Unlocking Your Purpose-Driven Mind to Create Radical Change w/ Adrian Starks

[00:00:00] Adrian Starks: Most people, they react. Something happens immediately. They have an emotional reaction to it. They get upset, it triggers them and all of a sudden they're out of control. They're just reacting to someone else's emotion. So first you have to understand how you're responding to people, because that's going to determine your ability to focus on yourself. If you're allowing yourself to be impacted by people just automatically, then the focus is off of you. And this is not being self centered, this is being self- focused. 

[00:00:22] Jesus Ramirez: Today's creator is Adrian Starks, a keynote speaker, author, and personal development coach. With over 16 years of experience in human development and achievement, Adrian dedicates his life to helping people shape their purpose, to become better human beings.

In this episode Adrian, shares his insights on finding your purpose, the significance of helping others, and his passion for his podcast Your Purposeful Life.

Hey Adrian, how are you doing?

[00:00:46] Adrian Starks: Jesus I'm doing wonderful, man. How you doing today?

[00:00:48] Jesus Ramirez: I'm doing fabulous, man. We had a great conversation during your podcast a couple of weeks ago. Maybe even a month ago now, and I couldn't wait to have you on. I felt that we had an instant spark, instant connection. The conversation felt great. So I figured I'll be on the other side of the table now and get to know you a little bit better and talk more about your story and what you do.

And talking about that, why don't you let us know a little bit about who you are, what you do, where you're from, for people listening, who may not know you.

[00:01:13] Adrian Starks: All right. Well, I'm from Seattle, Washington, the Pacific Northwest, where it always rains and it sunshines and it snows all in one day, four seasons in one day is what we call it. And I'm a podcast host of Your Purposeful Life. I'm a narrator. I'm a speaker. I'm also a writer and entrepreneur. And so I'm really focused on helping human beings develop and shape their purpose throughout the planet and to do good things with it and to become better people overall.

[00:01:36] Jesus Ramirez: I love it, man. I love it. And I do want to talk about all those things. A podcast, helping people become better people, all of that. So, why don't we just get started with helping people become...
How did you say it? I like how you said it. So, I want to say exactly how you said it. 

[00:01:51] Adrian Starks: Helping people to shape their purpose to become better human beings. 

[00:01:55] Jesus Ramirez: I love it. So, in your experience, what are some common misconceptions or misunderstandings that people have about the concept of purpose?

[00:02:04] Adrian Starks: That's a good one that they have to find their purpose that it's out there somewhere in the lake. You just go in and reach in and grab it out then you're good to go. And it doesn't work that way. 

Purpose is something that you have to really think about internally and decide what do I want my purpose to be? Or what do I actively want to create out here?

[00:02:22] Jesus Ramirez: You have clients, you have people that you helped in finding their purpose. Has your... perception of what purpose is change over time?

[00:02:32] Adrian Starks: It has changed over time. When I was a lot younger, I was one of the group of people that thought that purpose was something that was very solid. But I've come to realize that purpose changes throughout our journeys. Like all the human mess, just basically it's changes and challenges. 

[00:02:46] Jesus Ramirez: Yeah. 

[00:02:46] Adrian Starks: And we find different things, different avenues that we go here and we think, Oh, maybe that's not going to work. I tried that multiple times. Let's go over here. And then that purpose gets reshaped into something else. And it's totally part of the journey. And that's what I've learned. So with each guest, I have each client that I have, their purposes have been one way, but then it all of a sudden something happened where it created something else for them that they're really passionate about now.

[00:03:09] Jesus Ramirez: What is your definition of purpose?

[00:03:11] Adrian Starks: My definition of purpose is having a vision about something. So a person that has a purpose is a person who has a vision, but they're putting their energy toward acting on that vision, regardless of what their circumstances are, they're being purposeful.

[00:03:26] Jesus Ramirez: It sounds to me like for a person to find their purpose, they do have to sometimes make changes in their life, maybe even some sacrifices in their, in their life. What challenges do people face when trying to implement lasting changes in their life and how have you helped them overcome some of those challenges?

[00:03:43] Adrian Starks: Well, one of the big mistakes they make is they think that things outside of them should change before they change. And this is what I call growing beyond your environment. You have to be the person that you become simply a person you change within. You start changing your habits, changing the way you think, changing the way you feel. And by default, you're going to start acting in a certain way that's going to take you beyond the restrictions of your environment. A lot of people make the mistake of thinking that, well, if this person changes or if I only had this chance that the other person had. This way, and that's not how it works.

It's like, well, that person may have walked through a different path that you have no idea about. And you know a lot about this. They say, so it was, you know, building YouTube platforms. People see you, but they don't see the struggle that you did to get up to that point. And they think, well, I want to be here. No, you have to really work your way into it and figure out what, what your aim is. So I find that the big mistake people make is that they want to. wherever they are, they want to just automatically change and be somewhere else that they have a vision about. And you have to simply grow into the person that will begin to accept the responsibility of those big challenges that will come along the way that will challenge you for that position.

[00:04:48] Jesus Ramirez: Yeah. And I think you're absolutely right about that. 

[00:04:51] Jesus Ramirez: Have you, um, experienced anything like that in your own life, where you had to make that mental shift?

[00:04:56] Adrian Starks: I did, you know, there was a lot of moments in my life I had to make a mental shift. There were some moments where I had to really ask myself the question of. How bad do you really want this? And if that's the case, you're gonna have to get uncomfortable. And there were moments when I remember I was working in a job setting where I would, after work, I would go home right away and work on myself, work on the business, work on who I was as a person. And sometimes it was late nights doing that. And I got discouraged. I didn't see results right away. Because I thought, well, this, if I'm doing, if I'm putting all this energy into it, something has to come out of it like now. And it didn't, it just happened over time. And I felt like when that happened, it was like, okay, now I see why it took so long.

Because this is a process and if it's easy to get, then it's easy to lose. And so that's when I realized that we had to, I had to really keep that mindset consistent, but more importantly, I had to really stay on track with the mindset because we can get to one point. He says, and all of a sudden like, okay, got it.

This is what I'm doing. I'm successful at it. But if we lose what we did to get there, we lose track of that positioning that we're already in. And then we get lazy, we get complacent. And so when I got that position, I was beginning to look at, okay, what's the next step now? How can I get better? I've grown beyond this environment.

Now I'm in a new environment. Now this environment, what can I do to, to keep growing and to better myself? So that's how I took that on mindset.

[00:06:20] Jesus Ramirez: Okay, so it sounds like there's a lot of self reflection that needs to happen in order for you to make this shift in mindset. Do you have any strategies or how do you work with clients in order for you to get them to self reflect?

[00:06:34] Adrian Starks: Well, I have to, I, with my clients, I always first tell them that you have to be your own student.

[00:06:39] Jesus Ramirez: Okay,

[00:06:40] Adrian Starks: You have to observe what you're doing throughout the day. If you're not watching what you're doing throughout the day and just taking note of things, then you're, you're not going to, to change much. So the first step is observing how you react to people. In the personal development world, we call it responding, but most people, they react, 

[00:06:57] Jesus Ramirez: okay, 

[00:06:58] Adrian Starks: happens immediately. They have an emotional reaction to it. They get upset, it triggers them. And all of a sudden they're out of control. They're just reacting to someone else's emotion. So first you have to understand how you're responding to people, because that's going to determine your ability to focus on yourself.

If you're allowing yourself to be impacted by people just automatically, then the focus is off of you. And this is not being self- centered. This is being self focused. And I want people to understand that. And so you have to take note of what you're doing throughout the day. What was the challenging point of the day? What was something that really pissed you off? What was something that made you really happy? What was something that you felt like you could have done better on? These are the things that we should ask ourselves at the end of every day. It's hard to do that because we haven't been accustomed to doing it, right?

We go home, watch a TV show, sit down, relax, have a bite to eat, go to bed, and we repeat the next day. But when we get a system of like, maybe take out, how about this? You may not have to do it every day, right away. Choose a day, a Wednesday, middle of the week, you had Monday and Tuesday, think about everything.

Sit down Wednesday night and think about how's my week gone so far. Right. And then what do I want to do better for the remainder of the week? Then that weekend on a Sunday, you recap what you did Wednesday through Sunday. So you break it up in those two little compartments. And that's the best way to really start making changes is understanding what you're doing.

And if you can't understand what you're doing, then you're not going to make changes. And there's no quick magic pill. There's so many programs, Jesus, out there and they talk about, well, if you do it this way, if you do it this way, if you do it this way, you're going to have your best life. And I have something to say about that.

There is no best life. There is a better life. There is a more fulfilling life. Because if there is a best life, then where else do you go from there? 

[00:08:38] Jesus Ramirez: In order for you to get them to self reflect, right.

[00:08:41] Adrian Starks: So it's all about improvement, but not chastising yourself, saying, I'm not good, or I'm failing at this, but understanding you're a working piece of art. You know, you're going through the human mess constantly, and you gotta keep track of what you're doing, what mess you're creating along the way.

[00:08:57] Jesus Ramirez: Sure. And that reminds me of, I was watching this episode of, I believe it's called the The Actors Roundtable. Have you seen that before? 

It's a YouTube show. Yeah, and what they do is they get a bunch of actors, well- known actors, and they talk about different things. There was a recent episode with Tom Hanks, and he had such a good quote that it reminded me of what you just said.

And Tom Hanks said, that one of the greatest lessons he's learned is... that "this too shall pass," whether it's something very bad that happened in his life or something very good.

If he didn't get a role or he wasn't doing well professionally, that shall pass, or that too shall pass. If he felt like he was on top of the world, winning an Oscar or whatever, that too shall pass. 

So there is no, you know, top of the mountain. You get to a point and that too shall pass. Which, I found it to be like really good advice because I can recognize moments in my life where I've been so low that I feel terrible. But that passed. 

And I also remember times in my life where I felt like I was on top of the world and that also passed and then you go back down. And that's just life I think. 

As you said there is no like, here I am. I made it. I'm at the top. I'm at the best place because as you said, where do you go from there? You know, so I just thought it's a good way of looking at things. I think.

[00:10:18] Adrian Starks: I like that quote that you use from Tom Hanks, too, because it is such an important quote, you know, this too shall pass. And also, I'm gonna put another quote out here, too, from, I think it was Thomas Carlyle, the Scottish philosopher, and he said that a person without a purpose is like a ship without a rudder,

[00:10:33] Jesus Ramirez: Wow.

[00:10:33] Adrian Starks: You're just gonna float aimlessly and spin around, you know, and I think that's something that what we're talking about here is that when you go through that moment of the challenge, what again is your purpose? Because that's going to tie you back into the vision. So when you have those moments where you're at work, you're like, Oh shit, this sucks. I don't want to be here. These people are annoying me. You just look at a piece of paper and say, okay, that purpose, this is what this is about. I'm here to make some money. I'm here to, to put funds into what I'm trying to create outside of here. I'm here to, to learn something so I can use it in my business or use it wherever I'm interested in. There's multiple ways of taking whatever you have and weaving it into a purpose. So you understand what your purpose is. You understand what you're, what you're doing. It makes it a lot more easier for you to get to those moments that are very challenging for you.

[00:11:17] Jesus Ramirez: Yeah, absolutely, and you know talking about, Tom Hanks and other authors that you've mentioned, Do you have any role models or people whose work you support in terms of finding purpose and human development and all that stuff?

[00:11:29] Adrian Starks: You know, I would say Earl Nightingale. He has been really truthfully like my mentor over, over a timeframe just because he had multiple genres that he participated in such as he was a public speaker, he was a narrator, he was an author, um, he did radio hosting. And he was considered to be the dean of motivation.

And so looking at people like him and how he used his passion in multiple avenues that all had similarities that really, and that really inspired me. There's, if I could think of anyone else, I would have to say, honestly, Sylvester Stallone.

[00:12:09] Jesus Ramirez: Really? Rocky? All right.

[00:12:10] Adrian Starks: Rocky and and that's my name came from actually Adrian so,

[00:12:13] Jesus Ramirez: Okay. Oh, yeah. Oh, interesting.

[00:12:17] Adrian Starks: So I like him because, and this is nothing I'm not like, once again, I'm talking about the, the person's skill and their talents and their craft, nothing about anything personal in their lives, but when it comes to him, his ability to take. A vision of that movie Rocky and then turn into a franchise. Nobody wanted to buy it. Nobody wanted to touch it. 

[00:12:39] Jesus Ramirez: Yeah. 

[00:12:40] Adrian Starks: Not even want to be his actor. So he said, fine, I'll just, I'll do it myself. I'll act it in myself and I'll just, and he took it on and he had that purpose and look at it now. It turned into Rocky, turned into Creed. It's turning into all these other things,

[00:12:50] Jesus Ramirez: Yeah. Mm 

[00:12:52] Adrian Starks: So he really inspired me to show me that if you have this vision, then you need to create the plan. And you say this a lot of Jesus, you know, you got to have the packaging,

[00:13:02] Jesus Ramirez: Yeah. Yeah.

[00:13:03] Adrian Starks: What is the packaging behind what you're doing? And so he really inspired me over time. And the other person had to be Frederick Douglass.

[00:13:09] Jesus Ramirez: Oh, okay. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:13:11] Adrian Starks: You know, Frederick Douglass really inspired me because of, he was more than self-made, he was self-taught. 

[00:13:18] Jesus Ramirez: Mm. 

[00:13:19] Adrian Starks: That, he didn't know how to read or write, but he taught himself how to read and write, and he ended up being one of the greatest orators of all time. He changed history. 

[00:13:26] Jesus Ramirez: Yeah. 

[00:13:27] Adrian Starks: Um, he really changed history. People talk about what was the Civil War and how Abraham Lincoln allowed the soldiers, the black soldiers, to come in and fight, but what people don't realize, the backstory, is that Frederick Douglass actually convinced him of why it was important to allow them to fight. He says they want to fight for their freedom. So they'll, they'll go down in flames for you.

[00:13:48] Jesus Ramirez: Yeah.

[00:13:50] Adrian Starks: And he's like, those are the people you want on your side. And so people don't talk about that story, but it was like his ability to be able to articulate in a way and to show like, this is why you need to do this. That inspired me to really do what I do and to show the why behind what I do and show people why they should be doing something they're passionate about. So those are my three.

[00:14:08] Jesus Ramirez: And what is your why? Why is helping people become better people so important to you?

[00:14:13] Adrian Starks: I believe for me, truthfully. We are all here for a particular reason. We have a sacred birthright to be on this planet. And I really believe that the human being has not reached their full potential until they know why the hell they're here. And when they do that and they do it with integrity, honesty, and passion, they can actually be co collaborators with the planet and make it better.

So when we become better, the planet becomes better. We're all one great system. So I'm here to. To show people why it's important to push beyond your boundaries, why it's important to push beyond the challenges and to keep going.

[00:14:47] Jesus Ramirez: Do you think it's ever too late for somebody to keep going? Is it ever too late to discover your purpose?

[00:14:52] Adrian Starks: Oh, great question. There is never a moment of being too late. I always say that, it's like the book by Ernest Hemingway. When the bell tolls, when that bell tolls and you know, that's, that's it for you. 

But until you hear that bell, there's, there's no stopping. There's always that time where you can be like, okay, I've got all this going on, but what can I, what can I dive into? What is that thing that I put down years ago? Maybe it's playing the guitar. Maybe it's writing. Maybe it's doing some producing. Maybe it's doing some, some charity work. Things that you're passionate about. I think that we have a lot of things we put down because we were told to be serious. We were told to be responsible. And reality is, is that there's always that little kid inside of us called imagination, called creativity that never goes away. No matter how, what age you are, it's always there. 

And this is what the inward journey is about. It's about, this is why I was talking about earlier, self reflection. You brought this great question up about, you know, how do people do that? Well, they have to look at what inspires them, what doesn't inspire them. You got to ask yourself those questions. People can't do that for you. But if you are a person that you have, let's just say, for instance, you have a big family, a lot of kids, you're married and you've got a lot of commitments. I get it.

I totally get it. It doesn't mean that you have to give up. That doesn't mean that you have to neglect that at all. It just means that you have to set some time aside for yourself to just look at some things. I mean, there's 24 hours in a day. So trust me, there's a moment in time where you're going to have at least an hour or two to yourself, 30 minutes to yourself to think about some things.

And the reality is that when you are, when you have those moments to spend it in the present moment, Not in what you're going to do when you leave that moment. This is what happens. A lot of people, they get that quiet moment and they're already thinking about what do I do when I'm done with my quiet moment?

I've got this to do. I got this to do. Just got to quiet yourself and enjoy yourself and just allow yourself to be at some point, be silent, which is a hard for a lot of people to do.

[00:16:43] Jesus Ramirez: I completely agree, but I do want to, in a way, play devil's advocate here, and maybe there is no bad side to it, but are there any potential pitfalls or risks or downsides associated with an intense focus on finding one's purpose?

[00:16:57] Adrian Starks: Absolutely. And this is what we call discipline. You have to have the discipline to know your threshold. If you are involved in something and let's just say, for instance, you know, you have other responsibilities. You have to divide the line of how much time do I need to dedicate to this? And also there's a pitfall of not getting enough gratification from what you're seeking.

We live in a time now where instant gratification is everywhere. People's attention spans are very short. They're wanting it now. They're wanting the quick result. And this happens when we're trying to go for our purpose. And so when you're looking for your purpose, or when you're trying to reshape your purpose, you have to be flexible, but also kind to yourself.

And to slow it down. If you find that you're getting frustrated, you need to stop. Back away for a little bit. If you find yourself snipping at people... You need to dial back, go back to what we were talking about before, ask yourself, why did I have this encounter with this person? Why did they trigger this response out of me?

Maybe it's because you're focusing too much on internally and you're not paying attention to your environment. This is what we can, we can also go inside so much where we lose track of what's going on around us and this can impact relationships. You can start ignoring that partner that's in your life, ignoring your kids, ignoring the things that are obligations and duties for you.

I'm not saying that you, you have to completely pay 100% attention to it and forget about yourself, but you have to know how to divide the line and that takes practice. This is where reading comes in. Self development. Self improvement. You know, finding out what you can do to better yourself. But yes, back to your question.

I gave you a long answer, but the pitfall, there is a major pitfall. The pitfall is that it's not going to happen right away. You may be seeking for a purpose or trying to reshape it, and it's just not working out for you. Well, this is what we call patience. You have to have the patience. I think Ralph Emerson said that we must all adopt the pace of nature. Her secret is patience. 

[00:18:48] Jesus Ramirez: Finding one's purpose.

Wow. It's true. So I do want to talk a little bit about the podcast, but I did have one more question for you regarding purpose. Which prior to you coming on the show was thinking about the conversations I'm going to have with you based on your experience. And that word "purpose" kept coming up. Purpose, purpose, purpose.

[00:19:10] Jesus Ramirez: And one of the questions that I had in the back of my mind about purpose is how one's upbringing, their environment, creates their sense of purpose and the path that they choose to follow, and I guess the question is, can certain environments be detrimental to purpose?

And if so, how can we change our perspective of the world, really? Because that's what we grew up with, to follow our purpose.

[00:19:38] Adrian Starks: Oh, that's a powerful one. Yes, environments can be detrimental to that for instance, there's some people that grow up in environments that are not very friendly. They're not very educational. There's not a lot of opportunities. And they may want to do something that requires those opportunities may require money to explore those avenues.

The key is that your environment is your environment. But once I'm going to go back to that phrase again, and growing beyond your environment. At some point, you have to grow beyond your environment, you have to decide that is this environment fitting to me? If it's not, you got to explore, you got to step outside of it.

So maybe you grew up in a city your whole entire life. Your whole, your family has been there their entire life, but then you know that you want to travel around the world. Well, maybe that means that you need to start going outside the city a little bit.

[00:20:22] Jesus Ramirez: Mm hmm.

[00:20:22] Adrian Starks: Get on a bus, you know, take a plane somewhere different, start pushing yourself beyond those boundaries.

And then what you'll find is that, Whoa, I really like traveling. Or better yet, I think I want to live over here and I want to, you know, get involved with photography and nature. Sometimes your purpose is calling you. You're just not listening to it. And when you start stepping outside your boundary, then that purpose can start becoming more defined, as I would say.

It starts reshaping. But if you're in an environment where, another example, you're around people who are not very supportive, this happens a lot to people. You know, why would you want to do that? There's no money in that. Oh, that's going to take forever. Everybody's doing that. You know, you're just going to fall down the rabbit hole.

You're going to get lost. You know, people hear that all the time. Well, in those environments, you know, if you really feel passionate about something, you got to get around people who are actually doing it.

[00:21:10] Jesus Ramirez: Right.

[00:21:10] Adrian Starks: You got to start watching people who are actually doing it. You know, when I was, um, exploring speaking, I would drive from Seattle to Vancouver, British Columbia every weekend.

[00:21:22] Jesus Ramirez: How far is that drive?

[00:21:23] Adrian Starks: That's about a two hour drive.

[00:21:25] Jesus Ramirez: That's not a short drive.

[00:21:27] Adrian Starks: Not a short drive at all. I put that across the border too. That was probably about another 20 minutes of my time. And you know what I did though, Jesus, I started telling myself, I want to do this. So I'm gonna push myself beyond my boundaries. What's happening right now is all the activities happening in Vancouver.

So I'm gonna go over here where it's happening. And I'm going to watch. And so then I started getting clever. All right, how do I minimize my time of getting there? Oh, let's get a Nexus card. Let's apply for a nexus card that way I can get across the border faster and I can stay longer and come back faster. So your purpose starts kind of reshaping and you start thinking, Oh, this is not so bad after all. Then I started spending weekends there and then I started meeting people.

[00:22:08] Jesus Ramirez: Mm hmm. 

[00:22:08] Adrian Starks: Then I kind of started growing myself there in that environment.

[00:22:11] Jesus Ramirez: Right.

[00:22:12] Adrian Starks: That's how it works. You, you, your curiosity is kind of the purpose knocking on the door.

[00:22:18] Jesus Ramirez: Haha ha. 

[00:22:18] Adrian Starks: But you got to open the door and be, 

[00:22:20] Jesus Ramirez: Mm hmm. 

[00:22:20] Adrian Starks: okay, cool. What's up? What's going on? How, what we're going to do. And then you got to start going with that instinct, trying out new things.

[00:22:28] Jesus Ramirez: Well, the important thing there is you have to open the door.

[00:22:30] Adrian Starks: You got to open the door.

[00:22:32] Jesus Ramirez: When opportunity is knocking at your door, Sometimes the environment that you grew up in may keep you from opening that door. And for me personally, it took many years to get out of that mindset that I grew up with in my environment. I remember being very young, like 19 or something, and my whole goal in life, and again, this is just me personally, I'm not saying that if you're doing this, this is bad or anything, it's just me. My whole goal in life was to make $10 an hour. That was my goal. And, for context, I live in the San Francisco Bay Area. This is one of the most expensive... areas in the country, maybe the world. I don't know the numbers specifically. 

But that was my goal. Because I didn't know any better. It took a lot of getting out of my comfort zone, driving to different places, meeting people at different events and conferences. When I started expanding my horizons, which is what led me to that question, because I realized that my environment had limited my sense of purpose. Just because I wasn't aware of, of the world that was out there.

[00:23:42] Adrian Starks: Wow, limited your sense of purpose. Yeah, it's so true that you said that because the environment can do that to us, it can really limit that. And I wanted to kind of quickly add on to that I have, my family has always been very supportive. But for the people out there, you may not have a supportive family and also to be careful with that because back to your question earlier, the pitfall can be that just because you think they're just because they're not supportive, you think that it's not possible and you think that there's no way out of it and also be also cautious of friends, friends along the way will tailor off or they'll go silent on you and you will be like, well, I thought that they're not doing it. They're not sending me anything. They're not liking anything I'm doing. They're not commenting on anything I'm doing. You see them there. You know, they're there because people like to watch from a distance and believe it or not, some people may be supporting, but not really acting that out. And that's okay.

[00:24:41] Jesus Ramirez: Yeah. 

[00:24:41] Adrian Starks: Don't get involved in the numbers. Don't, don't let that emotionally drag you. And I think that that's the pitfall too, is people getting discouraged and they're losing sight of that purpose. 

[00:24:51] Jesus Ramirez: Right. 

[00:24:51] Adrian Starks: Got that Thomas Carlyle quote, a person without a purpose is like a ship without a rudder and whenever your purpose gets blurred, or whenever you ignore the purpose or whenever you don't want to explore it further, you just imagine yourself being on a ship and there's no control and you're just getting twisted by everything that's coming your way, winds, the waves, and you're going to think that you're going to go to your port of destination perfectly, not going to happen.

[00:25:14] Jesus Ramirez: It's so funny that you mentioned that whole, you know, people are not commenting or whatever when you're doing something. When I started the Photoshop Training Channel in 2011, I was so self conscious about it that I didn't mention my name in my YouTube videos. So if you go back and watch the first 10 or so videos, I don't mention my name. And actually every now and again, I still won't mention it because you know It's so hard to get out of my head.

So if there's some videos today that I won't mention my name But in the past I never did. Because I was just so like oh my god People are gonna like judge me or whatever. And I never posted any video on my personal Facebook page. Because I didn't want people to judge me or make fun of me or whatever. And I remember thinking, when I get to 20,000 subscribers, then, then I made it, then I'll post on Facebook. And I remember I got to like 20,000 and I was like, nah, I'll wait till I get to like 40, 000 and it makes no sense, right? I could have had one follower and it would have not mattered to my friends and family, but I was just in my head so much.

And Facebook has these things called "Lists," so you can put people into like different categories. These are my work friends, these are my, soccer friends, these are my Photoshop friends. When I started going to conferences and things like that, people started adding me on Facebook. So I created a Photoshop, like, friend list of people who are interested in Photoshop. And that's the only time I've ever posted Photoshop related content, only to those people. Because to this day, I have something in my head that people are gonna, like... Judge me for it, and we were just talking before the show started, I'll probably hit 2 million followers by Friday. If the numbers keep going the way they're going, and I still can't get it out of my head. And it goes back to that conversation of like this environment that you grew up in, whatever it is, good, bad, don't, I'm not even going to label it. Whatever environment that is, it's very difficult to get it out of your head.

[00:27:02] Adrian Starks: Yes, it is. And I like how you said to this journey of yours because it's so real that... and I like how you created the list. You created a list for people that you know are going to watch it.

[00:27:13] Jesus Ramirez: Mm hmm,

[00:27:13] Adrian Starks: I think that's what I think the big thing people to be very careful on the pitfall of going to social media and thinking that everyone's going to like what you're doing.

And everyone's going to be like, Oh, great for you. Awesome. We're going to just, you know, pass this around and get everybody to jump on board. No, it doesn't happen that way. You would like for it to, but it doesn't happen that way. And you want people who really support or really need your work. Like you were saying that that purpose, like the audience you're serving, they're going to want that more than anything else. And for the people listening today, comments, you know, also be very mindful of the pitfall of focusing too much on comments. It's great to have good comments. It's good to comment on good comments, but every now and then you can get some people in there. They're gonna be like, Oh, you suck. Or they're gonna be like, I don't like this, you know, or like, what are you talking about?

And then they think they have the facts for everything. You know, if you go back and follow them, they got like a little frog emoji. They don't even show their face, right? So you don't allow people like that to really jar you from your purpose. Use it as fuel. You say, Okay, well, great. And at least I know that my video, my content is going organically out there.

So I know now these people, there's people randomly catching my stuff. And It's good but they're not gonna always like it. So that's also the pitfall with be very careful about.

[00:28:24] Jesus Ramirez: Yeah, yeah, for sure. You know what the interesting thing is, Adrian? 

I have posted every podcast episode on my personal Facebook page. For some reason, I don't have that same connotation as my Photoshop stuff. Maybe because I started it now where I feel more confident, but the old stuff is still like in the back. I don't know. I'm weird, man. My mind is all over the place. But I have put, yeah, I posted the, uh, every single podcast episode on my personal Facebook page. And people have commented.

By the way, interesting fact, the first ever listener to Today's Creator podcast is my future mother in law, Lori, who probably is watching.

Hi, Lori.

[00:29:00] Adrian Starks: Hi.

[00:29:01] Jesus Ramirez: Yeah. She was the first person to ever watch Today's Creator podcast episode, because as soon as I posted it up, she's like, she texted me, I'm listening to it.

[00:29:11] Adrian Starks: That's, I love that. It's true

[00:29:12] Jesus Ramirez: Yeah, but, I wanted to talk about one of, dare I say, your passions, which is your purposeful life, your podcast.

What led you to start it? 

Tell us a little bit about how you started the podcast, and for those people who don't know what the podcast is, maybe give us a description about the podcast.

[00:29:28] Adrian Starks: All right. Well, first of all, the podcast, Your Purposeful Life is for people looking to shape their purpose, their kind of way. So the podcast is an educational tool that comes in from people of different walks of life. They've gone through something, some challenge, some human mess, and they figured out a way to, maybe change or reshape their purpose. So we're just changing the conversation around purpose. It's not about what you find out there. It's about what you decide to create. So if you're some person that's coming in, you're like, I'm in this point in my life, I want to try something different, or I want to try this. I don't know where to start. I don't know how to do it. That podcast is for you. It's about. Changing the journey and the podcast was started back in 2019. 

[00:30:04] Jesus Ramirez: How you started the podcast?

[00:30:05] Adrian Starks: This is really before podcasts became that big boom. And before that point, it was called the Purposeful Life Show. So there was a lot of changes with this, with this platform.

Originally the, the Purposeful Life Show was designed mostly for entrepreneurs. I wanted people that were really focused on building, businesses and things of that sort, cause I was an entrepreneur myself. But what I realized through the process of the show. I was disinterested in a lot of the conversations.

Something was going on. It was a disconnect and there was a disconnect with me. It was a disconnect with my audience. So I had to think long and hard about what I needed to change with the show. And so about a year ago, I spoke with a couple of my team members and we changed it to Your Purposeful Life because I wanted it to be about the audience.

When you're coming to the show. You may have something that you're looking for that the show will provide you with through a different type of guest for instance Jesus you're on the show not too long ago for someone that's coming to the show they may may be being this funk about you know Adobe Photoshop or they may be in a funk about YouTube and they're just like man I don't even know if I want to quit this thing, but then they see what you did, how you overcame what you overcame with your stroke, and then you were able to still provide and still be able to do your YouTube and be and be a speaker and travel that inspires someone to keep going or inspires and say, I want to take a look at Jesus and see what he's doing and and learn from him.

That's the show. That's what the platform is for. It's about people that are doing things and allowing that energy to be given to people who are wanting to do those things. So that that becomes the purposeful part becomes an action. And I designed the platform. It really came from when I was Wanting to speak on stages, I realized that here's the thing for the speakers out here, we're going to, we're not going to step on any toes here, but for people that are inspiring speakers,

that want to be on stages and make a lot of money, I'm going to give you one word of advice here. Don't start that way. In order to speak on stages and make a lot of money, you have to have a skill set that people require or that they want to know about that they will pay you for. Jesus gets paid to speak on stages because he has a special quality that he has built over time that allows him to be an expert that people want to hear about what he has to say.

Because they want to learn from him. When I started out, I didn't have that special quality. I just wanted to speak on stages and motivate. And oh, did I learn my lesson? Because nobody comes knocking on your door and nobody comes saying, Hey, come and speak. None of that. And there are people out here who will say, Oh, you know, join our program, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

And we'll help you be professional speakers. That's great. You know, but here's the thing. You still have to have a skillset. You have to have something that people are willing to pay for. So I designed the podcast because I had one person, Jesus. He told me this advice. He said, Adrian, you got to stop trying to speak on other people's platforms. You got to build your own.

[00:33:05] Jesus Ramirez: Love it.

[00:33:06] Adrian Starks: And I said, well, Hey, I want to speak on Les Brown's platform. I want to speak on Tony Robbins platform. How do I do that? He was like, you don't, you build your own platform. if they hear you enough, they will ask you to join them. And. I never got that call from them. That's okay.

But here's the thing though, my platform now yet. That's right yet. But my platform is something that I, that I speak from when it comes to podcasting. That's my platform. And I do speak in stages. I've spoken in schools. I've spoken. I did a TEDx talk. So I've done my thing. But the reality is, is that I built a platform for podcasting because I actually am very passionate about learning about people.

I'm very curious about people and I love people who are doing great things and I want them to be able to be seen by more people. So that's why I designed it.

[00:33:58] Jesus Ramirez: Can you share a story of a guest on your podcast that's made a significant impact on your personal life?

[00:34:03] Adrian Starks: On my personal life, let's see. There's so many guests here. Oh, so there's a guest. So obviously you have,

[00:34:08] Jesus Ramirez: Thank you, I appreciate that.

[00:34:10] Adrian Starks: You're very welcome. Yeah, there's a guest. I think his name was Kevin McShan. I'm trying to figure out which episode that was, but

[00:34:16] Jesus Ramirez: And we'll find it and link up to it in the show notes, by the way.

[00:34:20] Adrian Starks: Yes. And it's called don't let your disability define your limitations. And he was, born with cerebral palsy, he was a twin actually, and his brother ended up growing out of it, but he didn't.

[00:34:34] Jesus Ramirez: Hmm.

[00:34:35] Adrian Starks: And what his doctors told him was that he'd never walk again, ever. And that, um, he was going to be forever bound in a wheelchair. So he said, okay, well how do I make the best of being in a wheelchair? And he realized that he was going to help other people who have cerebral palsy. To show them that the wheelchair is not your limitation, your mind is. And when I heard that episode, I was just talking to him and how he saw life. He's an avid football fan, he loves football, he just enjoys life. I just said to myself, man, what am I worried about? And he gave me one thing, he said, Adrian, he says, either you can sit down and do nothing, or you can stand up in your heart and do everything.

[00:35:18] Jesus Ramirez: Wow.

[00:35:19] Adrian Starks: And I said, Whoa. So he really inspired me to really think about things differently because we all have those challenges. And I'm gonna put it out here for people that are listening today.

We all go through our moments. You know, this vulnerability factor. We're all human. I have doubts. I have fears. I get upset. Sometimes I shut myself off because I just I'm trying to figure out my figure out some things. And I'm not telling this to To show you, um, to have you feel sorry for me, I'm showing because vulnerability is a strength and we live in a time now where everyone's trying to show you how perfect they are.

[00:35:53] Jesus Ramirez: Mm mmm.

[00:35:53] Adrian Starks: And you're getting sucked into that,

[00:35:55] Jesus Ramirez: Yeah.

[00:35:56] Adrian Starks: but I'm asking you to look at the people who are sharing with you part of their journey, Jesus's journey. You know, the stroke that you had, man. I mean, people need to hear about those things that, that happened, but yet you're still going. 

And that, that's what drives me when I, when I talk to people. So that's, that was what one thing that really inspired me.

[00:36:17] Jesus Ramirez: Yeah, man. You mentioned my stroke and in no way I'm comparing what I had to your guests and Cerebral Palsy. I was very fortunate that I came out on the other end relatively unscathed. But there was a period of time where I didn't know that that was going to be the result. I thought I might not be able to walk normally again .

And just that taste of that being my life now makes me want to work even harder at the things that I want to achieve. Both personally and professionally, because had I been in that situation, it would have been much more difficult. That's not to say that if you have any disability, you're not enjoying life or any of that.

It would have been difficult for me going from being relatively healthy and athletic to now you can't walk. It would have been a very difficult mindset, mind shift that would have probably been difficult to overcome. 

So just the fact that I had the taste of it and then coming back to where I'm playing sports again and I'm pretty much doing everything normal, it really put things into perspective. And really made me value the things that I wasn't valuing before. That I realized how valuable some things were and how easy they could disappear.

[00:37:33] Adrian Starks: It's true. The things that are most valuable to us, we ignore.

[00:37:37] Jesus Ramirez: Mm hmm.

[00:37:38] Adrian Starks: The things that can't be replaced,

[00:37:39] Jesus Ramirez: A hundred percent. 

[00:37:40] Adrian Starks: The things that be replaced, we put all of our attention in our money on. Right? So it's, it's very interesting how the human brain works these days.

[00:37:46] Jesus Ramirez: A hundred percent. You know, talking about good guests, how do you go about selecting and inviting people for your podcast? Are there any qualities that you look for? Do you do some research on people? How do you find the good guests?

[00:37:59] Adrian Starks: Research, research, research, everyone research your guests. The key is knowing the why of your podcast.

[00:38:07] Jesus Ramirez: Mm hmm.

[00:38:07] Adrian Starks: If you don't know why your podcast is up in the first place, then you're going to really fall into that rabbit hole effect of trying to get everybody on your podcast. I mean, that happens to a lot of people in the beginning.

They're just trying to get everybody on just to get guests on to say they have a number of episodes. But here's the thing, people are not, they don't care about how many episodes you have. Now, if you're already an established person, like let's just say for us, like a Joe Rogan of a chorus, your episode is going to keep climbing and climbing and climbing because you've been around for a while.

And by the way, I watched a clip on him and he was saying that he was, when he was building his podcast for the first five to seven years, there was no money involved. He just putting money into it.

[00:38:46] Jesus Ramirez: hmm. Mm hmm. 

[00:38:48] Adrian Starks: He was trying to build it up. So for people listening today, check that out, look at him now, but five, seven years, between five and seven years, he wasn't doing anything with it other than just creating the content.

And I would say that as you would say, Hey, Jesus, I want to use your words. The packaging is so important. Your podcast has to have something in it that is presentable to people. So if I give you a box and the box has nice packaging on it, And it's specific. Well, if you look at that box, you're going to get curious.

You're going to open it up. But if your box doesn't have any specifications on it, it's just a blank box and it's just got all, it's just, it's just a box people are going to be like, not interested, or if your box has too many things on it, too many words written on it, they're going to be like, Oh, that's too much.

I don't know where to start here. You got to be specific on your podcast. What does your podcast have? For instance, yours, Jesus, Today's Creator Podcasts. So automatically I'm thinking today's creator, I'm a creator. I want to know what he's talking about, who's on his show. That's going to be a, who's a creator right now.

It's very simple. My podcast, Your Purposeful Life. All right. Maybe you're struggling your life right now. And you're trying to figure out what the hell is my purpose. So, you know, you're trying to figure out what is purpose. That's for you. It's very simple, streamlined. You go straight there. So your title is very important. And also, so your guests back to what you were saying, your guest has to align with your why. If you have a guest on your show and they have nothing to do with what your messaging is, that becomes a disconnect.

[00:40:12] Jesus Ramirez: Right.

[00:40:13] Adrian Starks: At that point, your audience is going to be like, Okay, I'm not understanding what I'm getting here. I'm going to go on to somewhere else. So you have to ask yourself a question. Do you want to be an educational podcast? Or do you want to be a podcast where you're just bringing people on just to talk? And there's a lot of people out there with podcasts like that get in line,

[00:40:30] Jesus Ramirez: Right.

[00:40:31] Adrian Starks: a lot of celebrities who have podcasts like that, getting that long line, because they're already getting people on these, you know, getting people to listen to these multiple conversations, multiple topics throughout the podcast. So I would say that you have to really understand what are you in it for? If you want to just get in it because you just, you want to just dive into it because you're curious, fine. But if you're really serious about it. You have to first be keen on what is the purpose behind your podcast? What's the mission? What are you trying to achieve with it? Your guests will connect to that.

[00:41:03] Jesus Ramirez: No, that makes total sense, without naming any names again. I recorded a podcast episode, my very first one, and it was almost, you know, like a trial run. And it wasn't very good. And I realized it was because I invited a person who is a friend of mine. That I thought, oh, yeah, I've known him for years. I've known this person for a long time. I can talk to them. I talk to them all the time. So I can have a good conversation. We have great conversations over the phone all the time talking about our industry and things like that. It'll make a great podcast episode. And we recorded for about an hour and a half.

I listened to it, and oh my god, it was bad. It was bad. And we needed to, like, basically redo it because I realized that even though this is a person that I knew well, a friend. I knew a lot of the answers to his questions, which was fine. I realized that there was no why, as you said. Like, why am I talking to this person? Like, yes, this person is a wealth of information. This person knows a lot about specific topics. This person could give a lot of great advice. But I never led him there.

So I needed to think of questions to ask him, more importantly, why is this person in the show? Okay, I'm going to talk to this person about these topics, and I'm going to have these questions ready to go because there are questions that I'm curious about. Like, I just, you know, asked you a couple that I, had written down previously, the environment question was one of them, because I was thinking about, okay, if I were talking to Adrian, like, what would be a topic that I would really, enjoy listening to.

And the environment question came up in my head, so I wrote that one down so I do that with my guests now. I'll think of why are they here? What questions am I really curious about? And then I'll write those down. 

And to be frank with you, sometimes I don't get to those questions because other conversations take over and there might be even better topics, right? But at the very least, I have something up my sleeve in case I can't lead the conversation there naturally.

[00:43:00] Adrian Starks: Right. And I love how you said that because you, you opened a door for flexibility. Which is what allows you to be a good podcast host. And now that we're on this topic, what makes a good podcast host? It's not just a Q& A question. I want to be very clear with people, Q& A questions are easy.

[00:43:18] Jesus Ramirez: yeah, 

[00:43:19] Adrian Starks: Just ask them a question, they answer, but what happens between, I call it the space of the answer. Are you finding a key word, a key concept that person just brought up, and are you saying, Oh, they already answered my second question. So why don't I ask them this question instead, there've been so many people who the answer was given already and they all of a sudden he asked the second question that is the actual question already answered. 

Then you know that this person is not really listening to me, they're just going through a Q and A and you have to be careful not to do that, in the beginning you might because you're, you're fairly new and you're a novice at it. But you have to learn to listen. I think that for me, podcasting is the art of conversation under the umbrella of interviewing. 

So when you're interviewing, you have to have this way of conversation that's key to you, that allows you to carry the momentum. Remember you're the driver in the conversation, but the passenger also has a say of where they're going.

[00:44:19] Jesus Ramirez: Yes. 

[00:44:19] Adrian Starks: Like, you're allowing me to speak, you're allowing me to take it here, but then at the same time, you're like, okay, well, if Agent Vera's off too far, I'm gonna grab the driver's wheel again, and I'mma bring us back over here. So that's the responsibility of a podcaster, is to have that ability. Right now, there's so many people out there doing podcasting, and everyone's trying to compete for space, but here's the thing, there's so much room, there's so much to do, and to be effective in podcasting, Once again, back to the, why you have to know why you're doing it. And when you're choosing your guest, they have to energetically align with the purpose of your show.

[00:44:54] Jesus Ramirez: Hmm. 

[00:44:54] Adrian Starks: If they don't, your audience will not trust you. They are going to think that you're just bringing people on just to, just to bring people on. Like I've had to turn people down Jesus on my podcast, because I've read their bio, did my research and sometimes it was a disconnect. I was like, okay, they said they're doing this, but I don't see anything on their social media that connects them to this.

[00:45:14] Jesus Ramirez: Right.

[00:45:15] Adrian Starks: So is this just a hobby for them? Are they actually professional at it? You know, I don't want to bring them on and them saying they're a professional and they're really not. You know, cause some people will do that. They'll just want to get on just to say that they're there and then get exposure that way. So you gotta be mindful of that with people too. You gotta do your research and just say, Are they actually who they say they are? Do they take what they're doing seriously? Like you did your research on me. You know, you went everywhere to see and... And you saw that there was a connection, but when there's no connection with your guest, then you have, you have the ability to say no.

[00:45:45] Jesus Ramirez: Of course. 

[00:45:46] Adrian Starks: Kindly decline and just say, no, I'm going to pass on this this time, but thank you for, for asking me, but I'm going to kindly pass.

[00:45:53] Jesus Ramirez: Adrian, have you had a guest on that you later regretted having on after the show was published? And you either the it could have been that the podcast episode was shall we say boring or maybe It may be controversial and to a degree that made you look bad or the show bad any any regrets on having a guest on you, don't have to tell us who it was.

[00:46:15] Adrian Starks: The guest was actually,

[00:46:17] Jesus Ramirez: Yeah, yeah

[00:46:18] Adrian Starks: I won't say that it was episode. No, I'm just kidding. Um, yes, I, I have, I've had a guest on and I remember interviewing this person and they didn't allow me to ask questions.

[00:46:33] Jesus Ramirez: Wow.

[00:46:34] Adrian Starks: Thought it was very, and the thing is that I could have been very like straightforward. And what I mean by this is I asked my questions, but they went on so many tangents

[00:46:43] Jesus Ramirez: Mmm,

[00:46:44] Adrian Starks: And I, they went so far, I couldn't pull them back.

And when I pulled them back, they went on another tangent.

[00:46:49] Jesus Ramirez: Right.

[00:46:50] Adrian Starks: And I was like, okay, obviously this person is used to just talking. They have a horrible communication skill. They probably do this in their personal life. They just talk, talk, talk, talk. They don't listen. And the episode went way longer than what it should have. And I thought to myself, what a waste of my time, what a waste of my time. And I was so furious about it. I was like, how do I prevent this from happening again? And the reality is that sometimes you can't prevent it from happening. You just don't know what they're going to do. But one thing I've noticed now that I do, if I do have a guess is very wordy, I will let them finish. And then I'll say, Oh, that's great. You know what? I would like to talk to you about that later. Maybe we'll have you come on the show again and we can explore that.

[00:47:29] Jesus Ramirez: Yeah,

[00:47:30] Adrian Starks: And then boom, right away, we're done with that conversation. And we move on to something else. And I think that's how I handle, that's how I handle it now. But back to your question. Yes. I regretted having that guest on. I will never have them on again and it, and I should have known because of their background and I'm not going to say their background specifically was, but their background was a background where they were an expert in it, but they were the kind of expert that was always telling people things.

So this is where the research comes in. Right? I, I didn't connect those two when I first started, I was like, but when I went back, I was like, that's why they're a dictator. They, their background is about telling people things directly and no one challenging them. They were in this higher field of authority that just said, here's the information.

This is what you've got. This is what you're going to do, bye. So that's how the conversation went. I would ask him about this. Well, you know, this, this may just go on and on and on and on and this and this. And, and I mean, actually at one point I challenged him. I said, whoa. Don't you think that may be a little kind of a far fetched conclusion?

I said, what about the people who, and then immediately they went into this whole spiel about data and then he went to this whole spiel about the story behind the data. They went to this whole spiel about their experience with their family member because of the data. And I was like, Oh my goodness. I was like, what, what is happening here? So, I found that I didn't get anything out of the interview, and I'm sure the guests didn't either, but it's a learning lesson, and we call them, sometimes we call them, I hate to say it, we call them duds, I mean,

[00:49:05] Jesus Ramirez: You call him what?

[00:49:06] Adrian Starks: Anything, they're duds, and it's not to discredit the person, but the episode was a dud to me, because it was just something that I felt like-

[00:49:15] Jesus Ramirez: Did you publish it?

[00:49:16] Adrian Starks: Honestly, I did not publish it. I did not. I did not, because the reason why I did not publish it was because there was no why in it. Back to what we're saying. When I listened to the episode, it was like, it was close to about an hour and a half, and I just couldn't find that space where I felt like the guests or the listeners would be like, going in this, this direction with it,

[00:49:43] Jesus Ramirez: Mm hmm.

[00:49:43] Adrian Starks: and I said to myself, this can't, I can't publish this because this is just not going to work and it was one of those things where I had to explain to the guests that, you know, I'm sorry, but I'm unable to publish this episode, because of X, Y, and Z reasons, I was just plain honest, you know, and honestly, they were not happy about it. But it's, it happens, you know, a lot of times you're going to get some things that are not, people are not gonna be happy with, but this is the part of the business. You have to understand that when you're doing things, you have to look at it from the audience perspective.

When you put something up, your audience, what are they getting out of it? Because if it's something that they're not getting anything out of, then this it's, it's going to, it could, it could possibly hurt you a little bit because then it discredits what you're trying to do. And so back to your question one more time about. Uh, I have published episodes where I've listened to them and said, Oh goodness, that was horrible. I was talking way too fast. I skipped around that question. What the hell happened there?

[00:50:45] Jesus Ramirez: It's happened to me.

[00:50:46] Adrian Starks: Hold on. And then you think, you're like, okay. And then you laugh at it, right? But then you find out the episode's getting downloaded. You're like, who is listening to that one?

[00:50:54] Jesus Ramirez: Well, we are our own worst critics.

[00:50:57] Adrian Starks: Yeah, we're our worst critics, man. But yeah, so yeah, that's, I have had that happen.

 [00:51:01] Jesus Ramirez: You know what man, we're almost out of time and we spent a lot of time prior to recording the show, and I do want to be respectful of your time, and I want to get to our lightning round questions because they're fun, people enjoy them, like I said earlier, before we started recording, they could be a one word answer, a long answer, they can lead to a story, or you can say skip, whatever you want. 

[00:51:20] Adrian Starks: That sounds good.

[00:51:21] Jesus Ramirez: Cool. Tell us a shocking fact about yourself.

[00:51:25] Adrian Starks: A shocking fact about myself. I have multiple tattoos.

[00:51:29] Jesus Ramirez: Really? What do you have?

[00:51:31] Adrian Starks: I have over ten tattoos on me and I'm not done.

[00:51:34] Jesus Ramirez: Wow.

[00:51:35] Adrian Starks: So, my favorite tattoo is Socrates that is on my forearm. The Greek philosopher.

[00:51:40] Jesus Ramirez: Yeah, I have no tattoos. I don't have that kind of commitment. Whatever I get now, I'm gonna not like it next week.

[00:51:45] Adrian Starks: Heh heh heh heh heh heh.

[00:51:46] Jesus Ramirez: That's a good fact. I would have not guessed more than ten. What is the most interesting thing you've learned in the last six months?

[00:51:54] Adrian Starks: Last six months, the most interesting I've learned is that there is always room for any field that you choose to be in. So meaning it's success. 

So I've, I've learned this through YouTube. Actually, I thought that YouTube I could not connect with. It was just too big, too vast, too much information going on. There's just too competitive. And honestly, it's all about learning. Learning and finding and finding your way through it and, and working it

[00:52:21] Jesus Ramirez: Nice. What is a valuable, professional lesson you've learned that translated over into your personal life?

[00:52:29] Adrian Starks: Valuable professional lesson. I've learned to listen to people, to be a good listener. A good listener is a person who can actually help resolve problems.

[00:52:39] Jesus Ramirez: Yeah, I, I often have had this conversation with people where at some point. I realized, and I can give credit to the person who taught me this, his name is Ben. I used to work for him. He was my, the last boss I've had before, running my own business, but he was very good at asking a question that I annoy people with now, which is, "what does that mean?" or "what does that mean to you?"

Because he taught me, and I think this is true, that most people are just waiting for their turn to talk. And when they talk, they're not listening to you, so they'll just say basically a script. And it's not that people are trying to be bad or whatever, that's just the way, you know, people are.

Whether it's to save time or whatever. But, he was very good at asking a question, what does that mean to you? To like, break that cycle of just responding before even hearing,. And, I just completely agree with that.

[00:53:35] Adrian Starks: Thank you.

[00:53:35] Jesus Ramirez: What would you like to be remembered for? What mark do you want to leave in the world?

[00:53:40] Adrian Starks: Whoa, this is a great one. Cause I just talking to my brother about this not too long ago. When I leave this planet, cause we all have to leave at some point, just, you know, FYI for everybody that I want to be remembered as a person who left behind, a platform left behind, a vision that as human beings, we have a, an obligation to be better and how we treat ourselves, how we treat people and how we treat the planet and that we can create anything we want to create as long as we have the right energy behind it and that we have a right to be successful in any endeavor that we choose on this.

It's good for ourselves and other people .

[00:54:19] Jesus Ramirez: I like that. We have a right. Absolutely. We have a right

[00:54:23] Adrian Starks: You have a right,

[00:54:24] Jesus Ramirez: So I usually ask this question But i'm gonna have to ask a different for you because you've actually given a TED talk. So I have a tech talk question if you were to give another TED talk, but An unrelated subject to your work or whatever your last TED talk was about.

What would it be and why?

[00:54:41] Adrian Starks: That's a funny one, man. I would give a TEDx talk on, I would probably say social media.

[00:54:48] Jesus Ramirez: Okay and what are your thoughts on that? What would the, you know, just give me the summary of the talk.

[00:54:54] Adrian Starks: Man, you know, it takes a while to create summaries for TED talks,

[00:54:58] Jesus Ramirez: Yeah. Mm

[00:54:59] Adrian Starks: But no I'll, I'll give you one. I would say social media because the summary would be allowing social media to, to train you and becoming more focused on not allowing. external people or influences to determine your worth. So it's like the reverse effect.

Now it's about how it impacts you, but we actually use it to train ourselves, right? We use the reverse of it. How do you use social media to train you to become less impacted by negative opinions, by distractions. And I would, I would really focus that that talk on being a person that use social media for good, use it for a better purpose. That's what I would say.

[00:55:45] Jesus Ramirez: Okay. Fair enough.

[00:55:47] Adrian Starks: Kind of an, it's kind of a roundabout answer, but yeah, it's, it would be on social media, but I, yeah, I'll have to think some more about it.

[00:55:53] Jesus Ramirez: Fair enough. Fair enough. I only gave you like 10 seconds to come up with a TED talk. What is something that people often get wrong about you? 

[00:56:02] Adrian Starks: The things people get mixed up about me is, well, first of all, they, they think that I, I don't know. I think that the conception Is that I'm a person that's trying to give you the answer to life.

[00:56:15] Jesus Ramirez: Hmm.

[00:56:15] Adrian Starks: I'm not, I'm the person that's probing you to be more human. To be more vulnerable, to question things, to test things out for yourself. I'm not your raw, raw motivational speaker. I'm not your person. That's going to say, Hey, I've got the tools for you. I'm the person that's going to rally with you to find out. Um, and to things that you may have some questions about. And if I don't have the answers, I got a lot of people on my platform that that can help you with that.

[00:56:43] Jesus Ramirez: Love it. 

[00:56:44] Adrian Starks: That's what I want people to see me as, and to not see me as just this person's trying to give you the answers to life and the key to life. No, no, that's for you to do.

[00:56:52] Jesus Ramirez: I love it. 

Love it, Adrian. Today's creator was Adrian Starks. Adrian, thank you so much for being with us.

[00:57:00] Adrian Starks: Thank you. Jesus it has been a wonderful time and we have to do this again, for sure.