Reasonably Happy with Paul Ollinger

Paul sits down with the insanely funny comedian Mandal to discuss his rise, fall and rise again that lead him to be a go to opener for John Mulaney and performing at the world famous Hollywood Bowl. Paul and Mandel dive into the world of stand up comedy and how Mandel finds purpose and happiness and why it is the driving force in all of his artistic endeavors.

Follow Reasonably Happy host Paul Ollinger: https://www.instagram.com/paul_ollinger

Paul sits down with lawyer turned comedian Liz Glazer to discuss how a successful lawyer and law professor can find happiness by saying goodbye to a tenured career by pursuing a life in the arts.

Follow Reasonably Happy host Paul Ollinger: https://www.instagram.com/paul_ollinger

Paul sits down with comedian and actor Mehran Khaghani and gets deep into the psyche of a man who was brought to America from Iran as a 3 year old who discovered himself after years of addiction and psychedelics only to emerge on the other side as one of the funniest comedians working today and starring in the hit Off Broadway Steven Soderbergh show "The Fears".

Join us for an insightful conversation with Adrian Brambila and Brad Klontz, authors of "Start Thinking Rich," as we dive deep into the mindset strategies that lead to success. Discover how your background, no matter the challenges, should never hold you back from achieving your goals. Learn practical tips and valuable lessons on how to develop a wealth-focused mindset, overcome obstacles, and leverage the experiences of others to create the life you've always wanted. Whether you're aiming for personal or financial success, this episode is packed with actionable advice to help you think rich and succeed in any area of life.

Pick up a copy of "Start Thinking Rich: 21 Harsh Truths to Take You from Broke to Financial Freedom" by Adrian Brambila and Brad Klontz:

https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/start-thinking-rich-brad-klontz/1146212034;jsessionid=9ADBFA21F7779A45F34745CE6E50B715.prodny_store01-atgap15?ean=2940191065052

Follow Reasonably Happy host Paul Ollinger: https://www.instagram.com/paul_ollinger

We are joined by Lydia Fenet, the founder and CEO of the Lydia Fenet Agency, a boutique agency representing best in class charity auctioneers. Lydia is a best selling author and ground breaking art auctioneer who sits with us to talk about art, confidence and how to decide what success means to you.

Pick up a copy of "Claim Your Confidence" by Lydia Fenet: https://lydiafenet.com/the-book/

Follow Reasonably Happy host Paul Ollinger: https://www.instagram.com/paul_ollinger

We are joined by New York Times best selling author and former Wall Street wild man Turney Duff to discuss Hookers, Blow, Million-dollar bonuses on Wall Street and the journey through recovery and what lies the other side of the Wall Street hustle.

Pick up a copy of "The Buy Side" by Turney Duff: https://www.amazon.com/Buy-Side-Street-Traders-Spectacular/dp/0770437176

Follow Reasonably Happy host Paul Ollinger: https://www.instagram.com/paul_ollinger

What did Ray Kroc, Maya Angelou, Margaret Thatcher, and Malcolm X all have in common? (Don’t worry - this isn’t a dirty joke!) They were all opsimaths, i.e. a person who blooms late in life. In his new book SECOND ACT: What Late Bloomers Can Tell You About Success and Reinventing Your Life, author Henry Oliver shares the stories of well-known people whose greatest accomplishments happened in or past middle age. In other words, there’s still hope for you! Maybe you’re 45 and haven’t written the great American Novel yet. There’s still time! You’re 55 and haven’t made your first million or billion? There’s still time! You’re 65 and havne’t gotten elected to political office? Well, let’s not push it, but you never know. If you are indeed an opsimath, you’ll keep working toward your goal for the sake of the thing and not in hope of any extrinsic rewards. In this informative and sometimes humorous conversation, Henry and I—two urbane gentleman that we are—discuss the following:

Pre-order Henry's book here. Subscribe to his Substack here. 

WAIT - don’t go until you’ve done 2 out of these 3 things:

💰Rate and review Crazy Money here. 💰

🔥 Register for Paul’s incredible newsletter here.🔥

🎤 See Paul LIVE for telling of comedy jokes here. 🎤

About Paul Ollinger and Crazy Money

After working as one of Facebook’s first 250 employees, Paul retired from the corporate world at 42, only to find himself bored, lonely, and driving his wife crazy. Today, he’s a standup comic, captivating audiences with his unique blend of humor and insight, performing alongside a diverse group of comedy powerhouses and iconic musicians, including Norm Macdonald, Dave Attell, Chelsea Handler, Styx, and Collective Soul. In 2019, Paul started this podcast, Crazy Money to explore the connection between money, happiness, work, and meaning. In one-on-one conversations with some of the world's most interesting people, he helps uncover the true sources of happiness in life and what wealth, success, and fame can (and can't) do for us. Previous guests include LL COOL J, Judd Apatow, Moby, and winners of the Nobel Prize, Heisman Trophy, PGA Championship, and Olympic gold medals. Paul is always on tour and coming to a comedy club near you. Check dates here.

This episodes Keywords:

late bloomers, success, age, intelligence, motivation, hard work, meandering path, passion, experience, network, late bloomers, success, reinventing life, Ray Kroc, McDonald's, Katharine Graham, Washington Post, David Duffield, Workday, internal motivation, careers, second careers, reinvention

Nobody gets into poetry for fame and fortune. And yet, there might be a tiny bit of each happening for In-Q, my guest this week who is a renowned poet and spoken word artist. When he started freestyling (aka, “rapping" for you old people) with his friends at age 13, In-Q felt an empowerment that didn’t exist in the rest of his life. The words inside him took on a life of their own and, after he started writing poetry at 19, In-Q found himself in the embrace of L.A.’s slam poetry community. He never really considered poetry taking him to a place where could make a living, "let alone live in abundance.” But through dedication, perseverance, and perhaps, the sheer inability to quit, he’s now selling out theaters, writing hit songs, and publishing books and albums. In-Q has appeared on A&E, ESPN, and HBO’s Def Poetry Jam. His stand-up poetry special, 'Live at the Ace Theatre', is now streaming exclusively on Amazon Prime Video. To top all that, Oprah (you know “Winfrey”) named him to her SuperSoul 100 list of the world’s most influential thought leaders.

On this week’s episode, In-Q and I discuss:

Watch his special, Live At the Ace Theater and listen to his album The Never Ending Now

WAIT - don’t go until you’ve done 2 out of these 3 things:

💰Rate and review Crazy Money here. 💰

🔥 Register for Paul’s incredible newsletter here.🔥

🎤 See Paul LIVE for telling of comedy jokes here. 🎤

About Paul Ollinger and Crazy Money

After working as one of Facebook’s first 250 employees, Paul retired from the corporate world at 42, only to find himself bored, lonely, and driving his wife crazy. Today, he’s a standup comic, captivating audiences with his unique blend of humor and insight, performing alongside a diverse group of comedy powerhouses and iconic musicians, including Norm Macdonald, Dave Attell, Chelsea Handler, Styx, and Collective Soul. In 2019, Paul started this podcast, Crazy Money to explore the connection between money, happiness, work, and meaning. In one-on-one conversations with some of the world's most interesting people, he helps uncover the true sources of happiness in life and what wealth, success, and fame can (and can't) do for us. Previous guests include LL COOL J, Judd Apatow, Moby, and winners of the Nobel Prize, Heisman Trophy, PGA Championship, and Olympic gold medals. Paul is always on tour and coming to a comedy club near you. Check dates here.

This episodes Keywords:

IN-Q, poet, spoken word, slam poetry, creativity, self-expression, learning disabilities, dyslexia, art, IN-Q, poetry, creativity, writing process, empowerment, tattoos, Amazon special, immersive experience, album, book, events, forgiveness

Paul loves you. 

The spirit of the working class is crushed. So argues Batya Ungar-Sargon in her new book 'Second Class: How the Elites Betrayed America's Working Men and Women’. Batya says that working men and women in the United States have been abandoned by both political parties and left to fend for themselves all while unchecked immigration makes an already challenging job market untenable. As her title suggests, she believes “elites” are causing this problem. And though you hear the word used more often and somewhat scornfully on Fox News, “elites”  doesn’t just progressives. It’s alll of us who are educated, have stable jobs, and aren’t worried aobut making rent next month. But just because Batya uses the word doesn't mean her main argument—that unchecked immigration is making life untenable for working Americans—is wrong. At the very least, it is inarguable that immigration is putting a strain on our housing, educational and medical infrastructure. And all of us foot the bill for that. What’s really odd about this to me is, despite the fact that Batya defends Donald Trump as a friend of the working people, that the policies she recommends to fix the problem feel like Democratic policies from an earlier time. Unions, tarriffs - that sort of thing. Whichever side they’re from, she is passionate about the importance of a thriving middle class for a stable democracy. Batya is The Opinion Editor at Newsweek. She holds a BA from the University of Chicago and earned her PhD at UC, Berkeley. Her writing has appeared in The Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Foreign Policy, the New York Times, The Daily Beast, and The Free Press. Buy ’Second Class’ here.

WAIT - don’t go until you’ve done 2 out of these 3 things:

💰Rate and review Crazy Money here. 💰

🔥 Register for Paul’s incredible newsletter here.🔥

🎤 See Paul LIVE for telling of comedy jokes here. 🎤

About Paul Ollinger and Crazy Money

After working as one of Facebook’s first 250 employees, Paul retired from the corporate world at 42, only to find himself bored, lonely, and driving his wife crazy. Today, he’s a standup comic, captivating audiences with his unique blend of humor and insight, performing alongside a diverse group of comedy powerhouses and iconic musicians, including Norm Macdonald, Dave Attell, Chelsea Handler, Styx, and Collective Soul. In 2019, Paul started this podcast, Crazy Money to explore the connection between money, happiness, work, and meaning. In one-on-one conversations with some of the world's most interesting people, he helps uncover the true sources of happiness in life and what wealth, success, and fame can (and can't) do for us. Previous guests include LL COOL J, Judd Apatow, Moby, and winners of the Nobel Prize, Heisman Trophy, PGA Championship, and Olympic gold medals. Paul is always on tour and coming to a comedy club near you. Check dates here.

This episodes Keywords:

elites, working class, income inequality, immigration, Trump, unions, working conditions, middle class, stable democracy, vice president, politics, kamalaharris, election, timwalz, joshshapiro

Paul loves you. 

**Hi friends - this is Paul writing to confess to an error in my introduction in this week's episode. The name of Angus Hervey's podcast is "Hope Is a Verb," not—as I called it—"Hope is NOT a Verb," which is kind of the opposite (insert winky emoticon). Unfortunately, I am unable to re-record the intro as we are traveling, but I can change these show notes, so that's what I'm doing. Sincere apologies to my most gracious guest for this ridiculous foul-up.**

The news is always bad, and that’s not an accident. “If it bleeds, it leads” has long been the theme that drives networks and newspapers to accentuate the negative because that’s how you earn ratings and pageviews, baby! This week, Dr. Angus Hervey, founder of 'Fix the News’ and the co-host of the podcast ‘Hope Is A Verb’ joins Paul to discuss the evolutionary and economic reasons behind this phenomenon and how it hurts us as a society. The dreadful headlines disguise the truth that we humans are making terrific progress fighting poverty, eradicating disease, finding alternatives to fossil fuels, and expanding human rights. But you wouldn’t know that reading the New York Times or scrolling your Facebook feed. Of course everything isn’t perfect. But thanks to technology and perhaps to the fact that—as Dr. King said—the arch of the moral universe bends toward justice, things are way better than they have ever been and they continue to improve. We ignore this to our peril and at the cost of our happiness. As Dr. Hervey cautions negative news is an addictive product that divides us as a society, "breeding cynicism, apathy, hopelessness, and even hate.” As if that weren’t bad enough, it also prevents us in believing that progress can be made, saying “If we want more people to devote themselves to making progress, maybe we should tell more people that it’s possible to make progress.” Further, he says that all these predictions of an AI apocalypse are highly-overblown. Angus earned his PhD in Political Econmomy at London School of Economics. His two TED Talks have generated millions of video views, 

He lives in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia whence he spoke to Paul before his children woke up. Listen to Hope Is A Verb and read Fix The News today!

WAIT - don’t go until you’ve done 2 out of these 3 things:

💰Rate and review Crazy Money here. 💰

🔥 Register for Paul’s incredible newsletter here.🔥

🎤 See Paul LIVE for telling of comedy jokes here. 🎤

About Paul Ollinger and Crazy Money

After working as one of Facebook’s first 250 employees, Paul retired from the corporate world at 42, only to find himself bored, lonely, and driving his wife crazy. Today, he’s a standup comic, captivating audiences with his unique blend of humor and insight, performing alongside a diverse group of comedy powerhouses and iconic musicians, including Norm Macdonald, Dave Attell, Chelsea Handler, Styx, and Collective Soul. In 2019, Paul started this podcast, Crazy Money to explore the connection between money, happiness, work, and meaning. In one-on-one conversations with some of the world's most interesting people, he helps uncover the true sources of happiness in life and what wealth, success, and fame can (and can't) do for us. Previous guests include LL COOL J, Judd Apatow, Moby, and winners of the Nobel Prize, Heisman Trophy, PGA Championship, and Olympic gold medals. Paul is always on tour and coming to a comedy club near you. Check dates here.

This episodes Keywords:

News, good news, bad news, negative filtering, evolution, negative news, perception, progress, media, incentives, bias, optimism, technology, AI, biotechnology

Paul loves you.