K:
So lately I’ve been thinking about what it means to be successful in the United States versus what it needs to be successful in Japan. And I feel like the United States has a specific money figure like 50,000, you’re solid… If you make 50,000 a year, you’re solidly middle class. If you make 150,000 a year, you’re upper-middle class. And then if you make 200,000 a year, you’re on the cusp of almost being wealthy and then it goes from there.
C:
I’ve heard that upper number is 400,000 for a household.
K:
Yeah. So what are the number of breakdowns that for success in the US when it comes to salary?
C:
I think right now, 60,000 is the median salary, which means that if your median household salary, so if you make 60,000 in your household, then you’re doing at least as well as most Americans. And then I think-
K:
Yeah. What do you consider? Like middle-class, median middle class, upper-middle class.
C:
It depends so much on where you live because 60,000 in the Bay Area, and I’ve lived on less than that, is really tough.
K:
Yeah. So I’m going off of Bay Area 15 years ago.
C:
Yeah. I think Bay Area 15 years ago, you need to be making-
K:
Northern California, San Francisco, Oakland, San Jose.
C:
You need to be making probably 90,000 to be middle-class solidly, not at risk of slipping back down.
K:
Okay.
C:
And I think 250,000 starts getting into upper-middle class. 400,000, you’re solidly upper-middle class. I think you’ve got to be making more than a million a year to be not part of middle-class in the Bay Area.
K:
Wow. Those numbers are huge.
C:
Yeah.
K:
And in the United States being middle-class is being successful is what I was always taught. That the goal is to be middle class on your own home and live independently. In Japan, I don’t know if it’s my lack of Japanese or my lack of Japanese understanding, but I don’t feel like there’s the monetary connection because the salaries are way lower than what they are in the United States. If you look at the industries that I know, therapy and technology. So in the United States, I could charge 200 bucks to 250 bucks an hour. In Japan, a hundred dollars an hour is the standard for a therapy session. 1.25 is you’re really pushing it. And there’s a few people that charge $200 but they do this weird thing where you have to go for two and a half hours and they have a really set structure. So for me, I feel like if you take all of those numbers and basically cut them in half, those are success numbers in Japan.
C:
That sounds about right. And I think Japan to success is so much more strongly tied to age.
K:
Yes.
C:
Like if you’re living at home with your parents and you’re making a little bit above minimum wage and have a car and you’re 22, you are wildly successful.
K:
Yes. You are killing it.
C:
If you are 40 and you live with your parents, but-
K:
You bought their home and you’re now taking care of them.
C:
Then that’s also wildly successful.
K:
Yes. I feel like the Japanese and American definitions of success are both extremely ablest because they both have a component of living independently.
C:
Well, they both have that money component, you’ve got to be making more than the average person.
K:
Japan doesn’t have… You have to make you more than the average person. It’s fairly standard to buy your parents’ house and take care of them.
C:
I think it is fairly standard among those social class that we talk with because most of the Japanese people that we know either speak English well or at least have been overseas. I think there’s a large number of people that we just don’t ever interact with.
K:
Well, I worked with the people who were shut in, the hikikomori, and for them, society views success differently. So I feel like in Japan, there is a mental health component to understanding success. So if you’re a NEET or furito or hikikomori, those are the three names. And a NEET is neither an education or employment.
C:
Or training, that’s the T.
K:
Or training. And furito is that’s Japanese for freeloader. That’s someone who has a college education who decides not to work. I think that’s truly derogatory. I think that you have to look at the situation and see if mental health plays into it.
C:
Yeah.
K:
And the mental health component has to be so extreme that they have to be hikikomori for it to be okay to be at home and not working. And that means that I can’t think of the English word for it.
C:
Shut-in?
K:
That’s not the technical word for it.
C:
Well, then you’ve got the school refusers with the young age.
K:
I can’t think of it and Chad’s not going to think of it and it’s getting on my nerves. There is a term I can’t think of it when you can’t leave your house based on anxiety and you basically stay at home and anytime you try to leave.
C:
Anything agoraphobia?
K:
Thank you. Yes. So to prove me wrong, Todd’s able to think of it. I mean, give him a round of applause. I’m not clapping [inaudible 00:06:13] when I kick off any sound sensitivity. There has to be that component where there has to be a severe mental health issue that mental health issue is expected to be resolved by age 30.
C:
Yes.
K:
And in the United States, when you go to college, you’re expected to go off into the world and be gainfully employed after college. And that’s just not the case. The majority of people move back home after college because there aren’t jobs at the bachelor’s level like they used to be. And going for your master’s, everyone sees that as, okay, that’s a pinnacle of success that a lot of people get a master’s degree and still can’t find work.
C:
And I think a lot of it is salary too. I think saying, “Well, how can people not find work because I saw my local gas station advertising that they want attendants?”
K:
Yeah. But you can’t live off of that money.
C:
Right. But I think there’s a lot of people who make good enough money live off of who say, “Well, any job is better than no job.”
K:
Yes. That’s very much an American thing.
C:
So go make your $8 an hour, work your 40 hours a week, make your 16,000 a year. Not even reach the poverty level, but at least you’re working under the assumption that if you would work a job for $8 an hour, then you must be kind of that’s the best you could do.
K:
Which is both coded language for don’t be a burden on the system.
C:
Right.
K:
And in Japan, they say directly, “Don’t be a burden on the system after 30.” Yeah. And you have to explain, go down and explain, or have an accountant explain to the tax office, why are you claiming this person who lives in your house? And you have to bring all kinds of documentation to prove it. And if your child lives in your home, you can’t pay them to work for your company. They have to move out for you to be able to claim their wages and taxes, which I also think is ablest.
C:
Yeah, you can claim about a $5,000 deduction and that’s it.
K:
Yeah. So I think both are really ablest because by Japanese standards and American standards, I’m not successful and it’s not because of the money. It’s because I am a burden on the system. And what that means is my lupus has progressed to a place where for the past three months, I’ve been bedridden where I can’t get up and function. And because my lupus has now caused POTS. What’s that stand for, babe?
C:
Postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome.
K:
Yeah. So there are times that I just have to lay down like whatever I’m doing, I have to stop and lay down, which means that I can’t go out in the world by myself and I need 24-hour care now. That’s where I’m at in my life and it means that I’m trying to get my POTS under control, but I probably won’t be able to go back to being a therapist because nobody wants their therapist to faint in the middle of the session. And if I sit upright for 60 minutes or more, I’m finding it the 30-minute mark, I start to get really dizzy and I have to lay down. That’s why I move around so much when we’re recording the podcast is because I feel like I’m going to faint. And it’s a really horrible feeling. But because of this disability, I’m no longer successful by either country’s standards.
C:
Well, if you would just like be the good woman, I think-
K:
If what?
C:
You would just be the good woman.
K:
What do you mean?
C:
I think that both countries would regard you as successful if you would do the trophy wife kind of things.
K:
Oh, you mean, if I would cook all your meals and clean the house and all of that but I’m so disabled I can’t do laundry.
C:
We’re not even those things. If you would just go to lunch and have wine once a week and say you were doing those things, you’d be regarded as successful.
K:
So if I lied about my existence, but the podcast is not about feeding fables.
C:
No, I’m not-
K:
Anybody can lie about their life and be seen as successful.
C:
Sure, and I’m not telling you to do that.
K:
Yeah. It’s not. You need to be as only kiss the brick and tell these lies and be successful. No, I feel like anyone can lie about success, right? So for me, I don’t judge success that way. I define it a completely different way and that is if you are continually working to become a better person and follow… And this is me eating crow. And last week, we did actually Google.
K:
Chad was right. The Platinum Rule exists, it’s been longer than 10 years. We don’t know how long, but it’s been more than 10 years. It was published 11 years ago. And so Chad has won a hundred yen but we don’t pay. We just keep a running tally of who’s the winner. And right now Chad is the winner and I am the loser of bets.
C:
No, just because somebody is a winner doesn’t mean everybody else has to be losers.
K:
I don’t live in a everybody gets a trophy world.
C:
See, but maybe you should because won’t you think of the trophy makers?
K:
No, I feel like if you choose to compete, then you’re choosing to be in a competitive environment. And the word here is choose. If you choose to have a competitive mindset and be a competitor, then I think you’re choosing to be in a dynamic where there are winners and losers. I don’t think little six and seven-year-olds playing T-ball are choosing to compete. I think their parents are having them play sports. But I think when you become a teenager, you can make choices about whether or not you want to be in competitive sports. And some people are forced by their parents, but there has to be a winner and a loser. I mean, we just had the Olympics, not everybody got a medal.
C:
It’s like Matthew Broderick in WarGames from 1983 or 1984, where you can close it sometimes the only way to win is not to play the game.
K:
Yes. And to me, that’s how I feel. I feel like the only way to succeed in the United States or Japan is to not to play the game. And that doesn’t mean don’t work. You all know I work, but it’s not to buy into their arbitrary definition.
C:
Yeah, we talked about this last week about assimilation and basically conformance. Conform and accept your place and maybe we will pick you to be a winner.
K:
But I don’t look at this as an assimilation thing. I look at it as an internal thing for me. And do I believe that $150,000 a year or $90,000 a year or $50,000 a year means that someone’s successful. And we have friends that are making over a million a year and they’re absolutely miserable. And whenever we hang out with them, they tell us how incredibly miserable they are.
C:
Right.
K:
And then we have clients. I mean, not clients. We have friends who were making over a hundred thousand dollars a year and then the pandemic hit and their businesses are wiped out and they’re broke and overextended and have no savings. And I’m like, “Dude, what were you doing with your money that you have no savings?” And it was because on paper, they were making that money. And that was very much clout chasing.
C:
I know some people whose English schools were wiped out because when it was remote, most of the clients said, “Why am I paying you 80 bucks an hour when I could directly pay the teacher 40 bucks an hour?” And they’re super grateful for it. And I save half the money.
K:
Yeah. That happened a lot. There was a lot of client poaching and a lot of people breaking out and because they were able to speak privately to the client. And that’s why a lot of schools were not allowing teachers to work from home because they don’t trust them not to push their clients.
C:
Yeah.
K:
Which I get.
C:
I get it too. But I’m a manager at my job, a people manager. And I talk with the people who are reports to me a lot about, I want you to work here because you want to, not because you’re stuck. Let’s make this a good situation and I fully expect that if I stop making this a good job, you’ll leave and go somewhere else.
K:
So for me, success is being able to continually work on who I am as a person and continually work on my ability to be compassionate. And I define compassion as the ability to see things from another perspective. It’s not to agree with them, it’s to be able to understand them and see things from their perspective and then decide whether or not I want them in my orbit. And if I don’t want them in my orbit to invite them to leave in a respectful way. And I find that I’ve been doing a lot of inviting people to leave my orbit because as I become more disabled, they become less understanding and less compassionate about me. And when people start having a discussion with me about being a burden to you, that’s when I invite them to leave my orbit. I see their point of view. Their point of view is that their value of me was the fact that they thought they could count my coins.
K:
They’re like, “But you were so successful. You were making so much money. You were the leading therapist in three different prefectures. You have people from all over Japan coming to you and seeking your advice. Why would you give that up?” And I’m like, “I didn’t give up anything and I’m fighting to get back to doing therapy, but that has nothing to do with being the best.”
C:
Right.
K:
As awesome people saw me as the best, as awesome that I have Reddit threads about me that say I’m good. That’s all fun and flattering, but that’s not what I was doing it for. That’s not how I mark success. For me as a therapist, I mark success with due to the majority of clients I worked with. Leave the process with more good days than bad. And the tools necessary to create more good days than bad. And if the answer’s yes, then I’m succeeding. It has nothing to do with money. I feel like money comes and money goes.
C:
Yeah, that’s been my experience too.
K:
So I view success as being able to continually work on yourself, being able to treat people the way that they want to be treated and the people… But that’s based on once I compassionately review them and decide whether or not I want them in my life.
C:
Yeah, I think some people want to be treated by you giving them money every time you see them and that’s just not a reasonable thing.
K:
Yeah. How do you view success? Have you caught up in the money? Because you’re a striver and I don’t knock striving. I’m a striver too, but I strive for different things.
C:
I am a striver. So I do view success… I view it as having multiple axes on a personal level. I don’t think money has anything to do with success. I think success is getting your shit together, getting yourself together so that you are not hurting other people so that you’re growing so that you were understanding more about the world or creating art or something.
K:
Does that have anything to do with living with your parents or not living with your parents?
C:
No, it doesn’t.
K:
I just wanted to clarify that because in the United States, get your shit together usually means get out. Be independent.
C:
Yeah. I mean on a personal level like if you’re lashing out and hurting people because of past trauma, get therapy for that so that you stop lashing out and hurting people. If there are things that you don’t like about yourself, work to improve them so that you are kind of leaving the area around you better than it would be without you.
K:
And I feel like I get therapy is different than it used to be because there’s apps like Headspace. There’s just a ton of apps like Calm that you can do that are free. I don’t think Headspace is free but there’s also YouTube videos on how to cope with things and lots of really great resources. And I think the American psychological association is a good resource. I think the Black Therapists Psychological Association is a good place to get resources. I also think not… If you go on YouTube and you look at [plural 00:19:41] communities or you find a community that they’re coping with what you’re coping with, there are lot of information and resources that are free.
C:
Yeah. I don’t think that it has to be a trained therapist. I see the value in it. Aside from you being a trained therapist, I do see the value in it, but I think that it would be nice if everybody could afford it. It’d be nice if the government health insurance ha, a government health insurance would pay for therapy. Yeah. But I think if you’re in a situation where you can’t afford it, there are still options like I know people who go to do Tai-Chi in the park or who go for bike rides or different things that soothe them physically. I know people who write poetry. I know people who paint or people who focus on picking out the best music playlist for them that perfectly expresses their emotions. So I think that it has its degrees and that the point for me of personal success is not where you’re at but where you’re aiming for.
K:
So what does that mean where you’re aiming for? And the reason I ask is because I come under your rigid scrutiny of what success is. And even at this current level of disability, you expect me to work.
C:
Yeah. I do.
K:
And even though you make enough money to support the family, you expect them to work because if I don’t work, you find me less interesting.
C:
Yeah. I think that’s maybe a bit hypocritical on my part. And I don’t think it’s as simple as I expect you to work because I find you less interesting because one of the things that I work on personally is not evaluating on the amount of work that I perceive somebody else’s doing. So I think that that dynamic is a flaw in me. I mean-
K:
I think you’re much quite generous with your employees and others but I think of your spouse that this is past trauma.
C:
I think a lot of it is. And I think some of it is just fear of scarcity, fear that if you aren’t working, how will I get my needs met?
K:
What do you mean if I’m not working how you get your needs met? I would have more time for you.
C:
Yeah. But what if I have a bad time and I have to quit my job or something.
K:
Oh, okay. So you liking to work so that you don’t feel trapped in your current position. You like to know that you can leave your job and I’ll be able to take care of you.
C:
Yeah, exactly.
K:
Okay. That makes sense. And that’s an okay thing to work. And I do feel it’s a little bit ablest and I do feel like it’s a little bit selfish, but in our dynamic and our relationship, we allow each other to be selfish. We say the selfish thing to me, very commonly to each other, because we want to know how to fulfill that the most insolent secret, darkest desires. And I really enjoy fulfilling your darkest desires. And one of your darkest desires is that I always be able to make money.
C:
Yes.
K:
And so I feel really fortunate. You allowing me to do the publishing press and the easing and everything I want to do. But I’m on a strict line when in terms of when I’m cut off from doing that if it’s not turning a profit and when I’m cut off from doing that if it’s not breaking even, and you’ll want me to do. Well, I can do it, but I need to do something else. And in planning for six years and saving for six years to do it, I feel super privileged and super honored that you allowed me to do that, saved my money in that way so that I could pursue something else and do something else. Because I always knew, we’ve always known that lupus is a progressive degenerative disease.
K:
Hereditary coproporphyria is a progressive degenerative disease. We did not expect them to degenerate when I did, but having that money in the bank and that savings to find something else that I can do from be was helpful. And I could do E-therapy. I’m kind of toying with that like what I want to do E-therapy. And I could do voice-only therapy because then they won’t know where I’m at. It would be a different clientele. My current clients would want to see me. They like my face.
C:
I mean, I like your face too.
K:
You get to see my face all day, all the time.
C:
And I think I’m very clear in my economics politics that I don’t think that free capitalism like this where it’s work or starved basically is a good thing.
K:
I think when it comes to money, you very much look at the country or whatever country you’re looking in, you look at the norms and you like to be at the higher end of normal pay for whatever position you’re doing. You don’t have to have the top pay, but you want the higher pay, which is one of the reasons why we never specifically say what Chad’s job is, is because Chad’s money is none of your business. There are a few things that we don’t tell you all and one is specific numbers about money. Sorry. We love you Musick Notes, but that’s just a little bit much. All of the Patreons your contributing to my ability to care for myself and still do the podcast. Because I think if we didn’t have any patrons that you would have wanted to quit doing the podcast because of how much it costs, it’s still not breaking even.
C:
No, we’ve been doing this for a couple of years or around 125 on number of episodes now. We’ll see.
K:
Well, my rule of thumb is that most businesses take three years to break even and five years to turn a profit. So when we’re at the three-year mark, we’ll reassess.
C:
So I think for me, when I grew up, when I was up until about fifth grade… No, up until about third grade, I was super poor. Not me personally, my family. And then-
K:
Isn’t that you personally if you’re a minor and you don’t make money? Or did you have a side job where you were bringing in fat bank and just squirreling it away?
C:
I was delivering newspapers, but it didn’t bring in that much money.
K:
Yeah. So just to clarify, just for clarification, you and your family.
C:
Yeah.
K:
And clearly you because you’re like, “Not me personally, but my family.” No, you were poor too.
C:
Yeah.
K:
I was dirt poor growing up in the foster system.
C:
And then we were doing kind of okay because my dad was a military officer so we are doing better than the enlisted people. That was the way mom would always put it. My parents had to save to buy a brand new car but we didn’t worry about money for food. And then my mom died and we were homeless. So I always very aware of how fragile economic successes that it can take just one thing to set you back.
K:
Yes. And with both of us having degenerative diseases that looms in our mind, financial stability, how are we going to achieve that?
C:
Right.
K:
And I think people don’t understand who are not disabled, how fragile everything feels when you are. Any type of success you get, it’s really fragile.
C:
We’ll just go work hard, go to work, do your job and then be sick for the rest of your life. And it’s like, well, but it can intrude. I can have every intention of going to work, going to my important meetings on a Friday and then have a seizure in the morning and not be able to work.
K:
Yes. And that’s really that feeling of not knowing what’s my body going to do to me and living in a body that I feel like my body betrays me on a daily basis.
C:
Yes.
K:
Because it’s not predictable. And when I have to get up and go to doctor’s appointments, it’s really tough. I have to take all of this equipment and mobility support. Things that helped me stand upright and helped me walk and all of that. And it’s tough. It takes a lot of mental energy and a lot of emotional energy to be okay. And I have to have the right kind of clothes that don’t hurt so bad that I can’t get up and go. So people are judging success by work hard, play hard. I can’t do either.
C:
Yes.
K:
And that’s very ablest and I’m not successful because of disabilities.
C:
Yeah. I feel like a lot of success as it is judged is just act right. I literally can’t sometimes.
K:
I can’t most times, I can’t act right. So when it comes to work, I feel like this is a function of your autism. And the reason why the past couple episodes I’ve talked about autism is because one of our mutuals on Twitter had this wonderful video about autism and sex and how specific it is and how putting a… The demonstration that really struck home with me was why do we teach people to put condoms on a banana? That’s not how I taught my son how to put a condom on. And I’m going to explain that statement a little bit further because I did not touch his penis. What I did instead is and Rasta is completely fine with me showing that he’s not circumcised. He’s not circumcised because I think circumcision is a form of mutilation. If he wants to be circumcised, he can do it as an adult.
K:
And you all have heard me rant about that before. I found a video with someone who had an uncircumcised penis and showed three or four different ways to put a condom on. And then I instructed him when you have an erect penis, put a condom on it because bananas are not the texture of a penis. Penis are, even when they’re erect, they don’t reach the firmness. I don’t care who you are. Your penis is not as firm as a banana and a peel. It’s just not.
C:
Rock hard. Steel spike.
K:
Yeah. And so they were saying that in the video they were showing… I’m so sorry, I forget the name of the person that did it. They said if you’re talking to someone, if you’re talking to a male who’s autistic, then he said, “That’s nothing like my penis.” He knows that’s nothing like my penis. And if you’re talking to an NB, with a non-binary person with a penis who’s autistic, then they’re going to be like, “This doesn’t work for me.” And I feel like having random unfixed numbers for whether or not you’re 16 in your career, it makes it really difficult for you to know if you’re succeeding in your career. It’s like putting a condom on a banana. You’re like I don’t have a banana in my pants. That’s-
C:
Except when I do. And I’m like, “That was for lunch. Why are you taking my banana?”
K:
You’ve never carried a banana in your pants. At least not in the time I’ve known you.
C:
No, I haven’t.
K:
When you were a little train conductor did you put a banana in your pants and take it on your train with you?
C:
I had one of those vinyl lunchboxes that could unfold. You know the ones?
K:
Yeah.
C:
And I had a banana in it at the end of the school year. And then it sat all summer.
K:
Ew. So you had a hard black rotten thing.
C:
No, it had completely molded up. The whole thing was full of mold. My parents just threw it away, which I was not upset about. I had been-
K:
Because you didn’t like it?
C:
Yeah. Because I had known from a week after school, I discovered it and I was like, “I don’t know what to do about this.” So I just folded it back up and left it because I was a kid. And then at the end of summer, I pretend I didn’t know what that was. What is that?
K:
Look at that be, I think it’s so weird punishing kids for not finishing their lunch.
C:
Yeah.
K:
I always thought that was weird like what if they don’t like it? I’m a super picky eater.
C:
Right.
K:
You’re kind of dodging the question on why you use the standards based on country and position because every country, we’ve talked about Japan has like you can look up someone’s job and know exactly what they’re making. Most countries are not that strict, but every country you can Google average salary or salary range for X, Y, Z position with X, Y, Z experience. And they’ll give you a salary number. I think everyone should do that when they’re negotiating like how much experience do you have? Google it and know what a reasonable ask would be. And then I always say ask for 10% more than what you think a reasonable ask is because if they negotiate you down a little bit, then you won’t feel bad. And if they negotiate at most places, won’t negotiate up. But if they give you that 10% extra, then you know what trajectory you’re on is my thinking, right? Chad doesn’t follow my advice when it comes to negotiation to the letter. But for the most part, he does.
C:
I think that I don’t have any good sense of what I should be paid. And I often think that what I am paid is unfair. Not that I am paid-
K:
No, it’s not.
C:
Not that I am paid too little. Not that I’m paid too much, but it is unfair that my particular set of skills lets us live a relatively comfortable worry-free existence financially.
K:
Yeah.
C:
And that people who don’t have those skills, but who are just as willing to work hard don’t have a stable life. But that in the United States, there have been times in my life that I worked 60 hours a week and could still not afford to eat if I didn’t work at a restaurant.
K:
Yes. So I think that’s more about capitalism.
C:
Absolutely. Yeah.
K:
And do your capitalism babe, theory at babe. Hit the people with it. This is the perfect episode for it.
C:
I think that capitalism is a great system for a society in which everybody has their basic needs met with no requirement at all to work because I think it shows a very low faith in humanity to say that if nobody had to work, then society would just fall apart. And a lot of the people that I hear saying this have 40, $50 million or a billion dollars in the bank and are still working.
K:
Ironically. They’re not working ironically, but their position is ironic because they don’t need to work.
C:
And I don’t think there’s anything ironic about it. I think it’s hypocritical. They rely on people feeling scared into working in order to make that much money.
K:
And I know a lot of people that if they had universal basic income, I know a lot of people that would like what is considered “menial labor”. I don’t like the term menial labor. And I don’t like the term unskilled because I’ve never worked at a convenience store but I think there are a certain skill set because I’ve helped people get jobs at a convenience. And I’ve helped people get jobs at Starbucks and at McDonald’s and all of those require specific skills because they’re in the customer service industry and customer service is a skill.
C:
Right.
K:
At whatever level of customer service you’re doing. And I think that’s down to someone who’s doing stocking or is a bus person in a restaurant all the way up to a sommelier.
C:
If I didn’t have to work-
K:
Or sommelier, no sommelier. The person who tells you what wine to get.
C:
Yes. I think that if I didn’t have to work for money and I didn’t have to worry about other people working for money, that it would be fun to just some days, just go down to the park and be like, “What do you want to know about math? Ask me and I will tell you.”
K:
So you basically want to be Socrates?
C:
No, because I don’t want to get murdered.
K:
So who do you want to be if not Socrates?
C:
I want to be Chad.
K:
Then you want o be like an old Greek philosopher that just went down to the park and everyone gathered around to hear you speak?
C:
Not everyone. Only the people are interested because there probably be other people that are doing the same thing. And some days they’ll go over to them and be like, how do I peel an orange in one piece?
K:
So why wouldn’t you rather do TED talks, randomly just give a TED talk?
C:
I think that TED talks would probably disappear if people didn’t have to work.
K:
It’s so hot right now that I just can’t imagine anyone. And yes, it is still summertime. September is summer in Japan still and I rebuke you Japan.
C:
Yeah. It will be summer until at least mid-October
K:
Yes. And I rebuke you Japan with your four seasons. I rebuke this being summer because they’re like, “No, it’s not really summer anymore. It’s starting to cool down.” Where?
C:
Have the leaves fallen?
K:
Where? Where has it started to cool down? I’m not seeing any of that. So for me, it’s the turning of the leaves in late November that mark fall, that marks… It’s a whole thing. So January starts winter, in December-
C:
Officially, December 21st or 22nd, depending on the exact day of the solstice.
K:
So, I think of as fall weather, we only have from November to mid-December.
C:
Right.Because officially fall starts with the autumnal equinox, which is in a couple of weeks.
K:
So there is not three months of fall Japan.
C:
No, there is not.
K:
So I rebuke and I wish I could retaliate, but how would I retaliate against the heat? Where would that be?
C:
Where would that be? Ice cubes.
K:
The heat will melt those ice cubes. I don’t know.
C:
But it will diminish a little bit
K:
Create an ice pack dome.
C:
Yeah.
K:
Over the entire country.
C:
Exactly.
K:
I’m just talking craziness now.
C:
And then the ice would form and it would be clear and it would act like a magnifying glass and it would just randomly set places on fire from the sun.
K:
So we talked about personal… I’m just going to bring it right back and not try to segue. When you talked about… I think we talked about social success and we’ve talked about employment success. For you, what is educational success? When will you stop?
C:
I don’t think I ever will because I think that educational success is learning the things that you don’t know that you want to know.
K:
Which does not involve a degree. It does not involve formal education and involves interest-based education.
C:
Yeah, it does. Some of my degrees and things were always about career success, always about getting those stamps and those tickets and those passwords into different jobs.
K:
And I look at my PhD as a way for the world to know my level of expertise. Having nothing to do with my career because I was already being paid at the PhD level. I can’t charge more than I’m charging because that’s what the market will bear in Japan. But for me, it was to finish a traditional educational path. It was because you pushed me really hard and wanted us to be the doctors’ music. And I would say that it’s about 30% about meeting your expectations of me and 20% about being a role model for Rasta to let him know that at any point in time in his life, he can go back and get a master’s or he can go back and do a masters and PhD that he can make choices. And also for my clients, a lot of my clients appreciated the fact that I’ll earn my PhD in my fifties and I’m a source of inspiration for them. And I give them hope and they’re clocking my journey and it’s taken a really long time because I’m working. So I’m going to have an eight-year-
C:
In doing the part-time PhD.
K:
Yeah. I’m going to have between six to eight-year PhD for the process. And I’m cool with that. It doesn’t bother me. And then the remaining 50% is about showing myself that I can do it and doing it because I want to. And because I set up my life and made space to do it.
C:
Yeah.
K:
And I feel like I was getting all of this PhD level education and I wanted a reward for it. I wanted an award. So to me, my PhD is like winning an award in education.
C:
Yeah. I think that’s fair. A lot of my education has been what I think of as a ratchet, like the one-way gears, like, “Okay, I’m going to raise myself to this level and then put the degree in there as a backstop so that everybody will know that I was at least at this level.” So I think the most money I’ve ever made per month, I made when I had only a high school diploma.
K:
Yeah.
C:
But the least money I’ve ever made in a month was also made when I had only a high school diploma, the variability there was super high. I feel like the higher the degree I get, the higher the downside of the possible salaries is.
K:
Yeah.
C:
Which makes it easier to start out. Because when I started at companies, I tend to start out slightly below what I could probably get paid because then they’re just so grateful when not only am I being paid less than they were willing to, but I’m really good.
K:
Because you come around and want fast promotion.
C:
Absolutely.
K:
And you want to be fast-track to the high-end.
C:
Absolutely. Yes.
K:
I feel like in the last couple of minutes we have here talking about romantic success. Romantic Success for me, we’ve been together over 22 years now.
C:
That’s right.
K:
And romantic success for me is finding someone who treats you the way you want to be treated more days than not because it’s not perfect. There have been times when I did think about leaving when things were difficult, but we have the communication and we say hard truths to each other, and we’re really honest with each other. And I value that. So finding someone who has the same values that you do honestly, and understanding your partner’s motivations. Because they don’t need to have the same motivations as you, but they do have to have motivations you approve of, and that may seem counter-intuitive that you need to approve of your partner’s motivations. But if you don’t, 25 years, 10 years down the road, when you find out that their motivations are completely different than yours, it’s going to lead to an end of that relationship. In my experience as a couples’ therapist.
C:
I think that’s right. I think that if my motivation had been I want to be a movie star. When we met, you would’ve been like, “Okay, I totally believe you could do that but that is not compatible with the life I want.”
K:
Correct. I often thank you for not having different lifestyles. Recently I’ve been watching a hundred-foot wave and I’ve just been thanking you for not being a surfer. I don’t know how surfer’s partners do it when they wipe out, especially big wave surfers and seeing that person on the beach having to be resuscitated. I know I’m not for that. I’m not for that at all. And they’re always encouraging our partners to get out and ride these dangerous waves. And I’m like, “No.” Any sport that you have to wear a helmet to do, no thank you.
C:
Get out, ride that dangerous way. And then as soon as you leave, they’re checking the life insurance policy to make sure it still covers you.
K:
I want to thank you so much for tuning in and we love each and every Musick Note. If you want to keep the conversation going or have something that you want to say about the topic of success, you can hit us up on Twitter at TheMusicks, or you can leave a comment because we do read the comments and we do respond to the comments. We’re a little bit slow on that because we don’t check our website as often as we should. My apologies for that. Yeah. And that’s it for this week. Follow us on over to the take two and we are going to be talking about collaboration and publishing.
C:
See you there.
K:
Bye.
C:
Bye.
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