Agent Palmer

Episode 104 features Matt Gilhooly host of The Life Shift Podcast, an instructor for higher education, and someone who is also working toward bringing conversation back. We discussed education and expected life paths, perfection, being creative, long-form content in all forms, the act of listening, celebrating things, moving on to what’s next and so much more…

Throughout the conversation, we discuss:

• Education
• Expected life paths
• Higher Education Expectations
• What comes next
• Engaging the brain
• Learning with and without structure
• Perfection
• Podcasting
• Challenging creative outlets
• Reading
• Communication
• Conversation
• Listening
• And much more

Mentioned and Helpful Links from This Episode

MattGilhooly.com

The Life Shift Podcast

–End Transmission–

–Begin Transcription–

00:00:00:01 – 00:00:26:33
Agent Palmer
Previously on Agent Palmer dot com. No matter which football you choose, Captains and Quarterbacks offers emotional journeys for viewers. The mystery of the Codex is always on the periphery, and have you become your own favorite since last episode, as David is. This is The Palmer Files episode 104 featuring Matt Gilhooly, host of the Life Shift podcast and instructor for higher education, and someone who is also working towards bringing conversation back.

00:00:26:45 – 00:01:12:41
Agent Palmer
We discuss education and expected life paths, perfection, being creative, long form content in all forms, the act of listening, celebrating things, moving on to what’s next and so much more. Are you ready? Let’s do the show.

00:01:12:46 – 00:01:34:44
Agent Palmer
Hello, and welcome to the Palmer Files. I’m your host, Jason Stershic, also known as Agent Palmer. And on this 104th episode is the host of the Life Shift podcast. Matt Gilhooly, perhaps you have heard the Life Shift podcast, or you were one of his students as he is an online instructor in higher education. Or maybe, like me, you connected with him online, or perhaps you don’t know him at all.

00:01:34:49 – 00:01:54:23
Agent Palmer
This episode should fix that. You will either come to know him or you will come to know him better. He’s here because I thought it would be interesting to speak with him. And the conversation you are about to hear has proven me correct. We discuss education and expectations are different approaches to learning perfection, proving worth, starting a podcast.

00:01:54:23 – 00:02:19:19
Agent Palmer
Challenging creative outlets. How communication has changed. The art of listening, practical instruction, what’s next and celebrations. All of that, plus a whole lot more is coming your way. But first, remember that if you want to discuss this episode as you listen or afterwards, you can find all contact information for Matt and myself in the show notes. You can find more information about Matt’s work in the show notes as well, where there are links to his personal website.

00:02:19:19 – 00:02:45:41
Agent Palmer
Matt gilhooly.com. That’s Matt Gilhooly.com, and his podcast, The Life Chef Podcast found pretty much anywhere you can find or listen to this podcast. Don’t forget you can see all of my writings rantings on Agent palmer.com. And of course email can be sent to the Palmer Files at gmail.com. So without further ado, let’s get into it.

00:02:45:45 – 00:03:10:42
Agent Palmer
Matt, I see that you, like myself, were a communications major in college, but I unlike me, you went back, for more education. And I wanted to know because I was someone who, when I got that bachelor’s, I was never coming back like I was done. And I want to know, like, what was the decision making, like, did you always want more?

00:03:10:47 – 00:03:13:39
Matt Gilhooly
No, I never wanted one to begin with.

00:03:13:39 – 00:03:14:15
Agent Palmer
Oh, okay.

00:03:14:17 – 00:03:44:32
Matt Gilhooly
But I think well I got I have two masters. I actually got my first masters when I was like 23. And that was just because I, you know, I talked to a lot of people about this, but I felt like growing up in the late 90s, it was very much there was like some kind of societal checklist that I had to follow in which, you know, like you had to do well in high school, then you had to go to college, then you had to pick a degree that was super easy for you because you had to do well in it so they could get a good job and get promoted and all these things.

00:03:44:32 – 00:04:00:34
Matt Gilhooly
So it was like I did my bachelor’s degree. The college saw that I did well and they were like, hey, do you want a free MBA? And I was 22, I think 22. And I was like a free MBA. Of course I want a free master’s degree. Plus I don’t have to go into the real world and work.

00:04:00:39 – 00:04:12:01
Matt Gilhooly
Right. And so you’re going to pay me to go to school, get a master’s degree, which society told me if I have an MBA, then I’m going to be like rich and famous, right? It didn’t happen, but. Well.

00:04:12:06 – 00:04:34:56
Agent Palmer
You and I are. You and I are in similar. I didn’t get the master’s thing like that wasn’t on my bucket or checklist, but like, I wasn’t not mine. Mind doing doing well in in in well how do I say this. Doing well enough. In high school I was I was a very, never lived up to my potential in high school kind of a guy.

00:04:34:56 – 00:04:59:37
Agent Palmer
So, like, I wasn’t going to, like, fall on my face when I got to college, but getting in was going to be an issue because I didn’t live up to what, whatever it was. But, there was never, a hesitation like, that’s what college is. What comes next. Like, that was always the thing. And then when I finished, I just went, now what?

00:04:59:42 – 00:05:22:52
Agent Palmer
Like it was just, a thing and then, you know, retail for seven years, and then you kind of finally, finally get your foothold in the professional world. And then, that all fell apart for me right before Covid. So I’ve kind of been, like, freelancing, for the last few years. And it’s freeing and terrifying all at the same time.

00:05:22:52 – 00:05:36:55
Agent Palmer
But like, my favorite thing and I guess this will lead into your second master’s degree is when Covid happened and I was already out of work, everybody was like, you should go back to school.

00:05:37:00 – 00:05:37:42
Matt Gilhooly
Yeah.

00:05:37:47 – 00:06:03:07
Agent Palmer
And I’m, I’m, I like to consider myself educated because, like, I like to read books. I like to learn things, but I don’t necessarily think I required the structure of going back to school for a degree. And that’s kind of one of the reasons that, like, even though I had all this time and master’s degrees were very cheap during the pandemic because everybody kind of they were they were hurting too.

00:06:03:12 – 00:06:12:46
Agent Palmer
I just never it was never a real consideration. So I guess my question to you is how do you end up getting a second one? Yeah. Like why why go.

00:06:12:46 – 00:06:33:33
Matt Gilhooly
Back for many of those reasons? Well, I mean, when I guess when the, when the pandemic happened, I got kind of bored because the job was I work in higher ed and I just teach online. So it’s super easy in a sense that, you know, we have we have 12 semesters a year. And so every four weeks I’m doing the same thing.

00:06:33:41 – 00:06:56:33
Matt Gilhooly
Okay. And what was happening is I would I would finish my workday early, which in a normal world, when it’s not a lockdown, that’s great because you can do other things, but there really wasn’t anything else to do. So in tandem with being just like having a lot of extra time, because my job didn’t require so much, I guess brainpower, I would say for a while.

00:06:56:33 – 00:07:02:59
Agent Palmer
After you do it for so long, and if you recite, you know, recycling it every four weeks. I mean, you can’t.

00:07:03:14 – 00:07:30:53
Matt Gilhooly
And there’s only so many ways that a student can do something incorrectly or correctly, you know? And so I felt like my brain was just like not doing anything anymore. So I decided that I was like, well, maybe I’ll just, like, forcefully activate my brain again. Okay. And like you said, a master’s degree. I found an online degree at the University of Florida, and it was fairly inexpensive for, you know, what we would consider, I guess expensive.

00:07:30:53 – 00:07:54:11
Matt Gilhooly
I don’t know, it was expensive, but it wasn’t, like, so crazy. Yeah. And I was like, not like you, though. You say you read and you feel like you’re you educate yourself. I feel like I needed to be forced, okay? I felt like I needed some kind of structure that forced me to those particular deadlines or to just get better at certain things that maybe I was okay at before.

00:07:54:16 – 00:08:20:21
Matt Gilhooly
You know, when I got my MBA was very focused on business. It was probably less writing, less research, those kind of things. And so getting this communications PR focused degree online forced me to write a lot. So I became a better writer. I became a better researcher. And, you know, somehow I got back into that same 18 year old mentality of, I have to be like, perfect again.

00:08:20:26 – 00:08:44:19
Matt Gilhooly
Like that late 90s mindset of like, I have to prove things. And this stems back to my childhood, and I don’t know if we’ll go into that. But, you know, I had, early childhood trauma, and my mom died when I was a kid. I’ll just say it. And from that moment, I felt that I had to prove to everyone that I was going to be okay.

00:08:44:23 – 00:09:20:22
Matt Gilhooly
Okay. And what that meant to me was to be perfect and to not make mistakes. And so that kind of permeated through my education as well. And so even at 40, I guess I went back at 40, 40 now, 39 and going back, I still fell into that same routine of just like trying to do it. But having come from experience of like working in higher ed, it was a different experience because I could see behind the curtain a little bit and I could read between the lines, which was a little disheartening in some ways as well.

00:09:20:24 – 00:09:37:35
Matt Gilhooly
But, you know, it filled my time. I felt like my brain was activated again. I ended up starting my podcast. During that time period. I published a bunch of kids books and coloring books, and so I really filled that time during Covid. It was like, no sitting around.

00:09:37:40 – 00:09:59:31
Agent Palmer
So so I the question that begs for me is I, I have a thing written somewhere in my house from a note that’s just like, perfect is the enemy of good. Mainly because, like, I will be the guy who’s like, maybe a third added on this blog post is fine. It’s like, no, no, no, no, no.

00:09:59:31 – 00:10:22:10
Agent Palmer
Like, you can publish that. It’s fine. Like, no, it’s okay. Have you gotten to a point because you said you were trying to aim for perfect, like, and obviously you’ve been doing the podcast for a while and nobody’s 100% perfect out of the gate. Like, have you kind of, like, come back from, like, okay, it doesn’t have to be perfect.

00:10:22:10 – 00:10:25:48
Agent Palmer
Like good good, like good. Okay, I can publish good.

00:10:25:53 – 00:10:50:14
Matt Gilhooly
Yes, yes. I think the podcast is different because it’s kind of this creative space, right. You have you can make whatever decisions you want because you own it. It’s yours. Okay. What’s perfect to you? You know, might not be great to other people, but I will say I one time in the podcast, I got a 3A3 star review and it was like, it’s just okay.

00:10:50:19 – 00:11:14:14
Matt Gilhooly
And it really, like stung, right? Everyone’s like, oh, you made it. When someone says your show sucks, you’ve made it. Yeah, but but me, I like really internalize it. I mean, my show is super personal, but then I created merchandise around it and so it made me feel better. Like I kind of like, took ownership of it. But during school, I was very much like, If I’m I got a 98, it’s like, oh my God, what am I going to do?

00:11:14:26 – 00:11:19:36
Matt Gilhooly
But I ended up with with a 4.0. So, you know, perfect. It is perfect.

00:11:19:36 – 00:11:26:19
Agent Palmer
I just, I, I, I end up having to cite that to my friends like I’ve got other.

00:11:26:24 – 00:11:27:25
Matt Gilhooly
Yeah, it can be debilitating.

00:11:27:34 – 00:11:55:41
Agent Palmer
It’s I think it’s very important to state this. Now you are 100% correct in that art is not like perfect is very different. But I’m surrounded by artists who are friends that have come to rely on me to be honest. Like, yeah, I’m I and it’s one of those weird places to be where like, I’m a fan of my friend’s work, but I’m also willing to be like, I’m going to challenge you on this.

00:11:55:41 – 00:12:26:14
Agent Palmer
Yeah. Like a little sandpaper is going to not not going to be bad for this. It’s going to smooth a few things over or, you know, it’s not just because I enjoy hanging out and having a cup of coffee with you, like, I’m playing devil’s advocate because you should be able to defend this decision. And I, I, I would love to take credit for that, but it really goes back to a poetry teacher I had in college who would challenge you on everything.

00:12:26:18 – 00:12:53:14
Agent Palmer
And at the time, you know, 17, 18 year old me, whatever it was, is like, this is trivial. Why are you. Why are you making me defend? Right. This this this rhyme. Like what? What’s the point? Right? And I, you know, eventually I became that professor to other people in a way. And it I think it’s made everything better.

00:12:53:19 – 00:13:01:12
Agent Palmer
And what’s weird is now I demand that kind of, feedback from my friends, it’s like, no, I don’t want you to shit on it.

00:13:01:17 – 00:13:01:37
Matt Gilhooly
Right?

00:13:01:49 – 00:13:06:17
Agent Palmer
But I don’t want you to tell me it’s great. Like, there’s always gotta be rules.

00:13:06:26 – 00:13:07:13
Matt Gilhooly
Don’t blow smoke.

00:13:07:13 – 00:13:09:48
Agent Palmer
Yeah, there’s got to be room to grow all the time.

00:13:09:53 – 00:13:31:17
Matt Gilhooly
Well, and I think there always is. And me, truthfully, on that same note, I love finding typos in things that have been professionally printed or like it’s it’s a favorite pastime of mine. And you’re like, how many people looked at this? And we’re like, okay, you know, but it’s still like it shows that we’re all human and like, there are flaws and we’re we’re not going to be perfect.

00:13:31:17 – 00:13:43:52
Matt Gilhooly
There’s really no such thing as it as being perfect. But I know growing up I was very conditioned to feel like I had to be. But that was, yeah, simply related to my experience.

00:13:43:52 – 00:14:06:48
Agent Palmer
I can easily I, I, I also love the, the misspelling in a book that’s been out for like two decades. I was so good when when my favorite, as good as those are, the juiciest ones have been like I’ve had. I’ve had the blog for over a decade now, and I’ve gotten to know some authors and I’ve gotten some advanced copies, and the juiciest one is finding one that missed everybody else.

00:14:06:48 – 00:14:24:15
Agent Palmer
When you get an advance copy of a book and being able to email an author before the final printing so they can be like, oh yeah, that’s totally not right, I will fix that. And it’s like, that’s amazing, because it’s like, not only did I spot it, but I was able to help somebody correct it, like, oh, this is cool.

00:14:24:20 – 00:14:42:17
Matt Gilhooly
Right? But as long as they’re willing to accept it, right? I actually did that today. I booked something for a vacation, like a place to stay. And their confirmation email had like some like an extra word in the sentence. And so like I was like, thank you, thank you. It’s just the teacher in me just wants to point out you have an extra word in that sentence.

00:14:42:17 – 00:14:50:39
Matt Gilhooly
Hope you don’t mind. You know, like, I don’t even know this person. But I also felt compelled like maybe other people are judging them on that. Maybe I can help out.

00:14:50:44 – 00:14:51:02
Agent Palmer
Yeah, but.

00:14:51:02 – 00:14:52:41
Matt Gilhooly
It also shows me that we’re just people.

00:14:52:43 – 00:15:11:37
Agent Palmer
Well, we are, we are. I think the other thing is, do people really read every like, I’m, I, I read a lot. I feel like I would read a lot more if I, if I learned how to skim. But I’m not, I don’t I just I’m not capable of consuming media that way. I need to read all the words that the author wrote.

00:15:11:37 – 00:15:45:22
Agent Palmer
Right. So I think that there’s a thing where, like some people, especially in communication, I mean, I was in tourism marketing for a very long time and having been out of it for so long now, one of the thing and it’s not I want it to be in marketing. I didn’t want to be in tourism, necessarily, but one of the things that’s scary to me is hanging around people that just consume half of what I’m saying and I’m their friend, much less the, the, the campaign we just paid X amount of money to put out.

00:15:45:22 – 00:16:11:43
Agent Palmer
That’s we we whittled down to eight important words. Well, if my best friend is only going to hear to half of what I’m saying, what’s an uncapped audience going to get? In my eight words, I’m going to get four of them in which for like and so I feel like communication is changed in a way that I, I’d like to think that long your, your podcast is also long form ish.

00:16:11:43 – 00:16:25:36
Agent Palmer
It’s not here’s five minutes and really condense it. I’d like to think this is a way to kind of turn back the page a bit. We’re like, you want to listen to all of the words that the person is saying?

00:16:25:41 – 00:17:01:17
Matt Gilhooly
Yeah, I would, I mean, I think, I think the pandemic changed people a little bit in that way. I feel like people are listening a little bit more. I’m with you, though. You know, with the podcasts I’ve one thing that I would say, like one skill that I’ve had to develop and I feel proud that I think I have is the skill of like actually listening, like you say, you know, I think for so long, especially before I worked in higher ed or even when I worked in higher ed in our meetings, you think of this corporate mentality where we’re all sitting there waiting for the next silence for us to bring up our, you

00:17:01:17 – 00:17:30:34
Matt Gilhooly
know, look at me point or ask that question that’s going to blow people’s minds. Meanwhile, we’re not listening to what’s actually happening. We’re just kind of waiting for that silence to show off because everything was so very performative. I felt that, you know, that was what we were conditioned to do in the 90s and an early 2000. But I think the pandemic, what happened is we all were like kind of we all had to stop and go, okay, well, it’s really important, you know, because we’re all going through this together.

00:17:30:46 – 00:17:50:55
Matt Gilhooly
Do I want to emerge from this doing the same exact things that I was doing before? And so I kind of feel like there’s a there is a shift in what you’re describing of people just like actually communicating versus performing for each other. I think there’s a little bit more of that, at least from what I see and what I’m able to to do on my podcast.

00:17:50:55 – 00:18:19:01
Agent Palmer
Yeah. I mean, the last time I was in the corporate world, I didn’t do very well because I listened like, and I think it’s one of those things where, if you’re my best friend, if you’re my partner, my girlfriend, my boyfriend, my wife, my husband, my sister, my brother, I want you to listen to me. Yeah, but if you’re my coworker, I don’t really want you to listen to me.

00:18:19:01 – 00:18:33:43
Agent Palmer
And I used to get in trouble for that, because what would happen is somebody would have an idea, and I would ask them a question they didn’t think of. Now, the only way you can actually ask a question they didn’t think of is to listen to their whole, to listen, to not be waiting for. When can I say my idea?

00:18:33:48 – 00:19:01:57
Agent Palmer
You’re telling me that if we do this, X will happen and I will just say, okay, I hear what you’re saying. What if it doesn’t? That’s not that. Nobody’s expecting the ball to be lobbed back. And I think a lot of the time people are taken aback and almost take offense by it. I wasn’t trying necessarily to be a dick, which is how I came off.

00:19:02:02 – 00:19:20:19
Agent Palmer
But at the same time, I listened to what you said and I saw a fault with it. And I’m not just going to let you like, you don’t have pants on. Maybe don’t leave the house like there are there I, you know, and I’m like, I’m not good with subtlety. And maybe it’s just my demeanor and it’s like, hey, I don’t know if that’s going to work.

00:19:20:19 – 00:19:33:43
Agent Palmer
What about this? Like, maybe, maybe. But I think there is a growing, nature to communication in general where like, you have to be willing for people to hear you.

00:19:33:48 – 00:20:05:00
Matt Gilhooly
Yeah. And and not in a performative sense. Right. And not just like, did you hear how great I did? Did you hear, you know, like, you have to be all parts and not just the great parts, right? Because I think the more interesting parts of humans or of us are the messy parts are the broken parts are the ones that aren’t perfect, and the less interesting things are the I got a promotion or this happened, you know, like I sold this many books or what.

00:20:05:00 – 00:20:32:22
Matt Gilhooly
You see, a lot of times on social media in which, you know, like I made $8 million yesterday, here are the eight ways that I did it. And you’re like, I don’t know, I, I just don’t gravitate towards that kind of stuff. But what you said was interesting to me, and maybe I don’t know if you see this from a podcasting perspective, although I listened to your conversation with your father, and it blew my mind that he listens to all of your episodes, I didn’t know if that was a joke or not, but.

00:20:32:36 – 00:20:36:37
Agent Palmer
Oh no, he does, because he’ll I’ll get texts. Okay, that’s that’s amazing.

00:20:36:37 – 00:20:58:03
Matt Gilhooly
Because what I see is that my show, I feel like more people that I don’t know love listening to my show than the people close to me. And I don’t know why. I mean, I have people close to me that like listening to it as well, but then some of them don’t. And I don’t know if they’re like afraid that if they do listen and it sucks, they’re going to have to tell me that.

00:20:58:03 – 00:21:01:52
Matt Gilhooly
It’s like, I don’t know what it is, but it’s very interesting that your dad.

00:21:01:56 – 00:21:27:06
Agent Palmer
Is, and it’s, it’s not just podcasting. In my experience. It’s content creation as a whole, whether it be YouTube videos, podcasts, blog posts, what have you. Now, my father wants to be supportive and he he likes the show, which is why he kept listening. And I would never expect my father to just listen if he thought it sucked, right?

00:21:27:09 – 00:22:04:13
Agent Palmer
But at the same time, I think he’s the rarity, right? I think most of the time creators are surrounded by their fans first and not their friends and their family. And I look at, when I first broke into podcasting, it was around, a group of podcasts that all had a similar listener base. But of those people, wives didn’t listen, you know, sons, daughters, parents didn’t listen, siblings didn’t listen.

00:22:04:13 – 00:22:29:25
Agent Palmer
We listened like we became our own little family, but nobody else did. And I think in that regard, like my father’s the outlier, I think if if there are people close to you that listen personally, that’s that’s the rarity. Yeah. Most of the time it’s the strangers who develop into friends, potentially because you’re communicating on either social media or email or on the show.

00:22:29:25 – 00:22:55:35
Agent Palmer
Right, right. That’s that’s a whole different thing. But most of the time, yeah. No like it. They aren’t a part of that thing unless they’re creating it with you. That’s kind of like the one asterisk. Like if you’re if you’re creating it with somebody. But that’s I think that’s par for the course in everything. And I just kind of expect that some of my friends are interesting.

00:22:55:35 – 00:23:41:10
Matt Gilhooly
Because you just recently said about, like, out in your corporate setting where the people around you that were not close to you were weirded out, that you were listening. But I almost think that, like The strangers will read or listen more and the people around you will cut out the filter or have like a filter of some sort, and they’ll listen to the components that they need to, unless it is a hey, I need you to yeah, XYZ kind of moment because I really feel like I pay attention maybe in more detail to people other than the people close to me, because I think I we speak a different language, if that makes sense.

00:23:41:10 – 00:23:41:39
Matt Gilhooly
Yeah.

00:23:41:49 – 00:23:56:30
Agent Palmer
I also think it depends on the there’s going to sound weird, the mode of communication. I mean, like I have, I have always and forever and probably will always be a phone person.

00:23:56:35 – 00:23:57:18
Matt Gilhooly
But that.

00:23:57:23 – 00:23:58:59
Agent Palmer
I use my phone.

00:23:59:04 – 00:24:00:12
Matt Gilhooly
For, like, you talk.

00:24:00:12 – 00:24:23:21
Agent Palmer
On it, I talk on it like that’s my I and I like, I like, I know, like my, my last non smartphone was the Motorola Razr right. And on that I would talk to people a lot. And I probably at that point for the people around me, I was talking more than texting, which was I was the oddball.

00:24:23:26 – 00:24:59:07
Agent Palmer
And then I upgraded to a smart phone. And I always hated the fact that because the first smartphone I ever had was an Apple, and I hated the fact that the one thing that drained the battery life more than anything else was to actually use it as a phone. And it wasn’t until down the road where I got like, I went to Android and now they’re a little bit better that I still, I still like if you look at my usage on my phone, maybe second to maybe listening to music or podcasts, it’s the phone app, like the actual phone app.

00:24:59:07 – 00:25:24:30
Agent Palmer
And that’s just who I am. So I think it’s just, I, I’m used to listening and I’m, I think the other piece to this is I’m obviously not doing it alone. Right. And so I’m forcing my other, my friends, my family to talk to me. Yeah. Some of them are close by within, I don’t know, 15 minutes.

00:25:24:30 – 00:25:31:19
Agent Palmer
Some of them are within 6 or 7 hours, but I’m forcing them to have a conversation because they picked up the phone and we’re going to talk.

00:25:31:24 – 00:25:44:08
Matt Gilhooly
Yeah. You’re creating more synchronous communication, whereas I think the world is a little bit more asynchronous, which is I mean, it’s a good thing for you what you’re doing. But I would say that’s yeah, definitely in the, in the rare side.

00:25:44:10 – 00:26:11:49
Agent Palmer
Yeah. And I I’d like to say that like it’s, it was also the technology was all supposed to make us come together, right? Like I was supposed to be able to just text you the address of the coffee place, and then we were going to meet up, and that just ended up devolving into. I’m just going to text you, I got a raise instead of going to the coffee shop to share that news with you in person.

00:26:11:53 – 00:26:51:17
Agent Palmer
And that’s not the middleman, like, legit like that. That’s the part that I, I kind of always worry about is like, the text to, get your friend to meet up with you is not the middleman. That’s like the order to, like, actually a genuine experience with another human. And we’ve cut that out. And now it’s like, I got to raise cool thumbs up emoji, like, okay, like smiley face, like, like, it’s just so weird that we’ve we’ve kind of taken the humanity out of communication.

00:26:51:22 – 00:27:18:44
Matt Gilhooly
Which is so weird because or it’s just thinking about that is so weird because I am that person. But also I thrive on the conversations that I have on my podcast. So it’s like I have this like outside of that, I don’t mind the asynchronous, asynchronous aspect of communication. Plus, I know the people that I do communicate with regularly are quite busy in whatever they’re doing, and so I don’t want to be that burden.

00:27:18:49 – 00:27:39:26
Matt Gilhooly
But then I, like I really cherish the time that I spend with with guests or with people being a guest, you know, and having the time where there are no distractions happening around me. There are no text messages going off, there’s no dings. You know, like anything that that would distract me. So it’s very weird that I have both sides of those.

00:27:39:26 – 00:27:59:21
Agent Palmer
Well, what’s funny is, I’m not remotely that far away from where you are. As far as, like, everybody seems to be way busier than I am. But I will tell you, they need that to, like. Oh, yeah. Like, so I don’t.

00:27:59:21 – 00:28:02:06
Matt Gilhooly
Don’t really want it. Like, I don’t want to talk on the phone.

00:28:02:11 – 00:28:15:10
Agent Palmer
Well, but you know what? Even if it’s just like, inviting my, one of my busiest friends who’s one of my best friends who works way too much, and forcing him to come over for dinner. Yeah, like.

00:28:15:15 – 00:28:18:49
Matt Gilhooly
I know I’d rather do that. We’ll talk on the phone, but.

00:28:18:49 – 00:28:41:14
Agent Palmer
Occasionally he thanks me because he knows. But occasionally, you know, these are friends that just are used to me calling. So they’ll pick up the phone if they have the time. And a half hour later, I feel like not only have we communicated and we’ve had, you know, we’ve shared stories or like, hey, this is what’s going on in the world or in my world or whatever.

00:28:41:26 – 00:29:14:09
Agent Palmer
But also I’ve taken a half hour of his day that is now no longer focused on work because he works too much, or, you know, other friends where it’s similar situations and, you know, it’s a lot of work on my behalf, but I also get something out of it because I feel like I’ve saved them, like I’ve given their brain a break from work, from whatever’s going on, and we can yell at each other about the state of what ever, because that’s what we do.

00:29:14:14 – 00:29:32:13
Agent Palmer
And so I kind of look at it as I’m throwing them a line as well. Like you, you can escape for 15 minutes here. We can just talk, you know, and, you know, sometimes it’s a 20 minute conversation instead of dinner because that’s all they’ve got. But I’m willing to take it.

00:29:32:18 – 00:30:02:14
Matt Gilhooly
Yeah. I mean, I think it’s important for cultivating relationships and maintaining relationships, but also, I think, you know, just thinking of the pandemic, a lot of people shrunk that list of their relationships, right? They really realized, like, which ones do I want to spend more time on? And so maybe they’re pouring more energy into a smaller cup of relationships instead of being like, oh, I have these 500 acquaintances that I’m regularly keeping up with now.

00:30:02:14 – 00:30:22:32
Matt Gilhooly
It’s a lot more focused. I do think people are doing it more. I think people see the value in relationships way more than they did before the pandemic. I feel that working is, a lot lower on the list, you know, so people work a lot, but I don’t see as many people making that the priority. I think that’s shifted a little bit.

00:30:22:32 – 00:30:25:21
Matt Gilhooly
I don’t know if you see that.

00:30:25:26 – 00:30:59:49
Agent Palmer
It’s weird because I it’s not like I’ve been not actively looking for real employment. I don’t actually enjoy freelance that much because it’s always like, well, where’s my next paycheck coming from? I would like I want that stability. But at the same time, my biggest problem is, I, I, I can’t lie to get the job, and I look, I know some old acquaintances and hold coworkers who could easily sell you anything, and you would hire them.

00:30:59:54 – 00:31:31:50
Agent Palmer
And before you realized that they weren’t what they said, they’d be on to their next job. Like, I’m not. I can’t, I can’t do that. I don’t have that in me. But at the same time, a lot of the times in interviews I get one question specifically, which is how do you make a successful X? Now X could be a podcast, a video series, or a newsletter, and I’m pretty sure that the powers that be always hate my answer.

00:31:31:55 – 00:32:01:13
Agent Palmer
And, and I think it’s because it’s the truth and they probably know it’s the truth, but they don’t want to hear it. So here it is. How do you make a successful podcast? You hire somebody to make the podcast, and you make it 80% of their job, and you keep it 80% of their job. The reason your last podcast failed is because the guy who was already overworked was the one who you put in charge of creating it.

00:32:01:28 – 00:32:25:46
Agent Palmer
And then when it didn’t do as well as you thought it should, you moved it down his priority list or he moved it down his priority list. You want your email newsletter to do well. You need somebody who’s going to write it and then follow up and do the A, B, testing and all the other things. But you have to let him do that and not be like, oh, by the way, can you also start a podcast for us?

00:32:25:53 – 00:32:50:19
Agent Palmer
And can you also cover this event and cover that event and go stand up? You cannot do that. Success doesn’t work. You can’t run a marathon if you’re holding 15 backpacks, you might get there in a few days instead of a few hours. But how do you want to cross the finish line? And all of these questions are prefaced by how do I make a successful X?

00:32:50:24 – 00:33:17:16
Agent Palmer
Well, that’s how you do it. You don’t just double down on like you’re really good at writing our intro podcast scripts. Can you also write these other 15 things? Maybe, but only if it’s 20% like there’s a, there’s a there’s definitely a limit. And I, I don’t think they want to hear that because that’s not they’re existing like all the people I know that are in marketing and development.

00:33:17:21 – 00:33:29:11
Agent Palmer
They have a lot of ideas that they’ll never be able to do, because they will guarantee they’re all guaranteed failures, because none of them have the initiative to add more to their plate.

00:33:29:16 – 00:33:52:47
Matt Gilhooly
Well, anything to the the things that you would be going for, like the things you mentioned. I think a lot of people don’t understand. I think they think on the surface that these things are easy to do. They don’t have a lot of, of legwork to do besides, like, oh, take podcasting for instance. We just get on here and we record and then we just put it on Spotify, you know, like, there’s a lot more than that.

00:33:52:52 – 00:34:15:26
Matt Gilhooly
There’s a lot more than that. And I know we’re not gonna talk about podcasting, but I think people don’t understand that in some cases, a single episode could be someone’s like ten hours of someone’s work, you know, or more if it’s scripted, if it’s a story based, if it’s not just a conversation, you know, but rather where you’re taking clips and stuff that’s like, you say, a full time job.

00:34:15:26 – 00:34:34:59
Matt Gilhooly
And I think people that don’t do it, whether that’s podcasting, whether that’s email marketing, whatever that is. Yeah, people that aren’t doing it, they it looks on the surface like, oh, that can be easy. Like a social media manager. Oh, you just post on social there strategy behind, you know, there’s a lot of content creation. There’s a lot of other things that come along with it.

00:34:35:03 – 00:34:39:51
Matt Gilhooly
And so I think you’re right. I mean, I think your answer is accurate. I don’t know what they want you to say.

00:34:39:51 – 00:34:45:26
Agent Palmer
I, I think they want me to say like, well, whatever you want. You know, like, you know, like because because the.

00:34:45:31 – 00:34:49:12
Matt Gilhooly
Look good on you for say for not I mean for not wanting to that.

00:34:49:19 – 00:35:01:31
Agent Palmer
Well I, because I, I’m in a position where if they hired me to do the thing knowing that they’re also going to give me 15 other jobs, I can’t actually guarantee anything.

00:35:01:35 – 00:35:03:37
Matt Gilhooly
Right. Well, you can’t really guarantee in a lot of those.

00:35:03:37 – 00:35:22:17
Agent Palmer
Oh yeah, that’s true. But like I, I but I know that that’s how it works. And it’s like okay, you know, I get it. And you know, nonprofits are tough. And that’s kind of where I like to be, because I think that mission driven work is a lot. I don’t know, it’s easier to get behind. It’s easier to get into.

00:35:22:17 – 00:35:43:00
Agent Palmer
Oh, yeah. But at the same time, you know, you’re limited on resources. Time ends up being the one that you can give more of than money. So like but I get that and all of those people are passionate and most of them, I don’t know, I haven’t really met anybody in the nonprofit sector who’s like, I don’t really like what I’m doing.

00:35:43:05 – 00:35:48:20
Matt Gilhooly
Like, you know, they’re not there for that. Yeah, they’re not there for the money.

00:35:48:20 – 00:35:50:05
Agent Palmer
No they’re not, and I.

00:35:50:10 – 00:35:50:42
Matt Gilhooly
Because there isn’t.

00:35:50:42 – 00:36:00:36
Agent Palmer
Any. Yeah. It’s true, I, I want to ask, before we get too far away from it, like you. Are you still a professor?

00:36:00:41 – 00:36:05:27
Matt Gilhooly
Yeah, I still teach. I don’t necessarily call myself a professor, but I am an online instructor.

00:36:05:27 – 00:36:14:09
Agent Palmer
Yeah, and is that, like, what? Did you actually go to the first degree? Was that going to be for something that you could teach in?

00:36:14:14 – 00:36:41:28
Matt Gilhooly
No, I, I got my MBA. I ended up working for multiple like small startup ish companies where I was doing lots of things, like on the operations side, on the project management side, nothing official, not like a official type in your example, this was definitely that. Like where every single hat kind of checks thing, which I enjoyed because it was a start up kind of feel vibe.

00:36:41:30 – 00:36:46:34
Matt Gilhooly
It was not something where I was hired for this one thing.

00:36:46:38 – 00:36:51:17
Agent Palmer
Well, you know, you also end up with a different 9 to 5 every day of the week.

00:36:51:22 – 00:37:11:30
Matt Gilhooly
Yeah, essentially. And so I did that for a while. And then I moved back up north to Boston from Florida to be around family. And then I realized I didn’t want to live up there anymore. So I moved back. And then it just I just kind of fell into it. And I’ve been doing it pretty much since 2008 and at all different levels.

00:37:11:30 – 00:37:28:09
Matt Gilhooly
At one point I was managing, you know, the first semester for all undergraduate students and working on curriculum and not teaching. And now I’m just teaching, which makes my life a lot easier. And it gives me time for the podcast. It gives me time to get a second master’s degree. It gives me time for all these extra things, which is nice.

00:37:28:13 – 00:37:50:16
Matt Gilhooly
But no, I didn’t go to school for this. But again, the school that I work for is it is a private, for profit college, but the way we structure the curriculum is more trying to be like, you know, sure, this textbook says this, but in the real world, like, this is actually what you’re going to be doing.

00:37:50:23 – 00:38:13:21
Matt Gilhooly
Like you’re taking an accounting class, but you’re never going to be an accountant. So as someone that’s working in this industry, here are the things you need to know about accounting. You know, like these practical things so you don’t get taken for whatever. And so and I think having that real world experience at working in startups and working in smaller businesses allowed me to teach a lot of different classes in the business programs.

00:38:13:21 – 00:38:28:22
Matt Gilhooly
So right now I teach like a, a portfolio and, in a personal branding type class. And I also sometimes teach a leadership class. So it’s really like, you know, it’s all stuff that I’ve either done, like in the workplace or that I went to school for.

00:38:28:24 – 00:38:50:38
Agent Palmer
I, I gotta tell you, I, I love the idea of a practical education like, because I, I, I’m 40 and I have these conversations with my friends where I feel like I’m giving them a practical education sometimes where it’s like, oh, I’ve been through this. It’s this was nothing that ever came up in any of our curriculums, ever.

00:38:50:44 – 00:39:19:38
Agent Palmer
Here’s what you need to know. And it’s so vastly weird that there’s these entire swaths of skills and knowledge that if if I didn’t have, like, a family member who went through it or a friend who went through it, I would literally be just up creek, like, I would have no idea where to turn or what to do.

00:39:19:43 – 00:39:44:52
Agent Palmer
And I consider myself a fairly educated person, so I feel bad for the people that don’t consider themselves that right. Like they they’re at such a greater loss. I’m willing to read a book about it. I’m willing to read a 15,000 word article or, you know, tutorial about it. There’s a lot of people that aren’t. Yeah. And I what how do we help them?

00:39:44:57 – 00:40:03:52
Matt Gilhooly
I don’t know, I think I think, you know, on the other side, I think we glamorize college too much. I don’t think that everyone should go to college. I don’t think everyone’s equipped to go to college. I think it’s okay that everyone doesn’t go to college. I think that we need to like you. You’re kind of pointing out as, like, vocational trades skills.

00:40:03:57 – 00:40:12:53
Matt Gilhooly
A lot of those are even more lucrative than what you can get with a college degree. Yeah. And so I think we glamorize the idea of getting a college degree.

00:40:12:53 – 00:40:33:55
Agent Palmer
I think that that’s I think that that’s the generation behind us is is in that boat. I think it’s I think it’s you and me. I think it’s we were one of the last generations, truthfully, that this elder millennial, whatever you want to call us, we were the last generation to get sold that Gen X bill of you go to college, you get a job.

00:40:34:08 – 00:40:47:33
Agent Palmer
Yeah, we it fizzled out right around our time of getting out of high school and going to college, because that’s again, like you said at the very beginning, it’s what you did. Yeah.

00:40:47:48 – 00:40:51:52
Matt Gilhooly
It was my checklist. It was the next thing on my list. And same thing for you. Yeah.

00:40:51:56 – 00:40:53:30
Agent Palmer
And I, I think.

00:40:53:35 – 00:41:17:37
Matt Gilhooly
I mean they even do it in school. You have to take the SATs and you have to take the S.a.t.s like you do it in school. And then you’re everyone’s checking each other like, who got what score. All right. And now you’re automatically like in Florida. They automatically. I don’t remember applying to college. I feel like all the state schools were like, here you’re in, you know, like, I, I sign this little post it and and you’ll, you’ll be applying.

00:41:17:51 – 00:41:32:27
Matt Gilhooly
So I don’t even think like it was something that I had to work towards. Had I had to write like an essay or I don’t think I would, I wouldn’t want to do that. I think I just like automatically got I don’t know, I can’t remember that far back, but I feel like I didn’t do much work to get into college.

00:41:32:27 – 00:41:34:37
Agent Palmer
Yeah. And when you were there.

00:41:34:42 – 00:41:36:44
Matt Gilhooly
I didn’t do much work to stay in college.

00:41:36:44 – 00:41:44:54
Agent Palmer
I was yeah, I was going to say like my freshman year did very well, though. Atrocious. Like, I eventually I did well. And I think that’s kind of.

00:41:44:59 – 00:41:46:38
Matt Gilhooly
I wasn’t allowed to not do well, though.

00:41:46:50 – 00:41:47:54
Agent Palmer
Okay.

00:41:47:58 – 00:41:50:38
Matt Gilhooly
In my own brain. I don’t think anyone else told me that. All right.

00:41:50:38 – 00:42:12:11
Agent Palmer
Well fair I yeah, I, I think I had to learn to fail badly like I, I had a, my first semester was like, oh, this isn’t like high school. I don’t have to go like, just do the work and skate on by. And then it was like, you are on academic probation. It’s like, oh, you know what?

00:42:12:11 – 00:42:16:11
Agent Palmer
Maybe I need maybe I need to find another way.

00:42:16:16 – 00:42:39:36
Matt Gilhooly
Yeah. You were talking to your dad about, something about your fear of success, but also, like, a little bit of fear of failure. And my whole life was definitely the fear of failure. And, you know, it’s something that I probably still fight, and a lot of it is, you know, like when when you’re a child and a parent dies in your brain as a kid.

00:42:39:40 – 00:42:59:36
Matt Gilhooly
So for me, when my mom died, I felt that she abandoned me like, because your brain is not so formed, right? It’s you don’t understand that. And the reason why I was afraid to fail is that I thought if I did something wrong or I didn’t do great, that my dad would also abandon me, and then I would be alone.

00:42:59:43 – 00:43:17:22
Matt Gilhooly
And so that just develops. It just goes along with you. And if you don’t deal with it because it was the 90s, people don’t talk about trauma. People don’t talk about grief. People don’t talk about that stuff. It just followed me through my life. And it just, you know, it kind of snowballs on the way up as you’re going through everything.

00:43:17:22 – 00:43:32:31
Matt Gilhooly
And so even as an 18 year old, 20 year old, it was like I would still call my dad and be like, look, I got an A, you know, and heating. I mean, he cared, but he didn’t care, right. Like it wasn’t nothing was going to happen if I got to be. Yeah. Nothing was going to happen if I got a C.

00:43:32:34 – 00:43:33:14
Agent Palmer
But you only know.

00:43:33:14 – 00:43:34:02
Matt Gilhooly
That so afraid.

00:43:34:09 – 00:43:35:38
Agent Palmer
You only know that now.

00:43:35:39 – 00:43:36:42
Matt Gilhooly
I only know that now.

00:43:36:42 – 00:43:45:54
Agent Palmer
Yeah. So it’s I mean, I guess I guess, I mean, you heard the conversation with my father, but like, has this.

00:43:45:58 – 00:43:47:00
Matt Gilhooly
Character, right?

00:43:47:04 – 00:43:56:28
Agent Palmer
No. But has this knowledge changed your relationship with your father? Like, you don’t have to call him and be like, had a great episode.

00:43:56:33 – 00:44:05:09
Matt Gilhooly
I still feel like there are still a part of me that still likes to get that validation.

00:44:05:16 – 00:44:07:57
Agent Palmer
I mean, some capacity as children.

00:44:08:01 – 00:44:32:58
Matt Gilhooly
I don’t feel that I don’t have a worry of abandonment anymore. I mean, as a 42 year old, I don’t, you know, I’m okay. But I do still think there’s something in me that feels the need to share something that is deemed successful with my with my father. No one really. No one else in my family. Really. Just him.

00:44:33:03 – 00:44:57:57
Agent Palmer
Okay. Yeah, I, I’m trying to think, like, first of all, I am I have such a hard time acknowledging success that I don’t even know who I would call. And it’s just one of those things where, like, I have a, one of my best friends, Chris. He has a probably about a 15 minute commute, and we talk on his commute.

00:44:57:57 – 00:45:17:28
Agent Palmer
That’s our daily thing in the morning. I don’t have a commute, but if I did, it would overlap, and we just. We just talk. We just talk about stuff and, he’s like, I don’t know, I to I said something to him about like, oh yeah, the podcast attorney for because obviously every few years, you know, it’s every other.

00:45:17:28 – 00:45:36:45
Agent Palmer
So you know, 26 is my one year. Right? So 104 is going to be my four year. And he goes, it’s a long time. You should celebrate that. And I’m like, nah, it’s not like it’s not my I. My brain is on to the 105 and 106 and 107 and 108 and 1 or 9 and 110 and what do I do?

00:45:36:49 – 00:45:38:55
Agent Palmer
You know, download your checklist.

00:45:39:00 – 00:45:40:38
Matt Gilhooly
I do the next thing on the list. Yeah.

00:45:40:38 – 00:45:56:51
Agent Palmer
I don’t have that like stop and look. We did an entire episode 52 is Chris and I talking about this entire thing of like me being like, it’s been a year. And he’s like, yeah, you should celebrate it. I’m like, I just kind of want to go on to the next one. But you said I should celebrate it.

00:45:56:51 – 00:46:04:37
Agent Palmer
So here you are. And I think it’s I don’t know if it’s healthy or not, but like, that’s it’s where I’m at right now. So I’m. Oh.

00:46:04:42 – 00:46:27:05
Matt Gilhooly
Oh I think it’s, I think it’s a conditioning of our time period. I think is 100% because I had the same thing when I was in the final semester for this most recent graduate degree. I wasn’t going to walk, I wasn’t going to go to grad. I didn’t go to graduation for my MBA because I had just graduated like ten months before that with my undergrad.

00:46:27:05 – 00:46:43:26
Matt Gilhooly
So it was just like it was a quick thing, and I was I was like, why am I going, who cares? I just did it. Yeah. And so this time I wasn’t going to go again because I was just thinking, in your same case, it’s just like, okay, well, it’s just another check mark. It’s just I finished it, I’ll carry on to the next thing.

00:46:43:30 – 00:47:04:17
Matt Gilhooly
And I said it out loud, like on social media, maybe on LinkedIn. I was just like like, should I go like. And people are like, yes, you should go. And this is you just spent two years doing all this work. You’ve been producing all this stuff. You’ve done very well. You’ve challenge yourself when other people haven’t been doing as much stuff.

00:47:04:22 – 00:47:29:18
Matt Gilhooly
And and so it was like, I really I forced myself to go and of course, I was just like, well, whatever. Like when I was there, I was like, well, did I really need to go here because of that whole mentality? But I think it’s I think it’s like you say, it’s like this generation that we’re a part of where we’re, you know, in the graduating in the late 90s, early 2000, I guess, it’s just that, like, feeling like we just go on to what’s next.

00:47:29:18 – 00:47:43:45
Matt Gilhooly
You don’t stop and and look back. You just keep going. So I get it, I get it. I try to do better, though. I try to celebrate those those wins or what I feel like, oh, wow. Okay. If I look at it long enough, it’s a win.

00:47:43:50 – 00:48:02:49
Agent Palmer
I, I, I this is where my circle. I rely on my circle like I got I’m fairly vocal about like, oh, you know, I’m at episode 100 or that’s great. You know, blog post, whatever. And I, I rely on them to be like, you should really celebrate this. Like, okay, all right. Well, I guess I’m going to listen to you, like, make yourself a cake.

00:48:03:03 – 00:48:18:35
Agent Palmer
Yeah. And so like, I need that help and like, they’re all in the same boat. I just some of us, some of us have the checklist on a never ending loop, a lot more than other people. And that’s.

00:48:18:40 – 00:48:22:36
Matt Gilhooly
I mean, how many post-its you have on your desk right now?

00:48:22:41 – 00:48:28:12
Agent Palmer
Well, I did just clean, but I have a I have at least four separate to do lists.

00:48:28:17 – 00:48:49:03
Matt Gilhooly
Yeah, exactly my point. I have a bunch of them all stuck all over the place. And there’s a there’s a satisfaction that I get. I don’t know if you get this when you cross something off. And sometimes I will do something first, and then I’ll put it back on my list so that I could cross it off, because there’s this sense of like, I think we know that we want to acknowledge that we’ve achieved something.

00:48:49:03 – 00:49:12:35
Matt Gilhooly
There’s something there where it’s just like, I want to be able to say that I did it. Yeah. But I also it’s weird to celebrate it. I will say, though, like with podcasting, at first when I did it or like when I first launched, I didn’t want to celebrate much because I just didn’t realize all the intricacies. But now when I hear someone like you, you know, I’ve done 100 episodes for years into it, that’s a big deal.

00:49:12:35 – 00:49:37:54
Matt Gilhooly
Like that’s something to celebrate. Now, I know, because, you know, I just, I think I just released episode like 70 of my show and I have, you know, 96 scheduled. And so it’s like, that’s a lot of work. And so I’ve learned now because seeing people that have done it longer to go, okay, good for you. You know, like it’s a lot easier to celebrate someone else, but then also bring that reflection back on me.

00:49:37:54 – 00:49:47:25
Matt Gilhooly
So I’m thankful for that.

00:49:47:30 – 00:50:21:29
Agent Palmer
The more interesting parts of us humans are the messy parts, the imperfections. And I think that we’ve taken the humanity out of communication by keeping all of or most of our communication short, impersonal, and less physical meaning in person. A conversation can be a break from what you’re focusing on. And so in all of these things, we learned that maybe getting a cup of coffee is the thing you need to do.

00:50:21:34 – 00:50:49:11
Agent Palmer
Maybe sitting down for a long conversation is fine, or perhaps just a phone call. Because the thing about it is, and this is what I always bring across, and I think Matt agrees with me, is that talking to someone, not texting with them, not emailing back and forth, not sending some kind of direct message via any platform allows you to connect with that person.

00:50:49:16 – 00:51:24:21
Agent Palmer
And perhaps, maybe just even on the phone. There is a physicality to that that doesn’t exist anywhere else. So my question to you is, when was the last time you sat down for a conversation your own? Like, I appreciate that you listen to this podcast, and this is a conversation that I believe is worth listening. But when was the last time you had one and why has it been that long?

00:51:24:21 – 00:51:45:01
Agent Palmer
And if not, why aren’t you doing it more often? Thanks for listening to The Palmer Files episode 104. And now for the official business. The Palmer Files releases every two weeks on Tuesdays. If you’re still listening, I encourage you to join the discussion. You can find all related ways to contact myself and my guest, Matt Gilhooly, in the show notes.

00:51:45:06 – 00:52:08:12
Agent Palmer
There you can find links to visit his personal website. Matt gillooly.com again, that’s Matt Gill, Molloy, SI.com, and his podcast The Life Shift Podcast also found pretty much anywhere you can find or listen to this podcast. The music for this episode was provided by Henno Heitur. Email can be sent to this show at The Palmer Files at gmail.com.

00:52:08:12 – 00:52:16:35
Agent Palmer
And remember, you’re home for all things. Agent Palmer is Agent palmer.com.

00:52:16:39 – 00:52:31:17
Unknown
And you?

00:52:31:22 – 00:52:44:05
Unknown
See?

00:52:44:10 – 00:52:53:46
Unknown
Me?

00:52:53:51 – 00:53:00:15
Agent Palmer
She’s all right. Matt, do you have one final question for me?

00:53:00:16 – 00:53:25:11
Matt Gilhooly
I do, and it’s going to be in the theme of my podcast. So my podcast is the Life Chef’s Podcast. And so I’d love to know if you’ve ever sat down and kind of reflected on your life, on a very specific moment that’s really changed the trajectory of your life, like a very pivotal piece of your life that really just change things, whether that’s good, bad or indifferent.

00:53:25:15 – 00:53:50:21
Agent Palmer
Yes. And I’ve talked about it and I’ve done an entire episode about it, damn it. And so however, I don’t reflect on it and I don’t know if that’s important or not, but this is the thing. So I, due to circumstance, I can’t remember what episode it was, but I did a solo episode all about this, which this was my college, capstone project.

00:53:50:26 – 00:54:12:44
Agent Palmer
And then I rereleased, rerecorded it and rereleased it for this podcast. And basically I spent a semester abroad in Israel. And then I came back. That was the second half of my junior year. And then I came back and I got an early admission into college. And so that the but the circumstances leading up to that was all that I wrote a paper.

00:54:12:49 – 00:54:39:28
Agent Palmer
Now, I was in a rural, very rural, school district. And so the English teachers didn’t review the papers that we wrote. They had quote unquote, theme readers. And basically one of the the theme reader who read one of mine was like, oh, by the way, your entire belief system is wrong. And, yeah, no, there were grammatical errors with the issue.

00:54:39:30 – 00:54:55:27
Agent Palmer
You know, I would, are we really polished writers as juniors in high school? Probably not. However, I went to the teacher and I was like, hey, I have a problem with some of the ink on this. And they’re like, we’re not changing your grade. I was like, I don’t care. I don’t care if you change my grade or not.

00:54:55:32 – 00:55:15:20
Agent Palmer
I don’t I want to talk about the comments. And so, you know, I very much tried to handle it myself. And when I felt like I was going nowhere, I got my parents involved in because it was spiritual. They got the rabbi involved in long story short, three months later, I’m on a plane. And the rest is kind of history.

00:55:15:20 – 00:55:21:44
Agent Palmer
And I’ve told that part of the story. Yeah, but if I don’t.

00:55:21:49 – 00:55:30:35
Agent Palmer
Take offense. If I don’t stand up and go, I don’t like what you’re writing here as a what was I, 15, maybe 16?

00:55:30:35 – 00:55:32:01
Matt Gilhooly
Yeah.

00:55:32:05 – 00:55:37:03
Agent Palmer
You know, that that changes everything. Because if I don’t, if I keep my mouth shut.

00:55:37:07 – 00:55:39:03
Matt Gilhooly
Right.

00:55:39:08 – 00:55:56:26
Agent Palmer
I don’t get my parents involved. They don’t get the rabbi involved. It’s not a spiritual thing. I don’t go overseas. I don’t get an early in the college I probably go to college for. I mean, high school for the whole four years instead of just two and a half. And that. That’s the one. That’s the one that changed everything.

00:55:56:26 – 00:56:03:21
Matt Gilhooly
Now, was that the first time you had done, like, stood up to like a quote unquote authority figure in that way?

00:56:03:23 – 00:56:30:45
Agent Palmer
No, that’s the thing. I’ve done it before because I am, I’m not afraid to tell truth to power, which might make me one of the more un hirable qualified people in the world, because right now and I can I can spot it when I walk in for an interview or a networking thing. I can tell the people that want to hear what they want to hear.

00:56:30:50 – 00:56:31:49
Agent Palmer
I’m just not the person.

00:56:31:49 – 00:56:32:54
Matt Gilhooly
And you’re not going to play into that?

00:56:32:54 – 00:56:46:00
Agent Palmer
Yeah, I’m not going to play into that because I don’t want you to think that’s what you’re going to get. I’m a straight shooter. That’s just how it is. And so, no, I was a I was a troublemaker. I mean, I, I, I think.

00:56:46:05 – 00:56:48:49
Matt Gilhooly
Well, I think there’s a difference between troublemaking and. Well.

00:56:48:54 – 00:56:49:48
Agent Palmer
Okay. At the time.

00:56:49:50 – 00:56:50:26
Matt Gilhooly
Signing up for.

00:56:50:26 – 00:57:19:16
Agent Palmer
Your I guess at the time, it would have been troublemaking because that was standing up for myself. But telling, you know, talking to power and standing up to my like, there were times when, especially in a rural school district where I know some of those teachers knew school board members and weren’t necessarily qualified for the things like I knew I understood some of the some of the reading material more than they did, and I would have no problem asking them questions that I knew they had no way to answer.

00:57:19:16 – 00:57:21:23
Agent Palmer
I’m just like, I.

00:57:21:27 – 00:57:22:27
Matt Gilhooly
Don’t get them.

00:57:22:32 – 00:57:43:35
Agent Palmer
There’s a time in everyone’s life when ego matters. When I was in high school, if I was smarter than the teacher, I wasn’t going to hold back and on purpose. Yeah, I was just going to go like. And here’s the thing. There were at least two English teachers through middle and high school that were my match. They were wonderful.

00:57:43:39 – 00:57:57:25
Agent Palmer
But then you sit in a class of somebody who is not your match, and you go, all right, well, I guess I’m either going to be bored or I’m just going to say the game. It was yeah, I.

00:57:57:37 – 00:58:00:17
Matt Gilhooly
But that one was more personal, right? If you’re reading this feedback.

00:58:00:17 – 00:58:21:58
Agent Palmer
That one was more pertinent. But I think that it it’s kind of like a happenstance thing because I think had it been one of the teachers that was my match that I could talk to, I don’t think it would have the I don’t think the response would have just been, I won’t change your grade, because I think they would have heard me say, I don’t care about the grade.

00:58:21:58 – 00:58:36:26
Agent Palmer
It’s the comments, right? So I think some of it is that, that personality where it’s like, all right, I think I may have I guess I’m in a fight now. Like, and that’s kind of the way it was. Because I think I.

00:58:36:37 – 00:58:43:17
Matt Gilhooly
Was more instigated by by the teacher saying, just like dismissing you more so than the words on the page.

00:58:43:21 – 00:58:48:07
Agent Palmer
I think that that’s what escalated it for me to go get my parents.

00:58:48:16 – 00:58:55:17
Matt Gilhooly
Right. So then you got your parents, which which you feel involving someone other than yourself was what kind of.

00:58:55:28 – 00:58:56:06
Agent Palmer
You’re.

00:58:56:11 – 00:58:59:11
Matt Gilhooly
Started the upward trajectory towards your trip and.

00:58:59:20 – 00:59:06:21
Agent Palmer
Probably because it’s it’s you’re 15 and if you’re not going to get the attention of the teacher, then who else is?

00:59:06:26 – 00:59:13:25
Matt Gilhooly
So in this case, were your parents always supportive of you? Bucking the system. And I mean, if we’re going to use I mean, kind.

00:59:13:25 – 00:59:21:58
Agent Palmer
Of crazy, I would say that neither of them would argue against me being a bit smarter than some of those teachers.

00:59:22:03 – 00:59:26:21
Matt Gilhooly
Right? Were they always behind you in your decisions in those ways?

00:59:26:26 – 00:59:31:19
Agent Palmer
I don’t I don’t I’ve never I mean, we haven’t they were behind me in that one.

00:59:31:24 – 00:59:32:15
Matt Gilhooly
Okay.

00:59:32:20 – 01:00:00:06
Agent Palmer
But other ones I, I, I it’s probably the only one that’s really come up okay. In that regard. I like to think that knowing both of my parents fairly well, it will not be an unequivocal yes. I think there were definitely times and they were like, what the hell are you doing? But I think when when push came to shove, most of the time, if I wasn’t, if it wasn’t all ego, then yeah, I think they were behind me.

01:00:00:11 – 01:00:21:50
Matt Gilhooly
The, the only reason I ask that is because, you know, sometimes it’s just seeing that that’s the, you know, if you were like every time before, they were just so very dismissive of it. And then you were like, this one time they stood up behind me. I could see also how that. Oh, yeah, like understanding that now I have support like, oh, I can do other things.

01:00:22:01 – 01:00:25:11
Matt Gilhooly
And then you kind of lead into like if there’s possibilities out.

01:00:25:12 – 01:00:40:51
Agent Palmer
If I’m honest, I would be willing to bet that there were probably other things before that, like little things that I could have easily brought my parents in, but I was strong enough or had enough ego to be like, I could fix this.

01:00:40:56 – 01:00:45:49
Matt Gilhooly
So the teacher just saying no, it’s just like. And they were very dismissive, like dismissive.

01:00:45:49 – 01:01:05:47
Agent Palmer
Like there’s a I think I want to say it’s an I okay, I want to say it in my mother’s episode, episode 50, that she tells the story of like after I was comfortably overseas, they went and met with the teacher and the president, and the teacher still didn’t get it. And my mother, not my father, which I would have put money on.

01:01:05:47 – 01:01:13:17
Agent Palmer
My mother was the one who almost jumped over the desk because she was so accepting. She didn’t get it. No it’s not had nothing to do with me.

01:01:13:21 – 01:01:14:19
Matt Gilhooly
It was just frustration.

01:01:14:19 – 01:01:24:47
Agent Palmer
It was just the frustration of like, you still do not like we’re not talking about grades anymore, right? How do you not understand that? Yeah. And so,

01:01:24:52 – 01:01:27:20
Matt Gilhooly
Yeah, but you said you also got your rabbi involved.

01:01:27:25 – 01:01:34:13
Agent Palmer
Yeah. Because it was a lot. It was based on a, it was an essay about religion. And at the.

01:01:34:13 – 01:01:35:16
Matt Gilhooly
Time the bear.

01:01:35:21 – 01:02:05:27
Agent Palmer
Yeah. Seriously. I mean at the time I was not I mean I’m still Jewish but I’m not like the most religious. You’re culturally Jewish, I’m culturally Jewish, I’m also spiritually Jewish. But I’m not practicing okay. You know so and I think at that time I was wavering and I was reading lots of other things. But I think I had a good relationship with that rabbi because I, you know, I’m, I’m a year and a half, maybe two years removed from my bar mitzvah.

01:02:05:27 – 01:02:21:38
Agent Palmer
So it’s not like I didn’t have a relationship with him from studying through that. So I think that it was just an outside force because of the subject matter. Like had it been about baseball? Yeah. Like we probably just it’s just my parents and the president and the principal and me. Right.

01:02:21:40 – 01:02:23:07
Matt Gilhooly
Oh, you wouldn’t have got the feedback.

01:02:23:11 – 01:02:23:33
Agent Palmer
Yeah.

01:02:23:33 – 01:02:28:55
Matt Gilhooly
So someone was it felt attacked by reading your differing views on.

01:02:28:55 – 01:02:51:35
Agent Palmer
And what’s funny is, I’ve been kind of cleaning out my house. That’s the one thing I have been doing over the past 5 or 6 years. Like going through, like, I don’t need this. I, I found not only that essay, but I found another essay that was also that may have even more incendiary comments written on it, but that was dated after it.

01:02:51:40 – 01:03:00:45
Agent Palmer
So it was like all that crap had already happened. And when I got the next one is like, now I just ignore this now. Like at that point in time, I’ve got thicker skin, but the first one was kind of a shock. It’s like you.

01:03:00:46 – 01:03:02:29
Matt Gilhooly
And you don’t know who did that feedback, right?

01:03:02:41 – 01:03:19:33
Agent Palmer
No, no, they they protected. It’s anonymous. It’s a theme reader. The for all even worse. I mean I could tell you that they were a, pack a day smoker at least, because when we got our essays back, they reeked of nicotine. But outside of that, Who knows?

01:03:19:37 – 01:03:39:49
Matt Gilhooly
It’s so interesting, though. I mean, I really love when people. I mean, it sounds like you already knew, but I love when people have to like, think back. Like, what was that one thing? And it’s just so interesting that you’ve already done that and realized how that pushed you farther. Do you think that you’d be a different person if 100%?

01:03:39:49 – 01:03:56:08
Agent Palmer
Because I don’t end up going to the college I go to. Okay. You know, because I that college was at the end of my dad’s episode, he asked me what I thought about my three options when I returned from Israel because they were go back to the high school, go to, different high school or get an early admission to college.

01:03:56:13 – 01:04:16:15
Agent Palmer
And it’s that early admission to college that kind of I meet a lot of I my my friend Jason’s a potter who’s been on the show a few times. He’s the one person I talked to from high school, and he wasn’t even in my class. Right. So he basically when I left halfway through his senior year, that was it for him, too.

01:04:16:20 – 01:04:39:13
Agent Palmer
And so everybody else I know that’s close to me in my life is from college, and I meet them because I’m at that college at the right time. So even just socially, yeah, that’s the point. Like it’s that early. It’s all those circumstances that lead me out of high school and into college early. There are probably other moments since then.

01:04:39:21 – 01:04:39:44
Matt Gilhooly
Oh, yeah.

01:04:39:49 – 01:04:46:14
Agent Palmer
But that’s probably the one big like, those are the two paths that diverged.

01:04:46:14 – 01:04:49:25
Matt Gilhooly
And your sliding doors moment, if you’ve ever seen that movie.

01:04:49:28 – 01:05:15:22
Agent Palmer
But at the same time, I don’t think about it that much. Like, even still, I think when I, when I redid the senior project because it had copyright music from the senior prom, the actual senior, but like I, I took that moment to kind of look back on it. But I still think there’s a part of me that takes it a little bit for granted, and I don’t nearly focus on it enough.

01:05:15:22 – 01:05:30:58
Agent Palmer
But at the same time, kind of like, what’s next? Like I’m on to the next. Like I it’s doesn’t matter. Those roads, I don’t mind. Those roads diverged so long ago at this point. That’s more than half my life ago.

01:05:31:02 – 01:05:51:17
Matt Gilhooly
Yeah, it’s but it all. You can also tie it to the not. I mean, I don’t know if you’ve ever celebrated that moment, but there are a lot of celebrations to be had in that moment of you standing up. You defending that, and, and advocating for yourself by getting other people involved. There’s a lot to celebrate there that I think a lot of people wouldn’t do.

01:05:51:22 – 01:05:52:41
Matt Gilhooly
A lot of people wouldn’t have done that.

01:05:52:52 – 01:05:59:27
Agent Palmer
That that’s fair. But I’m I’m also not one to celebrate my own stuff anyway. So like, it’s.

01:05:59:34 – 01:06:06:59
Matt Gilhooly
You know, that’s what I’m saying. It’s attached to this. I don’t celebrate anyway. Yeah. So that that makes sense. Why you wouldn’t reflect on it. Yeah. But I think.

01:06:07:04 – 01:06:20:48
Agent Palmer
I, I’ve tried and like recently I’ve tried to get into like not journaling because I’m not but just do it but just, just like sit down and write for the sake of writing for less than a few weeks.

01:06:20:53 – 01:06:21:56
Matt Gilhooly
You can just podcast.

01:06:21:56 – 01:06:45:38
Agent Palmer
Well, it ended up being like, oh, here’s a paragraph for my next intro. And oh, here’s two paragraphs for annoying next blog post, which is fine, but all the stuff I actually wrote like that would have been more. Journaling was all depressing, and I was like, I don’t want to. I could probably be better off just listening to a podcast and not writing this to like, maybe it’s good to get it out, but at the same time, I wasn’t thinking about it before, so let’s just move it along.

01:06:45:38 – 01:07:10:38
Matt Gilhooly
I mean, I think there’s a just a good learning lesson in sharing that story. So I’m glad you’ve recorded it because I think, what I find is when you hear other people’s stories, you might not have experienced the same thing. You might not be going through the same journey that the other person is going through. But I always feel like there’s some element of someone’s life story that, that you can resonate with or like that you can be inspired by.

01:07:10:38 – 01:07:31:24
Matt Gilhooly
And so someone listening to like, oh, wow, the fact that as a kid you like put your foot down and were like, no, this matters. This is not just a great like, who cares about the great at this point, you’re insulting me essentially by what I’m saying. And if you’re not going to listen, then I’m going to get other people to help me listen.

01:07:31:24 – 01:07:38:28
Matt Gilhooly
Like there’s some inspiration in that. For other people that are maybe in those crossroads, you know? So I’m really glad to hear that you share that story.

01:07:38:28 – 01:08:08:56
Agent Palmer
And I also think it’s important to note that, you know, you’re approaching 100. I’m over 100 for the most part. I’ve got like an 89% new person, new guest, mental. I’ve had a few repeats, but like you learn in these conversations, especially if they go over 15 minutes, everybody’s got those pivotal moments. And whether they are from last week.

01:08:09:01 – 01:08:22:09
Agent Palmer
Or 20 years ago, we all have them and they’re all potentially inspiring to someone else, whether it’s me on the other side or you on the other side, or whoever’s listening.

01:08:22:14 – 01:08:49:01
Matt Gilhooly
I also feel there’s value in sharing it. Like, I don’t know about you if you. The first time I had to, like, piece together the beginning, middle and end of my own journey, I learned a lot about myself. I shared it in a way that had never been told in that length of space. And so I see it with my guests as well, like, oh, wow, there’s a lightness to it, or there’s something that they’ve learned about themselves by sharing it.

01:08:49:01 – 01:08:54:57
Matt Gilhooly
So, I don’t know, I always I love storytelling in that sense of like real stories that that matter.

01:08:55:03 – 01:09:20:28
Agent Palmer
I think there’s also, yeah, I the few times I’ve done it because there’s another I did, Agent Palmer behind the microphone episode where I basically told by from the start of the blog to the start of the podcast and everything that happened in between. And you’re right in telling that story, I reflected. But had I not sat down to tell that story, I do not reflect.

01:09:20:28 – 01:09:27:16
Agent Palmer
In fact, I’m probably still sitting here without reflection. That point I.

01:09:27:21 – 01:09:30:58
Agent Palmer
For better or worse, need to put it on the checklist.

01:09:31:02 – 01:09:51:22
Matt Gilhooly
Yeah, well, well, think about it too. When you have a conversation, usually when you have a conversation with someone, they ask you about a specific thing, you answer it. You kind of go back on that. Someone going through the same experience as you, they only hear this back and forth. They’ve experienced it with you. So an example of this when I told my story about, like, my dad sat me down when I was eight and was like, your mom died.

01:09:51:27 – 01:10:08:22
Matt Gilhooly
And then I had to move to another state, live with him full time. And then but we had the same journey, right? Like we lived the same lives together. Yeah, but when I told my story on my podcast, I said he wasn’t there, so he didn’t get to interrupt. He didn’t get to say no, that’s not how it happened.

01:10:08:27 – 01:10:27:09
Matt Gilhooly
I sent him the episode and he was able to hear what that experience was like from me, from beginning to end. And it was a whole week. We ended up having a conversation that we didn’t record, but we had a conversation that was really valuable because it was like, oh, I just didn’t even realize you were experiencing it in that way.

01:10:27:14 – 01:10:39:12
Matt Gilhooly
So that’s what I mean by like, normally you don’t have the opportunity for someone to hear your story that lived it with you from beginning to end. So, you know, I bet that episode when your parents listened to it was quite different as well.

01:10:39:17 – 01:10:40:23
Agent Palmer
Yeah, probably.

01:10:40:32 – 01:10:46:04
Matt Gilhooly
Yeah, yeah. As conversations like this long form, super important.

01:10:46:09 – 01:10:46:59
Agent Palmer
100%.

–End Transcription–

This transcription was processed by PalmerTech 3.1 and may contain errors for HUMINT (human intelligence).