know, I put it in this way that we used to have to go to your 10 year reunion, right? Whether it's high school, college, your 10 year reunion, and you go there and you look everybody up and down and you play the game for one night to see who's doing better, better than whom, right? And you just had to fake it for one night. You could rent the BMW, you could rent a spouse and some kids, you could lose 40 pounds, get a toupee, like, do whatever it took, fake it for one night, and then you could go back home, back to your parents couch delivering pizzas, and no one would have to know because you made the perception reality that Night. Well, now, obviously, we're trying to pull that off in some ways, I think, every single day. And we're looking at other people's images that are also trying to pull that off every single day. And so it becomes very exhausting. And I think it really blocks authenticity. I think it blocks us from. For those who are struggling. And that's why I ask in the book, you know, are you struggling to make it appear like you're not struggling?

I thought that was a great question.

And I think that speaks to all of us. You know, obviously, you don't want to put all your hurts and feelings. You don't want to be the, you know, the person who's always just complaining on social media. But also, we need to bring that authenticity in. Talking about, okay, this is what I'm struggling with. This is what I'm going through.

Here's where I am on the journey. And oftentimes that's what people connect with anyway. We don't connect over our pretend perfection. We connect over our shared struggle. That idea of, oh, I've been there too. Oh, she gets me, he gets me. And then you help point them to some answers. But obsessive Comparison Disorder, which I talked about a lot in my first book, 101 Secrets yous 20s. And then I talk about it again in this new book, man, it just. It just will kill all your momentum, and it really make you feel anxious and stressed out and for no reason. Because we're not being comfortable enough with our own story. We're not working on writing our own story. We're focused on everybody else's stories. And how do we get their story as part of our story?

Right. It's wild how common it is. It's even comforting to hear you talk about it.

Oh, man.

And what you said of it never goes away. I have to remind myself that, too, that there's a part of me who. That would wish, well, how do I just solve this and never compare again? Yeah, that's not that likely. You know, it's gonna happen. But it's probably. It's more about just having awareness and recognizing, oh, hey, I'm doing that thing again. What can that inform about how my next move as open to ask.

Totally. Yeah. What's my next move? Yeah, what is my next right move?

Which, yeah, as well.

It is. You're totally right. And it. And it also, you know, and. And I even talk about anxiety in the book because I struggle. I mean, I think, like most of us, I struggle with anxiety. I've struggled with depression. And sometimes for me, if I sit back and pinpoint, okay, why am I feeling anxious right now? Like, what is it? You know? And I've had these moments where it's like, well, I just had some great time with my kids. That's not it. I had great time with my wife. Oh, it's because I just checked Instagram and I saw that picture of a friend and how well their book is doing or their new online course that they're launching that's going to be another million dollar seller or, you know, whatever. And I'm feeling anxious, like, oh, crap. Oh, I got to start doing some stuff. I got to write a blog. I got to start sending some emails out, you know, and just feel this frantic fear, really. And so it even gets down, okay, why am I feeling anxious? Is this real? Should I be feeling anxious about this? You know, probably not. And you again, just asking myself those questions. It's like a daily thing so that hopefully I combat the anxiety at the beginning instead of letting it run rampant for like two days without even realizing, like, where, where was the source? Where did this start? And let me block that and then fix the problem.

Yeah, there's. What a great question. Just, what is the source?

Yeah.

And what is this, Paul? What is one question that you wish somebody would ask you?

Oh, man. One question that I wish somebody could ask me.

You know, how do you look so good at 34 with 3 kids? I wish somebody would ask me that, but nobody, nobody is ever asking me that. No, there's a reason why these.

No, usually if you've seen my wife and, and you've met my wife Jenny, she's usually the one that's getting, how do you look so good? She's still getting carted. I can't take her to the store when I'm buying alcohol with her because she still gets carted. So they won't let me buy the alcohol. They think I'm buying it for some minor. They don't realize that she's older than me. No, that's not exactly the question I wish people would ask me. I don't know. I think a lot of the questions that I write about, obviously in the book, I write about them because they're important questions that I've wrestled with that I've been asked. And some of it's coming from mentors in different ways. And so I guess a question that I love and I wish people would continue to ask me is, who would you not be able to help if you give up now.

And I think for all of us, if you're pursuing something, you know, it's like there's somebody out there, there's a lot of people out there that need what you bring. They need that. The health, the answer, you've got it. And who are you not going to be able to help if you give it up right now because it's becoming too hard or you can't see the end, or it doesn't feel like you're experiencing the success? And I know I need to continually hear that because I'm constantly feeling like, man, is this worth it or should I keep going? But it's like, no, who am I not going to be able to help if I stop? Because I feel like this is something I cannot not do, so I better keep doing it.

That is such a powerful one.

Well, thank you.

Yeah, I love that As a way of finding, finding, reconnecting to that motivation and that purpose.

Yeah. A perspective. It's just constantly like getting perspective because I think the war is constantly our day to day life is constantly warring against that perspective. That kind of long tail game of in your roots going deep, it's trying to get you shallow and getting afraid and making really rash decisions instead of getting perspective and getting your roots deep again.

This reminds me of your amazing Q and a number 25, which I'll read for listeners. Question. Instead of trying to solve life's big problems late at night, as an anxious exhaustion swallows me like a black fog, should I try something more productive like, you know, going to sleep? Answer. The morning is magnificently redemptive.

Yeah.

What a simple Q and A. But I love how the question just had all the anxiety imbued into it. And then the wiser you just says the morning is magnificently redemptive.

Yeah, you're right, man. And I need to read some of that. And I know you, I know you are really passionate about this well as well, Jenny. Like that, the routines of it all, you know, and like being mindful of the routines.

I have FOMO for mornings. Like I don't stay out late at night sometimes because I have advanced fomo. If I miss my morning rituals.

I.

Think that's a great. If you're gonna have a fomo.

If you're gonna YOLO with your fomo. I think, I think this is the best way to do it. I think that's a healthy way to go for sure.

Can I tell you on a side note, I always, I explained to my grandma the word yolo. You only live once. And she then shared it with her friends. They're in their, you know, 80s. Some of them are younger, but my grandma's mid-80s, and they created a group of five women called the Yolos, and they go have all these adventures together. Isn't that amazing? Like, the best manifestation of YOLO I've ever heard.

That is YOLO at its finest. That's what I can. I can get behind YOLO when it's going like that. You know, that's like the sister. What is it? The Sisterhood of Traveling.

Of the Traveling pants. Right.

I've never seen it, but that's what it. I feel like that's what it's going to be like. That's the third sequel right there. Or fourth sequel.

Even got them pins like I found pins on the map. That's a big digression, but. Well, let's run with that. So, yolo, Paul.

Sure, sure.

As you look ahead, launching a book is a big deal. So ton of work. And it's also this culmination of a massive effort that sometimes I don't know if you found this, but afterward it's like this chasm opens this. What's next Valley.

Yeah.

How do you tackle that? And even as you look toward what's next after promoting this, I'm sort of breaking my own rules to ask you, because that's two steps ahead, and I don't think you should have to know, but in case you do, we'd love to hear.

It does always help me to have various projects I'm working on and like, and have bigger things that I have some groundwork that I'm working on, so. And I think just from a business perspective, too, it's smart, because then it's not like, oh, I'm writing everything on this one book launch, and if it fails, then my family's not eating, you know? And it also helps me, just from perspective standpoint, again, being like, okay, well, there's. There's other stuff going on, you know, and. And hopefully I'm not putting too much of my worth into the perceived success of this book launch. And if it goes really well or if it goes terribly, hopefully I'm not gonna let it crush me in either capacity, you know? And it's like that great quote from Mother Teresa where she talks about true humility. And if you're truly humble, nothing will phase you or nothing will crush you. Neither praise nor disgrace, because you know who you are. And I guess it's getting back down to that signature sauce that just. That peace with yourself, so that even if, like, you know, an amazing thing happened and like a thousand people were leaving reviews on Amazon telling me how amazing I am and how amazing this book is, you know, hopefully that doesn't change me.

Or affect me or, you know, get me out of this space of doing what I know I need to do versus as well, if a hundred people, a thousand people got on and told me how terrible the book is, hopefully that doesn't crush me because I know who I am. And if I felt like I did really good work and if I felt like this was the best I could have done and this is going to help people, if it's not going to help everybody, then I can just be comfortable in that. And that's easier said than done. And I'm trying to tell myself that as I lead up to the book launch and the book comes out, and it is definitely, it feels like a stressful, anxious time. But, yeah, moving on from there, you know, I hopefully will keep doing a range of different things, one of which would be kind of a leadership book that I'm working on because I do a lot of speaking on leading millennials or generational dynamics in the workplace. And so I'm working on that book, more of a business type book. Next.

Awesome. On what you were saying. One of my former Google colleagues, David Kim, used to say, because we were all trainers, we would interact with a lot of people. He said, don't let compliments go to your head and don't let criticism go to your heart.

Yeah, that's a good way to put it. I love that.

So as we wrap up, I always like to leave listeners with one mini assignment that they can do when they stop listening. So what would you, what would you encourage people to do after this episode ends?

Man, let's give them a question.

Maybe even your favorite question.

I would love if they, if they start wrestling with a question, you know, maybe one. And I think we've, we've heard this before and we maybe thought about this before, but I, but I like putting it in the, in the phrase of what are the pivotal plot points of your story?

Nice tie in there. I love it.

Yeah. So, you know, what are the, what are some major triumphs and tragedies, you know, and tragedies might sound too Shakespearean, but failures or hard things you've had to work through, what are some major triumphs and tragedies that you've gone through in the past? And what was happening during that triumph? Like, what were you actually tangibly doing? And then what was happening in the tragedy, like what were you working through? And I love giving again that context and perspective because you can start pulling out. Okay. This is where I feel most successful. This is where I've experienced some hurt and pain. And this is probably why I'm passionate about helping others not go through the same thing. I think it's just a good perspective exercise. And then also figuring out what are your favorite stories, which again can feel like AP English. This doesn't feel that profound, but I found it to be very profound to even think about. Okay, why are these three movies my favorite? And it. Well, there's probably something about the story that is speaking into my story as the underdog who goes through all kinds of obstacles and experiences success that no one else thought was possible. That's usually kind of the theme of every one of my favorite stories.

And so I think that's a helpful exercise. And then people can get, you know, if they want to, they, they can get 10 questions, I think for free on my website from the book. So if you want to go to the website. AllGrownUp.com G R O A N like you're groaning in pain all grown up. It's still the same. I've been doing that for years. But you can get 10 questions so you can wrestle with some more too. If you don't want to go full fledged and buy the $11 book, you can get some sample questions and start working through some of these. But yeah, the pivotal plot points of your story, what are those and what's important about that?

I love how you include triumphs and tragedies in mapping those pivotal plot points. I wouldn't have thought to do that. But I really. That's such a cool exercise. I mean we could all even get out a piece of paper and mark those pivotal plot points.

Yeah.

And then I'm going to throw out one of my questions that I loved, which is number 63. What are my top five soul values? And I think that's a really cool one.

Yeah. I think again, it's something that we don't think about. We think we know our values. But have we actually sat down and wrote down our values and even tried to rank our top values, our soul values from 1 to 5.

Right.

And I had.

Are they. Because sometimes our values are actually society's values or we're. They're not the sole values. Like what's deep in your soul.

Yeah.

If it had nothing to do with being socially acceptable.

Yeah. What is number one for you? And if you think back to it and if, if you're not being true to that value, you're going to feel anxious, you're going to feel depressed, you're going to feel like you're missing it. And a lot of the times I think that's why people feel frustrated at work. It's not necessarily a skill set issue. They might even be experiencing a lot of skill success at work, but maybe a value of theirs is not being met and it's a top value. And so they feel anxious, but they don't know necessarily that, oh, there's this huge value of mine and that I can't do here at work. And that's why I feel so bad. So I had a mentor that forced me to do this, a guy named Ray Rude. And it was really challenging exercise. So I kind of passed that forward in this book and ranking your top sole values.

And sometimes that value is freedom or rest. Things that sometimes are not supported by the jobs we hold.

Yes, exactly. Or for me, it's authenticity, which is why I always was terrible. I started figuring out that's why I was terrible at sales jobs when I was selling something I didn't really necessarily believe in because I just my off my value for authenticity. It wouldn't even allow me to sell this in any kind of persuasive way because I just felt like, man, I want to tell you not to get this.

And that doesn't. It's not a good money maker. So I'm a terrible salesman when I'm not talking about something that I truly, deep down feel like this is important.

One of the things I love the most about your signature sauce is your humor. And it's baked right into your URL. As you said, it's all grown. As in a grown.

Yes, that's right.

So everybody, I really encourage you to check it out. Paul writes with such humor and heart and soul and authenticity to the core. This is definitely so present. I mean, he starts this new book with a breakup story.

That's right, an epic breakup story.

Big breakup story. Paul, I can't thank you enough for being here and for your friendship and inspiration and humor over the years. Thank you so much.

Well, thank you, Jenny, for having me. I've always looked up to you as this pinnacle of how to do an online business and author, and I haven't stopped looking up to you. So I thank you for all your support, encouragement. It means the world to me.

Thank you so much. Well, we're in it together.

That's right. Thanks, Jenny.

Thanks so much for listening to this episode of the Pivot Podcast. Make sure you don't miss an episode or my insider tips and templates by signing up for Pivot List, a curated twice monthly newsletter where I share the inside scoop on what I'm reading, watching, listening to, and the latest tools I'm geeking out on. Sign up@pivotmethod.com pivotlist get show notes from this episode@pivotmethod.com podcast and connect with me on Twitter Ennyblake.

Remember, build first, then your courage will follow. Hasn't it always Sam.