Andrew Thorp King, Author of Failure Rules

[00:00:00] Speaker A: I wanted to be as real, as authentic as possible. So I reread what I wrote. Like, is that really what happened? Is that really how I felt? And even if I was uncomfortable putting it on paper, I would make sure that, as best I could, represented what really happened, what I really felt. No filter, unvarnished, even if it's slightly embarrassing. I didn't give a fuck. I mean, I'm literally writing a book called Failure Rules. [00:00:21] Speaker B: That was a clip from today's guest, everybody. This is going to be a cool one. It's not often that I get to have someone on here who's just released a book and promoting it. This one is really a fun one. So Andrew Thorpe King is someone that I've never quite met. We've interacted a little bit through email, lots of mutual friends, and my good buddy J reason was like, hey, you got to get Andrew on here. So this conversation is neat. I'm someone who's definitely a big believer in taking leaps, putting yourself out there, trying new things. And I've had my own share of just brutal, horrible failures, like soul crushing failures. And I can say 201. I've gotten a lot of strength and a lot of wisdom from every single one of them. Doesn't mean I like doing it, doesn't mean I like crashing and burning. But every single time that I walked away from that crash, I walked away quite a bit stronger. So this is a cool conversation with someone that I really believe has put something together that a lot of people are going to get value out of. But before we get to that, please rate, review, subscribe subscribe to the podcast. And my name is Aram Arslanian and this is one step beyond. All right, Andrew, welcome to the show. [00:01:57] Speaker A: Thanks for having me around. Happy to be here. Psyched to talk to you. [00:02:01] Speaker B: So I have never had someone smoking a cigar on the show. So like, you are the first to do that. So I'll give you a big salute. You look highly auspicious right now. [00:02:10] Speaker A: Auspicious, yes. I like that. This is one of my daily routine. So it just goes with territory. It helps me think, helps me talk, helps me do a lot of things. [00:02:19] Speaker B: Heck yeah. All right, so for the uninitiated, for those who don't know, who are you and what do you do? [00:02:25] Speaker A: So my name is Andrew Thorpe King. I am the author of this book here, failure rules. The five rules of failure for entrepreneurs, creatives and authentics. So background kind of in many spaces, mostly a dual career in the music industry and in banking and finance. So I own and run two record labels, Thorpe Records, which is largely hardcore and metal. It's done bands like Mad Ball Blood or Bloodshed terrorist, Flapshot, Ramallah and Sailors great records, which is more different sub genres of hardcore punk, I guess. So like oi psycho, Billy street punk. So bands like Roger Martin, the Disasters, the English Oi band, the business, Coffin Cats, the goddamn Gallows, creep show, a whole bunch of cool stuff. And then I've had, you know, like I said, the dual career, which seems strange and very disparate in banking and finance. I've done financial planning, owned online lending companies. One in the country of Belize under a license there, one under a license in Delaware in the past. Also owned a lead generation company, owned a fitness center, wrote a spy novel, used to be a bodybuilder, did some. Some professional bodybuilding, and then also, you know, now I've been for almost ten years now an executive fintech banker in the payment space. So working for like, an online commercial, forward thinking tech bank that really supports kind of the forward, forward looking fintech companies like the Paypal's chime, Venmo's of the world help them move money in interesting and innovative ways, cross border and otherwise. So, yeah, that's pretty much the story. The book itself draws from all those experiences and kind of highlights what I think might be wisdom inputs that I have kind of, you know, internalized and put into action as I stumbled across some very interesting failure points, you know, and roadblocks along my off road entrepreneurial. [00:04:25] Speaker B: So you have a really diverse career path. Pretty, I'd say, like a pretty broad touch on life. Is it easy for you to find peers and people who understand you and understand your motivations? [00:04:42] Speaker A: No, it's not. It's definitely not easy. Right. So I think as a result, particularly while I was writing this book, I really kind of took shelter in a lot of intentional, productive, isolated solitude to keep kind of the momentum going of the book and distilling everything I was trying to lay down and put out in the book. And it's kind of like, I think this is probably familiar to a lot of artists that sometimes the best art is made in secret, where the minute you talk about it, you almost deflate the energy that you could just be channeling into the art. So while I was writing this book, I didn't talk about it that much. It was real to me, but it wasn't real to the world yet. I didn't think anybody would really understand it. So it really wasn't until the book became real that it began talking about it, and now it's like the floodgates are open. So in the past year, I've been doing nothing but promoting it. I'm going on like 50 plus podcast radio shows, doing live events and book signings, a lot of cigar lounges and all kinds of stuff. Had a booth at this is hardcore fest. And next year I'll be doing more speaking in corporates and universities and probably prisons and rehabs and things like that. But I think that's kind of the beauty of it, right? Is that sometimes we have to find ways to keep going and follow our internal spirit voice when the world wouldn't understand until we make what we're doing so real that the world can't help but understand. [00:06:12] Speaker B: Yeah. So you become, like, undeniable. [00:06:15] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:06:17] Speaker B: The reason I ask is, like, you're a. You seem like a consummate doer of many things at once, that you're doing a ton of stuff. And I know that that can be a very lonely path for people. So how do you connect with other people who, let's say, don't. Don't do as much? Like, what's your connection point with people outside of transactional doing something like, we're working together or we're doing this together? Like, what's. How do you connect with people? [00:06:46] Speaker A: Yeah, it's a good question. So I think I found, like, a really good rhythm and balance between intentional, isolated solitude for productive creative purposes or business purposes, and intentional, measured social time. Right. So whether it's making sure I find a way to spend time with my children, you know, my son's 22, so I'll find a way to connect with him. We usually go to comedy shows or we go to the gym, or we go get tattooed together or what have you. Same with my daughters. I find ways to connect with them, but also, like, the reality is a lot of what I'm involved with does involve cultures that has a social aspect. So I'm pretty heavily involved in cigar culture. In the book, I write about a variety of cigar personalities and their entrepreneurial kind of journeys and how they overcame failure and their interesting, circuitous, unorthodox paths. And so I go to a lot of cigar lounges. I do book signings there. There's what they call the botl, the brother, the brothers of the Leaf, or the SOTL, the sisters of the Leaf. So there's a real camaraderie there. And I find a lot of creatives and entrepreneurs in that culture. And oddly enough, a lot of intersection both with kind of like the things that I have to contemplate and confront and deal with as an executive fintech banker and also as a creative, I find a lot of people there who actually into hardcore pump music. I went to the PCA, the premium cigar association trade show in Vegas for six days in July. And I had a booth. I would sell my book and my clothing line, which is Solen Fire supply company. And I have a cigar line there too, which was actually designed by Craig Holloway, who was the hardcore artist who's done covers for agnostic front wisdom and chains and a lot of other bands. And I was like blown away by kind of like this split in the cigar culture where you have kind of like the over 45 crowd was really kind of into like the turn traditional suits and golf kind of aesthetic. And then you had a whole bunch of people covered in tattoos with beards. A lot of them were into hardcore and came up to me and there's all these conversations about the intersection of that, right. And even the guy from exodus was at the trade show. Right. So it's like the cool part is being involved in things I'm involved with actually has made me more social and actually felt. Made me feel less alone. But to your original point, there still are very few people that are kind of generating the same energy of kind of having a portfolio of pursuits that they're managing at once with different purposes and paces. Right? So if I think of my day job, I get some value and purpose and meaning out of it, but it's a little different. It's a little sterile compared to the meaning and value I get out of my creative pursuits. But on the aggregate, they still kind of fill the buckets as much as possible. Right. So you might get more money and less meaning out of one, more meaning and less money out of the other, but the one with less meaning and more money might fund and fuel and inform the other, transpose skills. So the whole tapestry gives me very rich, interesting kind of, you know, work life tapestry, as well as now the social that really just kind of bleeds into it. And, you know, even in all my relationships, I find that it allows me to be more virtual, to even go deeper with people and understand their psychology and understand and empathize with whatever kind of, uh, issues they're thing dealing with on their path, whether it be work or life. Yeah. [00:10:03] Speaker B: Um, how do you like, how are you able to stay in the moment? Because, like, you're just in constant transition from one thing to another. [00:10:12] Speaker A: Right. [00:10:12] Speaker B: You're doing so much stuff how do you, how do you actually, like, enjoy life rather than be constantly on the way to the next destination? [00:10:21] Speaker A: You know, I got asked this on another podcast, and it was a guy who I met who had interviewed me at, at the cigar trade show, actually. And he's like, you know, I saw you all day talking to people, doing interviews, selling things, doing business, and then I see you at night and you weren't even networking. You went right to the pool with a bourbon in your hand and a book, and you just cut it off. And so I will do that. I'll just, I'll just, I'll schedule times where I'll just cut everything off. And I usually, it usually revolves around some sort of, like, intentional pleasure, whether it's smoking cigar in my hot tub or I just go take off and take a hike in the woods and listen to a podcast and try to distill and unpack what's going on in my life and kind of make both those macro and micro decisions as I'm contemplating or just going to the gym and throwing around some steel, man, just lifting some weights and listening to hardcore like that always calibrates me. I get massaged once a week for 90 minutes. So I have these kind of, like, scheduled things that calibrate me, whether it's exercise or other things. And that really, I think, keeps me balanced against the simultaneity of my normal day. [00:11:31] Speaker B: Yeah. All right, let's go all the way back. Where'd you grow up? [00:11:37] Speaker A: So I live in a suburb or a county, a suburb of Philadelphia, Delaware county. They call it Delco for short, which kind of has its own kind of mystique at this point because it was popularized by that show mayor of east town for its unique kind of working class grit and eccentricities and accent. There's actually a movie coming out now, I just heard, called Delco the movie. So it's kind of got its own character around here, you know what I mean? So that, that's where I live and that's where I grew up. I did live in Ohio for about seven years. Lived in Maryland. Maryland for a couple years, too. The majority of my life has been to Delco. It's almost like a boomerang. I always end up coming back. [00:12:17] Speaker B: All right, and family you grew up with, like, siblings you grew up, mom and dad, like, you know, what was. What was growing up, like? [00:12:25] Speaker A: Yeah, actually, like, intact kind of traditional family. Two parents, two brothers. I was the. I was the middle one. I was kind of the weirdo, the wild one, the untamed one and the one that nobody could understand because I was always taking unorthodox paths, but still always supported, always encouraged to be my authentic self and that kind of hands off faith, I guess, that my parents had in my ability to know who I am and to take on the risks and challenges of life without too much unnecessary assistance, I think, really ended up being kind of a benefit for me as I went along. [00:13:01] Speaker B: So how did you end up finding this, like, wild thing that we're all a part of, the punk and hardcore? [00:13:08] Speaker A: Yeah, man, I think I grew up, like, even when I was, like, really young, listening to rock and roll and like, you know, like hair metal or classic rock and AC DC and Sabbath and stuff like that. I mean, literally in kindergarten, I used to go to school with a denim jacket full of patches, like Jimi Hendrix, Harley Davidson, Black Sabbath. And I was like, I don't know, like six. I had like long hair, like a chain wallet, like, like six. You know what I mean? Like dressing like some sort of like, biker. So I was already into like, that kind of stuff. And then it was like 7th grade. And my buddy was skater guy, you know, like wart ox. He was a skinhead. And he's always, you know, here, you gotta listen to this. Go listen to this. Give me a cassette tape. It'd be like black Flag or the subhumans or, or, you know, Dri or Ruin or Murphy's Law. And I think, you know, I think after I heard those bands like Sex Pistols or Murphy's lost, self titled agnostic front victim in pain, like the energy, the, the animation, the grit of that, I was like, this is the next step. This is the music that's going to be the soundtrack of my life. And it has been. I'm almost 50 now. I still listen to all those records just. Just as frequently as I did back then. You know, I remember hearing chromags and like, I guess I was like, probably 1415 years old and hearing age of quarrel and it just blew my mind like that. That record still moves me with the same ferocity today that it did back then. Never dreamed that years later John Joseph would write the foreword to my book. But, yeah, I mean, it's just, it's just in me. And it doesn't mean I don't listen to other music. I listen to the music too. Of course. We all do. We all have our kind of tangents, right? But that's the one that connects mostly with my animating spirit, my identity. [00:14:48] Speaker B: Yeah, because with the two labels, they're heavily rooted in subculture and even, like, you know, sailor's grave, it's, like, still, like, punk or punk adjacent adjacent music. So it's like you really planted kind of your initial, or at least part of your initial business flag in that world. [00:15:06] Speaker A: Yeah. So Thorpe came first, and it was really, like, I was really into, like, you know, New York hardcore stuff and New York hardcore adjacent and some of, like, the youth crew stuff, too. I was actually probably straight ahead when I started Thorpe, and then I wasn't. But, you know, I mean, like, I did bands, like, striking distance from the DC area down to nothing. Um, dead serious was a band from that DC, Virginia, Maryland area back in the day. Um, you know, um, trying to think what else. And there's so many, um. But, yeah, it was really, like, traditional hardcore was my thing. But, you know, along the way, I really did get started getting into. Getting into street punk and oi and psychobilly and all that stuff. And I started mixing that in a little bit on Thorpe and it didn't fit the aesthetic. So that's when I started. Sailors grave in 2006 is just wholly dedicate to those types of bands. [00:15:59] Speaker B: Yeah, let's give a. Let's give a quick shout out. And also, you did die hard youth, too, right? [00:16:04] Speaker A: Oh, yeah, yeah. My man Andy. [00:16:05] Speaker B: Yeah, die hard, you shout out to Andy. Andy. Die hard, you rip. I love you, man. But I also want to give a shout out to dead serious, totally underrated, sick band from Richmond. A huge shout out to Jay. I love you, man. I respect the hell out of you. You're a wild man. You did. You did a lot of bands, well, down to nothing. Went on to be a big, very recognized band. But you did a lot of bands that were kind of like youth crew or youth crew adjacent that didn't quite get the recognition that they could have deserved. But then you also did, like, legit. Like or not legit. The other bands were legit, but you did bands that got a bigger platform, like the Mad Balls, the Blood for Bloods as well. So Thorpe had a pretty. Pretty diverse roster. [00:16:49] Speaker A: It did. And, like, I thought that was good to a degree. But then, like I said, it was getting too diverse. I was mixing in some of the more. I mean, even had some screamo bands for dire life sake from Detroit. It was kind of like the thrice Thursday kind of, kind of bucket if you want to put them into something. And they did super well, but it just didn't fit the label as much like the label was known more for the tough stuff so at a certain point I kind of veered back away from that. But I was friends with those guys. I lived in northwest Ohio at the time. They were in Detroit. They were really, really good and they needed a label. And it worked out. I mean, particularly through a hot topic back in the day when physical distribution mattered, like it blew off the shelves, you know. But yeah, I think that's why I started the other label, sailor's brave. I wanted to kind of keep Thorpe then just hardcore and metal core towards the end. [00:17:35] Speaker B: Well, let's go back to the beginning of Thorpe. So, like, you're a young kid, you get into punk and hardcore, you're like, this is it. This is what. They're going to be the soundtrack of my life. What's the leap between just being someone against the wall or someone in the pit to saying, oh, no, I actually want to be a part of the making things happen? [00:17:55] Speaker A: Yes, I think I was in college. It was probably around 1990, 519 96, where I really. I kind of drifted away from hardcore and punk for a while and probably just listen to like mainstream alternative rock and stuff, whatever, and then came back to it. 95 96, I think probably going to one of the first warp tours where I saw was like orange nine and Civ and shelter. That just like revitalized everything for me. I had a roommate at the time who had never stopped listening to hardcore. And so that got me back into it kind of midway through college and then just started going to shows a lot in Philly, you know, like 22nd Chestnut, Trocadero and just love being at the pit, love hanging out with people, just going to shows and going crazy. Back then it was like a lot of h, two o, a lot of vod, a lot of bands like that, like floor punch always playing. And I think back then, that's when bad luck 13 ride extravagant extravaganza became a band. And I was in a band two minutes hate. And we used to play in the area and, you know, nothing huge, but, you know, play with like Murphy Slough or bad luck 13 or whatever. And I graduated college and was going to be an english teacher. So I had an english degree and a teaching degree. Three weeks into student teaching, I was like, man, I don't love kids that much. I don't like to wake up early and I don't want to keep teaching this low level knowledge for the rest of my life. I want to learn new things, do interesting things. So I quit student teaching, got the english degree, ended up working at a steel plan. After that that I worked in through college, so really immersed myself in kind of that working class factory life. And like 90% of the people that I worked with were spanish speaking, and I studied Spanish in school. And I actually started speaking kind of like this version of Spanglish and really learning a lot from working side by side with these folks. That was an interesting experience. And I was writing like poetry books and doing spoken word events, kind of Rollins esque. And I was competing for a bodybuilding show. So I was really intensely into that. So that was like my challenge since the day, the job of the fact, it wasn't really challenged, it was just experience. And then I started writing for music magazine. So I started writing for chord and rockpile back in the day because I wanted to get involved with music. Like, I still had this passion. That was the thing I was most passionate about. But you can't make money writing, right? So writing for magazines, learn that quickly. So I ended up shadowing met from two damn hype records to see how he ran his label. And it was right after I got married, I got a pink slip. I was laid off from my job. I was in what I call this really kind of fertile failure space where you're kind of more open to actually hearing and responding to those burning desires within that you may have been suppressing or putting off because they didn't seem realistic and literally like, baby on the way, unemployed, delivering pizzas, freshly married, was like, screw it, I'm going to start a label. Maxed out my credit cards and signed breakdown from New York City as my first record after meeting those guys and just put my balls on the table and went after it, and then began the tumultuous, mysterious entrepreneurial journey from there. And there was all kinds of turbulence and crazy things that happened. But in the end, like, whatever, 25 years later, however long it's been, still owned the rights, over 100 recordings, half as many merchandise rights and things have survived even with the punctuation of many strange and difficult happenings or failure. Hence the book. [00:21:20] Speaker B: It's funny that you brought up that warp tour. Warp tour is such an interesting thing because those early days of Warp tour really had a deep link to hardcore. Orange nine. Oh, yeah, quicksand. And like, really responsible for getting a whole new generation of kids into hardcore, but also bringing back people as well. Like those early warp tours and like, shout out to those bands and to the founder of Warped Tour. Like, they were like, there's just a generation of people who can point to those and being like, oh, Siv, Quicksand, Orange nine on those things. Huge difference in my life. I also like something. I just want to hover on this for a second. Civ is just an underrated band. Like, Civ was that. Civ for Civ LP is straight up a perfect record. It looks amazing. Sounds like raw. Kind of like weird recording, but cool recording. Songs are super cool. Like, everything's great. And those dudes. [00:22:22] Speaker A: Yep. [00:22:23] Speaker B: They've been such stalwarts. So, like, a huge respect to that band as well. I really. I really dig that band. But that. Okay, that. That place that you're in, kind of a odd choice to start a record label, especially, like, you know, breakdown. Like, legendary band. Like, legendary band. But, like, we're not talking, like, who at that point is out. Like, being like, I'm gonna spend thousands of dollars on a breakdown record except for you. [00:22:47] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. No, it wasn't smart. I didn't say I was smart, but. [00:22:51] Speaker B: I was young enough, but it worked out. And, like, first of all, I love breakdown. They're totally sick. It's just like, from a decision point, you've got a pregnant wife, you've just been laid off, you're maxing out credit cards. You have a kind of like, well, I'm just going to leap and I'll figure out. I'll figure out the landing kind of attitude. And I'm sure you've had other points of that in your life, but that was like a pretty wild thing to do. But it did work out. [00:23:19] Speaker A: It did. It could have worked out better if I knew what I knew now. I mean, I still ended up getting a job after that. The interesting thing was, like, after already starting the record label and wanting to be immersed in that space, I felt like the universe conspired with me. It was shortly after that that I'm in the gym one night working out. After I actually been recalled to that job I was laid off of that I hated, this cubicle monkey job working for Ford credit, being a bill collector. And I'm at the gym and I see this guy that's meathead gym in Philly suburb. See this guy? And I'm like, pissed off because I had to go back. This job I hated. I'm just thinking about how I get to the music industry and get the labels rolling. Like, that's where all my energy was. And I see this dude in a snap case shirt, and I never even really liked snapcase, to be honest with you. Even though the drummer ended up being a client of mine for financial planning in the midwest, years later, but I'm sitting there and I'm like, ah, that's interesting, you know, and I go over, talk to him. Turns out he just moved here from Colorado. He was an attorney. He quit his attorney job to go take a role as the vp at Relapse Records. So we became friends back and forth over a couple of weeks. Long story short, I ended up getting hired by relapse records, running their wholesale department right as they moved from Lancaster to Upper Darby, Pennsylvania, which is right where I live. So literally, they were moving two mix. It was like these things were just coming together. I met this guy randomly. They happened to be moving five minutes from my house. Like almost like providential shit, you know? And so that's kind of when I. All of a sudden it was like I had this paid education in the music industry as I'm building these labels. Worked at Relapse for a few years, then moved to Ohio and worked for Lumberjack, which became lumberjack Mortem for three or four years after that before I went out on my own full time with the labels for couple years. So it was like the breadcrumbs kind of kept coming because I took the initiative, took the risk, and then things just started to develop, you know, just almost magically. [00:25:06] Speaker B: Yeah, I want to hit on that. The other thing I want to hover on for a second, though, is you mentioned bad luck 13 riot extravaganza. And like, a lot of people come to this podcast for different, like from different backgrounds, like there's corporate people. [00:25:19] Speaker A: Oh, no, no. [00:25:20] Speaker B: I'm pushing it that way because we're going to build towards the other stuff. So forgive me for anyone who's not from punk and hardcore, when I say this, it's like riot 13 or bad luck 13 riot extravaganza. If you don't know, you'll never know. It was just a time, a place, a thing. Infamous does not even touch on what that was. And you could love it, you could hate it, but you could never argue the absolute way it captivated a moment and the insanity that it brought. So whoever was the mad people behind that, like, shout out, you really created something that was totally crazy. It lived up to itself. [00:26:03] Speaker A: I know them well. They're from the Philly scene. They all created it. Like, it's a combination of like, pseudo satanic metal pro wrestling, a Jerry Springer show, and every nightmarish white trash backyard barbecue you can imagine. I mean, that's bad luck 13 rod extravaganza. And their shows didn't last long because they usually got canceled. Cause explosives went off or somebody jumped on a barbed wire ladder or whatever the hell, who knows? It was just wild stuff. [00:26:29] Speaker B: Well, this is the thing about, like, punk and hardcore. It's like, I'm not saying, you know, there's not other totally interesting, cool things that happen other places, but, like, there's nothing like it, man. Like, where does that exist? Somewhere where people are like, yeah, this. Yep, that should happen. Like, that's a normal thing. [00:26:45] Speaker A: Really, dude, it's really hardcore. It's one of the most insane people ever in the Philly hardcore scene. So, yeah, I got. [00:26:52] Speaker B: I got it. [00:26:52] Speaker A: Those are the dudes that were always at the shows growing up. Yeah, that's the scene that. That I was more, you know, involved with growing up. [00:27:00] Speaker B: Yeah, I got a lot. I got a lot of love for Philly Hardcore, for sure. All right, man. So going back to taking this leap and doing these things, something I talk about on the podcast a lot, is just like, things come together. If you're willing to bet on yourself, if you're willing to take a leap, if you're willing to make that moment, if you don't make those moments, they're not. Nothing's going to happen. I don't want to say nothing's going to happen. Most very successful people that I know, or people who bet on themselves or took a leap or just were like, I'm going to do this thing no matter what. And in doing that and kind of setting that intention, the things start happening, they start falling in place, almost like there's like the hand of God involved. I'm not. I'm not a religious person, but almost like there's like some higher power or making it happen. Do I. Do I believe that? Not necessarily. What I believe is when you set an intention and you're like, I'm going to do something, you've got heightened awareness of what's going on around you, your situational awareness, your willingness to talk to people, notice things. So that day at the gym, you'd already set an intention and you were going for it and you noticed something, decided to have a conversation that maybe you wouldn't have had otherwise. [00:28:08] Speaker A: 100%, hundred percent. Yeah. It's like. It's almost like when you commit to an energy or direction, your eyes are open more acutely to the things that will continue the momentum in that direction, whereas other might be blind to it. You're setting that intention and your vision is focused on that. You're going to see things that help lead you that otherwise you might pass. [00:28:33] Speaker B: By, you work at Lumberjack, we work a relapse for a while, then you go to Lumberjack, then you're out on your own. So this is leading us closer and closer to. I'm sure you'd had moments of failure, but tell us about the first. I'm going to use a gorilla biscuits reference here. Tell us about the first failure, the big first failure. [00:28:54] Speaker A: By the way, that song is on the failure Rules soundtrack playlist, on Spotify and Apple Music, because that song obviously aligns perfectly with the book and the message. Yeah, so, yeah, that was like the big one. I mean, so I was out of my own for a couple years, had an office in downtown Toledo. So I went from working at Lumberjack and having that salary to then paying myself. And, man, I just got too zealous. I had two labels. I think I was releasing about 20 records a year. I was still distributed by Lumberjack and Mortem, which they had to deal with Warner for change. This is back when physical distribution mattered for Thorpe, and then for sale is grave. I got a pretty healthy advance from Koch and was distributed through them and went through revelation, through the indies. And digital was just starting to be a thing. Like, it was creeping up on eight, 9% of your revenue, and it was just no streaming, it was just downloads. And people underestimated the speed in which that would become the dominant format. They viewed it as extra, as froth. So all their models were still built on the expenses and the returns and the. The pay for play, you know, listening stations and end caps of the physical world. Very risky, very expense laden, you know, and, you know, so, yeah, I. I think it was really like, I put a lot of money, including, like, ads on MTV, headbangers ball for the Ramallah and drowning man records that I put out on Thorpe. And then I think I did the same. But it wasn't. It wasn't headbanging ball. I did paid, like, video ads on fused tv back in the day. Pretty popular, more on the punk side. And that was for all the sailors, grave, initial bats, like us bombs, kings of nothing, ducky boys, all that stuff. And I was just going for it, man. And it was. And I was highly leveraged, right? And, you know, so kind of at the same time, I was highly leveraged and lost some money on records. It did well, but not as much as I spent on them. And over time, they would recoup, but not quickly enough to fluctuate the cash flow I needed. That same time, the digital started changing the landscape. And so you had tower records close. They were 25% of my sales. Not only did they close, my sales went down, but then they returned everything that was on the shelves by them to them declaring bankruptcy, which then you're getting it back, depleting sales from everything else going against it. And there's those attendant return fees that go on that. So it was just this perfect storm of, like, just the hand around my throat of, like, you're getting choked out, dude. You know, you did too much too soon. And, you know, I had to literally came to the point where there was no other options, and I ended up declaring personal bankruptcy to rid myself of the loans that were under my name personally to keep going. The labels survived, but I couldn't draw income from them. The revenue was going against debt or what have you, and at that point, I had to reinvent myself. Here I was, single income at that .3. Kids. My youngest was born in 2006. She was only a year old or something, two years old at that time, and didn't know what I was gonna do. I knew was the music at that point, but the beauty was that was really the inflection point that became, like, the. The center and the foundation for the. My life since then. It was in that destruction, in that chaos, almost like, JK Rowling talks about her. Her being, you know, you know, rock bottom being the foundation that she rebuilt her life. It was like that for me. And because that's when I was able to see the world as a wider place, see my skills as being applicable and transposable to many different things, seeing my identity as something that I could stretch out and expand while still retaining the core identity of my hardcore punk ethos and just bringing that into other spaces. And so I was going to this high end gym at the time and had really befriended a lot of, like, lawyers, doctors, business leaders, entrepreneurs who kind of ran Toledo, Ohio. These were all the heavy hitters. And instead of judging me because I'm like this thug looking guy with tattoos. And in the midwest back then, even though it was like, 1518 years ago, you were still looked at like you were a criminal, they actually didn't. They got to know me and befriended me and really took me into the world, and I began this financial planning business again. Feast or famine, kill or be killed. I didn't have a salary and started selling investments in insurance, and they introduced me to a lot of people, referrals and help me get a client base. And it was like this reinvention, you know, all of a sudden, I'm wearing a suit and everything else. And that's also when I began to get the cigar culture. I would work out of a cigar lounge a few days a week and network with people, but at the same time still retaining that hardcore pump thing. Several years later, you know, as digital grew, it became more viable to start releasing records again. And then I started labels, doing the labels, you know, again releasing records ever since. But then I viewed it differently. I viewed it more as a long term asset, a monetized hobby, managing a portfolio of IP rights. I was able to have a lot more fun with it when I wasn't relying on it for income. So doing less records, but being more engaged with the bands, and I think I became deeper friends or what have you, with more bands because of that. Over the years since bands like Coffee Cats, Flatfoot 56, celtic irish punk band from Chicago, they played my. My second wedding, like, and it became more enjoyable. And then I also just had more skills and wisdom transposable from space to space, from everything I've done in the finance and banking world to owning a gym. And just the creative kind of like you said, the ready firing kind of approach has repeated, but it's been refined a little bit. It's more like ready, approximate your aim, fire, and then refine your aim in flight kind of thing. Right. So there's more planning going on, but it's still the basic premise that I still believe. Like, if you're waiting for perfect conditions, do something bold and difficult and unsafe, which pretty much anything entrepreneurial is, if you're waiting for perfect conditions, don't do it. Or like Ice Cube said, if you're not willing to not make a dime for the first five years, don't even fucking start. [00:35:25] Speaker B: Yeah, let's go back to that. When you had to declare bankruptcy and you had to stop drawing salary from Thorpe or from both labels, how'd you make money? [00:35:39] Speaker A: Well, burn through savings. At the time after burn through savings, and I was building this financial planning practice, and that took time. I ended up having to go on public assistance at one point, which is like one of those things that's really hard to talk about even now. And I write about that in the book, almost didn't put it in there, but I thought it was necessary to talk through the nuances of that. And in the book, I kind of talk about. I frame it. The delineation between a hand up and a handout. Right. You know, I talk about agnostic front and the song public assistance. Right. Well, that was really like an excoriation of the abuse of the welfare system, even though Roger Morett himself grew up on welfare. So he was delineating between needing it and not needing it, you know, and I had a lot of conflict inside of me for that because I had such a furious work ethic. But there was just a point where nothing was working, no matter how much I was working. And I had to succumb to that for a period of time before things ascended, which they eventually did. [00:36:38] Speaker B: Oh, and since you mentioned them, shout out, Roger. You rock. You're a great one. Yeah, I wanted to touch on that. I also. And we can go into this or not, it's still your call. But you had mentioned in your pre call with Monica going through a catastrophic divorce. Was that around this time? [00:36:58] Speaker A: No, actually it wasn't, but that was the beginning birth pangs of what eventually became the divorce. Right. So I think I had this virtuous notion of building a family on a single income. Got married in my early twenties, and my first wife was literally 20 years old when she was pregnant with my son. I was, like, 25, 26, and there I am matching my credit card label. Right. I don't think she knew what she was getting into with marrying a guy like me. I don't think I knew what I was bringing her into. Right. Like, I was not going to go on the straight path. Right. I wasn't just going to shut up, tuck my shirt in, go sit in a cubicle and say, yes, sir, all day forever. That wasn't going to happen. And so that's a tough thing until you get your footing. Yeah. So that really didn't fall apart until about 2013. And that was around the time I was going through a business divorce with a partner in the online lending firm that I was involved with and part owner of. So that was later on, and we'll. [00:37:59] Speaker B: Get to that then. Let's stick with that. Like, you had to go on government support. You're just trying to get by. What a time for a reinvention, man. You know, like, when people talk about, like, life is hard, hard times are what build you up. Yeah. Like, all of the tropes that we could say here, but it's like you've got a choice in a moment like that. And you could either just kind of put your head down and get through it, or you could put your head down, or you could put your head down and try and get through it and just basically, like, hold on for dear life. Or you could keep your head up and look at the horizon and say, like, yeah, I got to get through this, but I'm going to keep marching forward. And it's really something to start a whole new career path when you've gone from being your own business owner, running like, a well known label, working with big bands, doing a lot of stuff to go into public assistance, and then saying, this is not the end of me. It's a real comment on one's grit. To be able to do that in that moment, it was difficult. [00:39:06] Speaker A: It was also like there was this forced self esteem that had to be invoked. I didn't have the luxury of wallowing in poor self esteem because while I was on the assistance, I had to go out every day with this duality where I was a financial planner for people advising them on their money. While I didn't have enough income yet from that business getting off the ground and was on food stamp. So I'm literally advising people on their investments. While I was partially living on public assistance, it didn't last long, right? But for the period that it lasted, like, I just had to, like, separate myself. And I talked about this in the book. Failure rule number five is you are not your failures. Decouple your identity from your failure events ties back to failure rule number one, which is failure purifies, which is the Phoenix must burn. To emerge, you need to step outside of your failure events, be an objective third party observer. Try to take the emotionality out of it. Use the chaos energy of your event and try to shape it for your purposes to expand into your next best self. And that's literally what I did without having the words to put to it that I do now in retrospect. And I just, you know, invoked that kind of spirit of the phoenix just rising out of the ashes. I was going to find a way to reemerge, you know, and a lot. [00:40:27] Speaker B: Of people can talk about that. And it's. It's not that I think it's bullshitty or not. Like, I don't care. Like, people can position themselves if they want, but, like, once you've gone through it, you get it. That in that moment, it's. You just got to do it. There's not a. There's not even a question. [00:40:42] Speaker A: I had no choice. [00:40:44] Speaker B: So why. Why initial planning? So you're a guy who was. Had with an english degree, who was going to be a teacher, who decided to not be a teacher, went headfirst into music. Like, what makes you go, oh, yeah, I should now do this? [00:41:00] Speaker A: And I talk about this in the book. I kind of grew up with this strange dichotomy of messaging on money and wealth and wealth accumulation, you know, both from the punk rock culture, and my old man's a preacher. So this religious indoctrination that money was, like, evil, and that's not even what scriptures would say, would say the love of money is. I don't know that that wasn't explicit, right? But there was never a focus on, hey, going after things and being productive and making money in an ethical way is a good thing. Let's go after it, find ways to do that. It was always this emphasis on frugality versus, you know, making more. And I'm a big thinker. I like to. I'd like to see how ideas are put out in the world, products are put in the world, services put in the world, and money is generated, and that can then be recycled to grow things. I love just how that all works and how people's lives can be transformed and the world can be impacted. And money is like the gasoline for that, right? So, you know, you don't worship, worship a gas station, but you need to stop there to keep going. That's all of you, money. And on the punk rock end of things, like, it was always like, eat the rich, motorhead. Money is bad and capitalism is horrible. And so initially, I really did adopt that mindset. I don't care about money. All I care about is heart and art and maximizing my creative fulfillment. But over time, I realized that was probably a very imprudent, immature view. Money a, you need it, you got to find a way to master it, or it's going to master you. And that is really the root of failure. Rule number three is money is spiritual. It's the idea that if you can avoid the edge territories, the failure territories of envy and greed, which I view as, you know, basically similar spirits or malevolent twin siblings, and being greed, you can avoid those. You can discover the real power of money, which is at its root, actually spiritual. Right? Because to me, when money you is right in a transaction, both parties believe they're going to win, whether they are or not, or they wouldn't enter into it. And money is really a thank you note. It's your measured value that you're placing on a product or a service that you're a recipient of. And so I was fascinated with money at that point, but fascinated on the instruments of money, investments, all the different mechanisms to build redundancy and diversity in a financial life. And the cool thing about it was everything I learned there. Although ultimately, with the crash of zero eight, that business didn't last, particularly being in the auto belt close to Detroit where a lot of people were factory workers and they just lost their jobs and had to pull their accounts. But everything I learned from that I'm literally now putting into place now that I have wealthy to disperse and allocate and invest. And so even that was like a real kind of early part of my journey that now is bearing fruit by me utilizing the knowledge that I had from that business. But now just for my own personal management. [00:44:09] Speaker B: How long that business last? [00:44:13] Speaker A: That was maybe two and a half, three years. [00:44:16] Speaker B: Okay, so that's what got you back up on your feet, though, financially, right? [00:44:20] Speaker A: Yes, for a time. [00:44:21] Speaker B: For a time. [00:44:21] Speaker A: It was really like riches, rags to riches, you know, rags up and down. Lots of big swings for a time, yeah. And then I moved back, moved back east at that point because that business was stable for a while, then declined because of the zero eight crash and ended up having to abandon my home at that point. So you almost went to foreclosures? [00:44:48] Speaker B: Sorry, go ahead. [00:44:50] Speaker A: No, you go ahead. [00:44:50] Speaker B: I was going to ask, did you lose? You lose. You lost a home like that you owned? [00:44:55] Speaker A: I literally just picked up and moved and stopped paying the mortgage for every year. And it didn't go into foreclosure. Ended up selling it on a short sale for like a whole lot less than I owed on it. And then I had to pay taxes on the difference, which is how that works. But, yeah, just was like moving back east. Don't know what we're going to do. We're going to find a way. Ended up moving back east, met some people again, a lot of us through cigar lounges. Ended up finding my way and going into business in the online lending space. And that ended up flourishing for a good three to four years before that hit some regulatory turbulence and some issues between myself and my partner. And at that time too, also owned a fitness center, was writing my first spy novel. I was actually consulting for a small music distributor. Still running the labels. I was doing a ton of shit all at once. [00:45:49] Speaker B: Sounds like a pretty chaotic period of your life. [00:45:53] Speaker A: Yes. Oh, yeah. It was all chaos. It was all chaos. [00:45:57] Speaker B: Is it still or have things settled down? [00:46:01] Speaker A: No, they've settled down after I left the online lending firms. So I tell the story of the book, too. So there was this space where I had gotten divorced from my wife and had this business divorced, left the online lending firm. So all of a sudden I found myself with no office to go to by day, no home to go to by night. Temporarily separated from my children. My buddy owned a bunch of hotels from the cigar lounge, so he set me up with a killer place to stay at the hotel for a while before I got my own place. And, you know, I could have wallowed in that. I could have, like, pivoted to alcoholism, no stranger to alcohol, love a good bourbon. But instead, I invoked this divinity of purpose, and that comes to me from a hatebreed song. Divinity of purpose, right? And, you know, I was able, in that space, in that failure space, to reinvent in multiple ways. So it was in that time that I was able to take the knowledge I had in the online lending space and end up doing my own consulting business where I consult other lenders. Ended up very quickly regaining my income just from that pursuit alone. That's when I finished my first spy novel and was going to, like, thriller events and trying to figure out how to get into that space. Resurrected the record labels by reorganizing some money and some credit and stuff like that. Put out, I think, nine records within that year. And then it's also like when we signed, like, the business and became friends with Mickey Fitz, God rest his soul, before he passed away. And also at that time, that's when I had this resume now to kind of transfer from being an entrepreneur to an employee. And I met what was then became my new boss from a cigar lounge and got into the fintech space and started working for the bank that I work for now, ten years later, still work there, had multiple promotions. I'm an officer of the bank, and it all started in that space. So, like, four or five threads happen first out of that failure space. And that's what happens every time. It's like, now I know when things are taken away. Good, good. Now I have this empty space to recreate. Let's see what's here, what's the rubble that I could piece together to do multiple new things at once in parallel? [00:48:20] Speaker B: So tell us about getting married again. How'd that happen? And very specifically, what's different about this time than the first? [00:48:31] Speaker A: So after I got divorced the first time, I was in a relationship with a woman for about four years, never got married, great woman, but just wasn't going to go into marriage. So that relationship ended, and then I met my second wife, literally at the 25th year high school reunion. And she was like, you know, one of the popular, beautiful chicks in high school that would have never talked to me. And I don't blame her because I was a delinquent in a derelict of the troublemaker and she was, you know, you know, she was, she was not. Or maybe she was, but people didn't know it. People knew it about me. And so I didn't even know she really knew who I was. She started talking to me. Next thing you know, we hit it off just like a real, like, head over heels romance. Got eloped within six months and then married, you know, had a formal wedding like six months later at a bowling alley in South Philly with big roof deck party, free cigars for everybody. Flight for 56 is playing with their kilts and everything else and the bagpipes. And it was just a freaking blast. People like this, best wedding ever. That marriage lasted five years. We got divorced this past year. So we've been divorced. We're split up for a year now. Ironically, we are like best friends. And she had some issues that caused her to not really be, I guess, compatible with marriage. And at a certain point I was like, look, if you, this isn't working for you, we could just be friends, you know? And so we ended up splitting up. But people think it's weird when I'm like, no, it was a great marriage. I don't judge it necessarily by its length. I judge it by its depth, which is strange and counterintuitive. And we're like best friends, right? So we talk all the time, still hang out every couple of weeks. I'm dating again. She's not, but we're still like best friends. And I mean, I never spent so much time with anybody than I had with her. It was during COVID We both worked from home. We literally spent so much time with each other and never had any real contention. I think she just had mental, physical issues that she had to deal with. And at a certain point, it made her incompatible with the intensity of the intimacy and kind of co planning both macro and micro marriage. Right? So different story than the first marriage. We're not really on great terms with my first wife, but not horrible. I mean, just kind of all business. We have three kids together, so that is what it is. [00:50:55] Speaker B: All right, man, so the reason I'm asking all of this stuff about you and your history because, you know, I know I'm going at a pretty intense angle of, like, literally telling me your story is yes. [00:51:06] Speaker A: Sorry if my answer too long. [00:51:07] Speaker B: No. And they're great, man. I'm always interested in, like, who people think they are when they're writing a book. And I mean that in the highest respect. If someone writes a book and they have like, a real deal book, I'm like, huh? Like, you better have some chops. You know, this better not just be some, like, loosey goosey theories. And not just you. I mean, anyone. The space that I walk in in terms of, like, the leadership space and working in the corporate space, people are, like, always fast in some kind of book, left, right, and center and talking to me about books. And it's not that I don't think people could write. I literally don't care. Write all the books you want. But that doesn't mean that everyone should read someone's book or that their book comes from somewhere intelligible or good or from some source of wisdom. Anyone can have an opinion. So I'm asking all these questions because, like, I know, and I know this about you because although we're just meeting now, we have mutual friends. You know, I've known of you. I know a bit of your story. Monica did the brief. What's in that book is hard won. It's hard won knowledge and wisdom through, like, multiple crazy intense things. So anything you want to say about that before we get into the actual book? [00:52:19] Speaker A: Well, I think that was the intent. I wanted to be as real, as authentic as possible. So I reread what I wrote. Like, is that really what happened? Is that really how I felt? And even if I was uncomfortable putting it on paper, I would make sure that as best I could represent what really happened, what I really felt, no filter, unvarnished, even if it's slightly embarrassing. I didn't give a fuck. I mean, I'm literally writing a book called failure rules. Literally parading to the world. Hey, hey, I've done a lot of cool stuff, and guess what? I failed at most of them. And here's what happened. Here's I got. Here's how I turned it around, right? So I'm putting all the blemishes on display for the sole purpose of allowing people to hopefully feel more comfortable with. With their own failure events and inspired to keep going in spite of them. Right? It's born to lose, live to win. And it's lemme from motorhead, you know what I mean? It's hard times coming your way. Organize yourself and figure it out, you know? Like, that's what it is, you know? And that's what I wanted to put out in the world. [00:53:14] Speaker B: All right, so let's talk about the book, because, you know, you made a reference to it a bunch of times throughout, throughout our conversation here. And again, I think it's, like, super important if I'm going to have someone on here to talk about a book. I want to make sure that everyone understands. The audience hears the story leading up to it. So they're like, oh, damn. Like, there's something in this book that actually could speak to me. So talk about the book, the inception, how you wrote it, and then, like, what's what, why anyone should read it, why it matters to them. [00:53:43] Speaker A: Okay, so inception, why I wrote it. I was taking this beach walk at the end of 2013. It's father's day weekend. I was with my first wife, but I knew the marriage was unraveling. Just going through this business, divorce, tried to reorganize my financial life and figure out what my next moves were going to be. There's always moves multiple in parallel, right? And, you know, like, I'm on the verge of turning 40. Got this playlist on, and I was listening, like, motorhead, ace of spades, chrome eggs, hard times flowing through earbuds. And I'm thinking about, again, all this off road entrepreneurial adventuring. Adventuring I've done through my twenties and thirties and the crazy shit that had happened. I mean, even at one point I write about in the book, like, one of my first partners in the online lending business ended up going to prison. And I had to take over both that and the gym at the same time and visit him in prison, take care of his family while he was out. Crazy stuff, right? Wild, wild tales investigated by the feds for a whole bunch of stuff. Crazy stuff. And thinking, like, why am I not depressed? Why am I not giving up? Why do I got this fucking lion heart, you know? And I'm thinking about the quote from Winston Churchill that success is going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm. And a. I admire him and like to emulate him for his cigar smoking and his decisiveness. Be. That quote just spoke to me, right? And I was like, it's the enthusiasm that's like the core of it, right? Like, I have this undying belief and my purpose of being here on earth and the adventure of life, that nothing that can affect me from a circumstance standpoint or material degradation standpoint was going to deter me. It's almost like Ragnath Capo talks about, we don't have souls. We are souls. We have bodies. And because we are first souls, that's what matters me to the most. Anything else that happens in the physical material world, like, I'm going to roll with the punches on that because the heart and the spirit is inside. And enthusiasm was like this endorphin of the spirit, right? To help me get through the pain of these things. And I was like, you know what? I felt convicted to write a book on the value of failure and the value of getting through hard times and kind of catalog not only my own story, but all the different inspirational virtual mentors that really helped me get through that. And that's why there's so many stories there. It's everything from Rodney Dangerfield to billionaire Sarah Blakely to Elgin James, who started FSU and ended up being the writer for Mayans FX, to Captain Tony Tarasino, who was a gun runner and the mayor of Key West, Florida, to Stephen Pressfield, the author, to Henry Rollins, to whoever. Those stories for people, I always. I didn't really look to people around me. I got inspiration from music and artists and writers and entrepreneurs and their stories, and I tried to channel them at all these hard times and decision points, and I wanted to catalog them, tie them to lessons that I thought I might have learned, and tie them to my own story. And so that's what I did. [00:56:48] Speaker B: Yeah. So who should read this book? [00:56:52] Speaker A: So again, the title was for entrepreneurs, creatives, and authentics. First two are self explanatory. If you're an entrepreneur or you're some sort of artist or creative, I think this really will speak to you in terms of how to navigate and think through premeditatively unorthodox, difficult past where there might not be a blueprint laid out for you to follow in a clear, straight line way, but then also just authentics. Right. So I talk a lot about in the book, how to discover and identify your evolving, authentic self within even traditional spaces, even as an employee, how to be an entrepreneur employee, how to think creatively within a corporation and still have, like, this individualistic entrepreneurial mentality, yet also being part of a collective at the same time. So that kind of interplay is something to really navigate that I have experienced over the past ten years, going from punk rock entrepreneur to corporate executive employee, two very different mentalities. But I found a way to integrate both sensibilities together, and that was difficult. But I write about that a lot in the book, too. So I think the book can really appeal to everybody. Again, to be honest, we've all experienced hard times, failures and tragedies, and this does broadly touch on failure with defines a very wide, widely kind of experience. Right? So it talks about failure, not just mistakes we might have made that we could have avoid, but things that happened to us just by virtue of being part of the human condition, whether it's being touched by war or whether being touched by tragedy or sickness or what have you, just the failures of this broken, imperfect world and how to think through them. [00:58:40] Speaker B: Yeah. What are some of the things from the book that you could share with anyone that you want to unpack? Like, anything that you could say is like, oh, here's like, a couple things that I touch on that I think would be valuable for you. [00:58:51] Speaker A: Yeah, I would go back to. I think the book ended. Failure rules. Failure rule number one and failure rule number five. While the ones in the middle are important, these two, I think, are the most important from an identity and mindset standpoint. So failure rule number one, failure purifies. Remember? And this is starting to be cliche, this saying, but see things as happening for you, not to you. Right? Again, it's starting to be a cliche. I hear that all the time now, but it's true. And if you can step outside of the failure event, likely it was burning off some accumulated ways, some faulty thinking, some unstable foundation that you were relying on that needed to be rebuilt. So in those ashes, find out what was burned off for your good, and figure out what you need to now build with clear sight, with all the rubble pushed out of the way because of that event. And that takes some premeditated thought, it takes some emotional strength to regulate your emotions in the event. And then try to be an objective, third party, analytical observer and figure out where your next steps are going to be and how you can leverage that chaos as an idea engine. I think that's a very important concept. And then that then really connects to failure rule number five, which is you are not your failures. You got to decouple your identity from that failure event. It's just something that happened to you. Even if it's like an ethical failure. Like I write about with Elgin James, with his ethical failures, that he turned around, like, he still was able to find this new identity, had to deal with the consequences of the past, you know, still had to go to prison, everything else. Like, you still have to deal with the messiness of something, but that doesn't mean that it defines you. You can move on and find a way to align yourself with your calling journey and give the world the most unique output of your specific talents. And I think that really is the key crux of the book, is how can you go along your life and try to discover at each touch point what is the next best step for me to align with my calling journey, which is defined by me finding a way to give the world what only I can give in the way that I can give it based on my unique lived experience and unique talent stack. [01:01:10] Speaker B: Awesome. All right, man, well, anything that you want to ask me or anything that you want to add in here, I. [01:01:15] Speaker A: Would say just yet. Final thoughts, everybody. I'm going to push the book. Go ahead and buy the book. Failure rules, the five rules of failure for entrepreneurs, creatives and authentics. It's available anywhere. Books are online, all four formats, hardcover, ebook, you know, paperback, and also killer audiobook, which was read by Jay Yesang, who was one of the actors on Twin Peaks on Showtime. He also was a producer for Machine Gun Blues, a social distortion music video. He does a great job with the text. Real urgent cadence, really keeps your attention. So if you're not a reader, go download the audiobook and go to andrewthorpe King.com, knowing and Thorpe, you can find all everything I'm doing there, from the failure Rules soundtrack to a failure rules mini course, among other things, solo and fire supply company, my merchandise company that echoes the themes of the book. And follow me on Instagram. Andrewthorpe, King, no e and the other Thorpe. [01:02:07] Speaker B: All right, so you're ready for the crucial three. These are going to be three very difficult questions that are going to get harder from question to question to question. [01:02:16] Speaker A: Okay. [01:02:17] Speaker B: All right, question number one. But before we get to that, actually, let me just give a the reason that you and I are speaking, getting a chance to connect, is our mutual friend, Jay reason. Great, dude. Love you, Jay. Make sure to check out static era records. Awesome person, man of many, many careers, many things. Great entrepreneur. Love you, dude. All right, crucial three. The reason I ask these questions is every time that I'm speaking to someone who's got an interesting background, there are all these questions that I want to ask that I feel like, let's tell the story, but then let's give them some doozies at the end and see how they play with them. No right or wrong, just want to hear your answers. You're a purpose driven person. You have done a ton of stuff. You don't stop. You take a hit, you collect yourself, you keep going. So when I say purpose driven, what is your purpose? [01:03:09] Speaker A: So again, I talk about this book. I don't think anybody has one purpose. I think we have multiple purposes based on the trajectory of our journey. But my purpose is to constantly evaluate and discover what my multiple purposes are at any given touch point along my journey and make sure that I'm not muzzling my internal spirit, voice and drifting from my journey and immersing myself too much in comfort, immersing myself too much in soft conformity or immersing myself in complacency or materialism. So that's what I'm conscious of. If I can not drift, I can more clearly see what my next best step is to give the world what I most uniquely equipped to give them. And right now, it's the message of this book. Five years from now might be something different, but right now, like this book, is the distillation and culmination of all the things that I think I've learned. I changed my mind later, but I think I've learned that I want to offer to the world. And I think this really is my highest purpose right now, on top of or in alignment with the normal, ongoing purposes of being a father and a good friend and everything else in my normal kind of sphere of human relationships. [01:04:15] Speaker B: All right, next question is a two parter. Part one. What's one thing about you and the way that you do things or your walk on this world, whatever it is, what's one thing that needed to change and that failure helped change, and it's not an issue for you anymore. It's completely been changed through failure. [01:04:38] Speaker A: Yeah, I think, you know, I think really empathy and finding the ability to see others perspectives, see the world as a wider place, and to find a way to step into other sensibilities. I think from being broken and broken down and shattered and destroyed with a small d so many times, I am better at really seeing people and hearing them and not reflexively reacting or judging someone's story or circumstances. And I think that was one thing that needed a change in failure. Help me change. [01:05:19] Speaker B: All right, here's part two. What's one thing about you today that future failure needs to change? So what's one thing about you today that you recognize is not where you want it to be, but it's probably going to take some kind of future failure to help change. [01:05:44] Speaker A: I have big appetites and a big life. I like to smoke two to four cigars a day. I like to go out to dinner a lot. I love driving my cadillac. You know, I do. While I am a spiritual being, first and foremost, I still have a tendency to really enjoy the material world while I'm not attached to it. And so I think guarding that and making sure that I'm holding things loosely and willing to let go of them and allow them to be destroyed without changing. My happiness is something I'm very conscious of. It's actually tested recently, as you know, my house was hit by a de ratio in August, which is like a straight line wind with the force of a hurricane or tornado and over $140,000 worth of damage to my house and my beloved hot tub was destroyed. And that was one of my favorite pleasures. And to me was like this symbol of like, okay, the world gives, the world takes away. I'm a spirit soul. I'm gonna keep rocking on. I'm not gonna be attached to things. This practice of non attachment is something I always have to guard, else I could drift away and become too reliant on all the things that I do thoroughly enjoy. [01:06:56] Speaker B: All right, excellent. So last question. This is going to be a tough one. There can only be one. You cannot have like three or four or five backups. The Philly area is storied in terms of incredible, incredible punk, hardcore, just like, you know, like just subculture. Everything about it. I love, I love the Philly scene. I love the output. I love the people. If you were going to say the band that Philly should be known for for all time, what band? Punk and hardcore. What band should it be? [01:07:37] Speaker A: Has to be a band, right? Not a personality. [01:07:40] Speaker B: Not a personality. A band. [01:07:41] Speaker A: Damn, it was a personality. [01:07:44] Speaker B: Joe Hardcore JC, without doubt. [01:07:48] Speaker A: All right, so it's a band associated with Philly for all time. That is really, really a tough one. All right. This is going to be really. Oh, oh. This is not even a band I love, but it's legacy and it's punk and associate with Philly pretty heavily. I think it's probably dead milk, man. [01:08:15] Speaker B: Oh, that is unexpected, man. Good for you. You know what? Hell yeah. Good for you. That's awesome. [01:08:22] Speaker A: I mean, if I'm being objective about it. Yeah. [01:08:25] Speaker B: Wow. Not expected. Not an expected answer, but an absolutely killer answer. Amazing. All right, man, this was a fantastic conversation. Anything you want to add as we're closing off? [01:08:37] Speaker A: No, man, this was really good. I think it's pretty thorough. I think you all had enough of me at this point. [01:08:42] Speaker B: Everybody make sure to check out Andrew's book. And I always have eternal respect for people who are out there taking leaps. Not afraid to fail, not afraid to bet on themselves, get back up and go again. I think that's what it's all about from my perspective. And there's nothing wrong with playing it safe. Playing it safe is totally respectable, taking your time, pacing it out. But for the few of us that that's just for whatever reason, isn't an option. It's always nice to see a kindred spirit. So with that, Andrew, thank you so much. And everyone. I'll see you next time. On one step beyond one step. [01:09:18] Speaker A: One step what? That beyond.