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Episode 9: Motorcycle Diaries - advice for people in their 30's
58 Plays2 years ago
Stephy Steph and Bobby are back on the motorbikes having an authentic conversation about advice/mistakes/do-overs for people in their 30's.
Interesting discussions happen on motorbikes in the mountains. Join the adventure and give a listen!
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Transcript
Introduction and Motorcycle Diaries
00:00:00
Speaker
Hey there, guys. This is Bobby. That's Steffie Steff up there, and we are... we are... we're between two teeth? We're between two teeth. This is Motorcycle Diaries. Motorcycle Diaries. Oklahoma and Arkansas on the scenic bypass, and it is a beautiful morning. The deer are out and... The deer are out. You caught the episode of advice for people in their 20s. Maybe you heard or saw the deer come out at
Advice and Reflections on the 30s
00:00:26
Speaker
us. So we're talking about the 30s today, Steff.
00:00:28
Speaker
It's been a minute since I've been there. You're there now. It's been a few minutes since you've been there. A couple? So what do 30-year-olds need to do? So 30-year-olds, it really depends on what you did in your 20s, what you need to do in your 30s. And so I can only talk from my perspective, because I'm in my 30s right now. So I don't have the whole, this would be an ideal scenario from someone who
00:00:57
Speaker
is in their late 30s or just turned 40. I think what I'm going to find is in your 30s it's cleanup for what you didn't get to in your 20s. In your 30s a lot of people say your 30s is just your 20s with money.
00:01:17
Speaker
And that's true. That also means your mistakes are likely to be more funded. More funded. More funded mistakes. Yes, which means they're a little bit, they hurt a little bit more when you make them. Financial reasons. Yeah. But as we talked about in the 20s though, Steph, it's still okay to make financial mistakes in your 30s. Yeah, but I guess what I'm saying is in your 30s,
00:01:43
Speaker
You make different kinds of mistakes.
Life Events and Self-Discovery in the 30s
00:01:45
Speaker
In your 30s, you might go to your first divorce. In your 30s, you might get married for the first time. You might have your first kid. You may buy your first house. You may move out of your first house. You might find yourself with the first death of a parent. Your 30s is a little bit more real life and it's your first real life test in some way.
00:02:10
Speaker
Did you struggle with real life at all where you're like, because I know I did when I'm like, oh my gosh. I'm only 33. So I'm trying to kind of extrapolate what I'll probably, you know, realize throughout this decade. But yeah, I mean, it's a 30 can be an amazing decade, but it oftentimes it's a different kind of messy than the messiness of your 20s. Yeah. And I think
00:02:40
Speaker
I think what will happen is in my 40s it will just be a different set of challenges. The challenge is you might be looking at a little bit more stability but because of how my 20s went, my 30s I think will be a little bit more of discovery and figuring out who I am than say my 20s.
00:03:08
Speaker
I spent my 20's getting multiple degrees and trying to figure out my career. Now that I'm in my 30's, I'm actually in that career
00:03:23
Speaker
And now I'm trying to figure out, well, what the heck is next? Yeah. Professional school delays things a little bit. I know why people with that a little bit. I had my chums from undergrad that were buying houses and cars and I was a poor student that was moving every 10 months. Right. So, I mean, you're probably, you know, even though it's been a touch, but you're probably a little bit more apt to speak on what your 30s is about.
00:03:48
Speaker
Because I'm in the middle of it. Yeah, for me, 30s was still kind of just finishing off residency, finally starting to have a real job and making money and having kids that were small. You know, it was how do I put the oxygen on myself? How do I figure out actually what to do? It was it was actually kind of tough because like, darn, I guess I'm a grown up.
Living on Your Own Terms vs Parental Influence
00:04:15
Speaker
and you're out of that you know the 20s are about just kind of doing whatever you want for yourself and then the 30s pivot a little bit what do you think of the are you comfortable saying what you think big mistakes are that people make in their 30s i don't know what everybody does in their 30s but i know for me you know my biggest mistake were i felt like i needed to have somebody picked out to get married
00:04:43
Speaker
when I was in college, when I was graduating college. So I felt the pressure as a 21 year old to have someone that I had committed to marry. And by the way, I wasn't going to get married for five or six more years, but I felt like I had to pick them before I got out of college because that's the model my parents had. What I didn't realize is you still get to meet a lot of people
00:05:11
Speaker
during dental school and residency. And then even after with dating apps, there's a lot of opportunity there. And the way my parents talked, and when they grew up, there wasn't all this social media. They didn't have Bumble or Tinder. And they went to college, and when that was it, it was time to have a family. So for me, because I was really trying to live life exactly how my parents did,
00:05:38
Speaker
I was on one trajectory for professional school, but I was making decisions based on someone getting out of college and starting a family immediately.
00:05:47
Speaker
So here's a couple things that I think about hearing you talk about that. One is live your own life. Be careful of trying to live your life for someone else, like your parents, for instance. And I got comments to circle back on that when you're done. Yeah, go ahead. Yeah, go ahead. I was just trying to jump in there. Yeah, yeah. Well, on that topic, so for me, it's tough to do that when it's what works.
00:06:11
Speaker
So, me listening, I had a motto in my head as a little kid that's saying, look, there's no reason for your parents to steer you wrong. They have nothing in it. They don't gain anything by giving you bad advice. And in fact, Steph, on that, what I would say, and I tell my old boys this, you know, probably no one cares more in this world about how well you do than your parents. Right. Here's the tough lesson. What happens when
00:06:40
Speaker
they they their advice is heartfelt and they are sincerely trying but what if they just don't have the right answers yeah and you know what they they probably don't because they are of a different generation and they have a different set of experiences yes they're of a different generation one and
00:07:01
Speaker
they do, they have different, they had a different trajectory. So if my motto and my dogma would have worked, if my parents were the successful surgeons that ran their own practice, they found each other when they were in residency or in medical or dental school, then it would have worked out. That would have been nice and I wouldn't have
00:07:31
Speaker
You know, I would have had my own set for sure, but, you know, if my mom went through medical school, she would tell me about the challenges women face.
00:07:40
Speaker
And I can be figuring these things out. Now, I gotcha.
Growth and Relationships Over Time
00:07:44
Speaker
And the other thing that I was thinking about as you were telling kind of your own story there is you're a different person at 20 versus how you are when you're 25 versus how you are when you're 30. And if you find your mate when you're 21, then you guys kind of have to grow together. And if you grow differently, that can be a problem.
00:08:07
Speaker
I've got a gal, one of my friends, she's a general dentist and she found her husband when she was in college and he's not a dentist and her parents are physicians. That's just kind of how it worked out for her and she's super happy. It's nothing that can't happen. My parents are awesome.
00:08:34
Speaker
my mantra to really lean into their advice, I was putting them in an impossible win. There's no way they were trying and they were doing what they would do. But quite honestly, what they would do is not what I needed. I think the big part of parenting is getting outside of yourself. And I'm saying this because I need to listen to this myself and realize that your kid
00:09:03
Speaker
is of a different generation, a different set of experiences. The lay of the land is different now than it was when I was their age and really just kind of support them. And maybe you say, here's what I did in my time. Here's the way I look at your situation, but I'm not boots on the ground in your situation.
Challenges and Philosophies in the 30s
00:09:25
Speaker
There may be deer around here too. If you watch the 20-year-old episode that we did, we had a deer jump out at us so you can check that out on audio or video. So what else at the 30s? Is there something you're trying to do? Is your kind of still meandering through your 30s? Yeah, I am right now trying to sort who I am.
00:09:50
Speaker
where I want to go in life and you know, I, I learned a lot. One of my cousins, she, I don't want to say suffers from, which I'll, I'll just use it here for just for the sentence, but she also suffers from the weight of the world. And so what I mean by that, she, her, her big tag is, is the environment and she hates how society treats the environment.
00:10:17
Speaker
But she also, I can see what it does to someone to carry the load of people and people's choices and how fucked up people can be sometimes as a society. And I do the same thing, but my weight of the world, my big button has to do with inequalities that are somewhat intangible, but I just perceive.
00:10:46
Speaker
I get it. It is difficult. I know we talk about this a bunch. We just watched a Netflix documentary on RFK that talked a lot about civil rights movement and there are so many injustices in this world and it's difficult not to sort of personalize all of us. I'm reading a book on Henry Kissinger biographies.
00:11:12
Speaker
Sorry, I didn't know that. It's actually a terrific book. Part of Kissinger's early philosophy towards nuclear warfare in government, he looked at it, you have the price for stability is ingested, and the price of instability is ingested.
00:11:37
Speaker
So you have to figure out the nuance between how much stability and instability you want in your life and learn to accept the consequences that come with both. If you need stability, you're probably going to have to accept a lot of the injustices in the world. And I think if you're okay with instability, then you can go on moral crusade, but it will be a very unstable life.
00:12:05
Speaker
Are you okay with instability in your 30s? Or is it wearing you down? You know, I think in your 30s it wears you down a little bit more. I think that's what my cousins are figuring out too. Yeah, you know, I mean, it's just, it's tough. I get it. Like, something, I'm an athlete and I, there's something weird about giving up and accepting situations.
00:12:32
Speaker
It grew up as an athlete. And there's times you've got to give up. You've got to know when to quit and when to stick. Yeah, there's times the juice is not worth the squeeze. Yeah, there's a book out there that's titled just that, When to Quit and When to Stick. And it talks about the dip, which is the gap between success and where you start.
00:13:01
Speaker
And a lot of companies out there that are very successful, it's hard for startups to get into the same space because they got to survive the dip. And a lot of them will quit if the dip is too great. Yeah. And I don't know.
Family Timing and Societal Expectations
00:13:18
Speaker
I think that's what my 30s are going to probably be about. I'd love for it to be about starting a family. And if that happens for me, that's great. If not, I'll probably just start it in my 40s and be a super freaking old parent.
00:13:32
Speaker
I'm going to get you a t-shirt that says that. Yeah, that's the path I'm headed on. But if you look at it, of course I am. How in the world can you expect a kid who grew up in middle class America who is not the daughter of wealthy parents or doctors or lawyers to make so many big jumps and not stumble a little bit along the way?
00:14:00
Speaker
You know, to me, I'm like, I'm still doing great. Is life about the stumbling? Is your 30s about the stumbling? I'm just hoping I don't stumble over a deer. Yeah, yeah. Do you finally have two hands on the handlebars there? You know, for me, like, I feel like I, you know, you shouldn't shit on yourself.
00:14:28
Speaker
But I probably should. She's not saying a bad word. This is not a explicit podcast. I probably should have in my 20s figured out a way to be a little bit more loose from a just like, I don't know. Like I was very, I was a very straight arrow. I really took the heart. You were a pleaser. Yeah. But as a little kid, I just, it worked for me. I got positive attention for being a pleaser. So.
00:14:57
Speaker
Why the hell would you change what's working? If it's not broken, don't fix it. I was not a pleaser. Little Bobby kind of did his own little thing and I was nuanced enough to get myself out of trouble when trouble happened. Look at how gorgeous this is. If you're on YouTube, this is gorgeous.
00:15:22
Speaker
That's where guys and girls are a little bit different. I watch my nieces and nephew kinda grow up and the boys are just, they tend to, I'm not saying every one of them, but most boys when they're real young, you can see the differences. They tend to break the rules. And they tend to ask forgiveness versus permission. The nieces I have, they ask for permission first. They're still just as adventurous as the guys. They still do just the same stuff
00:15:53
Speaker
But the way they go about it is an ask first and then do. Yeah. No, I hear you. At a younger age, it's crazy.
Conclusion and Call to Action
00:16:01
Speaker
I hear you. Well, listen, any final thoughts for people in the thirties? Uh, I guess just, uh, yeah, I mean, like I said, I'm in the middle of it. So stay tuned. It's seven years. I'll be able to complete the episode.
00:16:16
Speaker
Life does take a touch of time, and that's a blessing of, you know, it takes a time to figure things out. But guys, we love that you're joining us. Thank you, Steph, for giving that advice on kind of meandering through the 30s. If you're on YouTube, hopefully you enjoyed the adventure here in the Arkansas. We just kind of got out of the Arkansas mountains and into a small town. So if you like what we're talking about, please hit the subscribe. Later.