Speaker 1: To go or not to go? That is the question
Speaker 1: for millions of young people and their parents when it
Speaker 1: comes to college. That was a no brainer for most
Speaker 1: of us, right if you were fortunate enough, they have
Speaker 1: the chance. You went to get that diploma, and we
Speaker 1: were told it was essential to our success to a
Speaker 1: happy life. But is it these days? A lot of
Speaker 1: families are now having that conversation. College costs have just skyrocketed,
Speaker 1: the job market for graduates is influx, and many very
Speaker 1: successful people have created their own path without a college degree.
Speaker 1: We have two Companion episodes on this topic with a
Speaker 1: total of four guests who are intelligent, thoughtful young people
Speaker 1: with very different points of view on this two of
Speaker 1: them who chose college and are using the experience creatively
Speaker 1: and successfully. That's an episode two here in part one,
Speaker 1: the two who chose the non college path, Lady Lazari
Speaker 1: and Eric Abrons. You know, when I was a playing
Speaker 1: to schools, the conversation was always like, you know, where
Speaker 1: do you want to go? Which school do you like
Speaker 1: the environment? And like which has the best classes? And
Speaker 1: like what's the best school you can what's the most
Speaker 1: prestigious school you can get into? It was never a
Speaker 1: discussion of Okay, if you go to this school that's
Speaker 1: going to cost you fifty tho dollars a year versus
Speaker 1: this school that costs fifteen thousand dollars a year, this
Speaker 1: is what that really means. Like in the big picture,
Speaker 1: it was all about just like going to the best
Speaker 1: school you could get into, and like paying for it
Speaker 1: was never really a part of the conversation. And um,
Speaker 1: that was really mind blowing to me personally, because, um,
Speaker 1: that's really obviously a very important decision to make for
Speaker 1: the rest of your life, Like if you saddle yourself
Speaker 1: with that much debt when you're eighteen, that has that
Speaker 1: has an effect for really for the rest of your life.
Speaker 1: It was definitely surreal and honestly a little a little
Speaker 1: bit scary and uncomfortable. But that's why I knew it
Speaker 1: was the right decision, because I knew that I would
Speaker 1: grow in that uncomfortable space if I accepted, if I
Speaker 1: embraced what I was doing, and I did. I was
Speaker 1: so excited about it. But there are definitely times where
Speaker 1: I was like, I'm leaving social world behind them, leaving
Speaker 1: my friends behind, I'm leaving maybe partying a lot behind
Speaker 1: and all those things that people talk about life experiences.
Speaker 1: You know, you hear that your years of college is
Speaker 1: the best best years of your life. So why would
Speaker 1: I go away? Why why would I turn down the
Speaker 1: best years of my life? Asking questions like that or
Speaker 1: what these two episodes are about. I've always been really
Speaker 1: interested in this topic. Both my parents were college professors,
Speaker 1: so conversations about the joys and the frustrations of higher
Speaker 1: education we're always taking place in my household. I ended
Speaker 1: up being a lot less educated than my parents, but
Speaker 1: to the University of Colorado and Boulder, got an undergrand
Speaker 1: degree in journalism. But I used it, to be honest
Speaker 1: with you, as a trade school. I was there to
Speaker 1: acquire very specific skills for my career and the extracurricular
Speaker 1: media opportunities, part time jobs, making contacts. For those reasons,
Speaker 1: college was essential. I got no regrets. I enjoyed it,
Speaker 1: I was enriched by it. But I've spent a lot
Speaker 1: of time in the last three decades on college campuses,
Speaker 1: listening to students and professors and administrate, and I hear
Speaker 1: a lot of them in a very different place to me.
Speaker 1: A lot of college students are missing opportunities. They're not
Speaker 1: tapping into their potential and all the possibilities of the
Speaker 1: college experience. They seemed like spectators to their own education,
Speaker 1: walking through waiting for what's next, wasting time, energy, and money,
Speaker 1: probably their parents money. So conversations in these two episodes
Speaker 1: will hopefully help you avoid going down that kind of path.
Speaker 1: To our first guest, now, Laney Lazari from Pittsburgh. Laney
Speaker 1: has a pretty extraordinary backstory and how she came to
Speaker 1: her decision to bypass college. Since she was a baby,
Speaker 1: she suffered from eczema and nothing that various dermatologists prescribed worked,
Speaker 1: So as a third grader, she took things into her
Speaker 1: own hands, started googling, searching for options with less chemicals,
Speaker 1: and finally, after the grocery store, Laney ended up in
Speaker 1: the family kitchen and created a sugar scrub. Laney says
Speaker 1: a complete cleared up prexima. So she shared the product
Speaker 1: with friends and then, as an eighth grader, launched her company,
Speaker 1: Simple Sugars. Then about seventeen, to promote her products, she
Speaker 1: left high school for about a month and a half
Speaker 1: and took a road trip with her mom. Basically, what
Speaker 1: we did was had did a twenty six city tour.
Speaker 1: So we stopped in basically every major city between here
Speaker 1: in l A and and back. UM, and in each place,
Speaker 1: I was doing events with any of our customers. UM.
Speaker 1: In those towns, I was doing pr I was doing
Speaker 1: all kinds of social media. So it kind of became
Speaker 1: this thing where like you could follow the trip. We
Speaker 1: were like driving this really old car, so part of
Speaker 1: it was like, you know, kind of waiting to see
Speaker 1: if like the car broke down or like if we
Speaker 1: made it. UM. And we had a thing where people
Speaker 1: could like sponsor like a tank of gas for us.
Speaker 1: So we had customers who would like sponsor a tank
Speaker 1: of gas, and we would like every time we would
Speaker 1: get to a gas station, we'd like film a little
Speaker 1: shout out to them. Shark Tank notice is this nationwide
Speaker 1: tour and calls you up and says, hey, lady at eighteen,
Speaker 1: come in pitch your business for the Sharks and ask
Speaker 1: for a substantial investment for a piece of the company.
Speaker 1: You weren't nervous at all about that. Yes, and no,
Speaker 1: there's your billionaires in front of you that can control
Speaker 1: perhaps the future of the company. And it'saw national television,
Speaker 1: by the way, and I've seen many people. Even though
Speaker 1: those pitches are heavily edited, you know that people are
Speaker 1: paying their pants when they're in front of that group. Purpose. Well,
Speaker 1: the thing for me was two things. First of all,
Speaker 1: you know, again, like I kind of said before, I
Speaker 1: had already been in the business for so long that
Speaker 1: I felt very prepared going into my Shark Tank pitch, because, um,
Speaker 1: the thing about Shark Tank is, you know, there's a
Speaker 1: very small portion that's rehearsed, which is like that first
Speaker 1: like minute and a half when you first walk in
Speaker 1: and they're like telling them the pitch on your business.
Speaker 1: But once you start the question and answers, none of
Speaker 1: that's prepared beforehand. So a side from just being ready
Speaker 1: to like have a conversation with them and there's nothing
Speaker 1: to really rehearse or like worry that you're going to
Speaker 1: forget or anything like that, because you know, if you
Speaker 1: really know everything there is to know about your business, um,
Speaker 1: there's not really very much they can throw at you
Speaker 1: that you don't know how to answer. Um. So and
Speaker 1: and the thing for me was, you know, my company
Speaker 1: was still just me at the time, so I was
Speaker 1: the one handling all of the sales, handling all of
Speaker 1: the financials um going over all of the numbers, so
Speaker 1: I was so close to everything because I was the
Speaker 1: only one in the business that it gave me a
Speaker 1: lot of confidence because I was dealing with all of
Speaker 1: that stuff in the day to day. It's not like
Speaker 1: I had a whole team and I had to worry
Speaker 1: about like, oh, did my accountant like teach me these numbers,
Speaker 1: because I was the one doing the numbers, so um
Speaker 1: that really helped a lot. And the other thing about
Speaker 1: doing Shark Tank is it's such a whirlwind when you
Speaker 1: go to film there, Like you're on this like big
Speaker 1: like Sony lot in l A. And like the whole
Speaker 1: schedule is really crazy, Like they don't tell you when
Speaker 1: anything is happening, just kind of like waiting and then
Speaker 1: they're like, okay, like you need to be ready to
Speaker 1: go now. So you're kind of like running around all
Speaker 1: over the place and they're in the meantime, they're filming
Speaker 1: things like you entering and like reaction shots and like
Speaker 1: stuff like that, so you're getting your set ready. So
Speaker 1: there's so much going on that day that um, for me,
Speaker 1: there wasn't really that much time to get nervous because
Speaker 1: I was kind of like just like so excited to
Speaker 1: be there and like enjoy that experience. So um, it
Speaker 1: definitely helped, you know, have all of that happening, and
Speaker 1: it kind of distracts you from the fact that you're
Speaker 1: about to go in and make this really big pitch. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think it's a fascinating show for that reason because
Speaker 1: those pitches are all very well rehearsed. All the people
Speaker 1: who have created those companies live those products. But then
Speaker 1: they have that surreal out of body experience that they're
Speaker 1: standing in front of, you know, billionaires and multimillionaires and
Speaker 1: trying to uh pitch when it really counts. So all
Speaker 1: the sharks are impressed with you and your company. But
Speaker 1: for three admit wasn't a fit Mark Cuban, who sun
Speaker 1: an experience in Maxima. It was a good inn action.
Speaker 1: You would go in in asking, I believe for a
Speaker 1: hundred thousand dollars in exchange for ten percent of your company.
Speaker 1: Is that right? Ended up getting that that amount of capital,
Speaker 1: but you had to give a third of the company
Speaker 1: to Mark Cuban in terms of his support. So you
Speaker 1: walk out of the room like that's a huge w right.
Speaker 1: I feel badly for the people to walk in their
Speaker 1: pitch and then no nobody goes with them. Yeah, for sure,
Speaker 1: And I mean that's always a possible outcome if people
Speaker 1: don't know. There's a gap in time between when a
Speaker 1: shark tank pitch and the episode is taped and when
Speaker 1: it actually airs, and to preserve the drama of those moments,
Speaker 1: that people aren't allowed to say what happens. So you
Speaker 1: can't you come out of that experience. Mark Cuban's gonna
Speaker 1: give you um the capital you need, but you can't
Speaker 1: tell anybody. But you said that it it was an overnight explosion. Uh,
Speaker 1: once that decision is made and you're gonna get that
Speaker 1: money coming in all of a sudden, you have to
Speaker 1: rapidly shift gears will also keeping a lid on things, right. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a really weird time. So it was like six
Speaker 1: month of time where I wasn't allowed to tell anyone
Speaker 1: aside from my mom, Like, none of my other family
Speaker 1: members were allowed to know, none of my employees were
Speaker 1: allowed to know. My mom was the only one, and
Speaker 1: that was because she went out to tape with me.
Speaker 1: Um who was allowed to know that we like had
Speaker 1: partnered with Mark. So that was like a huge secret
Speaker 1: to keep and you're not allowed to tell anyone until
Speaker 1: after the episode airs because they wanted to be a surprise. Um.
Speaker 1: And it gets even weirder when you then get this
Speaker 1: investment money and you're kind of like, okay, now, for
Speaker 1: like the first time, we have money to be able
Speaker 1: to like do some things, but we also have to
Speaker 1: make sure like no one figures out that we actually
Speaker 1: got this money yet. So it's a very weird situation
Speaker 1: to be in. So having a supportive school and having
Speaker 1: supportive parents as you pursue these alternative choices is put
Speaker 1: you away ahead of the game. Not not all young
Speaker 1: entrepreneurs are lucky enough. But your school, your prep school,
Speaker 1: the expectation has to be college. Right. You grind in
Speaker 1: the s a t, you get good grades, You try
Speaker 1: to get into the best possible college. I'm sure for
Speaker 1: a lot of your classmates, Ivy League was the goal.
Speaker 1: And when it came time for you to talk about
Speaker 1: your next chapter in life, which for most is college,
Speaker 1: what was the what was the internal conversation and that
Speaker 1: what were the conversations with with your family and others? Like, Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was a really um weird experience trying to figure
Speaker 1: out what to do with myself after high school basically
Speaker 1: because you know, I had um worked really hard, um
Speaker 1: to grow my business to the point that that we
Speaker 1: were at during my senior year, and um, we were
Speaker 1: gaining a lot of momentum, and I knew that it
Speaker 1: was like not going to be the right time to
Speaker 1: step away from the company. Like my gut told me
Speaker 1: that it was absolutely not the right thing to do
Speaker 1: to leave it at that point. UM. At the same time,
Speaker 1: you know, I did go to like a college prep
Speaker 1: school where, like you said, the goal was to get
Speaker 1: into an Ivy League school, take as many A p
Speaker 1: s as you can, get the highest score on your
Speaker 1: SSA t s, and you know, go to the best
Speaker 1: school you can get into. UM. So I was on
Speaker 1: a very different track than that. So it was kind
Speaker 1: of year because on one hand, I'm very lucky that
Speaker 1: my parents were very supportive of my decision to potentially
Speaker 1: not go to school. UM. My mom had always told me,
Speaker 1: like from the time that I was a kid that
Speaker 1: she wanted me to take a gap here. So she
Speaker 1: my mom is very non traditional. So I'm really lucky
Speaker 1: that that I was in that situation and didn't also
Speaker 1: have to fight like my parents on that um. But
Speaker 1: at the same time, there's a lot of pressure coming
Speaker 1: from teachers, friends, friends, parents who were kind of like what,
Speaker 1: like what do you mean You're not gonna go to college?
Speaker 1: And like even after um Shark Tank and after I
Speaker 1: had decided not to go to school, I would like
Speaker 1: run into random people, like in a coffee shop or
Speaker 1: something like friends of a I mean parents of a friend,
Speaker 1: and they'd be like, oh, are you still doing your sugars?
Speaker 1: Like when are you going to go to school? And
Speaker 1: like this but we're like four years out from that
Speaker 1: and like this is so not the point right now, like,
Speaker 1: and a lot of people like looked at it as
Speaker 1: like people would tell my mom they were like, oh,
Speaker 1: like it's great that your your daughter is doing this.
Speaker 1: That's going to be a great way for her to
Speaker 1: get into college. And my mom will always be like,
Speaker 1: that's that's not the point of this either, Like this
Speaker 1: is not like something we're doing to like try to
Speaker 1: look good on a college applicatient. This is like so
Speaker 1: much bigger than this. But um, I was in an
Speaker 1: environment that was not very aside from my parents, I
Speaker 1: was in an environment that was not really very receptive
Speaker 1: to kind of those alternatives. So it was a weird
Speaker 1: position to be in. UM. I ended up applying to
Speaker 1: schools and committing at GW University UM mostly as a fallback.
Speaker 1: I was kind of like, I'm gonna definitely take a
Speaker 1: gap year. I'm still gonna like commit to school, and
Speaker 1: I'll see what happens in my year, my year of
Speaker 1: working full time, and then kind of like make that
Speaker 1: decision next year. And that was kind of how I
Speaker 1: approached it. And then when it comes came time to
Speaker 1: make the decision to not go, it was pretty much
Speaker 1: a no brainer for me. UM. And uh, you know,
Speaker 1: the decision was really easy at that point. You told
Speaker 1: me before you didn't have a college fund stock with cash.
Speaker 1: You did get a scholarship, but you would have had
Speaker 1: to take out substantial student loans and go way in
Speaker 1: debt to go to George Washington and have a four
Speaker 1: year education. So being a smart businesswoman already at your
Speaker 1: stage there, you understood return on investment r o I
Speaker 1: for short, but you said, no one when college was
Speaker 1: discussed ever mentioned to you. Here's what it's gonna cost.
Speaker 1: It's going to be expensive. Here's what you can expect
Speaker 1: and it's I know, it's hard to know these things.
Speaker 1: That depends on the school and the major and what
Speaker 1: your job is. But that conversation was never had. But
Speaker 1: the expensive college and going way into debt to get
Speaker 1: that degree. Yeah, no, But we never had any conversations
Speaker 1: about actually paying for school. And like, you know, I
Speaker 1: did go to UM, a private school, so I was
Speaker 1: definitely in an environment with a lot of people who
Speaker 1: were privileged enough to have college funds and parents who
Speaker 1: could pay for them to go to whatever school they
Speaker 1: wanted to go to, but not everyone UM. And you know,
Speaker 1: in my case, my college fund was like less than
Speaker 1: two thousand I think my college fund had in it
Speaker 1: or something like that, so not even enough to make
Speaker 1: a debt intuition. And you know, when I was playing
Speaker 1: to schools, the conversation was always like, you know, where
Speaker 1: do you want to go? Which school do you like
Speaker 1: the environment? And like which has the best classes, and
Speaker 1: like what's the best school you can what's the most
Speaker 1: prestigious school you can get into. It was never a
Speaker 1: discussion of Okay, if you go to this school that's
Speaker 1: going to cost you fifty thousand dollars a year versus
Speaker 1: this school that cost fifteen thousand dollars a year. This
Speaker 1: is what that really means. Like in the big picture,
Speaker 1: it was all about just like going to the best
Speaker 1: school you could get into, and like paying for it
Speaker 1: was never really a part of the conversation. And um,
Speaker 1: that was really mind blowing to me personally, because, um,
Speaker 1: that's really obviously a very important decision to make for
Speaker 1: the rest of your life. Like if you saddle yourself
Speaker 1: with that much debt when you're eighteen, that has that
Speaker 1: has an effect for really for the rest of your life.
Speaker 1: And like in my case, um, I did get a
Speaker 1: partial scholarship to GW, but I still would have been
Speaker 1: looking at taking out like between forty and forty five
Speaker 1: thousand dollars a year or in loans to to pay
Speaker 1: for school. And um, when it ultimately came time for
Speaker 1: me to make that decision to drip out my admission,
Speaker 1: it was really hard for me to look at that
Speaker 1: and not be like, Okay, I'm gonna about to invest
Speaker 1: four years of my time and go into like two
Speaker 1: thousand dollars almost worth of debt to go to school,
Speaker 1: or I cannot go and continue staying and working on
Speaker 1: my business and actually making money instead of putting myself
Speaker 1: in debt. And it was really hard to like not
Speaker 1: look at that and you know, realize what the return
Speaker 1: on that investment was going to be and make the
Speaker 1: decision that way because I had kind of like that
Speaker 1: business mind already. But um, you know, I was just
Speaker 1: always shocked that like that was never really discussed with people,
Speaker 1: because I think that's a really important part of the conversation.
Speaker 1: That's a lot of the times missing. Well, there are
Speaker 1: tangible and intangible benefits to a college education. There's no
Speaker 1: disputing that. Um. The tangible again, it depends on how
Speaker 1: much you're spending on school, what's your major, is, what
Speaker 1: kind of job you can get, and then it'll a
Speaker 1: period of time, sometimes twenty thirty years perhaps to to
Speaker 1: get back that initial return if you're going to an
Speaker 1: expensive school. So again, those situations very case by case.
Speaker 1: You clearly did not need a college education or a
Speaker 1: college degree to run your business successfully, but you probably
Speaker 1: would have needed it to get hired by somebody else.
Speaker 1: So there's that system that's in place. It says you
Speaker 1: are only as good as this piece of paper from
Speaker 1: a school says you are, and that's that's still a reality, right.
Speaker 1: I mean, you couldn't have gotten hired to be a
Speaker 1: CEO or CFO or anything else at a company like
Speaker 1: yours if you didn't have that piece of paper, Yeah
Speaker 1: for sure. And you know that was always kind of
Speaker 1: like part of the risk I was taking and deciding
Speaker 1: not to go to school was you know, Um, there
Speaker 1: was kind of always this question of like, you know,
Speaker 1: if something happens in the business fails, like what do
Speaker 1: I do then? Because then I was going to be
Speaker 1: in a position where I didn't have a degree. So
Speaker 1: stress about that I keep you up. I mean, you're
Speaker 1: you're full charging, theors are going great for the business.
Speaker 1: Behave things change fast in business? Yeah for sure. I
Speaker 1: mean not anymore now I'm kind of like beyond that point.
Speaker 1: But um, you know, in the in the first few
Speaker 1: years after I made that, just that decision, that was
Speaker 1: like a very scary thing, um, because anything can happen. Um.
Speaker 1: And you know, now we we've been in business for
Speaker 1: fifteen years. We have like a track record, so it's
Speaker 1: much more comfortable now because it would be really hard
Speaker 1: for something to happen like overnight that would um, you know,
Speaker 1: dramatically impact business. But at the same time. Um, you know,
Speaker 1: you never know, and like in the first in the
Speaker 1: early years, it was kind of like, yeah, well we
Speaker 1: could have two really good years and then that could
Speaker 1: kind of be it. So that was definitely, you know,
Speaker 1: a really scary thing, especially because you know, I was
Speaker 1: only twenty at the time, so I had like a
Speaker 1: whole life ahead of myself, and I was there was
Speaker 1: always this question of like, well, what would I do
Speaker 1: if the business was no longer an option, like without
Speaker 1: having a degree. So you get Mark Cubans capital and
Speaker 1: his guidance. Things are going really well, and then you
Speaker 1: have an occasion to meet the folks from the Teal Fellowships.
Speaker 1: Peter tell most people probably know a billionaire venture capitalist,
Speaker 1: co founder a PayPal and other projects, and they have
Speaker 1: a program for entrepreneurs to either drop out of school
Speaker 1: your case, never go to school, and you get a
Speaker 1: six figure grant and you're allowed to pursue your your
Speaker 1: your vision. You've already got capital, you've already got a
Speaker 1: business up and running. But what about that that fellowship
Speaker 1: excite you other than the extra infusion of cash, and
Speaker 1: I guess the chance to make connections and me folks.
Speaker 1: Part of what was really great and valuable for me
Speaker 1: about joining the Teal Fellowship was meeting a lot of
Speaker 1: other people who were kind of, um in a similar
Speaker 1: track to myself, because it was the first time I
Speaker 1: had ever really gotten to experience that, Like I in
Speaker 1: my whole life up until that point, I was always
Speaker 1: like the only one that was doing things like this,
Speaker 1: and um, it's really hard to get people young people
Speaker 1: who were like in college to actually like understand and
Speaker 1: appreciate what it's like to be like running a company.
Speaker 1: Like it's just kind of like so different that people
Speaker 1: uh don't don't really um get it, I guess for
Speaker 1: lack of a better way to put that. And um,
Speaker 1: that was always, you know, a difficult thing for me
Speaker 1: because I was like, uh working doing this very real thing,
Speaker 1: and all my friends were kind of off at college
Speaker 1: and for a while it was kind of like, Okay,
Speaker 1: we have like nothing in common that we could even
Speaker 1: like talk about right now. UM, So that was that
Speaker 1: was a great part of it. And you know, the
Speaker 1: other thing about the Deal Fellowship too was they're just
Speaker 1: really really valuable connections, really interesting people to talk to,
Speaker 1: and um, it's so cool to be um involved in
Speaker 1: something like that. To see people who were doing really
Speaker 1: um interesting, impactful things and just so many you know,
Speaker 1: really really smart, amazing people, and um, it's awesome to
Speaker 1: be in a group of really smart, really capable people
Speaker 1: like that and know that it's all people who also
Speaker 1: didn't go to college. I always tell people when I'm
Speaker 1: gonta masked, trying not to keep unsolicited advice. But I
Speaker 1: loved speaking to younger people. And one of the of
Speaker 1: things I always try to say is it is never
Speaker 1: important to figure out exactly what you want to do
Speaker 1: for money, but figure out exactly what you want your
Speaker 1: life to look like in terms of structure, not structure
Speaker 1: being a part of a bigger system, with with the
Speaker 1: discipline that's imposed, but also a structive that many people
Speaker 1: find attractive versus being your own boss. Now, what's attractive
Speaker 1: about entrepreneurship to people your age and really people of
Speaker 1: any ages. You can create your own thing, and you
Speaker 1: can be your own boss and write your own rules
Speaker 1: in some respect. But everybody thinks it's far far easier
Speaker 1: than it is. I mean, if everybody could do this,
Speaker 1: start their own business, be their own boss, make money,
Speaker 1: never answered anybody. I mean, my my god, they'd all
Speaker 1: be doing it, but only a very few can get
Speaker 1: to the point where your business is Yeah, And it's
Speaker 1: an interesting and first of all, I have never been
Speaker 1: like a structure person ever. Um, I do really well
Speaker 1: with lack of structure. UM. And I always knew that,
Speaker 1: Like that kind of goes back to like taking all
Speaker 1: this time off from like high school and stuff like, like
Speaker 1: like the structure of high school was really hard for me. Um.
Speaker 1: And you know that was part of it too. Like,
Speaker 1: regardless of whether I had this business or not, I
Speaker 1: do not think I would have done well in college
Speaker 1: just because there's like so much structure and like I
Speaker 1: am not that kind of person. But running your company, now,
Speaker 1: don't you have to create a structure and a discipline.
Speaker 1: I mean obviously you know your days are filled with
Speaker 1: meetings and things like that, so there's a built in
Speaker 1: structure to running a successful business. It's just you're in
Speaker 1: charge of the structure right right exactly, And you know
Speaker 1: that structure also also kind of depends. And like the
Speaker 1: thing is, um, you know, when I started my company,
Speaker 1: it was really really hard in the beginning. Um, Like
Speaker 1: when we went through Shark Tank and experience like really
Speaker 1: rapid overnight growth, Like those were in the same times,
Speaker 1: and I was working like from like I'm not even exaggerating,
Speaker 1: So I would be getting the office at seven am
Speaker 1: and not leave until three am. I'd like go home,
Speaker 1: eat dinner, like take a shower, sleep for two hours,
Speaker 1: and like go back to the office again. And I
Speaker 1: did that every day for like two months while we
Speaker 1: were a good thing. You were young doing that sleep
Speaker 1: in a few hours or something. Yeah, um, And you
Speaker 1: know that was just kind of like how it needed
Speaker 1: to be to get through that. And you know, in
Speaker 1: the first few years, I had to, um be really
Speaker 1: hands on with everything, so you know, I would be
Speaker 1: in the office like working crazy hours every day. And
Speaker 1: then as time goes on, you know, you start to
Speaker 1: get a little bit more flexibility as you build a
Speaker 1: team and kind of move into and which more phase
Speaker 1: of growth. So now we're to the point where I'm
Speaker 1: kind of um on the other side of that and
Speaker 1: starting to actually like get some of the flexibility that
Speaker 1: comes with um, you know, creating a job for yourself
Speaker 1: and like being the CEO of the company and things
Speaker 1: where you know, if I want to, um go and
Speaker 1: do something like randomly in the morning on a Wednesday
Speaker 1: and not show if it work until noon and then
Speaker 1: make up those hours in the evening. I can do
Speaker 1: that if I want to, And like, that's kind of
Speaker 1: how I like to be able to live my life. Um.
Speaker 1: I'm also like not a morning person. I'm the kind
Speaker 1: of person that, like my most productive hours are like
Speaker 1: in the evenings and sometimes even like in the middle
Speaker 1: of the night. So um, I like to be able
Speaker 1: to just like embrace that and take advantage of when
Speaker 1: I like to work and be able to, like your
Speaker 1: employees better keep their phone on for those three am emails, now,
Speaker 1: I let that I have that same. We're all about
Speaker 1: the flexibility at Simple Sugars, so that kind of applies
Speaker 1: to everyone. And actually most people who work for me
Speaker 1: choose to work early in the morning, so a lot
Speaker 1: of the time, like they'll be working and I'll wake
Speaker 1: up to like a bunch of things from them like
Speaker 1: at like eight in the morning because they've all been
Speaker 1: like clocked in for way longer. And that's it's but
Speaker 1: it just kind of works like we work it between
Speaker 1: both of us, between all of us. So um, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's been Um that's that's the thing about it. Like
Speaker 1: you said, it's really not easy. It's really hard in
Speaker 1: the beginning. There's a lot of times where you kind
Speaker 1: of lose a lot of your kind of ability to
Speaker 1: have a life outside of your business for a while.
Speaker 1: But um, kind of once you get through that that
Speaker 1: initial kind of startup phase, you do start to get
Speaker 1: it back and kind of get a lot of the
Speaker 1: benefits um that I think a lot of people think
Speaker 1: they're going to get, like in your one, that really
Speaker 1: don't come until you're like twelve. Um. And that's that's
Speaker 1: the thing that you have to keep in perspective about
Speaker 1: it is like you're really in the long haul when
Speaker 1: you start doing something like this. It's not going to
Speaker 1: happen overnight. Your family. You have two younger brothers and
Speaker 1: their agendas might be different, their goals might be different.
Speaker 1: But I also have made the choice not to go
Speaker 1: from high school right into college. Obviously your parents were
Speaker 1: understanding with their situation as well as yours. But talk
Speaker 1: about that because it's not just now Landy is not
Speaker 1: going to school, it's it's the two brothers who Wren
Speaker 1: and people must be looking at this family, what is
Speaker 1: what is going on here? Yeah? Exactly, Um, Yeah, both
Speaker 1: of my younger brothers have decided not to go on
Speaker 1: to school, UM, at least right away. My one brother
Speaker 1: is twenty two and the other one is nineteen now. UM,
Speaker 1: they both have jobs. One of my brothers decided to
Speaker 1: um go enjoin the carpenters Union, so he's learning a trade, UM,
Speaker 1: which is a um, really good fit for him. Like
Speaker 1: he's the kind of person that. UM. He had a
Speaker 1: lot of trouble with the structure of school also, although
Speaker 1: for other reasons. UM, he was kind of like my
Speaker 1: example of like what would have happened if I had
Speaker 1: been in public school and been trying to deal with
Speaker 1: things because like my mom ended up in court like
Speaker 1: a bunch of times for him, like not going to
Speaker 1: school on time and not showing up for class and
Speaker 1: stuff like that. UM. But he's you know, he just
Speaker 1: found the thing that was really the right fit for him.
Speaker 1: And UM it's really you know, encouraging to see someone
Speaker 1: who's able to go out and do that, um and
Speaker 1: just find their thing and UM kind of like find
Speaker 1: what works for them and UM, you know, for me, obviously,
Speaker 1: it was a very different type of scenario. UM. So
Speaker 1: it's not like they were really like following in my
Speaker 1: footsteps or anything, and like looking at their older sister
Speaker 1: and being like, oh, well she did this instead of
Speaker 1: going to college, so that's what I'm gonna do. They
Speaker 1: very much found their own paths. But um, you know, again,
Speaker 1: like we're all very four ton it that we had,
Speaker 1: um parents who were receptive to that and didn't like
Speaker 1: have um kind of like that pressure of like you
Speaker 1: have to go to school, that's the only option. Um.
Speaker 1: But you know, I think that's true for for very
Speaker 1: many people. Like obviously there's some people that college is
Speaker 1: fit for. I'm not ever gonna, um, you know, say
Speaker 1: that it's not right for anyone, But there's also a
Speaker 1: lot of people who it's really not right for, and
Speaker 1: the expectation is that that's going to be the only thing. Um.
Speaker 1: And it's also like, you know, you're kind of looked
Speaker 1: down on if you decide not to go to college.
Speaker 1: It's like that's a bad option, which isn't always true
Speaker 1: because you know, like in the case of my brother,
Speaker 1: for example, he is working. He's not going to have
Speaker 1: any school debt, and um, he's gonna you know be
Speaker 1: in a position to like make really good money when
Speaker 1: he's done with like his training program. So that's really
Speaker 1: not a bad choice to make, especially when you consider
Speaker 1: the fact that you know there are people who have
Speaker 1: to go into really significant debt that they'll have to
Speaker 1: pay off for the rest of their life just to
Speaker 1: be able to go to school. And more importantly, beyond
Speaker 1: the money, he may have found something he's passionate about,
Speaker 1: that he enjoys doing to create, and that's really what
Speaker 1: it's about. It's there's so many considerations other than is
Speaker 1: this a smart financial decision? It says, are you going
Speaker 1: to be happy continuing on that tread and then going
Speaker 1: in from the treadmill of college for the treadmill of
Speaker 1: the world where the expectations are very rigid, and listen,
Speaker 1: if you can find something that you love to do
Speaker 1: and you're passionate about, and it doesn't have to be
Speaker 1: for life, but at the moment, and that that's that's
Speaker 1: the smart choice. Happy, This is the smart choice exactly.
Speaker 1: That's always the most important thing is finding something that
Speaker 1: you're going to enjoy and that's gonna make you happy.
Speaker 1: And if that if the past to get to that
Speaker 1: thing is not college, then you shouldn't go to college. Well,
Speaker 1: you're an inspiration to a lot of girls who maybe
Speaker 1: have been told it's not possible, you're crazy, not a
Speaker 1: smart choice. The odds are long. You heard all those
Speaker 1: things many, many, many times, and you know the odds
Speaker 1: are long, but you have what it takes to to
Speaker 1: get there. And I think that mess which is important,
Speaker 1: that if you work hard enough and it's a good
Speaker 1: fit for you, it is possible. Yeah. Well the thing
Speaker 1: too is, like, you know, when I first started doing this,
Speaker 1: when I was eleven, like there was nothing like really
Speaker 1: particularly exceptional about me. And like I don't say that
Speaker 1: to be like derogatory about myself. I just say that
Speaker 1: to me, Like no one I wasn't. I didn't have
Speaker 1: parents who had like money to fund my business. I
Speaker 1: didn't have parents who had experience like growing their own
Speaker 1: businesses before. Like there was really nothing, um that was
Speaker 1: that was there at that point to like make you think, oh,
Speaker 1: this person like really like has the tools to like
Speaker 1: turn this into a successful business. It was just that,
Speaker 1: Um that was what I like set my mind to
Speaker 1: and I worked to get to the point where, um,
Speaker 1: you know, I I learned the skills that I needed
Speaker 1: to be successful with it, and that was really what
Speaker 1: it was about was just working hard and like being
Speaker 1: willing to be committed to it and um, like I said,
Speaker 1: just like learning as I went along and uh and
Speaker 1: working hard. But that was really like what that all
Speaker 1: came down to, And what that means is that anyone
Speaker 1: can really do it. Like there was nothing special about
Speaker 1: me that kind of gave me a leg up on that.
Speaker 1: It was all just things I worked for. It goes
Speaker 1: without saying that you couldn't have foreseen fifteen years ago
Speaker 1: when you're eleven in your mom's kitchen where you go now,
Speaker 1: But what would you say to that girl who's eleven
Speaker 1: years old kind of just trying to solve her own
Speaker 1: skin problem about the whirlwind that you've you've experienced less
Speaker 1: fifteen years. What would your message to her be? Oh
Speaker 1: my gosh, that's difficult. I guess my message would just
Speaker 1: be get ready for for quite an adventure, UM and
Speaker 1: you know, just just to like not be afraid of
Speaker 1: where it's going to take you, UM, because I think
Speaker 1: that's scary. Sometimes it's scary when you like try to
Speaker 1: think about, you know, where you want to end up
Speaker 1: and you don't really have an answer for that. Um.
Speaker 1: But also sometimes with the best things it's hard to
Speaker 1: have that answer. Sometimes you just kind of have to
Speaker 1: go along for the ride, and and by that I
Speaker 1: mean obviously you're working hard at the same time. It's
Speaker 1: not like it's just like taking you for a ride.
Speaker 1: But sometimes you just kind of have to follow it
Speaker 1: and see where you end up. To me, that is
Speaker 1: wise because there's so much focused by young people on
Speaker 1: their distant future, not the day to day growth and
Speaker 1: improvement to create the future that they want. Landy's future
Speaker 1: certainly appears to be very bright. Recently, Mark Cuban said
Speaker 1: in an interview that Simple Sugars has been the most
Speaker 1: successful investment he's made in his time on Shark Tank.
Speaker 1: That is some high praise for Landy Lazari and her
Speaker 1: chosen path. To check out her wide range of impressive products,
Speaker 1: visit simple Sugars skincare dot com. Next up, you've got
Speaker 1: Eric Abrons. He's a twenty one year old from New
Speaker 1: York City who was a talented basketball player. Girl want
Speaker 1: a very dedicated to it. Always hoped to play college basketball,
Speaker 1: maybe at a powerhouse like Duke. Then late in high
Speaker 1: school he shifted his attention away from hoops, decided college
Speaker 1: wasn't going to be in his future. He did go
Speaker 1: for a semester to sort of sample the experience, but
Speaker 1: knowing he wasn't going to stay. Eric has some very
Speaker 1: firm opinions on college. I suspect when you listen to
Speaker 1: this a lot of you're gonna be shaking your heads.
Speaker 1: Many of you also nodding your heads in agreement. Might
Speaker 1: depend on what generation you're from. This is a different
Speaker 1: sounding conversation from others in this podcast. I should explain
Speaker 1: the tone here is pretty blunt and direct. That's because
Speaker 1: I know Eric well. You grew up in the same
Speaker 1: neighborhood in New York that Jennifer and I lived in
Speaker 1: for a long time. We've had plenty of conversations, occasionally
Speaker 1: very spirited debates. I will challenge him, he will challenge me.
Speaker 1: But we're friends and we continue to learn from each other.
Speaker 1: This segment is about Eric's experiences and his views. One
Speaker 1: of the words you use to describe yourself is dropout.
Speaker 1: Why because it's straightforward. I don't like to dance around
Speaker 1: that I'm taking a leap year or I'm taking time off.
Speaker 1: That's the way that I looked at it. I'm dropping
Speaker 1: out of school. I'm dropping out of the conventional path
Speaker 1: that most people are on. And so rather than try
Speaker 1: to sugarcoat it or make it sound better so that
Speaker 1: it's more socially acceptable, I just want to be transparent
Speaker 1: and honest with people and myself. Even it's a label,
Speaker 1: you know, it has a negative connotation to some people.
Speaker 1: You didn't finish what you started. You're supposed to finish
Speaker 1: what you start in this world. It seems like you
Speaker 1: almost where it is a badge of honor? Or is
Speaker 1: it the label you use because it's going to provoke
Speaker 1: questions and maybe a conversation. Yeah, I think it's more
Speaker 1: to provoke people to think more about maybe what they're doing,
Speaker 1: because I, if anything, being myself fully and doing something
Speaker 1: that most people aren't going to do and even look
Speaker 1: at me maybe weirdly, or like, why is he doing
Speaker 1: this when he had the opportunity he was in school
Speaker 1: and he left. Why do that? And so it's more
Speaker 1: to get people to think about what other options are there,
Speaker 1: what other paths are there, and how can I live
Speaker 1: my life without having to do things in the structured way?
Speaker 1: And so I think that's that's somewhat of the approach.
Speaker 1: And you know, I just like to be confident and
Speaker 1: just say like, yeah, I dropped that up school and
Speaker 1: I'm happy with that decision. And you know, for me,
Speaker 1: that's one of the greatest decisions I've made in my life.
Speaker 1: You know, at this point at least, Yeah, we'll get
Speaker 1: into all that and what you do to educate yourself
Speaker 1: in a non traditional way. You're going up Upper West
Speaker 1: Side of New York, comfortable situation, private prep school. What
Speaker 1: were the expectations for the kids in that school as
Speaker 1: in terms of their future to do well in school,
Speaker 1: you know, and to go to college and to you know,
Speaker 1: figure out your majors and what you want to do
Speaker 1: in life. But it was like when I was in
Speaker 1: that situation, I was looking around and I didn't see
Speaker 1: that path. I didn't jive with that. Whynot because I
Speaker 1: didn't see myself in any job that existed. I didn't
Speaker 1: see myself in a nine to five path. I didn't
Speaker 1: want to be a part of the system. I really
Speaker 1: wanted to explore life like that was, I guess the
Speaker 1: main thing. And there's so much consumption in being in
Speaker 1: a school environment. You have homework, you have tests, you
Speaker 1: have all these things that are even affecting your self esteem,
Speaker 1: and you're comparing yourself to your friends and the people
Speaker 1: around you, who was doing the best in your class
Speaker 1: for example, like people people know that, and I didn't
Speaker 1: want to be a part of that, that system, that hierarchy.
Speaker 1: So what stage in your education did you figure out
Speaker 1: that this system of competition and high pressure and and
Speaker 1: having your expectations mapped up for you? What point did
Speaker 1: you figure this doesn't feel right to men belong here.
Speaker 1: It wasn't quite conscious, but I would say even like
Speaker 1: middle school, seventh grade, things didn't feel right. And for
Speaker 1: me in my school, like that's when we started to
Speaker 1: get great. A lot of kids got grades even earlier,
Speaker 1: which for me, I think that would have affected me
Speaker 1: even you know, more negatively, I guess, because then you're
Speaker 1: writing that system earlier. But by the time I got
Speaker 1: to high school, it's just I had more and more
Speaker 1: questions and I just wanted to pretty much do the
Speaker 1: bare minimum, Like I had pretty much academic potential that
Speaker 1: I had no business and fulfilling. That's sort of the
Speaker 1: way that I would look at it. Eric, You're a
Speaker 1: smart kid. Why do you not do better? Why do
Speaker 1: you not apply yourself? Why do you not try to
Speaker 1: make the most of these educational opportunities. You had to
Speaker 1: hear that, Yeah, I mean I heard it all the
Speaker 1: time from several teachers, and they I didn't really want to.
Speaker 1: I didn't felt I didn't feel like explaining myself all
Speaker 1: the time, and I just pretty much said, like, this
Speaker 1: is what I felt like doing. I I always left
Speaker 1: room for things that I was doing outside of school,
Speaker 1: and so it's like I'm only going to spend a
Speaker 1: certain amount of time on an assignment, on an essay,
Speaker 1: on this, and on that, because all the other time
Speaker 1: was spent exploring myself, working on myself, playing basketball, doing
Speaker 1: all these things so I could figure out myself more
Speaker 1: because you don't really do that in school. You're figuring
Speaker 1: out how to do well within that. But then that framework,
Speaker 1: you think, that's what education was at that level. Even
Speaker 1: these a high schools where the resources are the envy
Speaker 1: of the country. This is not a public school system
Speaker 1: that's scraping for resources and scraping for funding. Is supposed
Speaker 1: to have a high quality of teachers. No, and yet
Speaker 1: you felt like there just wasn't anything there other than
Speaker 1: getting ready to take tests and be educated in the future. Well,
Speaker 1: I think there was a lot of learning, but I
Speaker 1: mean a lot of it was memorization. A lot of
Speaker 1: it was they had an idea of what an a was,
Speaker 1: of what was and it's for example, like if you
Speaker 1: read a book, they had one idea of what the
Speaker 1: right thinking was, and so if you weren't within that,
Speaker 1: then you didn't get a good grade. And it's like
Speaker 1: there was no room to be outside of the box.
Speaker 1: That that view among your peers. Yeah, I mean I
Speaker 1: I didn't like it, and I mean my grades definitely
Speaker 1: showed that. I mean, I was a beast student. I
Speaker 1: wasn't a terrible scene, but I certainly was not a
Speaker 1: great student. You know, as I've said, like I pretty
Speaker 1: much wanted to do what I had to do. But
Speaker 1: even so I got I got a lot of shift
Speaker 1: from people, you know, like I people, uh even even
Speaker 1: even some of my friends, like didn't really understand because
Speaker 1: they'd be working after school and the library stuff, and
Speaker 1: I'd be like, no, I don't really want to do that.
Speaker 1: I'll I'll do my assignment at like ten o'clock at
Speaker 1: night and try to just get done quickly. So your friends,
Speaker 1: your friends, you're grinding on the s a c s.
Speaker 1: They're worried about what colleges are going to get into,
Speaker 1: They're worried about their next step. You're not with that.
Speaker 1: That's not your senior year experience. No, definitely not. I
Speaker 1: mean I felt the pressure, and if anything, the the
Speaker 1: pressure and feeling down at certain points definitely led me
Speaker 1: to become even more aware, to challenge things even more,
Speaker 1: to questions things even more. And that's when you know,
Speaker 1: I start watching lots of videos online learning about people
Speaker 1: who have taken alternative paths, people who had dropped out
Speaker 1: and how they had lived their lives, such as such
Speaker 1: as which people Gary Baynerchuk, I mean, that's like a
Speaker 1: huge name. Like he was one of the first people
Speaker 1: that I came across who was screaming like, you don't
Speaker 1: have to go to school, like there are other alternatives,
Speaker 1: this is not your education. He would show his his
Speaker 1: school you know, grades and all of that. He was like,
Speaker 1: I gotta d in this and f in this and
Speaker 1: now look at me, which is pretty much when I
Speaker 1: first started getting very successful investor in entrepreneur. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And you know most people would be like those are
Speaker 1: the exceptions, and I'd be like, Okay, well why can
Speaker 1: I be one of those exceptions. So you're senior year
Speaker 1: as different, but you do go to skid More, a
Speaker 1: private school, and Upstate in New York for a semester.
Speaker 1: So you arrive at school and you're taking this step
Speaker 1: that you don't really want to take. What does that
Speaker 1: feel like for a semester? I mean, it felt like
Speaker 1: I was exploring something that I could at least get
Speaker 1: a little taste of what this college life was like.
Speaker 1: And I'm definitely happy that I did it. I'm definitely
Speaker 1: happy that I had that experience. But at the same time,
Speaker 1: I kind of did the same thing in school. I
Speaker 1: didn't do that well, and I was working on a
Speaker 1: lot of things. I had already started my social media,
Speaker 1: I was creating content. I was doing all my things
Speaker 1: outside of school much more than I was inside of school.
Speaker 1: But same time, I got to pick classes that I
Speaker 1: was interested in, and I met some you know, professors
Speaker 1: that I got along with really well, like my psychology professor,
Speaker 1: who was awesome and we had great conversations, and you know,
Speaker 1: he pretty much told me when I told him that
Speaker 1: I was dropping out of school that you know, as
Speaker 1: long as you're not sitting around twiddling your thumbs, then
Speaker 1: go for it. I'm surprised that an educator would say
Speaker 1: go for it. He's part of the system. He was
Speaker 1: a very different guy. I mean he gave an open
Speaker 1: house speech and flip flops and a tiedyed shirt, so
Speaker 1: he was he was very very out there. But you know,
Speaker 1: the conversations we had were much more deep than just
Speaker 1: what's going on in school? Like who am I? Like
Speaker 1: those kind of questions like what is this experience to
Speaker 1: mean to me? Like I don't just want to be
Speaker 1: distracted and consume the whole time. I want to seek,
Speaker 1: I want to learn, I want to read things that
Speaker 1: I'm interested in. And you know that didn't really happen
Speaker 1: until I left school, until I left that sort of
Speaker 1: institutionized world and all of those pressures, as there's so
Speaker 1: many of them. So a semester in college, what can
Speaker 1: you say you learned in college that brief experience with it.
Speaker 1: I would say I mainly learned from observing, Like That's
Speaker 1: what I learned a lot, because I'm always someone who
Speaker 1: just walks around and I'm just like looking at what
Speaker 1: other people are doing, how they're behaving, even in the classroom,
Speaker 1: just sitting there and I'm pretty silent in the classroom.
Speaker 1: I never raised my hand, I never spoke, And there
Speaker 1: are times where I really felt like saying something, but
Speaker 1: I guess I just couldn't bring myself to say. It
Speaker 1: just didn't feel worth it to me. I would be
Speaker 1: in philosophy classes and people would be talking about all
Speaker 1: of these things, and I was just like, in my head,
Speaker 1: I'm like, oh God, I just I didn't. It seemed
Speaker 1: like all of these views were so conventional and socially acceptable,
Speaker 1: you know, even when people were talking about different paths.
Speaker 1: And at one point in our philosophy class, they were
Speaker 1: talking about social media and they were kind of like
Speaker 1: putting down that that avenue and I'm just sitting there, like,
Speaker 1: I'm on social media. It's kind of funny, but you
Speaker 1: felt like you had things to say, and something kept
Speaker 1: you from raising your hand and participating in the class. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, I it's because you knew you were going
Speaker 1: to hang around for very long. You felt like an
Speaker 1: imposture there. Yeah, I mean I definitely felt like somewhat
Speaker 1: of an outsider. That could have been also just a
Speaker 1: story that I told myself. And you know, there are
Speaker 1: many reasons why I didn't want to talk. I was
Speaker 1: in my head a lot. I've always been interpreted. I've
Speaker 1: always been shy. I've always been a quiet kid. But
Speaker 1: it's like I've lived in my awareness. I've lived like
Speaker 1: within myself almost, but it's like there's always a back
Speaker 1: and forth, like I've had that relationship with myself. It's
Speaker 1: like me talking to my awareness. And so I would
Speaker 1: learn a lot from just being in the environment. Sometimes
Speaker 1: sometimes a new idea would present itself in a class
Speaker 1: and then I wouldn't talk in that class. But then
Speaker 1: I'll go and I'll research that idea myself. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: so what do you do? Well, let's back up first.
Speaker 1: I want to ask the decision to leave. What was
Speaker 1: that like? So your days are winding down, you go
Speaker 1: home after a semester break and at the decision already
Speaker 1: been made, you were going to come back or did
Speaker 1: you decide after that semester? Well, there was one point
Speaker 1: where I was just like, this is not for me,
Speaker 1: and I knew I was going to drop it. I
Speaker 1: knew it was just a matter of time, and opportunities
Speaker 1: outside of school were starting to present himself and I
Speaker 1: couldn't really take up those opportunities if I was in
Speaker 1: school and then I had sort of spoken to my
Speaker 1: dad and he didn't want me to keep staying there
Speaker 1: because originally I planned to stay the full year, and
Speaker 1: then he just kind of said, like, I'm just gonna
Speaker 1: take you out now, like there's really no point in
Speaker 1: in keeping you here because I was, you know, I
Speaker 1: think I was starting to fail like a class or two,
Speaker 1: and it just wasn't headed in the best direction. And
Speaker 1: I was doing all these things, and it's like, why
Speaker 1: not devote all my time to those things that I
Speaker 1: was working on? Why not learn more outside of this space?
Speaker 1: Because I was doing that anyway. I was learning so
Speaker 1: much out to the classroom. I go home and read
Speaker 1: a book that wasn't that that was an assigned to me.
Speaker 1: I'd watched a video that had nothing to do with
Speaker 1: what I was being taught in in my class. But
Speaker 1: at least it was sparking an interest to maybe go
Speaker 1: in a different direction or go farther in the same direction.
Speaker 1: I'll circle back to that you mentioned your dad. Most
Speaker 1: people's parents would not react well to the idea of
Speaker 1: dropping out of a of a nice private college after
Speaker 1: one semester. Yeah, those conversations were already I had already
Speaker 1: had those conversations with my mom and dad because there
Speaker 1: was a point where I was like, I don't want
Speaker 1: to go to college at all. So even going to college,
Speaker 1: they had an idea that I wasn't going to stay now.
Speaker 1: I thought they thought that I might stay longer, that
Speaker 1: I wouldn't leave after one semester, because that's pretty quick. Um,
Speaker 1: But you know, my dad, my dad was pretty accepting.
Speaker 1: He he was looking into a lot of the the
Speaker 1: ideas of not being in school and how that could
Speaker 1: actually be really beneficial. And he saw that I was
Speaker 1: working really hard, that I was committed and discipline to
Speaker 1: actually doing something with my time outside of school, that
Speaker 1: I had somewhat of a plan. I didn't know exactly
Speaker 1: where I was going from it. There was a lot
Speaker 1: of uncertainty and a lot of unknown but that was
Speaker 1: something that really excited me. Like, I think they saw
Speaker 1: my passion, They saw my drive towards those things. They
Speaker 1: saw all the work that I put in and that
Speaker 1: I mean that started in basketball and weightlifting, but all
Speaker 1: those things translating translated to just you know, when you
Speaker 1: struck away the vehicles, just improvement just development, just seeking
Speaker 1: to know more and to understand myself better. So when
Speaker 1: the feeling arrives that that's it, that I'm done with school,
Speaker 1: I'm on this path. It's entrepreneurship, but self education, self discovery,
Speaker 1: whatever you call it, all of those things. Probably what
Speaker 1: what was the feeling like when the finality was there
Speaker 1: and you realize that you're educational process that began when
Speaker 1: you were barely conscious at four years old is over.
Speaker 1: It was definitely surreal and honestly a little a little
Speaker 1: bit scary and uncomfortable. But that's why I knew it
Speaker 1: was the right decision, because I knew that I would
Speaker 1: grow in that uncomfortable space if I accepted it, if
Speaker 1: I embraced what I was doing. And I did, I
Speaker 1: was so excited about it. But there are definitely times
Speaker 1: where I was like, I'm leaving the social world behind,
Speaker 1: I'm leaving my friends behind, I'm leaving maybe partying a
Speaker 1: lot behind, and all those things that people talk about
Speaker 1: life experiences. You know, you hear that your years of
Speaker 1: college are the best best years of your life. So
Speaker 1: why would I go away? Why why would I turn
Speaker 1: down the best years of my life? And that's because
Speaker 1: I just think that I perceived things differently. I wanted
Speaker 1: to see things from who I am, and I've always
Speaker 1: trusted my intuition, my integet it didn't have to make
Speaker 1: sense to other people. And that's what I wanted to
Speaker 1: explore more, making decisions that I don't even have to
Speaker 1: explain to myself, where it's just like, this is what
Speaker 1: my intuition is telling me. I know deep down what
Speaker 1: is best for me, and so you can show me,
Speaker 1: you know the stats of how maybe kids who drop
Speaker 1: out of college arnist successful. You can show me all
Speaker 1: the things that are logical and rational, that makes sense,
Speaker 1: and that doesn't really matter, that doesn't really affect me,
Speaker 1: because if something within me is pulling me in a direction,
Speaker 1: I've always trusted that. Like going from stopping playing basketball,
Speaker 1: I wanted to play in the NBA, as ridiculous as
Speaker 1: that may sound, Basketball was my entire life, and eventually
Speaker 1: I had to listen to myself. I had a lot
Speaker 1: of pressure to play college of basketball. For example, a
Speaker 1: lot of people when I stopped playing basketball were really surprised,
Speaker 1: like what's going on? You know you're now you're starting
Speaker 1: a fitness Instagram, Like what is this this is so weird.
Speaker 1: I definitely got a lot of weird looks. I got
Speaker 1: people making fun of me. Didn't think that anything would
Speaker 1: come of it. Like jokingly, I remember asking my younger brother, like,
Speaker 1: when I get to ten thousand followers, just a small milestone,
Speaker 1: and he was like, oh, like you won't have your
Speaker 1: Instagram And you know, I just kept going. I always
Speaker 1: just kept going. And Yeah, better to explain to other
Speaker 1: people or choose not to than have to explain to
Speaker 1: yourself your decisions. And you had had to explain to
Speaker 1: yourself and rationalize to yourself decisions to stay in school.
Speaker 1: It sounds like yeah. And I think that a lot
Speaker 1: of people look at regret as if if I if
Speaker 1: I do something, I might regret it. I looked at
Speaker 1: it the opposite way, that if I don't do something,
Speaker 1: that I'll regret it. And then I think that most
Speaker 1: of the things we do regretting, like are the things
Speaker 1: that we don't do. And I think that if I
Speaker 1: didn't make the decision that I made, if I didn't
Speaker 1: listen to myself, that I regret that, and that my
Speaker 1: intuition would slowly become dormant and I wouldn't be able
Speaker 1: to trust myself, and I think that that's why a
Speaker 1: lot of people get lost, because they trust things outside
Speaker 1: of themselves more than they trust things within themselves. And
Speaker 1: how is your self education going compared to learning in
Speaker 1: a more structured environment with a curriculum that's laid out
Speaker 1: for you. I mean, I could have never imagined where
Speaker 1: it would have taken me, because it's like going down
Speaker 1: a rabbit hole. It's like you explore one idea takes
Speaker 1: you to the next thing. And it's at first, I'm
Speaker 1: just watching a lot of motivational videos and it's a
Speaker 1: bit more mainstream, like Eric Thomas, work hard, you want
Speaker 1: to succeed as bad as you want to breathe, and
Speaker 1: you'll be successful with that kind of stuff. And then
Speaker 1: it's watching Ted talks, and then it's going into philosophy
Speaker 1: and it's getting into these complex ideas. But I was
Speaker 1: just so interested in these things and I started resonate
Speaker 1: with them, and then I started to have experiences that
Speaker 1: correlated with the actual books that I was reading and
Speaker 1: these people who had such strange lives, and it's like
Speaker 1: I understood the people that I was reading more than
Speaker 1: I understood people my age. Carl Young for example, other influences. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: just lots of people who who were so fascinated and
Speaker 1: studied the human mind, the human experience. Because I think,
Speaker 1: in some sense, a lot of us are in a bubble.
Speaker 1: We're in our own little world, and I wanted to
Speaker 1: get away from that. I wanted to explore life on
Speaker 1: my own terms. I wanted to explore this experience, not
Speaker 1: just a lot of things that I would talk about
Speaker 1: are sort of on the surface level. I wanted to
Speaker 1: go below this. But some would say that's what college
Speaker 1: is about, get out of your own bubble, learning from
Speaker 1: other people who are fellow students, their ideas, their experiences,
Speaker 1: their backgrounds which can be very different from yours. There's
Speaker 1: a lot to be learned in college, Like I think
Speaker 1: there's more to be learned outside the classroom than in
Speaker 1: the classroom. Not linear learning from an educator in front
Speaker 1: of a room, but student to student, a peer to
Speaker 1: peer learning, and you're you're not going to have those
Speaker 1: kinds of experiences. So some would say you're much more
Speaker 1: in your own bubble than you would be if you're
Speaker 1: in a college campus. Well, I think it's hard to
Speaker 1: learn when you're learning from a place that isn't grounded,
Speaker 1: and that's sort of what I wanted to do. Like
Speaker 1: you perceive and you experience the world, and you interact
Speaker 1: with others from your bigs like you're the center of
Speaker 1: your own world. And at the same time, in terms
Speaker 1: of socializing, it's like I'm in the whole world now,
Speaker 1: I could speak to people of all different ages, you know,
Speaker 1: I can create relationships with for example, like Dr Jaffie,
Speaker 1: Dr Russell Jaffie, who's like seventies something years old, and
Speaker 1: I relate more to him than some kids my age.
Speaker 1: So within college, most kids are your age, you know,
Speaker 1: one to four year difference pretty much. And I didn't
Speaker 1: feel that I should stay in college and risk so
Speaker 1: much opportunity just for the social aspect, just to be
Speaker 1: around other kids my age. But I totally understand it,
Speaker 1: and it makes it makes sense. It's not like I
Speaker 1: don't see the reasoning for how that's helpful, for how
Speaker 1: that can set you up for success in in some ways.
Speaker 1: But I also feel like a lot of kids are
Speaker 1: trying to get to know each other when they have
Speaker 1: no idea who they are. And it's like I hear
Speaker 1: a lot of people talking about how they come out
Speaker 1: of college more confused and more lost than they did
Speaker 1: going into college as people that yeah, yeah, I have
Speaker 1: those conversations lots of times. And you know, I even
Speaker 1: see some of my friends come back from from school
Speaker 1: from breaks, and I mean a lot of them are
Speaker 1: really just there to have a good time. And there's
Speaker 1: nothing wrong with that. There's nothing wrong with having a
Speaker 1: good time. But I think that a lot of people
Speaker 1: look at college. Obviously, you get to make what you
Speaker 1: want out of college, but a lot of people are
Speaker 1: that are just there to be away from home, which
Speaker 1: I definitely think you grow from that when you're away
Speaker 1: from your parents, when you're on your own, you're independent,
Speaker 1: and but a lot of it is just spending time
Speaker 1: with other people and and partying. And then school is
Speaker 1: like secondary, so to would degree, the education is secondary.
Speaker 1: You know, it's just one of those things again where
Speaker 1: this inner voice is like, this is not meant for you,
Speaker 1: and you know that that voice just got louder and
Speaker 1: louder and louder, and my relationship with it became stronger
Speaker 1: and stronger and stronger, and it wasn't always clear, but
Speaker 1: it never led me in a direction that wasn't that
Speaker 1: wasn't authentic, and like, that's more what it was living
Speaker 1: living authentically. What do your days look like in terms
Speaker 1: of your self education? And where does the discipline come
Speaker 1: from to do that? Because given absolute freedom, an absolutely
Speaker 1: virtual lack of responsibility will get to that a little
Speaker 1: bit later in terms of the company you've started, and
Speaker 1: responsibilities will begin to be attached to that. But without
Speaker 1: that structure, the self discipline to continue to push yourself
Speaker 1: and challenge yourself and and and learn things that are
Speaker 1: not in your lane, in your comfort zone, that you
Speaker 1: that you are not interested in, because part of growth
Speaker 1: is learning about things you didn't know you were interested
Speaker 1: in until you start of diving into it, right. I mean,
Speaker 1: I've a lot of the discipline and hard work and
Speaker 1: consistency came from other things that I had done earlier
Speaker 1: in life, and then I just had to apply them
Speaker 1: to these things. I would be in the gym playing
Speaker 1: basketball three hours after a school day, and then in
Speaker 1: the weight room. So it's like I was always committed
Speaker 1: to working hard, to to seeing a vision of something
Speaker 1: and working towards it. You know, just a small example
Speaker 1: being the skinniest kid ever, and you know, being playfully
Speaker 1: made fun of for it or whatever, and then saying like,
Speaker 1: I'm going to do everything in my power to not
Speaker 1: be that anymore, to to work hard, to be consistent,
Speaker 1: to be disciplined, to persevere, to block out outside voices.
Speaker 1: All of these concepts that applied to other things then
Speaker 1: applied to my life and I could I could take
Speaker 1: them with me. Um. And so the fuel from being
Speaker 1: bullied for being skinny and then getting in the weight
Speaker 1: room and changing that is now something you can use
Speaker 1: when in terms of diving into books. Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 1: I mean I had doubted my my smart or my
Speaker 1: intelligence in some sense because I didn't do as well
Speaker 1: in school. And you know, if you were an a student,
Speaker 1: you were smarter than the kid it was a be student,
Speaker 1: or at least that's how most people saw it. And
Speaker 1: I fell into that trap a little bit of times.
Speaker 1: But because I knew it didn't feel right, I was like,
Speaker 1: why am I feeling this way? Why is myself seems
Speaker 1: so tied into this? And so it's like I wanted
Speaker 1: to I wanted to dive into things that I was
Speaker 1: interested in. I wanted to have my own sense of
Speaker 1: self not be a part of what it was for
Speaker 1: everyone else. Did the pressure of those situations, those expectations,
Speaker 1: being on that that path that everybody was expected to
Speaker 1: be on, challenge your mental health? Did you feel down? Depressed?
Speaker 1: I mean so many your age talk about that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean I definitely got down at times, because I
Speaker 1: mean I had had some conversations. There were some friends
Speaker 1: who would understand my perspective, but for the most part,
Speaker 1: I couldn't really have I didn't have a lot of
Speaker 1: conversations about how I didn't think grade should determine how
Speaker 1: I feel about myself or if I'm smart or not,
Speaker 1: or predicate if I'll be successful or not. And you know,
Speaker 1: some people understood that, and some people said, but you know,
Speaker 1: you're gonna you're gonna go to college, right, You're gonna
Speaker 1: have to get a job one day, Like what do
Speaker 1: you what are you gonna do with your life? And
Speaker 1: it's like creating something people think is almost not doable,
Speaker 1: like it's impossible or it's only there for the select few.
Speaker 1: And you know, people don't think that the select few
Speaker 1: is you. You You know, they think that it's meant for
Speaker 1: these geniuses or the Bill Gates or the Steve Jobs
Speaker 1: or that type of thing. Um, But no. I mean
Speaker 1: it definitely affected me, but I spent so much time
Speaker 1: with myself that it only affected me so so much.
Speaker 1: I mean I I always had like this somewhat of
Speaker 1: an inner dialogue that kind of let me know, like,
Speaker 1: it's okay, it's okay, You're not stupid. You know, just
Speaker 1: the fact that you're questioning your smarts and you're having
Speaker 1: all these questions. To some degree, that awareness itself should
Speaker 1: let you know that you're not because most people wouldn't
Speaker 1: even sort of be thinking about those things. How concerned
Speaker 1: if it all were you about how this would look
Speaker 1: to other people, People would say, you know, I would
Speaker 1: give anything to be able to send my kid to
Speaker 1: a private school. Other kids your age would I would
Speaker 1: give any thing to be able to have access to
Speaker 1: that kind of education, not have to pay for it.
Speaker 1: And I have to bury myself in student debt that
Speaker 1: would take years to pay off. That wasn't your situation,
Speaker 1: and yet you know you walked away from it. So
Speaker 1: having to defend that choice in that context, is that
Speaker 1: something you have to do or pay any attention to.
Speaker 1: I knew I was going to have certain conversations, especially
Speaker 1: within family and extended family, and just the people who
Speaker 1: were around me, and some people like express their their
Speaker 1: worries that I was doing what I was doing, which
Speaker 1: they didn't really understand. And you know, I explained myself
Speaker 1: to some people that like, I have someone to play, like,
Speaker 1: I know what I'm doing. I'm not just dropping out
Speaker 1: and sitting on my couch and watching TV and scrolling
Speaker 1: on my phone. There's a lot that I want to do,
Speaker 1: do so much that I want to explore, and I'm
Speaker 1: gonna work really really hard. But to some people, it
Speaker 1: just wasn't even worth explaining. Eric is very drawn to
Speaker 1: philosophy and psychology. He's built up a social media presence
Speaker 1: around those areas on Instagram and TikTok, But by far
Speaker 1: his most ambitious project is his company and Be Nutrition.
Speaker 1: It's in the early stages of its growth. The company
Speaker 1: makes energy bars, small batch, all natural, pretty tasty by
Speaker 1: the way. The brand motto feed your mind, fuel your body,
Speaker 1: free your spirit. I asked Eric what drew him to entrepreneurship,
Speaker 1: harving my own path, like living my own life. A
Speaker 1: lot of it was self discovery. But then where do
Speaker 1: you go with self discovery? You don't discover yourself then
Speaker 1: go on a path that other people have taken that
Speaker 1: doesn't really make sense. So it's like self discovery to
Speaker 1: then carve my own path. And that is a scary thing,
Speaker 1: but that's what freedom is, the possibility to create and
Speaker 1: to construct the life that I want day in and
Speaker 1: day out. And you know, I was really into nutrition
Speaker 1: and fitness in those types of things, and I wanted
Speaker 1: to start a company. I wanted to start a business.
Speaker 1: And that's also a thing that you can at least
Speaker 1: then say to people when you do drop out of college, like, oh, look,
Speaker 1: I had this company, because when people look at the
Speaker 1: the exceptions of people who do drop out of college
Speaker 1: is like, oh, but they started this company. Whatever, Well,
Speaker 1: you know what, I have a company now, you know,
Speaker 1: in like a jokingly way. But I wanted to be purposeful.
Speaker 1: I wanted to be meaningful, and all the self discovery
Speaker 1: that I had done, all the learning that I did,
Speaker 1: I wanted to put that into my company. Ambi Nutrition.
Speaker 1: You bring a T shirt that said life as a simulation.
Speaker 1: I'm not going to go down the matrix rabbit hole
Speaker 1: and let you go off on that tangion because people
Speaker 1: would flee it. You've fallen after that, Yeah, you told
Speaker 1: me once that when you left the system of formal education,
Speaker 1: that's when you started to learn. What does that mean
Speaker 1: to you? Absolutely well, because before, I mean I was
Speaker 1: learning a little bit before, but I could then go
Speaker 1: full in because I still had to do some of
Speaker 1: that work, right, There was still this to me, what
Speaker 1: was trivial work that I have to get done. I
Speaker 1: had to hand in my homework assignments. But once I
Speaker 1: left school, for example, I started reading a lot. I
Speaker 1: never liked reading. I don't think I ever finished a
Speaker 1: book in middle high school or anything like that. Mostly
Speaker 1: it was just looking up a summary of what that
Speaker 1: book was. So if I got called on, maybe I
Speaker 1: could say something that looked like I read the book.
Speaker 1: But after that, you know, watching the video these videos
Speaker 1: and learning about certain ideas, I could then look up
Speaker 1: an idea and a book would come up. And then
Speaker 1: you know, I start reading these books, and I start
Speaker 1: hearing these names and these psychologists and these philosophers, and
Speaker 1: it's like all of these things that were already sort
Speaker 1: of within my mind and within these beings they then
Speaker 1: had names. They then had ideas, Like I'd be speaking
Speaker 1: about a certain thing or expressing a certain thought, and
Speaker 1: then it's like, oh, this is an actual idea that
Speaker 1: people explore a lot, you know, like self awareness for example,
Speaker 1: And so you know, I just started reading. I started
Speaker 1: looking into these people and what kind of lives they lived,
Speaker 1: and watching videos, like a lot of videos too, you know,
Speaker 1: because there's so much out there, and even podcasts and
Speaker 1: audio books and all of these things, and all this
Speaker 1: information was coming in, and you know, a lot of
Speaker 1: it actually made me feel a lot better because I
Speaker 1: was like, I'm not just this crazy kid who's going
Speaker 1: down the path and no one's ever gone down. A
Speaker 1: lot of people have gotten on this path, but that's
Speaker 1: not talked about. You know, those books aren't being shown
Speaker 1: in school, and you know, maybe in college and a
Speaker 1: philosophy class, but then there's only a certain perspective of
Speaker 1: what that philosopher was saying. But when I take it
Speaker 1: and I can see it however I choose to to
Speaker 1: see it, I don't have to see it one dimensionally.
Speaker 1: You know. Maybe a philosopher says one thing, but then
Speaker 1: I take it in another way, and then it becomes
Speaker 1: a part of all these perspectives that I'm trying to
Speaker 1: take in without solidifying an idea of what it is
Speaker 1: without being closed off to other interpretations. I do think
Speaker 1: that a lot of what college is is because it
Speaker 1: is a part of the the conventional route to lead
Speaker 1: you to a nine to five job, to live for
Speaker 1: the weekends, and so I mean, to some tree, it
Speaker 1: just keeps the world. It keeps the world intact. And
Speaker 1: I don't necessarily think that colleges are set up for
Speaker 1: our best interest, if I'm being completely honest. Why not,
Speaker 1: because they don't take into account the individual. It's not subjective,
Speaker 1: it's it's it's objective. It's the complete opposite. It's more
Speaker 1: like you have to fit into this box. You have
Speaker 1: to follow this curriculum and live within these confines and
Speaker 1: these guidelines too do well so you can get to
Speaker 1: a certain point. You need to build this resume so
Speaker 1: you can get this job. And I think it actually
Speaker 1: takes us away from ourselves, and it we end up
Speaker 1: building a character that is accepted by the world. We
Speaker 1: don't tell ourselves who we are, and then so the
Speaker 1: world does that. The world doesn't for us. And sure
Speaker 1: like we have somewhat of a say. But what I've
Speaker 1: spoken about before in one of my blog posts, how
Speaker 1: it's sort of like a chess game, like you can
Speaker 1: only make moves within the rules of the game. Do
Speaker 1: you feel qualified to speak about college and the institution
Speaker 1: of having spent a semester there we qualified to speak?
Speaker 1: It's like I have an issue with that statement itself
Speaker 1: that people think that you have to be qualified to speak?
Speaker 1: Is that not free will? That I can just say
Speaker 1: what I want to say. Sure it may not be
Speaker 1: accepted by some people, but those are probably not the
Speaker 1: people that I'm going to be conversing with anyway, because
Speaker 1: they're not open. And why enter a conversation if you're
Speaker 1: not open, because then you're not you're not willing to
Speaker 1: to learn. And I've never been about being qualified or
Speaker 1: credentials or I have this piece of paper, so now
Speaker 1: I'm able to speak on the subject and what I
Speaker 1: say should be accepted and should be looked at the truth.
Speaker 1: And yeah, that's just a way the people go about
Speaker 1: things in a way of life that I I think,
Speaker 1: if anything is is is harmful and destructive. Anything else
Speaker 1: you want to say on this topic, we haven't covered. Um.
Speaker 1: I just one thing I would say is that going
Speaker 1: back to school is I think a lot of us
Speaker 1: get cut off from the child self from you know,
Speaker 1: when we were a kid, and when we were so
Speaker 1: curious and we did have so many questions, when we
Speaker 1: did challenge things, and when the world was so big,
Speaker 1: and I think over time things become more and more solidified,
Speaker 1: more and more concrete, And to get into a little
Speaker 1: bit of psychology, it's like we become these these subconscious programs.
Speaker 1: We do things over and over and over again, and
Speaker 1: they become patternized, and we lose that free will, We
Speaker 1: lose that curiosity for life to pause to just look
Speaker 1: around because we're always moving. There's always the next thing.
Speaker 1: In college is part of that because college is one
Speaker 1: of those next things, and then college set you up
Speaker 1: for the next thing, which is a job, the next thing,
Speaker 1: having a family. And so I think a lot of
Speaker 1: life is like a checklist for most people. And it's
Speaker 1: because it's socially accepted. People just sort of do it.
Speaker 1: And I think that but the best thing for a
Speaker 1: lot of people would be too to reconnect themselves with
Speaker 1: their childlike self, with the purity, with the cont bousness
Speaker 1: that makes us human beings. I told you my conversations
Speaker 1: with there, I could get a little bit edgy, but
Speaker 1: we both enjoy that. I asked him, how do you
Speaker 1: imagine your future to be? And he said, I have
Speaker 1: no idea, and that's the beauty. He doesn't see himself
Speaker 1: ever returning to college or being employed in a nine
Speaker 1: to five job. He hopes eventually he can express his
Speaker 1: thoughts for a living, writing books and blogs, giving talks,
Speaker 1: maybe a podcast. For a sample of his ideas, you
Speaker 1: can go to at Infinite Seeking on TikTok and Instagram,
Speaker 1: and for info and his company A B Nutrition AMBI
Speaker 1: Nutrition dot Com. I'm so grateful to Lanny Lazari and
Speaker 1: Eric Abrons for sharing their stories and their viewpoints the
Speaker 1: next episode other sides of the to go or not
Speaker 1: to Go conversation. Two guests that took the more conventional route.
Speaker 1: We've given the opportunity for college. They took it, but
Speaker 1: they also use their time in college in very creative
Speaker 1: and fulfilling ways. Grateful to my co executive producer Jennifer
Speaker 1: den Syrup and adjacent Whitehelfer his Ederney Skills. Would love
Speaker 1: to have you give me feedback at Instagram at Chris
Speaker 1: Fowler Talk to Yourself