Speaker 1: 0:03

Oh, he's back. Oh, I'm going up. Yeah, I'm not going up.

Speaker 2: 0:11

I'm not standing yet.

Speaker 1: 0:13

But I am getting close to standing. It's almost there. Why are you not going up?

Speaker 2: 0:20

Still having issues.

Speaker 1: 0:22

Oh boy, well, before your thing, I have an injury, but I'm playing through it. This morning, when I was going to my garage gym to work out, I was stepping over a piece of exercise equipment that's metal and I kicked it with the ring finger, with the ring toe of my foot, oh, and I'm pretty sure I fractured the tip of my toe. Oh no, so I thought it was being a baby because we had a busy morning. So, like I went and did something, I was like, okay, maybe, I just like stubbed it kind of. I took my sock off. The thing is black and blue and very swollen.

Speaker 2: 1:08

You need to go to the doctor. You had to get that whole thing x-rayed, I bet you I think so.

Speaker 1: 1:14

I'm going to like play it out and wait till tomorrow.

Speaker 2: 1:25

But the moral of an email. I'm Bruce and I'm Broken Toe Clark. Vibe, check how am I doing?

Speaker 1: 1:34

Yes, you first.

Speaker 2: 1:36

I had my toenails sawed off this week.

Speaker 1: 1:39

Wait, wait, wait, all, all of them.

Speaker 2: 1:43

My two big ones. My two big ones. I No'm not bleeding at the moment oh my gosh, are you serious?

Speaker 1: 1:52

well, I remember you very gave us this vibe check prior where we're starting to like dig in and like you're like, I gotta do the ingrowns.

Speaker 2: 1:59

Yeah, so I finally did something about them. Uh, maybe, just you know, if, if you are slightly squeamish, skip ahead five minutes, trust me. So for the rest of you, buckle up. Here we go. Uh, it starts. It starts with a needle that is as long as your pinky, uh, but it is, it's long as your pinky, but it's like it's tiny, teeny tiny. There's like a little fishing line and they, they just shove that thing directly into your toe and it goes so deep you feel it on the other side of your toe, so like I feel it on the bottom of my toe and it's coming through on the top and they're just like numbing me with anesthetic and just moving it around. It's like they're playing hamburger hamburger or hot dog.

Speaker 1: 2:47

Like are you going towards the front, Like if this is your top. People can't see this. No hot dog Okay.

Speaker 2: 2:52

So they just go right on the top.

Speaker 2: 2:54

They take the top, yeah, straight to the top needle going around the bone, just feeling me up with anesthetic on both sides the most painful thing I've ever felt in my life. So, with anesthetic on both sides the most painful thing I've ever felt in my life. So I now have a barometric for what a 10 on the pain scale feels like. That's it. They give you seven minutes for the anesthetic to start numbing you a bit so you can be like okay, I'm not going to feel when they start chopping. Apparently, I had a reaction to the anesthetic and just passed out oh, my gosh, are you serious? And so I came in and they're like hey, are you okay? I'm like, uh, so you like blacked?

Speaker 1: 3:31

out and you're like I did.

Speaker 2: 3:33

Oh my. So they brought me some water and I perked up, and then they came in and, uh, you know, they, they proceed to uh, start chopping and on the on the left toe I can feel nothing. And you know, I don't want to make it too graphic for y'all, but just basically, they're removing the borders of my toenails. So you know, use your imagination. They're using these little scissors and they're just clipping down the toe all the way down to the very bottom, and then they pull out a nice long, thin piece of nail. So now my toenail. You're looking down.

Speaker 1: 4:04

I watched all of it. Yes, I saw. Did they give you the option I wanted? To pass out a second time did they give you the option to say we're gonna put the curtain up or do you want to watch? Did you say I?

Speaker 2: 4:15

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 movies that I saw over the weekend the whole time, which is added to the experience, um, cause it was Memorial day, uh, so you know, saw multiple movies, the old AMC.

Speaker 2: 4:32

So by the time they get to the second toe, there's a problem, which is I can feel everything they're doing and now I can tell you what an 11 on a paint scale. And I'm like, I'm trying to scream, but I'm like they're like are you? It's supposed to be uncomfortable, does it hurt? And I'm like well, the, I didn't feel anything on the left toe, I feel everything. I feel everything. So they numb me up again and then they go back again and I still feel it and I'm like, okay, I still feel it. It really hurts, like I want to die. Uh, so it took a third, a third time of them showing that needle into my toe. Oh, my gosh, then be able to chop away and remove the nail.

Speaker 2: 5:14

Uh, so I am currently bandaged. I can't walk. It takes me like a minute to go down the stairs. I'm, uh, I'm the most useless human being on the planet. I feel so bad for my wife because I'm like I need water. Can you get me water? I just it would be so difficult for me to get to the, the, the fount of liquid. So, uh, yeah, I'm on day three of healing, fortunately. Fortunately, my brother-in-law's a podiatrist and, uh, sending him pics of my feet and he's like, oh, you're doing good, it's getting better. It does feel like it's getting better 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.

Speaker 2: 5:55

Yeah, yeah oh yeah dude, I'm seated and and it's kind of sad I get off work. So after this pod I'm going to get off work and I'm literally just going to go lay on the couch and prop my feet up. And people in the old movies are like I just can't wait to get home and prop my feet up. And I've never really been one to be like I just can't wait to prop my feet up. But it feels so good Because when you're sitting in a chair all the blood's going to your feet and you just you feel the throbbing. But I'm going to be able to go downstairs and just prop my feet up and and just sit in a comfortable position and I can't wait. It feels so good.

Speaker 1: 6:36

Lovely. I have so many thoughts and follow-up questions. Firstly, what's the recovery time for this? Seven days, Okay, I mean still that's quite a long time to not be able to.

Speaker 2: 6:50

Yeah, I am halfway there.

Speaker 1: 6:53

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: 7:00

They didn't offer. They do a thousand of these, like, apparently the guy who did mine's done like a thousand of these things, like you do them. Wow, it's. It's normal for people who get in grounds. I guess I just I'm finally catching up to the rest of society, wow is this?

Speaker 1: 7:18

is this like a? It's a complete reset, and when they grow back you, you should be okay, or are?

Speaker 2: 7:24

you like there is a chance. Okay, there is a chance, and if that happens I'll get it done again and they'll use a chemical to cauterize the area. Uh, but they don't do that the first time. They do it Got it yeah.

Speaker 1: 7:39

Oh man, that's rough man.

Speaker 2: 7:53

That is rough, man. That is rough, like you always hear, like old forms of torture, right? It's like ripping off fingernails 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, very painful, holy cow, I'm just exhausted all the time. Now it's it's impacted my productivity because I'm just tired, like in the healing process.

Speaker 1: 8:25

I can't wait I can't wait to be through this yeah, I'm in no way comparing my toe being broken to this, because that sounds a hundred billion times like mine still hurts, like right now. I'm sure it does. But wait, it hurts, but it's nothing like what you're saying, like that really sucks it's.

Speaker 2: 8:44

Uh, I'm not gonna belittle your pain because I'm a broken toe is probably very painful, but let me tell you it hurts yeah I bet it hurts.

Speaker 1: 8:55

The last like six days, seven days of my life I've been sick and that's my voice sounds a little weird. That's why we missed. The episode last week is one I had a big launch. Immediately. I'm wondering if, like you probably had this too, like you have something you're building up to and you're like, all right, got to hit this date, got to launch this project. All the excitement is there and I feel like your body and your brain put that together and they're like I'm not going to let you get sick or let you rest until this moment. Like you kind of build that and you force your body into that mode.

Speaker 1: 9:28

The day of launch, whenever all the checks were done, everything was looking good. I instantly started feeling sick, like throat hurt, and I was like, oh no, oh no. So halfway through the day, things were luckily going really, really well at the launch, I'm like I'm done, like I'm going to be out for the next five days. So all Memorial day weekend I was in. What reminded me of this is you were saying you have to like sit down all the time. I was laying on the couch or in bed just dead for like the last five days, and that's what we missed last week. But it's crazy Cause like laying down, you think it sounds great? Oh yeah, you just lay around and 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 back was hurting because I just had no energy to walk around and be a normal human being. I actually slept worst because my 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'm gonna give you two life-changing tips that have really helped me in the last year with with any sickness. Maybe it'll help you.

Speaker 2: 10:28

One have NyQuil around liquid form right Like have it around do the full dose every night until you're better, and like it's a sedum in it, ben, it's going to ruin your liver, like so is everything else, you're all going to die. Like the momentary ability to sleep through the night One it's going to help you get better faster, because if your sleep is getting interrupted you're not recovering. So like the second I start like even if I have like a little tiny cold, I will go to bed at nine o'clock. I'll do like a big dose and I'll do the full adult size dose of NyQuil and generally, if I can catch it early enough, like two days, I'm better. Yeah, other big thing and this is something I've learned recently and it's not just help with sickness itself, with everything, including like pain in my toes.

Speaker 2: 11:18

Every morning I've gotten off coffee but I make a chai tea and in the chai tea I put a lot of turmeric and a lot of clove and you can actually get clove from pumpkin spice, so it's pretty tasty. Some people don't like turmeric and some people don't like the fact that turmeric can stain your teeth and other things, which is like whatever, I don't care If I have yellow teeth, I have yellow teeth. You know I'm a human being. But turmeric is anti-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 get the headaches anymore and it's because I have so much turmeric in my system, acting as an anti-inflammatory, that it is just vastly improved. My quality of life, my quality of life. I'm solving all kinds of problems with ancient herbs here.

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 tips section. Believe it or not, tequila is a prebiotic and, if you can see where I'm going with this, I have never had better gut health than when I started making old fashions with tequila. Just gonna throw that out there. Uh, I use casa noble reposado is the brand, is the, uh, the sub brand kind of tastes like peanut butter, it's it's quite tasty. But more importantly, I I actually went and bought a bottle because my friend told me it's prebiotic and it helped him tremendously with his uh, his digestion and like, lo and behold, this is the first thing I've ever really tried that has actually helped me on the digestive front and like, I feel great like tequila at night, try tea in the morning with turmeric. I've got my life figured out. I finally have the solutions to everything. If you'd like, you can buy my supplement package that I'm going to start selling Half tequila, half turmeric chai.

Speaker 1: 13:12

Okay, you're on to something. You're on to something. The corporate strategy Wellness package. 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 thing of 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 well days you can do the tequila, and then on the not well days, the nyquil, and then every day you do the chai with the turmeric and the pumpkin spice. Oh, I also like to mix in this is the other pro tip with the chai I do a spoonful of local honey, because if you eat local honey it helps your allergies. So I'm just getting all of the wellness benefits in my first drink of the day, and then I close up the drink of the day with heavy alcohol.

Speaker 1: 14:18

I love it. I love how you're just you know sharing this information with us. I agree on the NyQuil thing changed. 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 you wouldn't have survived. And I totally agree with her Same. And so I do a concoction. I think I've mentioned before it's like zinc vitamin like a concoction.

Speaker 1: 14:46

I think I've mentioned before is like zinc, uh, vitamin C overdose. Like I take in way too much vitamin C and then like multivitamin every day and then I do the local honey thing. Like I do everything I can to avoid sickness. Always wash your hands, never eat food from your hands, Always use a fork and a knife. Like I just try to do everything to not get sick. So NyQuil, like when I found that out I was like I can sleep because that's the worst part about being sick. You can't sleep because you're sniffling, you're coughing, whatever NyQuil, just if you have never tried it, it knocks you out. Like I took it the other night when we were watching our shows and, out of nowhere, like 10 minutes 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 I would never, ever, recommend you use this as a sleep aid, outside of being sick, cause, like you know that it's not good for you, but it is good for you in the sense that it helps you sleep when you're sick, which is the hardest time. Like it's hard for me to sleep with my toes, like the blanket brushes my toe the wrong way and I wake up and I'm like in excruciating pain. So, like you know, I'm not using it for this specifically, but like it is so helpful when you are coming out of the cold, the flu, covid, what have you? It works and getting rest gets you 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 30 minutes. And also you take nyquil at night and you sleep at least six hours, like you're gonna get better a lot faster, because I used to be, out like when I was younger.

Speaker 1: 16:21

I would be out for like a whole week because my, my immune system just sucked so bad same. When I turned to be an adult, I found out about nyquil. I get better in half the time now because I can actually sleep, yep I love it.

Speaker 2: 16:31

Start mixing in that turmeric. I guarantee you you'll get better, 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 mud water, mushroom tea. We need to make our own wellness mix. It's the Corporate Strategy Wellness 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 been an email.

Speaker 1: 17:05

This wellness could definitely have been an email. This wellness could definitely have been an email. So I want to keep asking more questions, but I feel like this podcast is going to be an hour long Just us talking about wellness tips.

Speaker 2: 17:12

So we should probably talk about something that people care about, huh what do you think, yeah, we should, we should. So, uh, I was actually producing the career advice, career guidance subreddit which we used to pull from in the days of this pod and, like I saw a couple of topics that we could do, like you know, a couple of responses 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 meant for?

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 and could use some perspective from people who figured this out. I'm 22. I've been working in a busser at the keg for the past two years. It's not crazy, but the tips are decent and I managed to save up around 6k, which feels pretty good for someone. My age.

Speaker 2: 18:05

Thing is I have no clue what I actually want to do with my life. Part of me wants to start my own business, like maybe food trucks, small cafe, always been interested in restaurant industry, think I have some good ideas. My savings plus maybe a small business loan, I can make it happen Something exciting about being my own boss. But then there's this voice in my head saying I should go to college, get a real education, have a backup plan. My friends went straight to university and are graduating with degrees, and here I am still clearing tables, wondering if I'm wasting. My potential Problem is I don't know what to study. At the same time, I'm terrified of failing when I blow all my sailings on a restaurant that tanks. In six months at least, with college, I'll have a degree at the end. How do you figure out what you're supposed to do? Is there something wrong with me 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 and you'll never like you can get advice from people. I don't. I'm not saying advice is a bad thing, but I think a lot of people get stuck in the analysis paralysis. I'm going to question every way. I'm going to do you know, months of research into this. I'm not going to make any decisions until, like, I understand everything and choose the right path, like to be honest with you, it's all a waste of time. Like start taking action and doing and that's how you're going to figure it out. And, to be honest, I don't think you really can figure out when you are just graduating or you're young of like, what your career path should be. It's about trying things and finding the intersections of what are your interests, what are 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 you have. Put those all together and use AI 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 I think that's you know I'm never going to tell you to use AI, but what I will tell you is and we talked about this on the pod with Mr Capitalist Correspondent Alex Restrepo before how much does luck factor into things? And I think about this person specifically, like I don't know you, I don't know your path, I don't know the future, and that's a problem. Right Like this person could dump their 6k of savings into a food truck and right place, right time, right recipe, right strip of land to park the truck on, hit it big, become a national sensation, go big on TikTok. Like everything could fall in place for them. Or they could do the exact same thing at a different location and get nothing and blow that 6K. So much of this comes down to like what you said doing right Like there's no guaranteed recipe for success.

Speaker 2: 20:55

And I think getting stuck in the analysis paralysis part is a doomed affair. Like all you're going to do is end up, uh, wasting time thinking about wasted potential, which creates more time wasted, whereas there's a middle ground to this. You don't dump 6k into the food truck. Instead, you do 1k and maybe show 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 do I have a shot here with, with my idea, my recipe, what have you?

Speaker 2: 21:29

Start to build up your social network. Start to build up your brand. Figure out what works, figure out what doesn't. You still got 5k that you can rely on for. You know, going to night school trying out other like don't limit yourself to one big idea. You know Clark is a big proponent of this as a product manager which they're only good for one thing, which is defining MVP, minimum viable product. And I would say you're far better off going and testing a lot of different MVPs, seeing what works, than saying, hey, I'm going to go big on this one thing 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 to your point. Like the MVP concept, it's all about validating hypotheses or assumptions you have. Or is it viable? And like you won't know until you try. But you need a time box that try of.

Speaker 1: 22:25

At the end of the day, if you're going to do your own business. It's like do I have something people want? Am I solving a problem people have or am I providing a service that helps people? And like if you think there's something out there but you don't try it, you'll never know. Like you'll never know if there's actually any demand out there. And so that's why I think your time box is like, hey, I'm going to spend.

Speaker 1: 22:43

If, like, you've got 6K here, I'm going to spend $1,000. I'm going to spend four weeks. I'm going to go to these food markets or whatever. I'm going to see if people are interested and if I can generate demand. And if I hit a goal of X amount of dollars like if I get my $1,000 back in sales, that proves to me I should just go all in. If I don't, I'm going to go to school and that means you've got a bias for action. You've got a time box. You're not bankrupting all your savings and you're going to learn what the right path is right there. So in four weeks you should have your answer. Am I going all in on the food truck or am I going to school?

Speaker 2: 23:17

Love this. I love this because I think we've given this person like actual actionable steps that can lead them to figure out like, hey, maybe you should go to school instead. Maybe this is not the right path. You also are going to learn so much in doing this activity about your own work preferences and what you like. It's the. You know we talked about this before. My biggest takeaway from the Unsubtle Art of Not Giving an F the book is you think you want to be a rock star until you realize all of the work you need to put in to being a rock star and then you realize I actually don't want to be a rock star, I just like the fictional, fantastical idea of being a rock star Like this gets you a nice little simulation. You get a taste of the work and maybe that work doesn't taste so good to you and maybe maybe you are a candidate to go corporate, maybe you're a candidate to go do something completely different. But it's little tests, it's little tastes. Don't take the whole enchilada.

Speaker 1: 24:11

I love that. And before we go on the next one, the last thing I'd say is you also might find out what people want is different than what you thought they want or what you should be doing.

Speaker 1: 24:18

And then you're saying I'm actually going to pivot a little bit. I'm going to have a stand at every farmer's market I can find because I'm generating a lot of demand. Screw the food truck, I'm farmer's market business. Now you might find that out, and that is another way to look at it. Even though the food truck thing didn't work out you didn't exactly hit those goals you actually found more demand doing something else. So go try that for a couple of weeks, 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 to feel like career passion is just a luxury for the privilege? I think this is a good follow-up to the previous one. Genuinely curious. Everywhere you turn linkedin youtube, even some job interviews. It's all about find what you love and do that. But in reality, how many of us have financial breathing room to experiment until we find our passion? Most people I know, myself included, work to survive, pay rent, deal with debt, help family Passion feels like a buzzword used to guilt us into thinking we're failing if we don't do what we love for our nine to five. So here's the question Is it time to stop selling the dream of passion-driven careers and start normalizing work as work? Or is the real value in holding out for what you love?

Speaker 1: 25:24

Ooh, this one's interesting. I kind of want you to go first on this one.

Speaker 2: 25:27

Yeah, I mean so. For for me, my immediate response is maybe and I. I think that's a very fair answer because I don't love what I do. I don't love the industry that I'm in Like, love is a strong word but I'm pretty good at it and I don't hate it and I can enjoy the work I do, maybe like 50% 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 out of a window, right, I don't love it, but I'm good at it and I know what I'm doing and I can be successful and I can grow my career and I can. You know I need to leave and find another job else where I can. There's a comfort in my work and 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 be happy. That's a comfort that I live for.

Speaker 2: 26:25

We talk a lot about CAC on this podcast culture, autonomy, compensation. What we don't talk about is the when I'm not CACing, I'm relaxing, which is, you know, a terrible way to say relaxing. It's very important to me that I have a comfortable home life and if I was doing what I want to do, which I think I want to make computer games like video games I would be poor and I'd probably working like 12 plus hour days grinding trying to meet a deadline for a game that might 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 doing that. So I think the question is not like 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 it going 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 to make my paycheck to. You know, have a good retirement when I get to that age to provide for my family? Like, if you just look at work that way, you can still find things like you said, that you like you might not love every aspect of the job, but it's not bad. It's kind of like my job too. It's like I don't absolutely love it. There are moments that I love. There are also moments that I hate violently. I violently hate certain moments that I have to go through, but at the end of the day, like helps me provide for myself Overall, not bad.

Speaker 1: 28:07

Like beats being a plumber that's like one of my favorite stories and favorite lines is like someone like Bill Belichick, coach of the Patriots. One night, it's like midnight, and one of the players walks in because he forgot something in the locker room. He like walks in and the player walks in and he like sees the light on in the film room and he walks in and the coach is sitting in there late at night all by himself just watching film and the guy's like, coach, what are you doing here? Like it's almost midnight and there's no one else here and he's like beats, being a plumber, I'll see you tomorrow. It's like he actually loves that. But he's also saying like this is 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 figure out a way to like make this a whole thing that we could do and you know multiple shows, we do 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, like we'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 be realistic. You have to say, like, am I?

Speaker 2: 29:29

Am I happy with my life, not with my work? Am I happy with my life? And that's got to be the question to be able to answer. And I think people get way too hung up on the idea of being happy at work or finding the job that makes them happy as work. Because, just like the previous one, so much of this is luck-based, so much of this is that 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's something out there that you would absolutely love, so if you think there's something out there that you would absolutely love, like you should go do it. Your time is limited, like that's one thing that we all have in common. We only have so much time. So go try it, find out, take calculated risks. I'm not saying quit your job right now or spend it all on the lotto. Take calculated risks, depending on your contacts. But go try it and figure out.

Speaker 1: 30:20

Do I love it, do I not? And even if you do something you 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 single person in this world that is like I've loved every single second of my working career, no matter what. Like there's no way anybody has ever felt that way. So just know, like that nirvana doesn't exist. Maybe it does exist for one person 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, uh the the, the man behind the mask of nine inch nails. And like if you, if you listen to him talk like he's not cranking out nine inch nails albums every year. He does a lot of film scores now. And like, if you listen to him in interviews, it's like it sounds like it's kind of a miserable process sometimes. Like even you know he's making music year round. But like making Nine Inch Nails music that that requires a special energy attitude and you know output.

Speaker 2: 31:16

And like I think, if you, if you look at anyone that you respect, or like you think they must really love their job and you listen to them talk about their work, you will find there's a special kind of misery for passion-oriented work too, because are you living up to your own expectations? Like being your own boss is great, but like what if you know you have something within you that 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 of the time? And I think you can like, like I said, you can find satisfaction and happiness and a job you don't even love like a job you tolerate.

Speaker 2: 31:55

You could say I'm good at this, this doesn't bring me a lot of strife, this doesn't bring me a lot of pain. There's low stakes, I get paid well, I get get time off. This is awesome. I think we prioritize the dream a little too much. It might be a uniquely American problem because we've had this whole idea of the American dream and you can find success and anyone can be a millionaire in America. I'm very curious to our European listeners, or just non-American listeners Is this the way you feel about finding, you know, finding success in your, in your own countries, or is this like a uniquely American thing?

Speaker 1: 32:30

I agree and I think it's also like, as I think about that it's it's probably just due to like social media and technology Like you have so much more awareness and instant gratification that nobody's ever really had. So like your level of satisfaction is like the best thing in the world out there for whatever you're interested in. You never have to see the bad parts of that.

Speaker 1: 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 your expectation was reality of your current context, for what you can see you didn't know anything else, right? And so now I think this is becoming more and more prevalent, because we see the best thing and 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 we started letting outside sources tell us how to feel. Right, when you look at news and the media and this whole idea of like well, I saw it on TV, so it must be true. I saw it on the news, it must be true. Like, oh, bill Gates started Microsoft in his garage. That means I can do that too, it's like. But you only have 1% of the story. And it got worse once we started looking at, you know, social media. Uh, now reality TV.

Speaker 2: 33:50

Like, we took all these concepts that used to be very much a a business savvy individual can go off and create a business right time, right moment. Create Microsoft in their garage. That's not repeatable. Like, that's not something that anyone can go and do. And then you look, we have all these reality tv shows of like you know, um, what is it? Shark tank keeping up with the kardashians? Like all these, you can make it or you can be rich and you can be happy. And then it's, it's amplified by social media and just the lies that you're being poured into your eye holes as you scroll. None of it's true, none of it's real. Don't fall for it. Like go out and have a human experience and realize like there are more people just like you that feel the way you do than there are on social media, telling you the lies that you're you're consuming. Like don't let that influence your happiness.

Speaker 1: 34:43

A hundred percent agree and don't get. And don't get caught in the trap of always consuming, never doing. I think that's what a lot of people do now. It's like you're always just watching and you're like man, I wish I could do that. It's like it goes back to what we were just saying try. If you're not doing, you will never get a chance at the 1% of people who do that amazing thing the Bill Gates or whatever. You don't see the billions of people who've tried to do that same thing and failed, but at least they tried.

Speaker 1: 35:08

And I think that's what it goes back to is like don't just watch and consume. It's like go, do and you'll. You might get lucky if you're right place, right time, context is correct. You don't know what the future is, but to your point, it's like for those 1% of people, they have the right mixture of, you know, time, idea and the also the work they put in the work to actually do it. And that unique application during that context was because what led to their success. But again, that's the point zero, zero, one percent. But they did and that's the point 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 job that is strictly eight hours? Briefcase emoji. Star emoji, flower emoji. I need opinions, or maybe a little reality check. So is it actually possible to get a job that's strictly eight hours? Only eight hours? I don't mind paid overtime. I'm a dream girly who really prioritizes 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 imagine you the same, like I don't half-ass things, I only whole-ass things. So like turning my brain off for something I spend eight hours on, even if it is eight hours on a day, is hard, even if I end the day and like I walk away, like my brain and my subconscious are still solving problems and processing the day, and like things hit me when I'm, when I'm just hanging out with my wife and we're watching one of our favorite shows or something that I'm just like oh yeah, I forgot about. Like this, this and this, out of nowhere they'll hit me. Or oh, I can solve that by doing this, and then I just write them down real quick and put it to the side because otherwise it will plague me. Or I'll wake up in the middle of the night and be like oh, I got an idea for this and so like.

Speaker 1: 37:14

It depends on the type of person you are. Some people can like totally disassociate, but it's hard for me to do that when you spend a lot 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 set boundaries and work less than eight hours a day for your job and still provide a lot of value and move up the career ladder. It's not easy. You've got to be very intentional and deliberate about your time and know what value add activities are and what value attracting activities are, and where you're wasting time and where you should be spending time. And it's not easy. It's kind of like rocket science. You don't know what those things are because you don't have all the context and you don't understand everything perfectly because that's corporate. But I think it's totally possible to keep your work window within, or less than, eight hours.

Speaker 2: 38:01

Absolutely agree. I was going to say just a resounding yes to this question. And again it's going to come down to preference, like, what do you want to do? Because if you get like a data entry job or if you're like an AI tester and all you're doing is just sending testing prompts all day, you likely have a quota, you likely have a certain amount of things you're expected to do and you might not even work eight hours. Like, in all honesty, if you're able to kind of crank through, get these things done, you might clock out two hours early. Uh, and if you're on salary, it makes no difference, right? Like, if you're if your salary, you get your job done within the window you're, you're done for the day. If you're on a time clock, then you just wait and burn the clock and read a book or scroll reddit or do whatever it is you do. It's absolutely possible to get this. Now, I think it's important we look at this from a CAC perspective. When you're searching for that perfect nine to five, you might have to give something up on the compensation side. You might have to give something up on the challenge side of the autonomy side.

Speaker 2: 39:02

Usually those kinds of jobs the ones that are very strict with their time. They're a little bit less autonomous. Like when I was a groundskeeper, I worked six to three every day, every day, guaranteed I would be done at three o'clock. There was no. There was never an opportunity to stay late and do overtime, except to pay me if I did overtime and they didn't want to do that. So, like there are blue collar jobs, you're guaranteed to work minimum hours because they don't want to pay overtime. There are salary jobs.

Speaker 2: 39:31

You know, office jobs might not be fun, might not be the most interesting thing where they're. Hey, you check your brain at the door, you show up, you do your job, you pick up your brain as you leave. It's menial work, but you're only going to work eight hours. And then there's, you know my job, which most days I'm able to work eight to five, eight to four. I'm feeling, you know, like I've got my stuff done.

Speaker 2: 39:54

And then there's days I go work conferences 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 do film shoots and it could be a. I'm at the studio at seven and I'm I'm not done till seven at night, like it depends, but I'm okay with that because it's not an all the time thing. And then there's jobs in the video game industry where you're expected to work 18 hours a day because you're making video games and they take advantage of you. So like there is a spectrum that you can fall into and again I think it comes down to your comfort and what you're willing to put up with. But you can absolutely find a job 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't think there's a salary cap to say like once you hit the salary range, it's definitely not the eight hours. Like I think this goes you could work maybe four hours a day and be making buku bucks. It's about the value you're adding. Right, and I think that's what it goes back to, is what you were saying. If you're, if you're an hourly worker, you know, at Mickey D's flipping burgers, like you're probably working eight hours and you're cutting your brain off and that's it. Or six hours or whatever, like that's all, that's all you do. You can't go home and like think about how you flip burgers better, or toss the buns in the microwave, like your brain probably will never think about that again because it's just robotic action. But at the end of the day it is eight hours. So if you're like saying I want to turn off my brain, I want to go, just do a salary and hourly wage and opportunity perspective most likely.

Speaker 1: 41:29

But you could also find jobs like ours where technically we are Monday to Friday and we also are technically nine to five, but our job and our role is not looked at hours, put in it's value added, doing the important things.

Speaker 1: 41:46

And that's what's great about our jobs it's autonomous. We decide and we help shape that value. So, to your point, like some days I could work three hours and then the next day, like just yesterday, or yeah, yesterday, because today's Thursday, yesterday, like I had a 13 hour day just of different meetings, meeting with people across the globe, but today I only worked probably four hours because I took time off this morning and I balanced my schedule to say I'm going to take time off this morning because I worked a ridiculous day yesterday and all my value add activities are taken care of. It's like you know what that is. But some weeks are going to be brutal, some activities are going to be brutal and it just depends on where the value is. But you can balance that to get to a good work-life balance, which is where you have to be intentional and deliberate about your time.

Speaker 2: 42:32

Totally not a Delulu request at all. Horns emoji wink emoji briefcase 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 to like 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, the uh facilities either at a discount or for frizzo, uh and uh. Get the best of both worlds on your, your lunch break go take a bath.

Speaker 2: 43:07

Better plan. Go work there for a year. Figure out how they work and what works about this place. Come up with a better business model Cheaper, faster, better. Go start your own. Put them out of business. Hire them at a cheaper rate. Now you've got this setup, you don'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 work and you just say just keep doing what you were doing before, I'm just not part of it anymore. You get a free spa out of this Free spa and no work Less than eight hours. Yeah, what is it? What's that big hype book that went around for years? The four hour work week, or whatever.

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 finance software and become a fintech sales engineer, because those guys make stupid money and don't have to work at all. You just like, oh, I'm going to SC for this fintech software and like, I'm not going to make as much money as my sales rep, but I'm still making way more money than anyone on God's green earth selling stupid fricking stock software. And you do like two or three hours 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 about compensation. He's like I do the value add activities. I don't do anything to help the team. I'm not doing trainings, I'm not updating wikis. I'm selling the software and I'm getting off the calls with the clients who drive in the revenue.

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 the sales, I make the money and I'm happy and I'm out, and that could 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 topics are great, but also the rapid fire, I think, gives a lot of like, good feedback to, I'm sure, what a lot of people are thinking of.

Speaker 2: 45:27

Yeah, on the fly, I like that too, and we should. We should bring this back every once in a while. It's kind of hit up the old career guidance subreddit and see what people are, see what they're dealing with, because I don't, if it doesn't come from our 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 the Discord?

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, you definitely don't want to do it and honestly it kind of sucks in there, so just don't go there at all. But if you are interested, just wherever you're listening to this on, just scroll down with your finger, with your scroll wheel.

Speaker 1: 46:12

There's a link tree there's a little hyperlink. It's going to be blue. If you don't know what a hyperlink is, it's going to be blue, it's going to be underlined. If you click it, it takes you to a page that has so many different buttons on it and one of them will say join our discord. I don't know if that's actually what it says, but probably something like that. If you click on it, instant access. You can stay anonymous. That's the best part about it is like you don't even have to tell us who you are or ever chime in. You can literally just stalk and gain value from our discord and be a little leech, a value leech 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, be depressed 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 because it validated myself for everything that I've talked about AI, about I saw our discord community start saying maybe maybe Clark is right about AI being okay and not slop I loved.

Speaker 2: 47:15

It Felt like slop to me. Speaking of slop, we also like to play a game in our discord. It's called what do you mean, where we describe things that were previously talked about on previous episodes in meme form, with our mouth holes. So we do have one that was posted in regards to last week's episode or two weeks ago's episode, and I believe it is my turn to do it. Oh, let's go, let's go, we've got a couple, so I'll do them both.

Speaker 2: 47:50

The first one comes from bourgeoisie correspondent, capitalist correspondent, al Shapo. He says it's a gentleman, a bearded gentleman with long hair, looks like he might be from olden times, holding in his hand a glowing orb. And he's looking at this glowing orb, smiling, and someone says to him yo, I think Return of the King is a pretty cool guy. It kills orcs and doesn't afraid of anything. And obviously, this guy holding the orb is none other than Strider who, if you listened to the previous episode, we found that people at a tech conference didn't know his name was Aragorn. So good callback, good meme. We've got one more that I want to hit us on. Ooh, yes, hosted by our good friend Ika. Two gentlemen in an office, nerds, nerdy nerds, beards, glasses. The nerd works right, someone. One leans in and says the other how do I get to the deep web? And then the other nerd hoodie up, lantern out from under his desk Follow me, I will show you the way and accurate. That is how you get to the deep web. So thank you, as always, for bringing the memes. We love them. Keep doing them.

Speaker 2: 49:10

If you got a meme from this episode, you can go on that channel and post it. Do it. We also have our Is it Me or Is it Corporate? Anonymous posting channel where you can actually post anonymous confessions and we will read them 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, this meme, like the setting of it, you know who I'm talking about. At a previous company, like one of our co-workers office always had the light off. It would just scattered stuff everywhere, which reminds me of this and I felt like when I went in there he would look at you with his long black hair and you would feel like you're going to the dark web you know who I'm talking about but seeing this meme just reminded me of that moment.

Speaker 1: 49:55

Every time I went in that room, I felt like I was doing something I shouldn't be doing and 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't recreate it. If you know what I'm saying, maybe they might live it. Uh, I think that does it for the show. So, if you like the pod, join the discord play. What do you mean? Give us your confessions. There is a mirror.

Speaker 2: 50:20

As a corporate, you can check out our swag store we got swag. You can check out our. Buy us a coffee if you want to support us. Like I said, we haven't received any money in a long time. Doing a show for free, just doing a show. Do a show 160 something episodes, still paying out of our pockets. Uh, alternatively, if you want to do a surreal, solid, you can share this with your friends. I think that's the most important thing we can do. It's a word of mouth marketed podcast only. So hear us. If you like us. If you don't like it, share us with your enemies. It's. If you don't like us, share us with your enemies. It's really easy. Just be like hey, I think you need this and they probably do, so send them our way. But I think that'll wrap things up for this week. Per usual, don't go herding cats. I'm Bruce and I'm Clark and you're on mute. We'll see you next week.