19 Year Old Shrink

This week has definitely been an exciting one, finally being back at LMU and seeing people I haven’t seen for over a year. And college kids all across the country have been experiencing a similar type return over the last couple weeks. 

At LMU, Qdoba has hit different and a late night Iggys Diner run has been a hell of an upgrade from the Habit. But I've definitely been a little jealous of the freshman because I felt robbed of a year of college and still feel like we’re finishing up that year.

In this episode, I’m talking about what I believe many college kids are experiencing right now, which is a lot of excitement but also weird feelings related to Covid. If you’ve become more aware of how quickly time has been passing and also wish Covid didn’t happen during your college years, I could totally relate. And this will be a good listen for anyone who has experienced pandemic life during college and want's to hear some advice about how to handle this change. I use information from Trevor Moawad's book, "It Takes What It Takes," to help uncover the concept of neutral thinking so that we can use this to help smooth the transition back to normal life. 

In this episode, my sister Gillian joins me to discuss her experience as an intern with Mary’s Meals. The mission of the organization (marysmeals.org)  is to provide a meal to a hungry child in their place of education with the hope that they not only meet the need of the hungry child, but they also encourage education. By following through on this, Mary’s Meals is breaking the cyclical experience of poverty that these nations experience. The influence has been able to spread to 19 different countries, even during the circumstances of the pandemic. 

Having this conversation with Gillian made me realize what makes Mary’s Meals unique, in that it addresses the cause of poverty, which is lack of education. As she alluded to, getting a child to go to school on an empty stomach is difficult because they’re not motivated to learn because they are thinking about how hungry they are. But, by starting simple with a meal, it is helping children in every other area of their life. 

In addition, we learn more about the origin of the name and how it found its humble beginning in Bosnia-Herzegovina. This humble start has compounded over the years to feeding 1,838,859 of the world's poorest children as of 2021. But, what impacted me the most throughout our talk is knowing that a small contribution can impact a child's entire year. Considering 93% of the money donated to this charity goes directly to the child, a $21 Mary’s Meals t-shirt feeds a child for their whole school year. 

Understanding that every contribution helps can help spark a change that can lead our world to a better place. Tune in to hear more about the vision of Mary’s Meals and how you can do your part!

Social Media:

marysmealsusa (instagram) 

heartlandforkids (tshirt instagram)

marysmeals.org 

In this episode, I talk to my father James Giangrande, financial advisor and partner at Altium Wealth Management about everything surrounding finance. We first start out hearing about his beginning years in the industry and lessons that he learned starting out. Those lessons include building other peoples trust in someone like himself who was new to the business but was  in charge of handling their money.

Fast forwarding a bit, we walk through the process of him and his partners creating Altium Wealth, which specializes in each employee having their own unique ability and keeping the process consistent for each client. What really stood out to me in this is hearing all of the questions that they ask clients that you wouldn't think would be related to finance. Some of the questions are; "Where do you see yourself in 3 years, career, personal life, etc?" "What types of things would get in the way of you achieving your goals in that time frame?" When hearing these questions, I realized that this business is oriented not only toward building wealth financially, but building wealth in every sense of the word. 

Some other specifics discussed were the power of the compounding effect of investing by an example from the S & P 500. In addition, we talk about where people make the biggest mistakes with their money, and how those mistakes compound negatively. Wrapping up, we talk about common denominators of wealthy people and how they make sure they build the good habits so those mistakes never come up for them. 

Habit was definitely a big part of this conversation, because a lot of the time, financial wealth relies on starting early. Sometimes investing early might be intimidating because your income isn't as much as it would be ten years later. But, by just focusing on the habit and not the amount,  this builds consistency and longevity in a persons financial approach. 

Considering I'm a college kid, this information was eye opening and made me wish that we have a personal finance class in school. If you are a finance student who wants to learn more about the industry, someone who wants to know how to save, or an individual who wants to learn how they can make up for the mistakes they've made with their money, this episode is for you!

This episode is tied to a Henry Ford quote that realizes the importance of finding the people who have strengths where you have weaknesses. Many of us think that burning out is a sign of hard work, where we are responsible for 100% of the growth we experience as a person. And if we're not burning out, we think we are doing everything wrong.  But, this Henry Ford quote proves this belief wrong, which is discussed in detail throughout the episode. 

We've all had those moments where we've spent countless hours on youtube or reading a book looking for a specific answer, and after a while we just give up because we are farther away from finding it. And then we eventually ask someone we are close to for help, and we find exactly what we are looking for.  By finding these people who compliment our weaknesses, we are being rewarded for our "Specific Ask" as Tim Ferris puts it. We are being rewarded for asking a specific question rather than hoping the information in our book to answer it for us.  As I'm learning,  it's not all about the amount of knowledge you can comprehend, it's about how fast you have access to that knowledge. And Henry Ford's success proves that you don't need to know everything to be great, but having access to the people who know what you don't is essential. 

I discuss my own struggles and success with this idea in relation to my podcast and the people who I can go to "At the Push of a Button." And through this, I will talk about some of the struggles people may experience when starting out with this such as being afraid to ask questions and not knowing the types of people to contact. Tune in if you are looking to build a team that can help compliment where you fall short!

In this episode, I have a conversation with Dr. Eric Schleifer, therapist in the Southern Connecticut area. We discuss  his perspective as a therapist by breaking down the counseling process for patients.

I ask him questions about the guidelines of taking on a new client, the reason so many people are opposed to therapy, his view on the diagnosis process, and how he handles his work life balance considering some of the conversations he has at work can be difficult.

Also, we talk about how he approaches different types of people who come in, such as really quiet kids, difficult parents, etc. If you have ever wondered how the therapy process works and the behind the scenes involved, definitely recommend giving this one a listen.

In this episode, I discuss a topic very prevalent to everyone of us that is often overlooked the most.  And that is our unconscious decision to keep saying yes to every opportunity , even if it doesn't serve us. During this talk, I mention the Book Essentialism by George McKeown, and the examples of Warren Buffett and also Southwest Airlines that are provided to help shed light on how we can have more control over our choices.  Certain ideas mentioned involve the importance of trade offs when  becoming an essentialist, and what the different between an essentialist and non essentialist is. If you're struggling to find direction and priority in your life, this episode will give you an understanding as to why that happens and help steer you in a direction that you can start to control. 

In this episode I sit down with Kristina Hess, licensed dietitian/ nutritionist and founder of Thrive Results Coaching, which is located in Darien CT.

We discuss the root of bad nutrition and what makes unhealthy food so attractive to us. From here, Kristina gives advice on what to look out for that is causing these health issues, bad moods, and lack of energy.

Later on in the interview, we talk about the program “Transformation 42” that she has for her clients which focuses on all of the areas that lead to building a healthy life. Good sleep, sunlight, drinking a lot of water, etc.

For me, it was definitely eye opening learning about the importance of these habits, but also how certain parts of nutrition not related to the actual food we eat is important. Those include timing of when we eat, how mindful we are being when we eat, etc. And she discusses intermittent fasting, 80/20 rule, and being intentional to help address these areas. Tune in for not only tactical advice for changing your nutrition, but learning how this one choice will benefit other areas of your life as well. 

As thing start opening up, there have definitely been some adjustments to daily life. Learning how to talk to people again, driving to work, and more. The  awkward handshake and hug encounters are at an all time high during this period, and I explore not only the different norms we need to get used to again, but also how we have changed throughout this quarantining period. 

Some of those factors of change include being able to learn how to live with oneself and finding ways to make yourself happy even when the circumstances might not prompt it.  In addition, we gain an understanding of how peoples mindset of life has changed and how to approach one's schedule now that more distractions are popping up each day. The term "Steady Structure" and "Shifting Structure" are discussed throughout the episode, and how one is not better than the other, but merely a product of a different period of time. Tune in for a very relatable topic to our lives right now. 

In this episode, I sit down with my  friend Andrea and talk about her experiences growing up a first generation American. We discuss the struggles and strengths that she’s developed being a first generation American and how it’s led to other passions in her life. Some  struggles include being the first in her family to experience the American college experience and the different hurdles associated with the application process. 

In addition, having to be away from her home country of Lebanon and the close knit family she has there has presented struggles to find a similar community in the United States.  But, these experiences have allowed her to become a stronger and more independent individual who seeks to turn her struggles into strengths. 

She has been able to do that by deciding to major in political science and minor in peace and justice and women and gender studies. Through learning about these topics, she discusses how advocacy has become a very important part of her life and  how she approaches disagreement in an ever changing society. We not only gain understanding into how these issues are brought to attention in the U.S., but how the dynamic differs in Lebanon.  By giving us this insight, we are able to see for ourselves how we can make a difference in our own lives. 

In this episode, I sit down with Tessa Torrence Neumann, stepdaughter of Kurt Neumann, lead singer for the band BoDeans to discuss her suffering sexual abuse starting at the age of 9 and lasting for 6 years. Her perpetrator was her parents best friend, business partner, and bandmate who at the time was 40 years old. The negativity surrounding this abuse for Tessa carried over to other areas of her life where she became addicted to heroin at the age of 12.

In this talk we not only learn about her experience with the grooming process, but discuss how other people connected to the victim are groomed as well.

In addition, Tessa explains to us the misconception that abuse only happens in places with addiction, poverty, and low income families present. For her, she grew up living a normal life where her mother protected her and they lived in a neighborhood where you would never suspect anything like this was going on.

To wrap up the interview, we gain perspective into Tessa’s strength in speaking up about these issues and the threats and intimidation that came from that decision. But, we then are able to see how her strength paid off to bring her to where she is now. And that is having a happy family with a great husband and two kids, where she is devoted to them, her music, and the Strong Podcast which allows others to speak up about the injustices surrounding these issues.