Passion Struck with John R. Miles - Drew Plotkin on Learning to Survive So You Can Thrive EP 376

Episode Date: November 23, 2023

Today's episode of Passion Struck with John R. Miles features an inspiring conversation with Emmy nominee and entrepreneur Drew Plotkin. Drew shares his extraordinary journey as detailed in his book "Under My Skin," where he explores the depth of his experiences, from painful past secrets to his ongoing quest for success. Full show notes and resources can be found here: https://passionstruck.com/drew-plotkin-learning-to-survive-so-you-thrive/  Passion Struck is Now Available for Pre-Order Want to learn the 12 philosophies that the most successful people use to create a limitless life? Get over $300 in free gifts when you pre-order John R. Miles’s new book, Passion Struck, which will be released on February 6, 2024. Sponsors Brought to you by OneSkin. Get 15% off your order using code Passionstruck at https://www.oneskin.co/#oneskinpod. Brought to you by Indeed: Claim your SEVENTY-FIVE DOLLAR CREDIT now at Indeed dot com slash PASSIONSTRUCK. Brought to you by Lifeforce: Join me and thousands of others who have transformed their lives through Lifeforce's proactive and personalized approach to healthcare. Visit MyLifeforce.com today to start your membership and receive an exclusive $200 off. Brought to you by Hello Fresh. Use code passion 50 to get 50% off plus free shipping!  --► For information about advertisers and promo codes, go to: https://passionstruck.com/deals/ Under My Skin: Finding Peace and Healing with Drew Plotkin In this engaging episode of Passion Struck with John R. Miles, the spotlight is on Drew Plotkin, a multifaceted entrepreneur and author. The conversation revolves around transforming life's challenges into a relentless pursuit of success and how Drew has used his experiences to shape his identity and future. Known for his Emmy-nominated work and as the founder of the skincare line Derm Dude, Drew shares his unique perspective on life, encapsulating his journey from overcoming painful past secrets to thriving in the present and preparing for the future. My solo episode on Why We All Crave To Matter: Exploring The Power Of Mattering: https://passionstruck.com/exploring-the-power-of-mattering/ Watch my interview with Ivo Brughmans On How To Navigate The Paradoxes Of Leadership: https://passionstruck.com/ivo-brughmans-navigate-paradoxes-of-leadership/ Catch my interview with Jacob Morgan On The Vital Power Of Leading With Vulnerability: https://passionstruck.com/jacob-morgan-leading-with-vulnerability/ My solo episode on Fading Into Insignificance: The Impact Of Un-Mattering In Our Interconnected Era: https://passionstruck.com/the-impact-of-un-mattering-in-our-era/   Like this show? Please leave us a review here -- even one sentence helps! Consider including your Twitter or Instagram handle so we can thank you personally! How to Connect with John Connect with John on Twitter at @John_RMiles and on Instagram at @john_R_Miles. Subscribe to our main YouTube Channel Here: https://www.youtube.com/c/JohnRMiles Subscribe to our YouTube Clips Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@passionstruckclips Want to uncover your profound sense of Mattering? I provide my master class on five simple steps to achieving it. Want to hear my best interviews? Check out my starter packs on intentional behavior change, women at the top of their game, longevity, and well-being, and overcoming adversity. Learn more about John: https://johnrmiles.com/ 

coming up next on Passion Struck. In life, there are times where you need to hit the gas and you have to stop thinking about well, I'm on a losing streak. Well, this just happened. Well, I had some bad luck the last few days, the last few weeks. It's easy to get into a rut or a slump. But the way to break out of that is that when you see a ray of light, man, hit the gas and go, don't drown in it. Welcome to PassionStruct. Hi, I'm your host, John Armiles. And on the show, we decipher the secrets, tips,

and guidance of the world's most inspiring people and turn their wisdom into practical advice for you and those around you. Our mission is to help you unlock the power of intentionality so that you can become the best version of yourself. If you're new to the show, I offer advice and answer listener questions on Fridays. We have long-form interviews the rest of the week with guest-ranging from astronauts to authors, CEOs, creators, innovators, scientists, military leaders, visionaries,

and athletes. Now, let's go out there and become PassionStruck. Hello, everyone, and welcome back to Episode 376 of PassionStruck, the number one alternative health podcast. And thank you to all of you, come back to the show every week to listen and learn. How to live better, be better, and impact the world. I also wanted to wish you all a very healthy and safe Thanksgiving. My wishes go out to you

and your families. I am also so excited to announce that my new book Passion Struct is now available for pre-order and you can find it at Amazon or on the Passion Struct website. Starting in December, I will be using my cello episodes to discuss different aspects of the book. In January, we're going to feature guests who I talk about in the book. If you're new to the show, thank you so much for being here. Or, if you simply want to introduce this to a friend or family member, then introduce them to our starter packs, which are playlists of our favorite episodes that we organize in convenient topics that give any new listener a great way to get acclimated to everything we do here on the show. Either go to Spotify or PassionStruck.com, slash starter packs to get started. And

in case you missed it, earlier in the week, I interviewed Amy Marin, who's a psychotherapist, international bestselling author, a five books on mental strength, and gave one of the most popular TED Talks of all time, a secret to becoming mentally strong that is more than 22 million views. We discuss mental strength exercises and talk about how to vote the unhealthy habits that can hold us back in life. Please check that episode out, and I also wanted to say thank you so much for your ratings and reviews. We now have over 25,000 of them globally on Apple Podcasts alone.

And if you love today's episode or amy's, we would appreciate you giving it a five-star review and sharing it with your friends and families. These go such a long way and bring more people into the passion-struck community, and I know we and our guests love to see comments from our listeners. Now let's talk about today's episode, which is one from the vault. Whether you are inked or not, I think we can all relate to using the concept of surface ink to go much deeper into who we are, what we've experienced, but also where we see our future selves. Today's episode is about just that that and reminding yourself that you are capable

of being the type of human being that you want to be in creating a no-plan B life with a relentless drive to win and succeed. But how do you unravel your greatest mystery in pieces of your biggest puzzle yourself? I guess today, Drew Plotkin discusses his book under my skin, where it goes through the roller coaster ride that has been his life and the painful secrets of his past, along with his own techniques and tools for continuously navigating life's never-ending trail of valleys and peaks. Drew is Emmy-nominated and founder of Belanche, the RTV agency, where he has created and directed award-winning TV broadcast commercials from major celebrities, including Jennifer Lopez, Serena Williams, Cindy Crawford, Ellen Pompeo, Wayne Wade, Kristen Davis, Jane Seymour, Paris Hilton, Drew Burries, just to

name a few. In addition, he's the founder and chief dude officer of the skincare line, Dermdude, which produces products specifically for men's beards and tattoos. They are the primary 2022 sponsor for an Ask Our Driver Spencer Boyd. Drew has also co-founded Global Mobility USA, a nonprofit that delivers wheelchairs to people in need. Our interview today is a story about learning to survive so you can thrive. It's about a real life human post-it note, morphing his body into his own roadmap of finding peace and healing with the past,

awareness for the present, and safe passage and wisdom for all that lies ahead. Thank you for choosing PassionStruck and choosing me to be your hosting guide on your journey to creating an intentional life now. Let that journey begin. I am so excited today to welcome Drew Plotkin on the PassionStruck podcast. Welcome Drew. Hey, how are you, man? Thanks for having me.

I am excited to have you on what a life that you have led. And congratulations on the launch of your new book under my skin. I'll make sure in the YouTube we have a nice picture of it. So the audience can take a look at it. But we're going to be referring to that book throughout today's interview. I know how big an accomplishment that is. So congratulations. Thank you very much. And then yeah, your book I'm actually looking forward to reading it, especially after we speak today. So I might be able to talk you into a signed copy. I could send you the gallery.

Okay. I'm still waiting for it to come out. It's all about how do you create an intentional life, which is also what this podcast is all about. And I think it's a great segue into your whole book because in many ways that's what this book is really about, is this intentional life that you've created through the many twist and turns that you call Rolla Coaster, which is the type of life most of us lead. I like to start out these interviews by giving the audience a chance to get to know the guest

through different stories, but I'll say it just like this, we all have moments that define us. You had a very unique moment. First concert I ever got to go to was Led Zeppelin, not that I can remember it because I was two years old, but I've never had the opportunity to go to a grateful dead concert. I've seen fish and I've seen a bunch of cover bands,

but when you were at Arizona State, you got to see the dead. It turned out to be a very different type of experience for you, one that I think you will never forget. Can you talk about what happened and how it became an out-of-body experience and what you learned from it? Yeah, it's funny when you say that I saw the dead. Technically, I should have. I don't know that I saw too much of them. At that night, when it's always easier to laugh about it, a little bit in hindsight, but I often say too, that in life sometimes you'll either laugh about something

or if you don't, you might cry about it. And it's often a very fine line between those two things. So that specific event, and it really did change my life, was at a time where I was really beyond lost and drifting. And I think a lot of people can relate to that. I don't think that's uncommon at all. For me, I was so empty that I think another thing that people commonly fall into is alcohol and drugs

and things of that nature and giving yourself a false fulfillment to that void. And clearly those things are not filling any type of a void in more than what's right in front of you for a few minutes or a few hours and usually whatever the issue is worse afterwards. In this particular case for me, I wasn't a particular fan of the band. I didn't even know that much about it, I believe it or not. It wasn't really on my radar. A bunch of bodies were going to see the dead, and for me it was one more reason to party and be stupid and do any of the things that were part of my life at the time.

It was just quite a bit of excess leading up to the concert. In the parking lot of the concert, the excess continued. During the beginning of the concert, the excess continued. They had a big memory of some of the various things that they're doing. None of them really smart. None of them, they should be mixed together or taken along. I vaguely remember all of a sudden just feeling like something was broken, something was wrong.

It was no feeling that I'd ever had any sense of pride. I'm going to throw up. It wasn't, oh, I'm drunk too much or whatever. It was just an out of body. I felt like I broke something. Like I literally felt like I was not within me. And the next thing I remember, it is literally falling forward and face planting, vag play literally face planting, bay play. It's probably still at least 10 pounds back then and like 240 today, but 210 pounds, six for four full base plant with nothing. In the middle of a concert of 50,000 people who are waiting and whatever, I remember slightly having an awareness being on a hospital

Bernabé, the Meals towards Namuelance in the middle of this wide open field of craziness and literally had that experience that other people have talked about and some people believe it, some people don't, and certainly if you went through it, you're much more of a believer, but I drifted out of my body very clearly. I remember it like it was yesterday, it was more than 25 years ago, about 28 years ago, and I was above my body, and I looked down and I saw myself and I saw the medical people over me and oxygen and fluids and IVs and whatever they can do in the short term, as you're taking you to an ambulance.

And I had some very impactful thoughts during that window, which may have lasted 30 seconds, maybe a minute, because Ed could take me from the field to an actual waiting ambulance. So it took a little bit of time, with thoughts that went through my mind then, really ended up having a very big impact on my life and, the positive way, I'm very happy to say, because obviously the way this event went down, many oftentimes in those situations, the ending's horrible and sudden and somebody dies, or somebody may recover from that event

and continues down that same path. But I was very fortunate to not only record physically from that day and everything, but I walked away from it with some key learning, some key inspirational factors that I was able to take from the really bad situation. Today's discussion in many ways is going to be about, and they're very visible on you, the tattoos that you have, but it's an interesting read in your book because whether someone is inked or they're very visible on you, the tattoos that you have, but it's an interesting

read in your book because whether someone is inked or they're not inked, I think we all have ink on the surface of our lives that tells our story. And that's exactly what you do in this book. I wanted to start out by asking you, you have something called no plan B tattooed on your left index finger. What is the meaning of having a no plan B mindset? For me, that one is just that constant reminder that I can't get away from. I'm often not wearing a ring and I see it no matter where I go.

And it is that mindset of don't give up. If you don't have a plan B, then you have to make plan A work. There's a lot of takes on that. I've often said that if you don't know what backwards is, you'll only go forwards. I look at life as walking the plank in the sense that there's only one direction and I don't want to fall off into the ocean. I'm going to go a way that's going to make the most sense for me. My father used to say, if you plan for a fire too much, he can end up with a fire. If you're certain that you're going to have a failure on your hands, that you won't recover from, that's where you'll met out. It's not just all positive mindset and everything will fall into your lab. You have to be willing

to put in the work and can't just say, I won't give up, I won't quit, I won't go backwards. That's a big part of it. That's the starting part. The part that finishes it is because I'm going to do this. I will do this. I won't have a plan B because here's what I'm going to do to make sure that plan A works out.

So that was the purpose of that time too. My life has been a serious thing as a lot of people, peaks and valleys. And the things that have always helped me get back to the peaks, what I want to be, but can't stay forever, is that when I'm in those valleys, I really look at those windows as best I can. I try not to feel sorry for myself, not the easiest thing in the world where I'm human, but I'm cognizant of that. And I look at myself and say, all right, what have I learned from the past? What has pulled me out of this valley before?

What can I do proactively, productively, mentally, physically, and structively that's going to get me out of here and then ultimately back to a peak? And a lot of that did stem from it, and really tied it together effectively, but after the Grateful Net Show and my whole hospital incident and all that, it was very shortly thereafter

that I got my first tattoo. And that experience of the Grateful Net Show was the epitome of me feeling so empty, so lost, so void of a real purpose or direction that I came up with the void of a real purpose or direction that I came up with the idea of a specific tattoo that by tattooing it on my body, I would not have the option of getting about it.

I felt so strongly about needing to make a permanent mark of what I was feeling at that point in time, even though I didn't necessarily represent it with the best imagery I didn't know much about tattoos or harder designs and many ways that the first tattoo is something I joke about myself But the purpose of it and the premise of it really stemmed from sort of saying going off a cliff But surviving which was that grateful dead show and then well the other tattoos Obviously have their own story and path. It's funny.

When I get a concert, depending on what time you type you go to, you typically see people dancing in one way or another, but when you go to a fish concert, I've never seen anything like it. It's like waves of people, all in the same motion, coordinated over 40, 50,000 people,

of an interesting sublime type of experience. You open your book by saying that you love tattoos, but you also hate them, and you're not a person who loves the pain that comes from them. But your collection of tattoos has now cost you north of 125,000. How have they become your pathway to intentional change? And remembrance? Yeah, probably, even since writing a book, I think I have about six more new tattoos.

It's not in a very short window of time, so my total sum cost has definitely gone up already. And the pain I joke about because the two things that just people always ask about on the service, or didn't hurt, which one hurt. And it's often for people who don't have any tattoos or don't even plan on getting any. It's always an interesting question that people have, and it comes up all the time. And then what did they cost? That's always an interesting thing for people they want to know about that.

I'm honest and say, there's an assumption that it doesn't hurt because you keep getting them. I'll go to the doctor and it might be time for a shot or something or then to take blood. But I hate this and it happens every time to nurse those. You don't like needles? Look at you.

I'm like, this doesn't mean I like that part of it. I like the reasons for the final effect I want the tattoo on my skin for us. As the pain is like a necessary right passage, so to say, maybe it makes you earn a little bit more. I have a perspective on that, but it's a very funny thing that people do look at some of a lot of tattoos and think, oh, it doesn't hurt him or he doesn't have the same nerve endings I do.

I can talk about the pain part all day. It is not one of the reasons that I like tattoos, but I do struggle like you mentioned the open of the book. I tend to say this book where itself it really did. It's supposed to take three months into 13, rewrote itself and I kept forcing myself to be more and more honest and myself and putting things out there until there were like nothing left.

I refer when you put yourself pretty much naked on the cover of a book with just your junk and your ass covered only pretty much vomiting everything out to the world as it is and a lot of the things I share in the book are things that I hadn't shared in some cases with anyone in the world and in many cases a lot of the more intimate personal things maybe there were four or five people in the world to be aware of some of the things in the books. When I started out saying, I love tattoos, and I also hate them. I didn't know if that was gonna make sense to people

and it still might not to me, it does. What it really means is there are many parts of them that I like for me, I'm a big post-it note. I don't see myself as a work of art. Tattoos are a work of art. I see other people's tattoos, which is very artistic. Mine, I like them.

They've been done by some great artists, and very happy with them. I just don't see myself as a work of art per se. I see myself as a big scratch pad. These are my reminders. These are my personal therapy. I'm a post at note, like you said before, no plan B, or having on my arm a necklace tattoo,

which was the Oro-Rongatamala gave me off of her neck when we gave her a free wheelchair. We were doing some nonprofit work there and this little 50 cent necklace that was hanging on by a thread meant so much to me that she gave it to me, that I just never wanted to forget it. So I added that as a tattoo. So that's my life story is really told for me, my roadmap, my hieroglyphics, my past, my present, and where I helped to go in the futures. That's my approach. The hate part, and I know hate's a strong word,

is I am the first person to encourage people to love the skin you're in. You're wonderful the way you are. You don't need to change anything. And I believe that about other people, and I want people to believe that and feel that about themselves. So it's a bit of a dichotomy that as much as I would like

to love the skin you're in, I think for some people myself in particular, the desire to, I don't even say change my skin, but share my story using my skin wins out in the love-hate relationship. What's interesting you brought that up because as I have talked to people over the years who have tattoos, I've grouped them

into three different groups. There's the person who has no forethought at all into it and just gets a random thing done. There's the other group where they spend a year and a half drawing a sleeve and then having this masterpiece of art drawn on them. And then there's the third camp, which I in many ways think are the most meaningful ones, which are things that have either come from a life event or a learning experience or something else, which is the camp that you fall into. And I've got a really good friend who is well-tatted.

And I love looking at his tats because each one has a different story. His back has this huge tattoo of a B17 bomber because his grandfather was one of the few people who survived, I think, 30 plus missions on one and was able to come back home. And then he's got a dial from his first guitar that is bad gave him. And he's a guitar player and others. Some good, some bad, some good memories, some others. But you look at them and it's you can see his life displayed all over his body. And to me, those are the most meaningful ones.

I agree. That's the category I've fallen to for sure. It's interesting. You write that when you find yourself drowning in a sea of dark clouds, you sometimes glance at your uncovered body. And how does that help not only to calm you, but to reinforce your core values? I think it goes right back to the categories that you were just talking about. I go out of my way to not judge other people's tattoos as long as they're happy and that's the most important thing. It is art and it's subjective.

I'm just not the person who walks into a tattoo shop because they have walkings available and pick a Yosemite Sam off the wall and say, let's tattoo that on today, where there are some people of very big category is, which is almost purely artistic and we're some beautiful tattoos, it's a bit cacular. I often say I wish I had more than one body because I see certain portraits of flowers and nature and animals and different things that I'm like, man, I would do that with my second body, my third body I would do this. And with my line of work, I know a lot of amazing artists

that I have the opportunity to work with. And some of them, people wait two and a half, three years to work with. And I could get a tattoo with them, but their style isn't necessarily right for me. It doesn't even I don't appreciate it. For me, it's what you said, which is that each and every piece is really first and foremost about what it means to me, it doesn't even appreciate it. For me, it's what you said, which is that each and every piece

is really first and foremost about what it means to me, how it makes me feel. And that's why some of my tattoos on my fingers are in different areas, are small and simple. This one right here probably took 30 minutes at the most, but it's Sanskrit. And it says, learn from the yesterday, live for today, help for tomorrow.

So that goes back to your question that those types of reminders, those types of posted notes are very helpful to me. It's not like I might be having a bad day and stop and say, all right, which one is gonna make me happier at this moment when I look around? It's more of a constant. It's anywhere I look.

It's a reminder and greet from paracles and something that he said that all these resonated so strongly with me. So it's not something that I only think of in the moment of need or whatever it might be. It's something that is always with me and becomes part of me and that winds into my day to day 24-7 philosophy, be it no plan B or tribe or tattoos about my kids. Those are things that I always want to be

with me and and remind me and one of my hand right here is a clock and the glass is breaking in little birds fly away and the clock is set to 7-11, which is for July 11. And when my oldest daughter was around seven or eight years all day, I really took inventory of myself that I wasn't being present enough. Mentally I was there, but I wasn't there the way I wanted to be. I was too worried about working, making money,

and planning for college future. And all those things are wonderful and good. And any parent in the world can get that and appreciate it. But there also needs to be a balance of what about today, what about reading a story to the seven or eight year old and what about making sure that you just stop and look them in the eyes and see what you know is amazing, but I've so much future light in them. So this was really time flies as my own self reminder. It's been helpful for me in many aspects

of drawing to be more present, not just the one that is intended for. Going back to your question of how did the tattoos help me in that way? It's collective. I say in the book also that if you get a Zen tattoo symbol on your hand and if someone who has road rage your whole life and goes about to snap,

I don't think that's too necessary in preventing from flipping out the first time you're a traffic that's probably a bit of a deeper process. But yeah, I was going to come back to, I think the child you were referring to is Zoe. And I was going to come back to that a little bit later in the episode. But I wanted to jump to, you have had a very interesting life. And at one point, you were earning four to $6,000 a week for fewer than 20 hours of actual work if I have it right as a telemarketer. And while you're doing that,

you followed five simple rules that served you as a role model at the time. You say that they not only applied to that job, but they applied to life in general. What were they? So it's funny. I can speak to each of them in great detail. I don't remember what order I had.

I'm in the book quite frankly. I can flip through. You don't have to go in order. That was specific just so I get it right. Because it was one of my favorite parts of going through it. Thank you for reminding me about it. So the first one, there's a sequential benefit to it is knowing when to go all in. And in life, there are times where you need to hit the

gas and you have to stop thinking about well, I'm on a losing streak. Well, this just happened. Well, I had some bad luck the last few days, the last few weeks. It's easy to get into a rut or a slum. But the way to break out of that is that when you see a ray of light, man, hit the gas and go, don't drown in it. The mind is such a powerful thing. And I've read all of these different articles and certain studies that people believe that maybe we tap into 5% of some of the brain's potential. Even if that's off, maybe we're tapping into 10 or 15%. There is so much that a positive mindset can do in the form of not just happiness in everyday life, but studies that have been done on people who are ill,

cancer patients, HIV, what happens when someone has a positive mindset or is laughing and doing things that make them happy. And how your body actually responds to that, and has a metaphysical aspect and benefit within your body. So that part's great. If we could all be positive and have that positivity and laugh and be happy all the time. The challenges life doesn't always point us in that direction. In many ways we get dragged into the other direction by our own doing, our environment, our circumstances, whatever they are. And that's where it can become very difficult to pull out. And when you're in a telemarketing environment, the reality is, yes, I was the most successful self-represident of, I think for the four 18 months I was there and I was making a lot of money and this was 20 something years ago. I remember dating someone at the time who actually

saw the money I was making and they thought I must have been a drug dealer and made my life to where the building actually was so they could see for themselves that it was a real business, a real job and I wasn't doing anything illegal to make that kind of money back then and in about 20 hours a week. And even with my level of success, 90% of my day of those 20 hours, let's say, probably 18 to 19 of those hours were being hung up on people being rude, people saying, oh, yes, I'd like to sign up with you and do the deal. I'll be right back with my credit card and never coming back, putting someone's credit card in and being declined. The vast majority

of your day as a very successful sales rep in the telemarketing environment is loaded, maxed out with rejection and what you can perceive as failure if you let it. And for me, it was all about having that right mindset, knowing went to go all in. And if 20 people hung up on me in a row, if 30 people hung up on me in a row, the people next to me fell into the normal patterns. They would get it sad, they would get annoyed, someone would get depressed, someone would get angry. That's when you would start hearing, well, FU2, Mr. John Hain and the, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm, I'm, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm, I'm sorry, I'm, that only got me closer to the DS. And if you believe that, it will happen. It's a statistical fact.

I always say that the successes I've had in life, and I've been fortunate to have quite a few of them in different businesses and fields, I was never the best at anything. I just was maybe too dumb to stop getting up. Every time I fall down, I just get back up quicker than anyone else, and I never stop. And the people I'd read about that inspire me

are not people who hid out of the park on their first venture or partnered with someone with a town of money and built the great empire in their scale. That's wonderful too. But the people who've always inspired me are the stories about people who've failed 10, 11, 12, 13, 15 times. Then there's 16th of the temple is going to blew everything up. And people say, wow, so that inspires you. Under 16th time, they had huge success and blew it up. I said, if they're first 15 times of them getting back up, it inspired me because it wouldn't matter. There wouldn't be a 16th time without that. And I come from New Jersey. Anyone who reads the book knows that. I'd refer to it as the Great Nation of New Jersey and some other things, but Thomas

Edison, the inventor, was big figure in New Jersey and some other things, but Thomas Edison, the inventor, with big figure in New Jersey history, and most people know him, the inventor of the light bulb, and all these wonderful things, and probably one of the most well-known prolific inventors in the American history in the world, where a lot of people don't realize it is to have been that successful. He also, by definition, failed more than anyone else in the world. And he was famously quoted as saying, I did not fail 10,000 times. I simply found that there were 10,000 better ways to do something. And to me, that is a winning mindset. That is about going all in.

What would have happened if after he failed a thousand times, he said, screw it. Light bulb's not meant to be. We'll just do shit in the dark. They don't know what they're not missing. A lot of these different variations, they flow into it, like one of the other steps that I talk about in the book that in related to telemarketing and life, I touched on in that, as well as gamification, which is really trying to take something as unpleasant as being hung up on and turning it into a game,

turning it into making bets against yourself, making bets with your friends or whatever else in a fun, unressed, lightweight, trying to set goals for yourself. I used to sit there and would look at the sales that I had done for the week so far. So even if on a Thursday I was having a slow few hours, I would add up the money I made already and maybe I was up $3,000 by Thursday maybe on a typical week. And I would look and say, hey man, one day through Wednesday, I made three grand. You guys like 25 years ago. And what am I going to do with that? What's going to be fun with it or whatever? Anything in the world to take your mind out of the mission is next person hangs up on me. And I got to tell you 99% of the people around me, and they were normal. This is the normal mindset of people in those types of situations.

Their mindset was, okay, time to go back inside from lunch and get hung up on again. I would literally see that constantly. I really didn't take much breaks or snack breaks around people for the most part because that negativity, which is normal, is so contagious in a bad way. So I would create my own island depositivity. And then you go from there and you develop this incredible agency and Los Angeles where you're working

with top brands, alistlists, celebrities, professional athletes, like to rubries and others. If there's someone who's listening to this, what were some of the keys along that way that allows you to create such a robust business? And what can people learn from your experience? That's a great question. And I will say that prior to that,

and we don't have to go into them, because we'd be here for three hours, but we're in the book. Definitely had several more colossal failures along the way before the agency. And what I talk about in the book is that I learned what we'll widely go with the word fail, F-A-I-L. It is not only that bad, but it's a good word, and it really stands for first attempt in learning.

And what I started to do when I really started to put it all together is look at things that I would refer to as failures or not a great window or something I didn't enjoy and say, what did I really take away from that is going to be in my arsenal for the next one and the next level? And I started to realize it no matter what the job was, what place I was in, man, I was learning such a valuable critical tools to take forward with me. If I just was willing to do that and not dwell on the negative

or what didn't go as hoped for it, but what did exceed my expectations, what made me stronger, better, smarter, more resilient. So when I got to California and there was a whole series of commuting, but, like I said, if you don't last some time to go cross, but that's very unusual experiences in LA. And it is that classic story when you just head out to LA

with no plans, no anything, no needs, no direction in your couch surfing. Some really interesting things can happen. And one of the things that really made the thing is difference for me in building an agency and starting to build brands, I didn't know the mantra at the time, but there's a saying that people use now, which is how do you be an elephant and the proper answer one by the time, meaning that it's so massive and so big. If you sit there and say, how am

I going to get through this? You'll be so overwhelmed, you'll just shut down. And I really, in LA, adapted a mindset of one foot in front of the other that any one step forward was huge. It was a step that wasn't backwards. It was a step that was forward. It was in the right direction. And I started small. From my very first attempt at doing a commercial

or a semi-commercial, I didn't even have a digital camera. I talk about it in the book that I'm way to the shoot, pulling into a mall in California and maxing out three credit cards to buy digital cameras so I can fulfill the shoot that I already signed up and accepted the job to go shoot and do. So that part of my world was I would, one, a lot of self teaching and resilience, but two, the most important thing that I did is I was very fortunate but aware to always surround myself with people who were smarter than me, more skilled than me, better than me, anything and everything I can do. And it really became, but another

mantra of mine, which, especially as an agency grew and businesses, started to evolve and get bigger. And you had money and budgets to hire people and then six fingers salaries and more and you're spending more and you can track more talent. And my take was always that I wanted to make sure I was always released by my own standard, the dumbest person in the room. I didn't want to hire someone in the digital world to find new and more about in the room. I didn't want to hire someone in the digital world to find new and more about them in digital. I didn't want to hire someone to shoot video

or edit or do graphics if I knew more or even close to what they know. That would be redundant, that would be silly. And the reality is it's something that a lot of people do that holds them back. It's an insecurity. It's the need to feel like you're always in control and they're more than everybody else,

then building a company and then paying staff is a pretty stupid thing to do. If you can do everything better than everyone else, but you'd be surprised how often people do just that, and they have a fear of hiring or bringing people on that might know something they don't. I'm looking for people who know a lot of shit that I don't. That's where the value is. And as I built up the agency, well, by little, I never went to film school, but I made sure that I worked with the best DPs.

And when I worked with someone, a director of photography, it wasn't that, OK, this person has the absolute best lighting in the world that nothing compares to it. Yes, that mattered. But it was, how does this person work? Can I learn from them while I'm on set? A gaffer, a camera person, the same thing, editors, post-production. I knew that I wasn't going to go back to school and learn all of these things. So instead of walking our ends of the sets and being the expert and learning my mouth about everything, for the first several years, I soaked it up.

I took it all in and that really was my film school and my education on those things more ready into storytelling at the time, but I had no technical background or experience really in that world. And as one thing led to another, it does start to snowball. And once you work with one stuff, I've heard it in Hollywood and said, been a machine-harding thing, it's funny. They. And once once you work with one self, I've heard he and Hollywood's been a machine hurting

thing, it's funny. They had been so you work with so much, this person wants to work with you and that person wants to work with you and it started to go in that direction as well. Yeah, surround yourself by people smarter than you try to be humble about it. And if your people look good, if your team looks good, if the output is good, then you look good. Doesn't matter what anyone else thinks, that's how I always looked at it. I don't need someone to say you did a great job to me. If the project is successful,

if the team is successful, it's my company. So that's all I need. Yeah, I love that story. And it reminds me of a mentor of mine Who was my physics teacher when I was in college and she went on to become an astronaut and One of her messages is you've got to permit yourself to dream the dream and she gets upset at a lot of the younger Generations now because she feels often anytime they run into Failure they confront something that becomes too difficult, they give up, and she talks about through her life, she knew what it was gonna take to be an astronaut and that the path was not an easy one.

She was the first female at the Naval Academy to ever become one, but what she gave herself was the permission to take constant action, and she would fail constantly, but she learned from it and continue down the path. And as you said, it had a snowball effect to eventually propelling her to achieving that. So I think there's a ton of things that you can learn from that. And one of the common topics that comes up again and again on this podcast, and we've had a lot of behavioral scientists and psychologists on it is the power of the intentional choices

that we make every single day. And you brought up one of the most important ones. And Robin Sharma was recently on the show. And he said, if you're in a neighborhood or in a town where you find yourself being the smartest person in that town, it's time to move. And I think you brought up a great illustration when I was in Fortune 50 companies, this senior executive, it was shocking to me how many of my peers

refused to hire people who were smarter or potentially more talented than them. And I just did the opposite. I figured if they propel their career, maybe they'll take me with them, but if not, I'm going to learn a heck of a lot from them, but more importantly, the productivity of our unit is going to increase, and they're going to be a great mentor to other people, and it's going to enhance everything overall. But I don't think you can allow yourself to feel threatened by that, and some glad you brought that up as well. It shows that you have confidence, and a lot of people don't. You're secure about yourself. But you brought up, you reminded me of two things that I got to share.

One is, now I know why you asked me to open with the story about Arizona State and passing out a waste in the hospital because then you were gonna drop in that while I was doing that in college, you were studying physics with a future astronaut. So, it's set up. That was crafty.

It's not that one in on me. As soon as you said that, I'm like, oh, yeah, this is going to be, but you've brought up about yourself and your mentor and the becoming an astronaut and how difficult and how hard it was. It brings me back to not to dwell on telemarketing, but lessons that I learned there in grain that are part of every day life that have had the biggest impact on the biggest things I've done in life decades after toe marketing, which was objections, the woman who became the astronaut. Life is about encountering objections. I used this at one point, asked me to start training

the other sales reps. And the first thing I would do is I would have them chant with me, which I thought I was on drugs, and I really wasn't. And I would say, I love objections, I love objections, I love objections. And I didn't know what that was wrong with this guy. And everyone else's mindset was, they want to pick up the phone, dial the number, and have someone say, thank you for calling. I was waiting for you. Here's my credit card, you only make a good commission. How many people do real estate versus how many people do real estate and make a living at it?

You will meet so many people who can get their license and will never sell a house or maybe one house. Then you'll see the same 5% that are just killing at time and time again. Why is that? It's the mindset that if you think that you're gonna look for the lay downs, the easiest path,

well guess what, everybody would be doing it if it was that easy. And if you haven't figured that out by now, if your parents didn't teach you that, I don't know, you'd be missed out, but I would literally say to everyone, you are gonna have objections. If you don't get an objection, look for it, ask for it,

because it's going to come up, and if it doesn't come up, you can't get an objection, look for it, ask for it, because it's going to come up. And if it doesn't come up, you can't overcome it. The worst objection in the world, any business or anything in life, relationships, whatever it is an objection that I call the silent objection or the passive objection that you don't know about. Someone you're in a relationship with is upset with you. You can feel it, you can sense it, you're pretty sure, but something just doesn't feel right, but they're not saying it. What's wrong? Nothing. All right, well, either they're gone pretty soon, or when they let you know, it's

filled up and it's not fun. It could have been managed. It could have been discussed and talked out. Same thing to a marketing. Whatever someone was doing, whatever their injection was, as long as I can get them to talk about it, nine out of 10 times, I could then overcome it. I can't overcome an objection when I don't know what it is. That's when you just get ghosted and someone says, gotta go click.

And now you can relate that to anything else in life of running an agency, working with budgets and closing business meals and the seven figures, millions of dollars, of course. Well, you don't think there's other agencies and then people out there who also were trying to get those same accounts. I don't know.

But I remember when we landed our first T-Mobile account, it was the craziest thing in the world. I was speaking to some higher people there on the phone and they said, oh, wow, I wish we spoke to you guys a few months ago because you guys would be great for this, but we just signed on a new agency and I said, oh, wow, I wish we spoke to you guys a few months ago because you guys wouldn't be great for this, but we just signed on a new agency. And I said, really, you signed them on like it's done. They said, well, we haven't officially signed the contract yet, but they've gone through the vetting. It's been months to all senior, they've

been company team mobile. And all I could fixate on was they hadn't signed it yet. There was a micro percent that, and I said, well, what if me and someone from my team fly down on our dime to Bellevue where you guys are in Washington? And you already got here, other people, but just in case we say something, it sparks something, you never know maybe for the future or whatever, who knows, maybe they forgot to sign a deal.

Okay, but we just want to be fair, we've already made a decision. We just have no problem. All I wanted was that one little pen myself and a woman who still works with me today and it's been a very big part of all the operations and everything we do here. We flew down and I remember her saying to me, have you lost it? She was like at this point, like David. And we knew who the agency was. Big worldwide conglomerate. We were small, little boutique. So even if it was a lot of playing field, then they hadn't made a decision.

We were the David versus the Goliath. And I just said, this is team open. And this is the Super Bowl. You know, walk into that and make any type of impression unless we trip and fall and spoke offy on them. You take that shot, you go in and here's the upside. We can go in and throw anything and everything out. We don't have to sit there and say,

oh, I hope we don't say this because we could screw it up. Oh, better not say this because maybe we have it locked up, but we don't want to stumble. We pretty much lost. Nobody there even thinks that we're even a consideration. We got there that morning. The campus to T-Mobile was so damn big. I think it was like 40,000, 50,000 employees at that time.

So many buildings that as the Uber would pull around or the taxi, whatever it were in, and roll down the window and say, hey, building such and such and the employees didn't even know what building was, it's a city. That's how big it was. We end up in a room with all of the executives and the person who told us to come in.

And I think it was like 9.30 in the morning and we just started riffing and going because we had nothing to lose. And finally came up for air after, I don't know, 45 minutes in a row, we had some interactions in QA and they went outside to Huddled and my associate was with me,

said, what do you think they're doing? And I go, I don't know, maybe they're going to security. They're going to find the person who told us to come down at the last minute. And a person, I don't know, maybe the golden security, think it or find the person who told us to come down at the last minute. And a person walks back in the room and says, can you guys stay? And we said, for what? How long is it? Can you just stay today? We want you to meet some other people. You said some interesting things. We stayed the whole day. They brought it in round and round exactly those vice presidents, sea level executives of T-Mobile. And when we left that evening, they said, we're going to be giving you call tomorrow morning. This was a really fascinating day. And they called the next morning and they

said, I can't believe this, but we want to offer you guys the deal. And that became the first commercial. And it was a big thing for us to be doing a cellphone commercial at the time, but there was an opening and we took it and take your shot. Well, I'm gonna jump from that. And I think that was a great story. And I was hoping you could tell the audience another one. And that is when you and I were talking before this show,

I told you I have a friend of mine right now who's in Bali on a four to six week trip where she's doing a number of things from I think transformational healing and yoga and other things. But you took this trip to meet with a tattoo artist named Balaz initially and then it became a transformational retreat for you described as wounded spirit and soul. I don't know how I lead into this correctly, but somehow or another, you end up climbing a volcano in Bali, a day or so after getting this tattoo. And this experience leads you to find your personal passion to develop a product for better tattoo skin care,

which emblem is right behind you now. Can you just tell that story because it's interesting how I think these events in life unearth our passions and that it's never too late in life for this to happen. Yeah, I did know one of Belaz and met him a few times but had never been tattooed by him. And you look, any artist that only has one name, I think that'd be pretty damn good at what they do.

And I had recently experienced a really very hard, the tragic situation in my personal life lost that I was certainly having hard times coming to terms, but probably the type of situation you never fully do, but it was very open to some type of comfort, anything that would bring comfort to heal. And so I wanted to do a specific piece. I was familiar with his style. We'd been in communication before our schedules never hooked up. He's always in different parts of the world.

It was never at the right time. He happened to be in Bali. Schedules could allow it at work. I sent him a message about the piece that I wanted to do. And I shared with him the story behind it, which up until the book came out, this book, he was probably one of seven or eight people that I'd ever shared the story behind the tattoo and the personal loss. I had to do it. Suicide is very close person. And he was very into doing the piece and I flew out to Bali to do the piece. And the first day, I talked about in the book, it's, I was going to start designing and going through it, and it was more like tattoo philosophy and life philosophy and talking, and I referred to it as tattoo church,

but with the Kila, you know. And then the design did not stand in peace, that it was working from a concept that I'd come up with and loosely sketched out, but he took it about 10 levels beyond what I ever could hope for, imagined. Imagine then, yeah, he did it over the course of two days, a very elaborate piece on my chest. Two days of tattooing back to back is a lot of trauma to the skin. That's what tattooing is. It's trauma. I say in the book that the average tattooed, the needle punctures are skinned and he were from 50 to 3000 times a minute. So I think that hours and hours back to back two days.

So when the tattoo was finished, and over those two days, a lot of conversation, a lot of different practices, I would say, that were based in wellness and self-help and healing throughout those days and evenings, assigned from just tattooing. And I had the new tattoo, and I was like, great, I've got about 36 hours left in Bali before I got into the U.S. and I had to go to the world online. 36 hours in Bali and one of these things came up and said, go to Abu and U.B.U.D.

It's so, here's the things to do. All right, cool. And I called the cab and we got a two hour drive from where I was staying and ended up in Abu, in which by the way where I was staying and ended up in Ubu, which by the way ironically means medicine and healing translated in English, which I didn't realize at the time. And to make the absolute most of my time, I was hiking through rice fields, and I was doing all these cool things. And I was like, and I just don't even want to sit. I got 36 hours in this magical place. There's an active volcano that people hike called Mount Batur.

And to do it, you pretty much leave your hotel at 233 in the morning, pitch black. And the idea is to get to the base of the volcano. I think around like 4am when it's pitch black. And the whole goal is to get to the top of the volcano right when the sun rises. So it's supposed to be spectacular. So I started climbing, I had a guy,

my tattoo was maybe 18 hours old, and I was wearing the white t-shirt, and I really was so mesmerized with probably an amude. I actually almost forgot, but I even had just done two days of tattooing all across my chest. So it's also freezing cold in the morning because it's pitch black and it was windy.

So you're wearing layers and you have a t-shirt and scarfs and a long sleeve shirt and like a parka jacket and knitted caps and you're climbing. And it's not like crazy climb, but it's physical. And you're using your hands at times and you're breathing heavy or you're going uphill and it's not like a walk in the park. And all you can see in front of you is with a little headlamp, so you're not even stepping on unsettled gravel. And you're dripping sweat and all of a sudden it has them on the way

up. I'm realizing them, like peeling off layers. I'm like, oh man, I'm sweating terribly and I went to target my t-shirt and I realized my t-shirt is white. I couldn't see clearly because it was totally black, but I'm like, black out, but I could start to see it. It didn't look very white. Anyway, stuck like the blood and plasma that oozes from the new tattoo, it stuck to my shirt. It wasn't, so I'd instead of ripping it, I'm like, this ain't good, but I'll deal with that later. You get to the top of the mountain, a couple other screens that have crazy cloudy day, and all of a sudden the sun just broke through for three seconds and my guide grabs me and brings me to a location. It's

in the book we have the photos, it takes a picture of me and it just looks like I am renewed on top of the world where nobody has been before and ironically that picture of me mirrored almost identically a silhouette in the tattooed in the applause had just finished 18 hours earlier. And it was a silhouette symbolic of me standing on top of a healing tree of life coming from broken hearts in sorrow and that's an elaborate piece. But what was incredible is that tattoo of the silhouette on my chest and me standing on top of the volcano, it was identical almost down to the walking stick in the tattoo and the walking stick in my hand in reality.

So we put those pictures side by side in the book because still too out of body to believe and a good sample that cozy. That was great. Well, then I had to get down the mountain and the volcano and get to the airport because my plane was leaving. And that's when I was like, yeah, this is bad. It's day like in this white t-shirt is black. I was covered with volcanic ash literally. And I'm like, this is not good. Things that you don't want, and it ran new healing wound, open wound.

So on the way to the airport, I just asked the driver to stop in the town of a booth, which I knew was known for emotions, creams, halos, a lot of different cosmetic based products that people like and come from there. And I literally go into any store. I couldn't just grab anything that was like sooner than calming natural. And I had my carry on back, probably filled with 15 items,

like surprise them on the plane, and on the flight home, so I couldn't shower beforehand, and went into the restroom and cleaned up as best I could, got one of the hot towels, and started cleaning out the ash and everything, and I just started using myself as I began to bake, and my business soft, and this doesn't smell like it has anything

in it, and this feels natural, and this feels calming and hydrate. And so I applied those different things. Now, I didn't find a magic ingredient that nobody discovered. I suddenly don't believe those things exist after 25 years. It's getting care and I've seen all the marketing fluff and bullshit that companies like to say.

But what it did, because when I got back home, my tattoo did not in fact, it healed perfectly. So I was able to do a little long chemistry on myself. I just was bringing it, I felt in such a better place, mentally, spiritually, I was ready to move forward with life. And for years, we had worked on other people's brands. And I mentioned the book, we had sold a billion to

1.5 billion easily of other products, brand services for other brands. Big brands, and I was great, and we were paid well, we made good money, that was the deal. But I had this emptiness of a craving to launch my own brand, to do my own thing. I did it for so many other people, but nothing naturally fit. I didn't want to do a touch start. I didn't want to do a plunder. I did it for so many other people, but nothing naturally fit. I didn't want to do a tug start. I didn't want to do a plunder. I sold hundreds of millions of dollars of blunders for other brands. That's great. And most of the beauty and skincare that we've done was for women, women's creepy skin, women's wrinkly skin, crow's feet, hair bond, and color cosmetics, whatever it was. And that's when even though this was a tattoo type of thing I started to look around

and I was like, man, there's no tattoo products really made by real tattoo collectors tattoo people that I could find that I felt that actually had really good ingredients really thought out what someone with tattoo is like one. And then I started to just explore the whole men's rooming area and it's interesting coming from women women's skincare, women's beauty, women's personal care. I just looked at and said, I think that the whole men's area has been so under focus. There have been brands that were starting

to make some noise like man's escape than others. And I just looked at and said, really, this is it. Hit the gas. No one to go all in. And even though I started with one tattoo product, the plan already, before we even sold our first tattoo, single bomb, I was already in development on 70 from beard lines and beard products

and the odor and everything else and building out. I just, again, it was not a matter of people would say, okay, well, if you're successful with this, are you gonna do that if you sell a lot of this? And I'd say, we're moving forward. This isn't that past or fail. We're moving forward. What if you don't sell a lot?

We'll sell nothing, and we'll find another thing that we'll sell more of that fits better. Whatever it is, like it was the concept of Dermedieu, building out a men's grooming brand authentically real, looking at it from what would I want as someone about it to turn 50, covered in tattoos, always wanted to grow a big beard, but it was patchy and she flaky.

So I looked at myself, and the starting point and said, there's no real information. There's no product market that really speaks to guys, other than marketing, other than big corporations that take the existing products is slept for men on there and throw it in target because they think guys are just by anything without looking. And that's when the kind of light bulb went off and I just said for 20 years,

everything I've been doing in the world of women's skin care and beauty and personal care, that has been my education, my build up, my lead, and I'd work with top labs and formulators and some of the top dermatologists in the world over the years on all these brands. So I said, I'm doing this, but for men, and honestly, I never did look back.

That's funny, the down sales keep going like this, and they're 35 skews, and they have a whole bunch more to launch in the product today, more in the coming months. But I was as confident the very first day and we turned the website on before we sold the single thing as I am right now. And trust me, we didn't turn on the website and here the bells go off. We were not selling a lot of product out of the gate. We had a lot of things to dial in. And I can honestly say it was never, I did not have a fine date. This was it. Yes, well, I also love, I've listened to a couple of other podcasts you've been on, and I love the story about how you've made the marketing that you do about the product very much about transforming

lives in many ways and being just very authentic about what the brand does and what it doesn't do. So I thought that was a pretty interesting message as well. We talked to people in a real way. We have an interview coming out I think that we just did with men's health and they reached out and they've been watching our TikTok and they were just, they're like, it's just different. What is it you're doing? I saw them people the way it is and being honest with people. I had no idea I had a TikTok.

We didn't have any TikTok experts and marketing people on. I learned most of what I knew about tick tock from my six year old twins watching them on their phones, how to do things. And I was sitting right here one day, not too long ago, and explaining to a friend who dropped by about our block airline. And I was explaining to him, this is our happy sack nut love cream. It's a cool and cream. It helps with chafing. It helps keep you dry. It helps all these different things.

You can't have that material. And I was deocletched from natural beauty. And I literally was talking to a friend like a friend. And it turns out that we were filming it. And they put it up on TikTok. And I saw the other day, I was five and a half million years now. I mean, it was no purpose.

It wasn't scripted. There was no, hey, let's make a video about this today. It was just me talking to a friend. And that's how we do everything. It really is. It's a very genuine brand. There's no fluff, no bullshit. I just, I don't know any other way how to do it.

I spent 20 years working in Hollywood. And this was my opportunity to get away from any of the Hollywood fluff and bullshit. Well, we don't have enough time to cover all the great elements of this book. For the audience, Drew goes into, in chapter seven, his relationship with his father, and it colliding with Anthony Bourdain, he talks about his story of his daughter Zoe, which was very touching for me because my brother has adopted two kids from Haiti and before you get them, especially with the turmoil that was going

on in that country, you never knew what was going to happen between political unrest and hurricanes and everything else that was going. So I found that a really great chapter about how you live in the moment, and so many other things. But Drew, I wanted to ask, if there was one takeaway that you hoped a reader or listener would get from the book, what would that be? As odd as it sounds, I would hope that it's to be comfortable in your skin. And that doesn't mean that you can address it up. I became more comfortable in my skin. The name of the book is called Under My Skin. It was while writing the book that I literally came

to the revelation that in reality, the only way I ever learned finally and started to understand what was under my skin was by looking at what I had drawn on top of it. And that was my way of being comfortable on my skin. Your way is whatever works for you and everybody has their own way. So I think if you can look back and just realize that everybody faces the same challenges, everybody has the same issues. If somebody says that they're never uncomfortable or they're never insecure, or they're never sad or down about something,

they're either delusional or full of shit or they're narcissistic. It's just not true. Everybody struggles with things. Nobody lives their life up at the peaks only. Most of us spend our fair share time in the valleys, but I would like for people to take away tools to be more comfortable in your skin. To remember, as I say in the book, that I

learned recently that the race and everything you do is really only against yourself or with yourself. That's it. It's not with the coworker, it's not with the boss, it's not with employees, it's not with money, it's not with competitions, it's not with relationships, you're not competing with someone else, you're only competing with yourself, you set the deadlines, you set the goals, you set the boundaries, and if you want to blast through them great, and if you want to sit tight where you are and be happy and cozy that's great too but you're in charge of that and when you start to really let that sink in what that means you can be good with it and that's a nice thing. Okay well Drift someone wanted to get to know about you more and some of these products

sort of the best ways for them to do that. Yeah, the simplest ways are our main website, DernDude.com, so DernDbrm, doDUDE.com. And from there, you can hook up with all of our social media, you can buy our book on there, under my skin. The book's also available on Amazon.com, but you can buy it on our website as well, and you can get it out to you pretty quickly.

And so it's, yeah, all things through DernDude.com and then we have some cool stuff. But you can buy it on our website as well and we can get it out to you pretty quickly. And so it's, yeah, all things through DermD.com and any of some cool stuff. It's not just a business about buying this by this. It's a lot of information. We try to keep it just funny. And my belief that our brand belief is that it's okay to laugh. It's a good thing to laugh. And we try to be a reference. We have a sent to body wash. It's very popular on our website. It says,

life is full of assholes. And if it offends someone, I get that go to a different website that doesn't say that. Go to a different store. It's okay. It's America. But that's how I am. That's how we are. And seems to be resonating with people and then what. I'm really happy about that. Okay. Well, Drew, thank you for taking the time to come on the show today and tell your story. And like I mentioned to the audience, we touched on just the tip of the iceberg and a lot of the different stories that you go through. And I think it's a valuable read to anyone

and understanding how to better live in their skin as you put it. So thank you again. Thank you, Derek. Love it. I thoroughly enjoyed that interview with Drew Plocken, and I wanted to thank Drew and Jimmy Dwyer for the honor and privilege of having him appear on today's show. Links to all things Drew will be in the show notes

at passionstruck.com. Please use our website links if you purchase any of the books from the guests that we feature here on the show. Videos are on YouTube at both John Armyles and our other YouTube channel, PassionStruck Clips. Advertiser deals and discount codes and one can be in place at PassionStruck.com slash deals.

You can find me on all the social platforms at JohnRMiles. You can sign up for my work-related newsletter, Work Intentionally on LinkedIn, or you can sign up for my personal development newsletter, Live Intentionally at PassionStruck.com. You're about to hear a preview of the PassionStruck podcast interview that I did with my friend, Matthew Wine Tribe, a healer, psychedelic activist, scholar, and entrepreneur. Matthew presents in our interview his groundbreaking book, The Psychedelic Origins of Religion. In this interview, we explore the profound ties that bind psychedelics and shamanism, who, the tapestry of all world religions.

What's fascinating is the connection between psychedelics inducing a mystical state of consciousness, which has been researched by John Hopkins and measured, that most people reporting this phenomenon on them, I'm connecting to this higher being, this higher purpose, and this revelation that there is this other world beyond this. And then the other thing I would add to that is the law of thermodynamics, John, simply states, I have energies now they're pre-ordered or destroyed. So the question we I would add to that is the law of thermodynamics, John, simply states, I have energies neither pre-din or destroyed. So the question we have to ask about death is, really, where does energy go? Because it can't be destroyed, though.

That's a law of physics. So we need to ask a better question of, okay, so the energy is transmuted. Where does it transmute to? That's what I'm interested in pursuing as discovery. The fee for the show is that you share it with family or friends when you find something useful or interesting. If you know someone who really wants to explore what it means to live under your skin, then definitely share this episode with you today.

The greatest compliment that you can give us is to share the show with those that you love and care about. In the meantime, you're best to apply what you hear on the show so that you can live what you listen. Until next time, go out there and become Ash and Strut.