In this episode I jump into a familiar but uncomfortable space know as limbo. What to do when it all comes crashing down. I talk about starting over and rebuilding from the ground up in a new place, road tripping across the country and putting the pieces back together 1 piece at a time.

In this episode I talk about trekking across the US to start tour with a band and it being mentally just "OK" and being at a festival with thousands of people but feeling completely alone. I talk about little about not fitting in and starting over and the importance of self reflection and how looking inside yourself can give you the answers if you just stop and listen.

In the last episode I talked about kind of making choices in order to chase your passion, follow your dreams and make it happen. I talked about how I packed up my drums and headed down to Florida to live and play in a band called Until The End.

We all know that having passion and drive is important. We all know that it takes work and dedication to pursue your dreams. There is always a turning back point that exists that’s different for everyone and it’s usually based on a number of variables. How far will you go to chase your dream? Entrepreneurs often go broke chasing their dream. The dream to be a business owner and be self employed. Lots of barriers become very apparent when taking that entrepreneurial leap becomes a reality. Things like time, money, family, bills, age, and knowledge all the sudden become larger than life. Sure you can go open up a cupcake stand and make some money if you already have things like a house, a car, a home kitchen, and resources. These things are usually being supplemented by the day job. But the question is could you do it if this was your only gig? Your cupcake stand now has to pay for things like space, supplies, industrial kitchen, staff members, advertising. Could you still do it?

This podcast has been interesting looking back at things through this adult kind of retrospective lens. Sometimes when I look back I see mistakes or maybe other choices that could have been more beneficial. I am a pretty big fan of the phrase: “you don’t know what you don’t know”. It’s easy to look back and think to yourself “well that was dumb”. But ya know its like hindsight is 20/20 and ya know forrest through the trees and any other cliches you can think of for being ignorant. short sighted probably just young and foolish. Years ago while on tour I fell in love with the Pacific Northwest. Seattle Washington is one of my favorite places in the entire world. The views are from the I-5 bridge are some of the most amazing views I have ever seen. The people are great, the food is fantastic and rain is absolutely brilliant. I really moved there just looking for something different. I had these visions at one point of being stuck in Flint or Detroit, working a job and playing in some band. I think it just wasn’t for me. I have said this before that If I had never picked up a set of drum sticks when I was 14 years old I would probably be in Flint at 40 years old working at a fast food place or something equally as outlandish. I mean maybe not because I like to hustle and try to make something out of the nothing but I think that part of successful hustling is having a positive attitude and when I was living in Flint and Detroit I don’t think I had the right attitude or outlook to successfully hustle the most. I remember when I was talking to my Dad about moving out west and I said that I was a little hesitant because I didn’t want to be so far away from him and he told me to just go. He said I got stuck in this town years ago. He was talking about Flint. He said he wished that he had moved out of the city years ago but he got stuck there. He got married and had kids and we were in school and he just settled down there and he kind of always regretted it so it said If I had an opportunity to leave I should take it.

So let me start out with a few questions. How do you stack up to your friends? How does your career compare to your colleagues? How does your life look when it’s placed next to someone else's? Any here is the most important question. Does any of that really matter? Here is what I am getting at. There is always this perception that someone that has more than you or they are are happier than you or better than you. People place a lot of emphasis on how they stack up against blips that they are seeing on instagram. But the truth is that you never know what happens behind closed doors. When the camera is off that game is much different but the fantasy lives forever on the internet. So what my question is are you happy and what makes you happy?

Not too long after coming home from Europe I was about to move into my first apartment and start school at Eastern Michigan University. I’d spent the 2 years prior going to Mott Community College in Flint and trying to get all my basic classes out of the way. This was the plan that I had kind of proposed to my Dad a few years back. Community college was just highschool but not my highschool it was more like what we saw on TV shows where you rarely saw people in class but you would always see them sitting out in the quad. Of course since I went to school in Michigan and not California people were only hanging out on the quad about a quarter of the time. Community college was fun because there were a lot of high schools around town and if people went to community college then they probably went to Mott. The classes were good and I felt like I had a pretty firm grasp on what was going for and which classes I was taking and why. I was going to school for Marketing.

Hustle The Most Episode 16: Banding In Europe So in 1998 which was the summer before I moved in with Phil I was drummining in a band called Earthmover. We were a hardcore band from Detroit and we had a few records out and done a handful of small tours and  bunch of weekends all...

So as you know or if you are listening for the first time the Hustle The Most podcast is a series of short stories that talk about all things heart, hustle, innovation and design and more. One of my favorite parts of the podcast is talking about what I have learned from these adventures and the talking with the guests that I have had in to share and partake in the memories. Some of these stories are 30 years old. It’s weird the things that we remember. The things that stick out in our head as relevant. How is something that happened to 30 years ago still living in my head where I can just access them anytime I want. It’s weird to me that memories that are 30 years old can be just as relevant and as impactful as memories from last week.

In this episode Phil and I talk about the differences between the kids that he teaches now and the kids that he taught early in his teaching career. We talk about distractions and how technology really hasn't really created more distractions they are merely just different types of distractions. We talk about our first computers, dial up and some of the odd piercings that Phil has a young piercer. After 20 years Phil finally apologized for breaking my favorite bowl that I hand crafted while in high school.