Navigating Life’s Crescendo with Rudy Chavarria Wisdom

0:00 Dr. William T. Choctaw: My birthday. Oh, and so it's always been my favorite holiday, obviously, for the year. Absolutely. I have two sons between us, two on each side, two on my side and two on her side. And on my side my youngest son with his three kids, who are all boys, came up a few days before Christmas and spent some time with us. And then this past week on her side our son and, and daughter in law and two kids came and spent the whole week with us. And they just left yesterday. So we, we, we've sort of had a whirlwind type of period of time to say the least.

0:41 Well, listen, I am very grateful and appreciative of you taking out of your busy schedule to spend a couple of times with us and my hope is that we can do this more than once. I just think that this is an important title in terms of the work that you do and the work that you do with, with, with young people. So what, what I'll do, I'll just sort of, I'll throw out some general questions that, that we ask, and then we'll go into the formal, into the formal interview. I used to start off with just sort of asking the interviewee to talk about themselves, you know, whatever you want to tell about your background, I'll leave that completely up to you.

1:23 Okay. Then I'll have you tell me about what you do, you know, what what college mentors are and what, what does that mean exactly? And then usually, I usually end up with the, on the other side about what, what lessons learned. What, what have you learned over these years of doing what you do? And then if you have any advice that you would give to others, and those are usually the Three or four different questions that I sort of structure all the interviews around. But we, but there, there's no set way to do this. We can do it the way you want. And I think that free flow per interviewee is what adds to the richness of these types of interreactions.

2:07 So Rudy: does that make sense? Absolutely. Absolutely. If I can, if I can preface this by saying if the dog starts to yap or something and I have to excuse myself. Just for a second, because our son is still asleep. I already woke him and told him I was doing an interview. I already took the dog out. Sorry, now that fed him to let you know, Dr. William T. Choctaw: but we basically go with the flow. I have a very good chief production officer named Jesse Hammons, and he can get rid of any sound that we don't want him to interview. So it's not a problem. Okay. Welcome ladies and gentlemen, again, to the Health and Wealth and Wise podcast.

2:50 We're absolutely delighted. Absolutely delighted to have a very special guest with us Mr. Rudy Chavarria and he's going to talk about, he's going to talk about some exciting things that he's doing that quite honestly, I had never heard of, you know, as a formal type of activity. And so I'm learning along with our audience. So welcome, Rudy. Rudy: Thank you. It's a pleasure to be here. It's an honor to to be in your presence, Dr. Choctaw. For all the viewers and listeners to talk about my background I actually met Dr. Choctaw back in 1985. I would just graduate as a high school senior, and I was working with peer counseling at Walnut High School.

3:36 I actually started it there, and I, we got invited by public TV at the local Walnut TV station, and it was our principal, Donald, Donald Skraba, who asked me if I wanted to participate in, in this discussion about drugs and teens and such, and that's when I first and you, you had such a profound impact on me back then in 85 and that when I saw you at this event in November, I immediately recognized you because you just made such an impact on my life in very little time I had known you and then, you know, driving around locally and seeing your doctor's office with your name, I just always knew you and I just always, yeah, it was brilliant.

4:25 So. To start way back I I always wanted to be in the entertainment industry, but I did not have a, have a direction. And so, and I'd always been a people person and that's why and I'd always been in student government. And when I graduated, well, at high school, I went to Mount San Antonio college, I had no idea what I was going for. I just wanted to be in the business. I was in a band, we were writing songs. And I, I just dropped out of Mt. SAC because I had no direction. I had no no no guidance.

5:08 I didn't even know who to go to and the counselors that I spoke to at the time just were like, okay, this is, what do you want to do? Well, I'm thinking about this, this. All right, well, you need to take these general ed courses. This is what you do for the semester and come back and visit us during the summer. It was more, you know, like, and frankly, it's still that way. Colors. And so from there, I kind of floundered a bit, went from job to job, and it was in 1987 that a friend of mine she was a student of psychology at UCLA and she was working a summer job at Home Depot. She said to me, you know, Rudy, if you want to be in the entertainment industry, what are you doing working at Home Depot?

5:50 And I was just like, oh my God, yeah, what am I doing? So I quit Home Depot, got a job at Chili's to bust some. Tables become a food service. So during the day I could go look for work in the industry. And and then I ended up getting a job at A& M records and it pretty much started there. And then I went to a school called Musicians Institute in Hollywood, the VIT program to teach vocals and learn how to sing. And it was there that I got into internships there through MI for Warren Chapel publishing. GIant Records, Warner Brother Records, and then I started my own independent record company, and then my independent record company, I was making money, working with a bunch of ska punk bands out of Orange County, and I ended up shutting that down, but in the process, and this was during 95, 93, 93 to 95, I shut it down and I got a lot of people starting to ask me if I would market their materials because, or their product, because they saw my flyers everywhere, stickers, posters.

7:00 And this is before the internet, and email was just starting. So Dr. William T. Choctaw: you started your own business, you went from working at Home Depot to starting your own record company. Yes. Rudy: And this is when, to, what started me was my confidence. What started me, or started my confidence was the fact that I had done internships. And I tell all college students and all high school students, if you want to get involved in something, start an internship. Start shadowing somebody immediately, whether you want to be a doctor or you want to go work with NASA. As a matter of fact, over the weekend I was talking to a girl who's part of the family and told her she wants to be an aerospace engineer.

7:48 And I said, well, you need to get involved now for two reasons. One, you need to start networking, which is really important. And number two, you need to find out of whether or not this is really what you like and really what you think it is all about. Because a lot of what I do now, counseling with college students. They realize this isn't what I want to do, but they're so far in to their education that they have no choice but to keep going with it. And in some cases, a lot of parents tell their children, if you don't do this, if you don't become that doctor, if you don't become that lawyer, we're not paying for your education, which is, which is horrible.

8:31 So again, internships. At any age or shadowing somebody at any age, high school, definitely college is is something that I feel really helps people decide what they want to do with their career. And this is where I see, I see as a counselor now that it funnels down into life. And what I mean by that is. If you're going to do something for the rest of your life and you're miserable, it will funnel down into your personal life. It just will. If, because you're not happy, so you look for happiness somewhere else, whether you start to have infidelity in your marriage.

9:13 Or you're just a verbally or physically abusive husband or father, or you start drinking alcohol or drugs. You're just unhappy. So I try to tell students now, hey, look, you need to do what's going to make you happy, or this is the path you are most likely going to go to. And even, you know, of course, you know, depression, Dr. William T. Choctaw: so. Well, when I was growing up, I, I grew up in Nashville, Tennessee, and, and I was just thinking about what you said about the importance of internship, and, and I never really thought about it until you just said it. But I remember, at least in Nashville, local colleges would have, like, summer programs where they would invite high school students who were interested in certain areas to do, I don't know, three or four weeks or a month in those summer programs.

10:03 Now, I'm sure it was a recruitment process for them, but I think, going by what you said, For the student, for us, it was invaluable because it did give us an idea about what it might be like on the other side of that fence and, and, and give you ideas. Is this really what you wanted? Don't, what's not what you want? And that sort of thing. I think that's next is, is what I'm trying to say. And I think a lot of us don't even think about that. Rudy: Yeah. Kind of a jettison a bit. I've run into so many different. Doctors, lawyers in my profession, and and throughout life that they have told me that really good doctors and really good lawyers have told me, and you can tell what I mean because you can tell they just love what they do, and I'm staying with doctors and lawyers as a topic subject right now, but those really good ones, after I explain what I'm telling you and your audience, they themselves have said.

11:03 Yeah, I've run into a lot of doctors and a lot of other lawyers that they absolutely hate what they do, but they do it because they're so involved and so in debt and they have a lifestyle and it's just like, my gosh, I had no idea. And then I think to myself, as a, as, as doctors who are surgeons and, and you're, you're performing these services on people who. who really need your help, you know, and you hate what you do. I mean, yes, many of Dr. William T. Choctaw: them feel trapped going back to your previous work, whether it's by mom or dad, or whatever the circumstances are, and they can't get out.

11:43 You know, I, I, I was in medical school, yeah, with, with students who wanted to be musicians. They said, I don't want to come to medical Rudy: school. I Dr. William T. Choctaw: don't want to play in a band, I want to play in a symphony. And I didn't appreciate it as much then as I do now. To your point, that once you're stuck as an adult, or feel stuck as an adult, you are miserable, and not only are you miserable, you make everybody around you miserable. Rudy: Yes, that that negative energy spreads like wildfire to the point to to if I if I may even militarily, they tell you, or you ask any drill sergeant, they'll tell you if there's a sign of fear, any one of their soldiers.

12:30 Immediately they take them out of combat and remove them because that stuff spreads quickly to all of the soldiers and then the machine doesn't work anymore. It just starts. Yeah. And so, but that's with everything in life. So yeah, I mean, yeah. So that just that negative energy, that bad energy Dr. William T. Choctaw: let me ask you another question before you go on. I have, and this is just me and you can help me with this. All of my life I was, I was told by my mother quite young, the importance of going to medical school. So I've always thought medical school. But in general, I felt that counselors, and this is just me, were not always as supportive of students to do what the student wants to do.

13:17 I'm talking about students who want to go to college. Or go to medical school or law school, and they said, Well, I don't know, you should probably think about blah, blah, blah. And, and, and I don't know whether it's just, just my own prejudice, which may be true. But I just never felt, or I felt that they were not nearly as helpful as they should be to get students into college. Because I have this thing about getting people into college. And I, I, I felt, and you can correct me here, that that's particularly true with minority students. Rudy: Absolutely. Absolutely. And so I'm 57 years old and you and I kind of are within the same generation of, you know, there's no Archie Bunkers anymore.

14:00 You know, it's not politically correct. There's, there's no more of, of there's no more Fred Sanford's. Yeah. And for those of those of you who are a younger audience, these are, these are characters in TV shows that were very. They would push the limit as far as, you know, the LGBT, the, the race? Yes. I mean, oh boy. You know, they just would be up in arms in today's 2024. But in 19 72, 19 74, it was just the norm. Yeah. And so I wanna preface this by answer, by by saying that we come from that generation where it's not that it was accepted, it was just like, ah, it is what it is.

14:41 You know, we were moving forward and as a minority myself, my mother's Native American Spaniard and my dad is Mexican and my wife is full blooded Japanese because her mom is Japanese. Her parents actually were in the Manzanar camp during World War II. Yeah. And her aunt was born in Manzanar. She just turned, she just turned 80 and and then her dad is from Mexico. So yeah, definitely a lot of prejudice. And yes, counselors, including back then, and I'd have to say even now there is prejudice and it's not so much anymore. I think of course, I'm not 19 to 23 anymore and I don't talk to counselors.

15:24 But from what I see everything's changed in the generation now which I love you know, you can talk to a 15, 16 year old, or 18 year old, and they'll just be like, eh, LGBT, no big deal, as opposed to when I was 15, 16, you know, ooh, that guy, ooh, that girl, or, but now this generation is like, eh, whatever, who's, who's winning the game, or hey, well, did you see that, that TikTok video, and nobody Kind of cares anymore because it's being so much more accepted and and God bless that definitely God bless it and to take it a step further before I talk about the prejudice with counselors to take it a step further.

16:09 One of the main reasons why I was so compelled to start college with mentor was. You know, you get all that negative energy and then you compounded from negative from from counselors peers. Yes. Society, and that if you are a minority you get it from your friends. Yeah, and, and it's what's interesting and even the younger people who are viewing this, you know what we're talking about because you can be in sixth grade. And you can just tell people don't like you when you walk into a room and you've never even said anything to them.

16:50 And it's the same thing as when you're 40 years old and you walk into an executive meeting and you can still feel that nobody likes you. So I guess what I'm saying is get used to it, guys. It's not going away, but here's, here's my, my punchline is all of that energy that's bad and prejudice can really push a human being to the point where you're suicidal. And I've had a few friends of mine who have been, who have killed themselves. One who was 17, one who was 22, another one who was 54, and these were all close to me people. And the common denominator in every one of them was there was something that they felt that tore apart their self confidence, their self confidence, then trickled down to their self worth and their reason for living.

17:44 And that was it. And once you cross that line mentally, that, that's it. Then it becomes painful, and the pain then turns into anxiety, and then the anxiety is, I think, what exacerbates the depression towards physically painful, because you're getting anxious. And then that's when, when one of the people that I know, she was 17, who said, I just can't stand the pain, and I could never understand what she was talking about. But being someone myself who went through an anxiety period, at that point as I was going through my anxiety and my panic attacks, my anxiety attacks, I knew exactly what she was talking about.

18:27 Now I was never suicidal, but I knew what she was talking about now. anD so I got it. I got it. Totally got it. Again, to go back to your statement of prejudice from counselors, especially people you think are there to help you, they get Dr. William T. Choctaw: paid. So it ends up being a double whammy, you know, you think they're there to help you. And so you tend to put more emphasis on what they say. But either because of their limitation, mentally, psychologically, or whatever, Or their jealousy. Or jealousy. You Rudy: can feel when someone's jealous of you, even when they're older than you. You just feel like, wow, really?

19:07 I looked up to you and now you're And I went through that when I was at school at Musicians Institute because people were telling me I was really good. And I, and it started to get around in school, of course, this was back then and there were like two or three different teachers that I could just, they would look at me and I could just feel that they didn't want me to succeed because they weren't succeeding. And whether it's Musicians Institute, UCLA, USC Cal State Fullerton, Harvard, it didn't matter because there will always be those types of people. So it's, it's important. To get back to your statement on that. Definitely prejudice. Definitely.

19:48 And the people that I talked that I've brought up who are suicidal, they weren't in mind. They weren't just minority. Some of them were. Jewish Christian white, black African American. So it, it goes beyond, it transcends color, transcends all of that. And I love to, to, to think that like, I play a trick with when I do go guest speak, I tell all the students, okay, I want all of you to close your eyes. And when we, when I talked to them about, but what we're talking about, and so they all close their eyes and I say. I want you to tell me what color am I and I'll say, Oh, then I'll break into like, Hey, you say, you know, and blah, blah.

20:36 And then they start to smile and I'll say, and then I'll start to say. Now, if everybody would please turn to page forty five, and I'd like you all to start reading we're gonna start with this chapter, and let's proceed. And then they smile, and then I'll say, yeah, brother, you know what I'm saying? And then they smile, and then I say, now open your eyes. And they look at me and they're just like, and they all kind of laugh and it's like, so it really is just your perception of yourself. You can be whoever you want to be. Yes. And I even tell people that are musicians to take an, or who are entrepreneurs or business people, marketers, or frankly, any student take an acting class, acting one on one.

21:23 Because that will give you techniques to pull yourself out of your shell if you are a shy person. It will give you techniques that only an acting professor can teach you. And once you turn it on, when they say, okay, read your script, go ahead, do your monologue, you're like and they say go. And you learn how to turn it on. And then you learn how to turn it off and it's important to be successful, I believe, is to have that capability and that ability to do that. So, yeah, Dr. William T. Choctaw: it's interesting. You say that and it's amazing because you're sort of like a mirror to me. And this is the first time we've talked about this and yes, and all of that. But I have concluded, similar to what you've already suggested, that the most important thing for young people to get is confidence.

22:11 And there are different ways to get that confidence, there are also different ways to lose that confidence, you know, depending on whether you live in a toxic environment or whatever. But interestingly, going back to what you just reminded me of, I had an English teacher named Gertrude Britton in my high school in Nashville, Tennessee and my high school was not an opposite African American. Who felt it very important to teach us how to speak, you know, and that's, oh yeah, she said, you will not go out of my classroom, because we were in the deep south, right? You will not go out of my classroom with, with, with this, this southern accent and all that. So I said, no, and her point was, you have enough points against you.

22:54 And we certainly are going to add that as another. So her mission In life, for all of her students, was you would speak proper English. You would speak good diction. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Because that then adds to your confidence. And she did that by having a public speaking group. You know, we used to do orations in competition to teach us how to articulate words and sentences and paragraphs to build up our self Rudy: confidence. And I couldn't agree with you more. Speaking is so important. I tell students I tell, I tell students all the time.

23:35 I tell them. Make sure you read and I also tell them make sure you understand and build your vocabulary and, and, you know, to go along with what she was doing and I tell them why it's important because it's one thing to be like, yeah, I know what I'm saying. And then another thing to say, like to be able to say, you know, let's jettison to the next topic and, and they kind of like look at me and I'm like, I'm telling you, you know, if I talk to you in one way, and then I talk to you another way, you're going to look at me completely different.

24:17 And I, and so I tell students. Sorry. Oh, go ahead. I'll take a look around. Okay. Leave him in the cage, please. I'll be right there. Leave him in the cage. I'm sorry. So I, so as I was saying, I tell students to expand your vocabulary because it's really important to be able to articulate and know how to Articulate what you're trying to communicate to people. The better your vocabulary, the easier it will become. And the more confident you'll get. Dr. William T. Choctaw: But when you advise students, and you work with a lot of students in different areas college and high school, what are some of the most common issues that you see come up from the students that they have to deal with?

25:10 That maybe, if they had done some things before that time, it would be easier for them. Rudy: Well, the first thing is like you had said confidence because I'm working with a student who's 33 in medical school in Arkansas, and I'm working with a high school student who's in Cincinnati. She's going to be going to she actually met I met her out here about two months ago. She was looking at different universities to go to. And it's confidence and certain mentors. We'll take you so far and I tell that to my mentors that they have to know when the student doesn't need them anymore.

25:58 And the student will eventually know when I need to move to a new mentor. And I think that's really important to be selfless. Thank you. As a mentor, to be able to say, you don't need me anymore. It's nice to get the money, but to be able to say, you don't need me anymore. And for a student to be able to realize, I don't need this mentor anymore. So again, it would be confidence. And whether it's the student in medical school or the high school student, there's that certain level of. Confidence that they need to push themselves through to the next level.

26:42 And so I, sorry, self esteem. Dr. William T. Choctaw: Right. How do you advise students many times who are in an environment where maybe they may be the first one in their family to go to college, potentially go to college, but yet there's a lot of negative energy around them either say mom or dad may not have gone to college and may or may not be as supportive as they should be certainly their friends have nodded their sort of Teasing them a lot or you think you're better than us, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. How do you, how do you help them to get out of that, that level and get to that next level? Rudy: Yes you have to show them the better life.

27:26 Okay. You have to show them so they can see and they can hear it. And when I first started the company, I met with a couple of people up in Palo Alto, California, good friends of mine helping me with the company. And one of them brought their their son, 17 year old, who was a student of Berkeley Chinese kid. And as myself, his dad, and my business partner were talking at dinner, he was sitting there quiet in the table, and he had one thing to say to me. He said, how do you plan on mentoring us? And this kind of goes along with my answer to the question you're asking. I, I, I leaned in towards him and I said, stories, I said, because if I sit here and I tell you, you need to do this, you should consider this, you need to think about this.

28:17 It's going to go right over your head. You're going to think, who's this dude trying to tell me? I go, the guy, and you know, who's this dude trying to tell me about the future or my future when he probably doesn't even have a Snapchat account. He probably doesn't have a TikTok account and he's going to tell me about the future. And he smiled and I said, but if I tell you a story, I said like the stories that your dad just shared with me, I go, did you know your dad went through all of that? And he looked at his dad and his dad smiled and he goes, no, I didn't. I go, that was a story. I go, what about all the other things? You're hearing these stories. I go, your mind is spinning. I go, if I tell you a story, you know, maybe you should hear, maybe you should, you know, if I tell you a story about something I went through, then you're going to apply it to your own life.

29:05 And then you'll start to ask me questions. I go, that's how I plan on doing it. Everybody's going to have their own story. Their own testimony, if you will. And that is what's going to make you feel like, okay, not only can I trust you, But yeah, now I'm, now I'm curious, how can you, what do you think about this situation, Rudy? And that's where it begins. So, so so that's one part of it, by telling stories but also for the person who is trying to escape the negative energy, whether it's parents, and one of the schools that I spoke to, Santa Ana High School, one of the biggest problems they have is the dropout rate for community college. Yes.

29:45 It's 50 percent and more on the first semester. And a lot of it is because the Hispanic family that they come from, they rely on the high school student to make an extra income working at McDonald's or wherever, wherever it is. So this way they can help feed the family, which is a huge burden on, on on kids. And so to answer your question is to show them. The better life that they feel that they don't deserve, but the better life that is out there that they totally deserve that, that so they can see that if they, they do the time in school, this is what you'll get for it.

30:27 If they do the time in a trade school. This is what you'll get from it. And then I take it a step further, and I'm, I'm actually going into, I spoke at a continuation school in early December, and a couple of the students were just kind of, yeah, yeah, whatever dude, but I focused on three or four of them, and I, and I call them out by name. What do you like doing? Well, I like this. What are you going to do when you graduate? Well, I'm probably going to be an electrician and I'm brilliant. Excellent. And then I go to the whiteboard and I said, this is what his name was Daniel. This is what Daniel can expect when he graduates.

31:07 And I said, now all of you follow this. I told him how much rent costs nowadays, $2,600 for a two bedroom apartment. And I wrote it all down a month, times 12. And then I wrote down electricity, $200 a month, times 12 gas, blah, blah, blah. And then I wrote down, Daniel's gonna make 30, $33 a month, or sorry, an hour as an electrician starting out for 28 to $33 a month. And I wrote that out times 12 times four times, 40 times four weeks times 12 months. And then I wrote down, if you don't have a degree, or you don't have a trade school, you're gonna make probably 18 to 20 dollars an hour.

31:47 But I wrote that down, and they can see it. They can see that, wow. And then I said, oh, and you wanna go to the movies? Yes. You're going to drop 100 to go to the movies. And you're going to, and then gas for your car and you want, you want a nice car. Okay. And you have a girlfriend or a boyfriend and you have all this, and I'm like, this is your life. This is where you guys are headed. And I said, now Daniel, on the other hand, goes to trade school, becomes an electrician, works with his dad, his dad gets him into the company. He starts to make money. He lives with his parents, which is totally cool because he's saving money and he saves enough money to buy an apartment complex, a duplex.

32:29 He rents one out and he lives in the other and the mortgage comes, the mortgage payment comes from the one that he's renting out. So he's essentially living rent free. He's an electrician. He knows how to fix things around the house. He doesn't have to call anybody to fix anything. He lives there until he and his girlfriend or his partner decide they're going to get married. Then they take out a loan on the apartment and they go buy their own home. They both have good jobs. They live there for maybe seven years. Then they take out another loan against the apartment and against the house they own. And they buy another building apartment. And then by the time they're 50, they own four apartments.

33:10 They sell them all and buy one big building that has 60 tenants. At 4, 000 a month, when I write down 60 times 4, 000 people, I'm like, this is what Daniel's life can be. 60, I said, 4, 000 times 60 tenants. You guys tell me what he's going to make a month. And I'm like, wow, over 200, 000 a month is what he's going to be making. And I say to him, this is your life. So, to answer your question, how do you pull somebody out of that? You show it to them. You show them a better life. And then they start to feel like, I can do this. That it's doable.

33:51 Doable. Because of the math. Dr. William T. Choctaw: But you know what? That's just a brilliant point, because what I see, and again, I'll get this. I've had this belief system that a lot of students, and I'm talking about my students who, who have to struggle, you know, whether it's because they're, they're from families that, that are poor or they're minority or both or whatever. And many times, they, they want the better life. They want to do well. They're willing to work well. But there are traps for them. There are traps out there for them. One of the traps. Is these places they call themselves colleges and universities and they're not colleges and universities and they take our best and our brightest who save what little they have when they get into a place, and I'll throw a name out Trump University.

34:44 And thinking that they're going to a university, but it's not a university. They can't transfer those credits. They can't take that and take an exam and go up into a different profession. How do you protect students from the traps? out there where people try to take advantage of them, which ends up then either pushing them into depression or make them give up altogether. Rudy: That's a very good question. And, and I'll give two examples. One and I only give it religiously. What I mean by that is in Christianity God blesses you with gifts and talents, and he wants you to be the light of the world for you to go up to the tallest tree, and so people will see you, and then you will selflessly say, I am blessed, and it's not from me, it's from God, but I am here to spread positive energy with the gifts and talents that I have.

35:57 And so that, I got so lost in that, that visual that I forgot your question. That's okay. Dr. William T. Choctaw: Forgive me. And I am Christian, by the way, so you're, you're, you're, you're, you're in good, you're, you're in good company here. It's okay. Okay. Rudy: So how, how, you, you had asked, how does a person, How does a student get beyond, you know that trap and so the example I just gave you, you know, to be, use the God given gifts that you have and talents and, and whatever God it might be, it could be Buddha, it could be Allah. It doesn't matter.

36:38 It's just God given talent that you have that can not be buried. And there are plenty of stories, as you know, in the Bible of the, of the three sons that the father said to one of the son, I'm going to give you all, I'm just going to paraphrase this. I'm going to give you all 10, 000 and I want you to, it's your money. Do what you want. One son goes out and blows it in parties. The other goes out and, and, and invests it into a business because bankrupt, but And then the other son takes the 10, 000 and he buries it because he doesn't want to touch it, doesn't want to lose it. And then the father comes back and is praising the other two sons, one who blew it, it parted away, the other one who tried to be an entrepreneur, and he gets angry at the son who took his talent and buried it in the dirt.

37:27 So how to avoid getting into that trap. And I tell that story because that was a very selfless act of those two boys who, two sons who just blew it. But on another hand, it wasn't, it wasn't selfish of them because they were given that money. So it wasn't selfish of them to do what they wanted with it without having any guilt or responsibility to their dad. And that's what their dad loved. Because he wanted to give it to him and said, do what you want with it. And they did what they want with it without any parental guilt. And that's, so that's to tap onto your question. How do you pull up, get out of that trap?

38:09 Because parents are that way too. They can put their children into a trap of, you need to do this. And even though the son or daughter may feel like, well, this is what I want to do, they will stop from doing it because they feel that guilt of their parent. And they won't do it because their parent has drilled in them so much. aNd, and helicopter parents in particular, or bulldozer parents in particular, that their child grows up thinking, I'd love to, but I can't. And that again, funnels down into their marriage because their spouse might be very, Hey, let's go do this. Hey, I'm going to do this. But the, but they will be like, Oh, I can't because of my mom and dad.

38:49 And they're like, Hey, we're married. You know, we're going to do what we want to do. We're going to raise our kids the way we want to raise our kids to pull yourself out of the trap. It's not only. Collegiate, if you will. It's also parental. Mm-Hmm. . And as an individual. So to answer that question, to funnel all down, to answer one question and give you one word, and that is selfish because you have to be a selfish individual, a selfish human being. Knowing that I only have one life, God gave me the talents to do what I can do.

39:29 So when I am on my deathbed, I can say I lived a happy life. I have no regrets. And I used what God gave me and granted people called me selfish, but I know I'm not. I just did what I wanted to do with what God gave me. So to answer your question, you have to be a selfish human being. Now there are people who, who take it to the limit, like Steve Jobs or, or Elon Musk, who, you know, people are just like, have been portrayed as just mean human beings, but think about it. Those people are so focused. That there's nothing that matters to them, but their goal.

40:11 And they'll frankly crap on everybody around them, family and friends to get what they want. bUt I, but to answer your question, you have to be a selfish person. And I don't think the word selfish in this case is a, is a bad word or a negative word. I think it's a very, it's a word that I believe that people should, should say to themselves, I'm going to be selfish. And as you can probably know, one of the key things of being successful. Is having the ability to say, no, Hey we're going to go do this when, you know, we want you to come and you as a son or daughter say, no, I'm going to go do this. Or you as, you know, a parent, you say, no, I'm not going, I need to work on our taxes or you as, but the ability to be selfish and the ability to say no, that to me to answer your question is the way to avoid that trap.

41:07 When people try to put up boundaries, you say, no, I'm not doing it. I'm, no, I'm not doing it. And that's one of the things that I tell students that I'm mentoring. You have to have a list of standards. You have to write down my list of standards as an, as, yes, as a friend. This is my standards list. If you're going to be a friend of mine, you're going to live by my standards. If you're going to be my spouse, these are my standards. If you're going to be my business partner, these are my standards. And if you're going to be, you know my, well, I said it, my spouse, whatever, there's a list of standards where you yourself will say, I will not cross these lines because then it affects me as a human being and I can't be 100 percent me.

41:53 So yeah, that's your question to, to get out of that trap, to be selfish. Have your list of standards that Dr. William T. Choctaw: makes perfect sense that the students have to be focused and relentless. I mean, I'm sure we can all remember in college, you know, when we wanted to go to the part of it to say, you know what? I got, I got a chemistry exam tomorrow and I'm not doing well on chemistry. I really need to stay here and study and it's making those choices and giving yourself permission to make those choices that that are okay. That's okay. And, and I, and you touched on another thing that I think is important also. I think there should be some, some religious connection there, you know, and as I said, you can choose what you like, but I think that to, to your point helps you maintain those standards, you know, or helps you create them.

42:47 So, no, no, no, I'm not just out here doing X, Y, and Z. I have a purpose. And either this is in alignment with my purpose or it's not in alignment with, and if it's not, then I need to let it go. And that includes people. I'm sorry, I need to let it go. I'm on my way to law school or medical school or graduate school. I can't get involved with drugs right now. I won't even get out of college. I think that's excellent advice. Excellent advice. Rudy: And you bring up friends. That whether it's friends or family, they may hate you, may talk about you, but in the end, yes, we'll respect you.

43:30 Yes. And they won't let anybody talk bad about you because it's true. And it's always, yeah, they will be like, like, Hey man, you know, Hey bro. Hey, you know, like, Hey, hey, they'll just talk so good about you in the end. And whether that's family, friends or colleagues. And like you had said, you know You cut the people out of your life who, who deserve to be, who need to be cut. Yes. You. Yeah. And if I may, on the, on the religious Christian thing. Someone asked me what is the best book that I, that I would advise and I would, I would say for a book of stories, the Bible, both New and Old Testament, because there are so many stories in there that you, even if you don't believe, you just want to read it for entertainment.

44:18 You'll read these stories and be like, wow, or you'll read the if you like poetry, just pick up psalms, pick up psalms, and you'll just be like, wow, you know, I don't need to read T. S. Eliot or anybody like that. Just the stuff here is just fascinating and just and, and again, I say this because if you're not a Christian, you're not religious and you just read it. For face value. You will pull something out of that. And you'll just be blown away like, wow, you know, so, yeah, you know, Dr. William T. Choctaw: well, you know, you, you have been absolutely excellent in terms of giving us good advice and things to do and we want to be respectful of your time.

45:00 Let me ask you one question. What advice would you give to young people who you normally mentor or who you're presently mentoring or will mentor in the future? Because I think that gap between home and college is huge. And I think, to your point, I think it many times will dictate whether you succeed or you don't succeed, how well you navigate that transition from high school to college, or high school to whatever is after high school. But what advice in general would you give, you know, to all of the parents on the parents side and on the students side? Rudy: First of all, I, I think, Humility, if you're a parent humility in, in, in the way where you can say as a parent, I don't know everything, where you as a parent can say to your child, I don't know everything, and I am not perfect.

45:56 When you can say those two lines to your son or daughter, the anxiety, the, the expectation, it becomes more what your son or daughter will be like. Cause they, sons and daughters need to realize. And I'm sure that there was a point for you with your parents that my parents don't know everything and that's best for me as an individual. And my mom, my dad isn't Superman. Like I thought he was, he's a human being. He's just like me trying to figure it out, but trying to be the best as you can.

46:36 And same with my mom. But if a parent can just be humble and admit these things to their child, the. The expectations, the anxiety, just, ah, the weight on your shoulders just, ooh, goes away. There's that saying, let go and let God. And it's kind of the same thing. Let go of thinking you have to be the perfect parent and tell your son or daughter that, I don't know everything. I had to figure it out. I went exactly what you're going through. But, but here's where I can help as your parent. I am here for you. Give them a hug or let them hug you. And here's another last thing for the parents. Is to tell them, we are a team, you and me are a team and your brother and your dad were a team, even if they're divorced, it doesn't matter because you still parents and you can rely on me.

47:31 We are a team. Now, if that parent can't do that, then I'd have to say that parent needs to work on themselves. And there's nothing wrong with that. And for the, the, the child, the student to realize. tHat my mom and dad aren't perfect, and there are some things that I can't tell them. It's best that they don't know, and I'm talking about the good things you want to do in your life. If you're doing, I'm not talking about drinking or drugs or any of that stuff. I'm talking about things that you know you want to do with your life, you want to study, you want to become. Sometimes it's best that parents don't know, and then you do it, and then while you're doing it, your parents like.

48:12 Wow, you did all this. And I'm like, yeah, I did. I did. I did it myself. And then your parents starts to have that respect for you because you did it. And and it goes again, being selfish. So advice that I would give to a high school student or a college student is do what you want to do with your life. Well, I don't know what I want to do, Rudy. Well, start with what are your talents? What are you good at? What do your teachers tell you you're good at? What do you know you're good at? Are you good at math? No, I'm terrible at math. Alright, well, I could never be a business owner. Yeah, you can, because you might be a people person. You might be, and then what do you do if you don't know math?

48:53 You hire the best math people. Yeah, and you tell them what to do. Just because you don't know math doesn't mean you're not smart enough to be your own business owner. And so follow your talents, follow your passion. Do what you want to do as an individual. Be selfish. It's okay. And and the money will come. And you'll realize it's not about the money. It's about me doing things. And the money's just gonna come. So, yeah. So, Dr. William T. Choctaw: for the parents and the students who are listening to this podcast, how do they get in touch with you? If they want to follow up or Rudy: Yeah.

49:33 Yeah, they can contact me Well, you can go to college web mentor.com Okay. That's college.com. Dot com. And you can reach out to me personally at Rudy, R-U-D-Y-A-M-P, Adam Michael paul@gmail.com. And you know what's interesting? Since I brought up my website, I used to have prices up there, like, you know, cookie cutter pulled up to McDonald's. I'll take them number one grilled onions, or number two, or number three. But I realized that wasn't working. I wasn't getting any sales. And then I took the prices off and then people started calling. sO there's no prices. But actually, it hit me that this is such a delicate situation and trying to, to help somebody, you can't put a price on it.

50:20 So really it's, I mean, there's hourly rates, but each individual mentor is, is, is has their own rates. And it's more of where you meet somebody for 20 minutes. Every other week, and then you can educate through, through through Google Docs and journal. Journaling is really important, and that's another thing for a parent and for a student to journal about what you're going through in life. Because as you read it and you're writing it, you're figuring things out. How to figure problems, how to problem solve. A lot of that happens between the mentors and the students. And that's I know I'm totally transitioning here, but but that is the, the way to get ahold of me through email and just check out the website.

51:03 So, yeah, and I'd love to come back anytime you want to talk to me. Dr. William T. Choctaw: We definitely want to have you back. And so what I, my request of you is look at your schedule. Okay, next few months and see which month is good for you, but and just just this shoot me a text on emails that I'm available during the month of and we will because I really do believe this is so important and I don't think anybody else is talking about this the way we agree with. Rudy: I totally agree with Dr. William T. Choctaw: you. Everybody just assumes, well, it's all handled and everybody takes care of it. It's not all handled because I, to that point, I have a grandson, my first grandson who's applying to college.

51:45 He's, he's a 3. 8 student. He's applying to most of the UC schools. And you know, he's in that, in that transition, so I'm going back through this again with him, you know, and you're right, you know, he talks in the Instagram, which I never heard of back then. But I think a lot of parents go through this every year and they need help and I think the resources are very limited to help them. Rudy: Yes. Yes. Dr. William T. Choctaw: We want to help to make you available on a regular basis as as as possible to Rudy: help. Well, I'd come back every month and we can talk about one thing in particular that.

52:26 Like maybe next month, what should a student be doing for spring break, you know, to okay. Okay. And then and then yeah. And then what should a student be doing? That's about to graduate high school or graduate college. What should they be doing? That they can't get from their counselors advice, or they can't get from their parents. Yeah, what should they be doing? What should they be focusing on? So yeah, I'm, I'm whenever you want me back. Dr. William T. Choctaw: Why don't we do that? We'll set up a monthly thing. You can send a list of topics that, that, that you think would be appropriate, but, but we'll coordinate monthly for the next 11 months. Rudy: That sounds perfect to me. Right.

53:06 Dr. William T. Choctaw: I honestly think that this is an area that's weak in our education development system for the students. I think either we have counselors who don't understand the students, all the students, and maybe are not providing the help that they should be because of their own, I don't know, limited experience or whatever. Yeah, I think there's a need is my point. I think there's a need absolutely for all students regardless Rudy: of who you are. Yes. And, you know, you bring up a very good point about counselors because like Mt. SAC has I think over 42, 000 students and how can 25 counselors help 42, 000 students. It's not possible. And there are some counselors that don't want to help you. I mean, unfortunately, they think they already Dr. William T. Choctaw: know they look at you and say, Oh, no, no, no, you in this group.

53:50 Oh, no, no, no, you're in that. Exactly. And then Rudy: which brings up the whole prejudice thing, you know, that sometimes slips in. We're like, Oh, well, you're African American, you should be doing this. I mean, Hilda Solis is a perfect example. When she talks to students, she says, Yeah, I went to my counselor and the counselor told me I should be a secretary and I should go to Rio Hondo for secretary classes and she ended up becoming. The Secretary of Labor for President Obama and everybody laughs in the audience, I love that. But you know, think beyond, you know, so yeah, I'm here for you and your audience. Dr. William T. Choctaw: We will set that up, we will do that once a year for that reason. And again, thank you so much, you know, God bless you and continue with the work that you do.

54:36 Of course, likewise. And we'll both be in touch for february. Okay. Rudy: Thank you, sir. Take care. Take care. All right. Bye bye You too