Shoes, Funeral Homes, and Rubber Bands - Steve Olsher

Well, welcome back. Great to be here. Again, always excited, I'm having a lot of fun. And I was just saying, I think if I'm still doing this in 5 to 10 years, it'll be just as fun. I'll still be saying, I'm excited to be here. Because this is really fun thing to meet new people doing a bit of this process that really helps me to live out that one thing that I was created to do, and this is a big part of that, I think. And so, the gentlemen I have with me here today, now I'm going to I'm going to tell you guys I'm gonna ask you to listen to this bio. Doesn't sound like it has anything to do with fatherhood. But I'm pretty sure from what I know of this man that we can connect it there's it all ties together because I think that's something that I've seen him doing is pulling everything together. So here, this guest here today is the founder and editor in chief of Podcast magazine, creator of Clubpod, found on Clubhouse it's the largest podcast group on all social media platforms. Creator of Pod Expo, the original chairman and founder of Liquor.com, online pioneer who launched on CompuServe Electronic Mall. Some of you are going what? New York Times bestselling author of the book, What is Your What? Discover the one amazing thing you were born to do. He's a real estate developer, creator of the New Media Summit, host of the number one rated podcast called Reinvention Radio, international keynote speaker and an in demand media guest who has appeared on CNN, Huffington Post, cover of Foundr magazine and countless other media outlets. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you, Steve Olsher. Welcome, Steve,

thank you for that I need I need that when I wake up every day.

There we go. I'll send you that clip. And you can have it on your phone. Well, you've done a lot of things, and a lot of it is pioneering work. And and I guess, you know, that's what you've done. And I'm hoping we can explore a bit about who you are, who's the man the father behind this? And how do these things connect. And so I wondered if you... maybe an easier way to start for you, is to look at the this book. I want to tie together the things that you've done with who you are, because we're talking about fatherhood, most generally here. So What is Your What? And I've read, I've gone through that, and I love it and found it to be a fantastic resource. So if we can jump straight into tying this to fatherhood, what, how do you connect that? And how does this? What is your what how does this relate to you being a dad?

Um, I mean, look, I think it ultimately boils down to the kind of clearer you are on who you are, and what you do. And how you go through life is just going to have a tremendous amount of impact on your kids, and how they view life and how they view their career and the things that they do.

Right. And so are you ... like, I presume you deliberately include some of the concepts from this book into your parenting? Style your conversations with your kids? Is that right?

Um, I definitely sprinkle it in, you know, I mean, it's, there's a fine line between having them kind of figure out their own way. And then, you know, just providing advice and guidance based on experience and, you know, teachings that I've garnered over the years. But, man, it's, it's definitely, it's definitely a thing where you just don't want to, you don't push too hard in terms of moving them in a specific direction, because, you know, in my way of thinking, our way is not necessarily the only way. So, it's, it's a bit of a dance for sure.

Yeah. Yeah. And how, like, can you give us some insights into how you're dancing, that dance?

We we give them now, we just gave him a lot of rope, you know? I mean, that's, that's the we're not the tiger mom and the tiger dad. And, frankly, you know, I mean, it's, it's challenging, right? Because you want them to succeed and you want them to subscribe to the societal norms. You know, but at the same token, they may just find that their, you know, their path is more effective and who am I to say otherwise?

Right. And so that's so as they're young. You know, obviously When they're very little, we do things for them. We show them stuff and teach them how to do things and so on. And so then there's this journey, where you, you begin to transition. Right. So now, I think your kids are kind of early. So first ones are hitting early teens. Is that right?

At? No, no, we got 19, almost 16 year old now.

Okay, later teens. Okay. Yeah. So you, you've kind of been through the first stages of that transition. And you found it saying that was kind of challenging?

I mean, I think every age has its challenges, you know, I'm not gonna sit here and say that, as I look back at, you know, any one age was more of a walk in the park than than any other? I mean, sometimes they're, they're cuter, you know, for sure. But, you know, it's, I can't look back and say that there haven't been, you know, great periods with each age and challenging periods, with each with each age, because, you know, there there has been, and there continues to be,

Did you have a sort of philosophy or, or an approach to deciding when, especially now, as your kids are older, like, we're, I'm going through this with some of my kids to write their late teens and how we decide when to give guidance, and when to just kind of watch and cringe, as they maybe make mistakes? Have you, ... have you guys kind of developed a bit of a principle or philosophy on how you do that? Or is it?

Yeah, we're, we're, we're kind of like, like rubber bands, you know, in terms of like, you can really just kind of go and stretch things, and stretch things, and stretch things, and give them a lot of rope and a lot of opportunity to, you know, kind of make those mistakes and not clean the room or not Do you know certain things over a period of time, and then we snap, you know, and then kind of lay it then kind of heavy, and till we get there, you know, get their get their act together, and you know, do what they need to do. And then again, stretch it, and stretch it, and kind of given the opportunity to do some things and we feel like they've gone too far, or they're not listening or doing you know, things that we need them to do. You know, then then we snap, you know, and it's just kind of like, it's, it's been that way for, for all of our kids for as long as I can remember. And, you know, I mean, it's, there's a lot more, there are different ways to do it. There's a lot of parents that are really hands on, and they keep control and just, you know, make sure that everything is done in a particular way in a particular time. And we're definitely a little more laissez faire, but if they get too far out of bounds, you know, then then that's, that's where we get a real impact.

Ya, for sure. No, I mean, you've said obviously, we have good times and tough times, at every age of, of our kids, and parenting the what, what was, I won't say the best, but certainly maybe one of the best memories, you have a moment of parenting that was kind of a highlight for you.

I mean, there's been, there's been plenty of them, for sure. I've coached a lot of their teams. So baseball championships, flag football championships, you know, those are, those are always fun. And those are, those are good moments as a parent to be able to share with your kid. My oldest and I have, I've trained in Brazilian jujitsu together for a lot of years. So just being able to roll on the mats and, you know, kind of do our art stuff, there has always been fun. And my younger son playing basketball and throwing the football around, and you know, sports, like things have always been really good. You know, but from a familial perspective. We've taken trips to Big Bear and you know, just been in the woods and hiking and swimming in the lake, you know, that sort of thing. The those sort of moments are pretty special. And you know, and then just the the basic Sunday dinner, you know, just kind of, you know, being around and, and having dinner together and I cook some stuff up and and kids you know, kids really seem to enjoy it. My wife enjoys it. And, and those are those are special moments too. For sure.

Yeah. Yeah, for sure. That we've done that family dinner routine for as long as we can. It's getting tougher now that the kids are older and no one's out of school now. It's it's hard to get everybody together. But it's been a it's absolutely a treasured time for us too. Interesting. You mentioned Brazilian jujitsu. I don't really know a lot about it. But I would imagine there's a fair bit in learning that. I would imagine there's a fair bit of sort of life learning in that, that translates into sort of everyday life that you find.

Yeah, for sure, it's, um, you know, it's a very hands on sport, you get, you get your butt handed to you a lot, I'll just put it to you that way. So it's great from, from a conditioning standpoint, it's great from a athleticism standpoint, you know, just, you know, just sort of the workout side of things, but, you know, on the, on the, on the mental side of things, just learning how to get back on the mat, learning how to take a loss, learning how to be gracious in victory. And, you know, and really humbling yourself, because it's the kind of sport where it's not necessarily how big you are, or how strong you are, it really has everything to do with the, with the technique. And, and that makes for an even playing field. So there are some people that, you know, I'm not the biggest guy in the world about 5' 8", you know, 158 Lb - 156Lb, something like that. So not not a huge dude. But, you know, I'm really able to go toe to toe with some, some fairly large humans, right. And so that, in and of itself, obviously, is, is something that, you know, helps to build the confidence helps to build self esteem for sure. And then, you know, passing that down to the kids and getting the kids in the game, both both kids have done on my older kid, and I was really stuck with it. But you know, getting them on the mats, and just understanding that, you know, if you if you practice and you do the work, you'll you'll get the results. And that's, you know, that's a life lessons and that obviously translated to anything.

Yeah, for sure. Absolutely. And you've I mean, you've done a lot of entrepreneurial work. I mean, the list that I was reading out as your your bio, I mean, that's, that's a lot. It's pretty constant thing. Which started when you were quite young. I understand. Your first venture may have been when you were 19.

That's why I opened up my my first nightclub. Yeah.

The Funky Pickle.

Where did that name come from? The funky Pecola. Exactly.

Where did that come through?

Yeah, there was there was a lot of let's just see is just a creative collaboration that was going on in the room. Is that does that name was decided upon?

Fair enough? I guess we should leave that there.

Yeah, exactly.

Fair enough. So this now this is, I mean, obviously, you're enjoy this entrepreneurial road. And you've just continued to do things in the internet related things, has been a theme with you, even though some of it looks a bit eclectic. That's been a theme, working with various businesses and the evolution of the Internet, which is obviously a central part of what you're doing now. Exploring web3, and so on. Does any of this? How does this influence your, your work with your kids? Or raising your kids in terms of your, a, your entrepreneurial spirit, but also your access to to the internet? And what's going on there? Are you finding that been helpful? Sort of educator or influence on,

Yeah I mean, I think it really just boils down to just showing that you can, you know, number one, forge your own path, but number two, also be creative in terms of what you do, and how you how you make a living from doing it. You know, there's, there's, there's plenty of folks who, who aren't entrepreneurial. And that works, too, you know, it just, it just so happens that for my entire kid's life, you know, I've been working from home or very close by to home, and, you know, really running, running the businesses and calling the shots. And I think that just opens up their eyes to the possibility of doing something like that for themselves. You know, and at the same token, they've also seen the challenges and, you know, they've heard when money is tight. And, you know, it's it's just one of those things where there's risks and there's rewards. But being online for a long time is, you know, certainly a common thread that ties a lot of what I've done together. And, you know, web three, I think is pretty interesting from a creative standpoint, and there's a lot of opportunity in that emerging world as well. You know, we'll roll out play in it. Not sure. But I do think there's something really interesting there. area, kind of across the board. And, and I think that's, that's part of what you know, the kids see as well as just a lot of different things going on. And in those different things going on, then they have an opportunity to just kind of figure out, you know, for themselves like, Where's where's the ways that I can I can potentially be creative or forge my own path?

Yeah. And have they started to enter into this entrepreneurial world at all? Or, or not yet, it's not seem to be where they are?

Yeah, the youngest definitely, as he likes buying and selling stuff. He hasn't done it. Too consistently like it, like this is something he does every day, but often on through the years, he's definitely definitely had an eye for things and buys and sells and keeps a pretty good pulse on like, the, like, the sneaker market specifically. But also with clothes and and other things. So he's got to get a pretty good eye for what people want. And, and so yeah, he's definitely done some buying and selling. Yeah, that is,

Well, and as you said, brings in, it's just part of that creativity, and it's one application of it, obviously, not the only one. Yeah. So that's, that's nice to see that that's, they're willing to explore like that

It is a bit of a double edged sword, though, too, because, you know, the kids probably don't take school as seriously as, as others, you know, because they, they see that it's possible to, and I'm educated, I have an MBA. But they also are realists too, in terms of, you know, we talk quite extensively about just what's going on in the world. And, you know, they're not blind to the fact that you don't necessarily have to have that that formal education nowadays, in order to do things from an entrepreneurial standpoint, or to, you know, to buy and sell or make money. And, you know, that's, that's challenging. You know, it's hard to convince a kid to get straight A's in school, when the college degree or even the high school degree, I mean, high school, obviously, we're going to insist that they that they get, but the college degree just doesn't carry the same weight as long as it did. You know, not not too terribly long ago,

right. Yeah. Yeah. No, I agree with that. It's just part of the conversation my wife and I have on an ongoing basis with each other. I'm curious if you are willing and able to share a bit about the conversations you have where you mentioned, you know, working at home as an entrepreneur, your kids are seeing the real life of what's going on. And obviously, at different ages, there's, there's different age appropriate input. Can you share some of that journey of of deciding, how, you know, what do you share with how vulnerable and open are you with them in terms of them knowing okay, hey, money's tight, and this is why and, or dad's stressed, because things are going on? And, and here's how I deal with it. That kind of stuff.

Yeah. You know, we, we've, we've been pretty, pretty honest, about what's going on with, with Mani over there over, you know, over the years, more so now than I think we were, you know, certainly before because they were younger. But my wife and I have invested quite a bit of money into opening a funeral home here in San Diego. And we lost about a year or so because of COVID and construction delays and you know, and those sorts of things. And so it's taken us a lot longer to get open than we had anticipated. And so we've you know, we've got we've got a lot of money invested in that and and that's combined with I had a real estate project and Chicago that was supposed to sell that hasn't sold yet. Yeah, it's made it's made things pretty tight from from a cash flow perspective. And so we've we've been upfront with them. I mean, they've they've been to the funeral home, they see what's going on in there are older son actually gets involved and helps quite a bit. So they see it, they know what's going on. They know where we're going every day because we are actually going into the funeral home now every day. And when we've been pretty upfront with them just about how, you know, we haven't shown them specific numbers to say, you know, hey, here's exactly how much we have. But we've we've certainly made it clear that it's It's challenging right now. And we've got to either get a lot more folks in as clients at the funeral home, and you know, as a new funeral home, that's tough. It's not like you're just opening a store selling pizza, you know, it's not your typical business. And, or, you know, we gotta get that real estate project sold. So there's, there's a couple of variables at play right now. And, and then, with interest rates continuing to rise as they are, and we're on a variable rate mortgage with the funeral home, you know, it's putting a lot of pressure on things.

And so you're now as you say, they're, they're a bit older, so they can kind of understand some of these things. And I guess I'm curious about also the, the balance of this in terms of, you know, we often have kids doing chores, we want our kids to help out or in house, they learn to do chores and become a contributing member of the family as it were. I, we talked about entrepreneurship as well. But there's a there's this question that comes up with us. And I wonder if you guys have dealt with this question of, you know, how do you, do you, how and when do you involve kids in your business? And, and how do you do that in a way that is? Is them feeling good about contributing, versus, you know, them kind of picking up picking up slack or, or helping out?

Yeah, yeah, well, we have them, we definitely have them help. We had an open house and you know, it really helped to get things ready, we'd get your chairs and furniture that comes in that needs to be built and, you know, things that just need to happen at the funeral home. So yeah, it's, it's definitely something we have them involved with my my oldest son has been taking an interest in, in the back of house stuff, too. And actually helping my wife who's our licensed funeral director and embalmer, you know, helping her get the, to see, you know, the loved one ready, you know, for viewing and so on. But he's only taken an interest in that and helped out quite a bit. But, yeah, it's, it's really just a matter of when when we need help we, we just have them help, right. You know, we're not paying them to do that. They're just part of the family to family business. So you just do what you got to do it.

Okay. I know that. You're you don't have a lot of time today. So I really appreciate you being here. So I wanted to just ask you a couple of things quick export. You know what, I think I'll do. You said you wanted to do the rapid fire questions. So as we as we come towards the end, I'm going to throw a bunch of your questions at you just for fun. So it's totally shifting here to to mostly nonsense and silliness for fun. But question one who is a one person you've not met yet that you want to meet?

I mean, that's it's probably Lenny Kravitz, seven min Lenny fan for for as long as I can remember. And so yeah, I'm definitely a big Lani fan. And I think if I had an opportunity to hang that, that would be that would be fun.

What's your favorite meal?

You know, my wife and I were talking about this actually, not too long ago. There's a lot of great food. I mean, we're my wife's half Polish half Peruvian, I'm half polish half Russian. Peruvian food is really good. But I think if you know if I had to have sort of that last meal probably would be like, kind of southern barbecue like soul food type barbecue with, you know, greens and cornbread. And, you know, cobbler and that kind of thing.

Can you list the seven wonders of the world?

Now, I know great wall of China because of waterfalls somewhere.

But all I know, too.

Yeah, I was gonna say there's there's a mountain I think.

Can you tell us

maybe the pyramids?

I think yeah, they might be. Can you tell us why? Iceland is green and Greenland is ice?

Yeah, that's that's always been the confusing thing for me. Yeah, I know what it's all gonna melt. So really doesn't matter.

Fair enough. Last one, when was your first kiss

i think I was in fifth grade? Fifth grade, maybe fifth grade? Something like that? Yeah.

Yeah. Very good. Well, thanks, Steve. I'm gonna let you go. And I want to just say I really appreciate you giving us your time. Now I know you are available online, basically, basically @steveolsher is your handle on pretty much any social media. So anybody that wants to reach out to you that's kind of just look that up. Fair enough. Fair enough. And you wanted to offer something to the listeners. As a just as a gift for tuning in and hanging out. I want to talk a bit about that.

Um, yeah, I mean, I think what we can do is we, we talked about my book, What is Your What, discover the one amazing thing you're going to do. So maybe we can just give that away as a freebie. And folks, you just go to whatisyourwhat.com and then grab a free copy of the entire New York Times bestseller there.

Awesome. And that I would say, at least from my perspective ties into parenting, just in terms of, you know, I think as you were saying earlier, you know, when we're doing things that we love, and we're living our lives, that is something that energizes and informs our parenting and influences our kids. So I would encourage everybody to take advantage of that offer. I've been through that resource myself and can definitely recommend it for sure. So, thank you so much, Steve, I really appreciate you taking a bit of time to share a bit of the personal side. I've learned a lot about your business over the last couple of years. And nice to get a chance to chat with you. A lot of questions I'd love to ask you. But maybe we'll have to do this again another time.

Yeah, no, that sounds good. That sounds good, man.

So thanks to you. And thanks, everybody, for listening in. I appreciate it. This, as I said, this is exciting for me. And I really wanted to create this resource to help as many dads as we can to begin to learn from each other and share, share the ups and downs, right. It's a crazy life. And none of us really have any kind of handbook or if anybody does, please contact me I need I need the handbooks to figure out how to do this. But seriously, it's just about learning to support each other and reaching out and communicating. If anybody wants to reach out to me, you can do so also at kevinwillspeak.com and book time to talk with me and check me out on social media with the links listed below. I really appreciate everybody sharing this, giving us a rating review because that helps to spread the word of what we're doing here. If you enjoyed this, probably other people will so thank you very much everybody. Have a great week and we will see you again soon. Bye for now.