Living You
A real estate podcast for people living authentically
Living You
If You Could Have Any Occupation, What Would That Be?
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What if money wasn't the deciding factor? What if experience wasn't holding you back? If you could wake up tomorrow and pursue any occupation, what would you choose—and more importantly, why?
That simple question sparked one of our most unexpected conversations yet.
In this episode of the Living You Podcast, Rich challenges Jess with a thought experiment he thought would have a straightforward answer... but Jess had other plans. What begins as a conversation about careers quickly evolves into a discussion about purpose, creativity, personal growth, healthy homes, entrepreneurship, taking risks, and what it truly means to be Living You.
Whether you're happy with your career, considering a change, chasing a dream, or simply wondering if you're living the life you were meant to live, this episode is filled with thought-provoking ideas, plenty of laughs, and a few friendly debates along the way.
At its core, this episode isn't really about careers—it's about discovering what excites you, embracing curiosity, and giving yourself permission to imagine a life that truly reflects who you are. That's what Living You is all about.
The living you podcast is a conversation about life, real estate, and the journey of living you.
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So after our last episode, my buddy Rich here said he had a surprise for me. So this is episode 3B or episode 32. And apparently there's gonna be there's gonna be something. I'm on the edge of my. That was my intro. It was totally awesome. I thought I was awesome. I mean I'm confident.
SPEAKER_01I think people yes, here we are back with the Living You podcast.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. You could have done that, but I talked first.
SPEAKER_01So I think we haven't gotten that part down yet.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, but I don't think we need like we just talked about that. I don't know that.
SPEAKER_01No, no, this so anyway, yeah.
SPEAKER_00So in storytelling, no. In storytelling, what we advise people to do is drop the exposition. Don't set me up. Don't tell me what's gonna happen. Don't tell me the bloodlines and the names and all the shit. Just drop me into the action. That is the best form of storytelling. And then the reader gets hooked from the first page and you're going. And all the little backstory comes out as you go in the main action happening today. So that's I'm applying that because we're storytelling. At the end of the day, we are modern storytellers. Like when we used to be cavemen sitting around the fire.
SPEAKER_01Do you see this as entertainment, or do you see this as education, or what do we see this as?
SPEAKER_00Entertains the shit out of me. I just I love it. Um no, I think we are trying to help people, and whatever that means to them, I mean it's gonna land on everybody differently. People listening, some people probably listen to us because they dislike us and they want to hear how dumb we are. And then other people are like yeah, then put some like, wow, they're really helpful. Like that was really helpful for me. That was a good piece of advice. I was able to, you know, and there's there could be haters out there. I don't really know. I don't really care. We're trying to help.
SPEAKER_01The idea for this one is not is not gonna be helpful at anyone. It's just if they want to hear people babble, middle-aged people babble about uh their where their life has gotten them. Good.
SPEAKER_00So this is entertainment.
SPEAKER_01So as we constantly interact with people, every day we're we're interacting with new people with new questions and new inquiries. Uh we talk about what they're you know, what do you do, what's your life like, blah, blah, blah. So I've this happened a few times recently to me where I've run into people and and they as they talk about their their career, their their work, I get fascinated by it. And I like, I'm like, I I almost want to ask them about, oh, how'd you get into this? And like I'm not that personable of a person, Jess, but sometimes I'm like, oh, this is interesting. Like, how'd you get into that? And what was that education like? And what anyway, and it got me thinking, and I don't I want to couch this within the umbrella of we run a business, we love real estate, we love what we do, but also it gets me to the point of like I'm I'm now I'm now in my mid-40s, mid-upper forties, and sometimes you think like if I not not rip rip up life and redo it all, but like if you were to teleport yourself exactly as you are right now, like physically, mentally, everything right now, but you were able to have a different skill set or a different career, like what what would you be doing that would that would speak to you in a in a satisfactory way? And and I've sprung this upon you with zero prep, and I've clearly had a little bit of time to think about this. So it's it's it's fun in that way too.
SPEAKER_00So yeah, I was gonna say, without any warning, uh would you take the red pill or the blue pill?
SPEAKER_01Um I have a f I know I know how I have a few, and I'm I I like where mine are, but I wonder, and again, like we're talking about like you have kind of the same finances, right? You're kind of limited within you're living the same life, you're the same person, the same context. It's just your your daily kind of grind is different.
SPEAKER_00So this is this is interesting because I actually had this conversation with Chad GPT. Um I in large part would continue to do exactly what I'm doing. I think the difference would be I would have more time to work on my writing skills so that I could actually finish writing. I would have my books built in, my screenplays, I would do more of that. But you know, I do real estate because it was something I stumbled into that I just enjoyed. I liked looking at houses, and I was struggling in the photography industry because we got our asses handed us handed to us then when photography just took a took a left turn. Um people had cell phones with cameras in them now. So I couldn't I couldn't make money that way. Um and that industry pivoted, and there's you know a market now, but at the time I was on unemployment. And I was for fun on the Corcoran website looking at houses. And then it dawned on me, I was like, why don't I just they real estate? There's like this dude with like glasses on like this beautiful house, this 22 million, 33-room townhouse on the Brooklyn Promenade overlooking Manhattan. If you know what the Brooklyn Promenade is, you get it. And I was like, why can't they call me? It was like he was like, call me. It's like dude with glasses. I was like, why can't they call me? They can. I just have to be licensed. So I got my license like within within months of that moment. And I think ultimately my perfect life is like what we talk about is you know, building houses, creating inventory. I want to create spaces for people. I love creating experiences. So I do that through my showings. Um, I can do that through building a home, creating a life experience for them. I do that through my books, through storytelling. I create an experience for them. So I think ultimately my perfect life is creating experiences for people in different mediums.
SPEAKER_01Interesting.
SPEAKER_00Okay. I wasn't even prepared and I just nailed it. Maybe.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I thought I would stump you a little bit more. But you it's good. I think it's good though that I I think what would I say? Like, is it unhealthy if you never think about this? Do you know what I mean? Like it it's I think it's important to always think like not necessarily what's actually next, but like, hey, this thing interests me, or this would be cool if I could do this or that, or what is that person's life like when they do that endeavor, you know?
SPEAKER_00No, I'm glad that you brought brought this up actually, because I'm also which we've shared on Living You, I'm on a spiritual journey and I'm trying to get better every day. And something I've come across recently that I think really helps, when we imagine our lives, or when we imagine what's possible, we do imagine it within a certain amount of rules and restrictions. Um, because we try to be reasonable. What's really reasonable for me to earn? What's really reasonable?
SPEAKER_01Even how I started this thing. I was like, within reason. Yes, within reason, a billionaire.
SPEAKER_00Correct. And that's the mistake. Because I've learned recently, I've heard recently, and been trying to put that into my language more. Like, understand like what you say to yourself, what you say out loud, you're, you know, you're affecting your life. Like, I don't have to get weird into quantum physics, but you're speaking into existence your life. So you need to start getting really unreasonable. And you need to have things be very unexpected. I'm gonna give you a small example. I had so many things to do today that I could not sleep. I was up for like two hours and I was like, I don't know how I'm gonna do this, I don't know how I'm gonna do this, I don't know how to do why because I was looking for a reasonable explanation, a reasonable plan within my parameters, within my ability, within my restrictions to get all this stuff done. And then I policed my thoughts and I went, you know what? I'm spiraling, I'm not gonna sleep, I need to sleep. I'm going to move to the unreasonable outcome, the unexpected and the unreasonable. And I literally, for the next 20 minutes or so, laid there in the pitch black, dogs, I can't sleep, I've got all those dogs on my bed, cats, Joe snoring. And I'm like, it's gonna resolve tomorrow in the most unreasonable and most unexpected way that I couldn't think of how to solve it right now. My job is to not solve it reasonably. My job is to open myself to what is the most unreasonable and most unexpected outcome that would be the best for me. And sure enough, when I woke up at 6:30, there was the most unreasonable, unexpected solution to my problem today. And it was my mother-in-law, which couldn't be more unreasonable or unexpected. So um, so yeah, so I love this. I'm glad that you you brought this up because I really want people to know that they have endless possibility available to them if they just believe that.
SPEAKER_01Man, we are so different. Like you see, it's it's fascinating how your brain is so different than mine. Like I I would have I my my exercise here was like, I want a list of three occupations you would have. And you're literally like, oh, I don't know. Oh, is my thing all gonna mess up? Uh and and I'm taking you so I'm like, I'm like, I want a list of occupations, you know, and you're like, right, this I would breathe, I would breathe uh flexibility into the universe, and my my chakras would be whatever. And I'm like, holy crap, that's not that's not how my brain would have taken it.
SPEAKER_00I know, and I I used to think a lot like you, and that was very stressful to me. Um, maybe you manage it better, but to me it was very stressful because it was up to me to figure it all out all the time. And I think that that in itself is unreasonable. You can't figure it out all the time, you can't have control of every little single thing. You've got to, like we talked about, the agents have to not be rigid right now. You don't know where the buyer's gonna come from. You don't know what the price is gonna be, you don't know what you don't know the details of a deal right now. Don't be rigid, just be like, you know what, let me sit back, let me take a deep breath, let me not focus on this right now and all the things I have to do. Let me just focus on there's going to be an outcome. And it might be unreasonable and unexpected, and that's okay. And sure enough, it's yeah. So um I think about my life that way too. And Joe, Joe and I have this funny, my husband, Joe, if you guys don't know, um, my husband Joe, he's very practical um and very reasonable, like rich. So I drive him absolutely batshit crazy. And I I used to say to him, like, you know, especially being on unemployment, right? Like, I don't know what I'm gonna do. Like, if I wanted to be an astronaut, I'll go to be an astronaut. And he would go, son of a bitch, I can't believe you said you have to actually get a job. I'm like, I don't know. I don't know what's next. It'll come to me. Like, I'm I'm gonna be okay. Um, and then I was more than okay. So I have this, you know, I don't have any limits, and no one should have any limits. We talk to people every day that put their limits on us. So, like, if someone else doesn't think I can, then they feed that into my brain. So don't take that in, man. Just because they can't do something doesn't mean you can't do something. You know, we all should be living very different lives. We all should have very different opinions and reactions and things. And Rich and Rich's brain and my brain should be very different and he should have a different outlook. Yes, because he's not me. Um, so when other people tell you you can or you can't, like they say you can, that's nice. But if you can't, don't listen. Don't listen. Be unreasonable, be unexpected, be open to whatever you want. If you wanted to be a friggin' astronaut, you can do that. You can do that. Take the first step. Like I wanted to be an agent, I can do that on unemployment. I got my license, and then I was never unemployed again.
unknownEver.
SPEAKER_00Well, I am actually unemployed. But I'm a 1099.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. I mean, I take it, I do take it a different direction. And maybe maybe you didn't go into like you went into specifics of wanting to write more. But um, I think so I for me it's like we are some self-employed, right? So part of I I know the pros and cons of having had careers where it was more in the the punching a clock category, you know, a employed by someone on a schedule with a set of of of duties or whatever. And that actually is is fine. It didn't resonate tremendously with me, but it wasn't that part of it. It was it was always more that I always felt that within the structures I was within, I would hit some kind of ceiling, and then at that point, I fairly quickly hit a ceiling. And then it was sort of like, okay, what are my options now? I either get underpaid for what I'm doing, right, or I get more education to get some piece of paper that says I can get to the next level, which would take time and is stupid because I can already do the next level. Um so I I it got like frustrating, I think, being being in those roles. I didn't mind being like an employee and having a system, but I often think like if I had just stayed the course on one or two of those other things, I'd probably be like financially better off right now. I'd have better like benefits and retirement packages, but at the same time, I would have just been within the strictures of that thing. So if I think about it, if I was to do it all again, I would still knowing the benefits of running a small business, I would probably still run a small business and it would be very, very similar to what we do now. Um I might be, you know, uh maybe an architect, maybe um I might even run like a survey company. I love I I love being outside.
SPEAKER_00So Yeah, that would be that would be great for you.
SPEAKER_01Being being out in the woods and finding like it's what I literally do anyway for for land listings, is I go out and I find all the corners of stuff and I figure out where where things are supposed to be.
SPEAKER_00I wonder if you could do that still though, like have that like get certified, like do the survey thing so that you could do that for sellers. That's a whole thing that you now provide as an added service as a real estate agent. Say that?
SPEAKER_01It's possible. I mean, I haven't truly looked into it, but um, I know there aren't that many survey companies around, and it is a service that is that is necessary. Um and you can do it all. Knowing what I know now, I would stay within the real estate sphere. It just might not be like everyday sales agent type stuff. It would be something peripheral. Um and I'm I'm hugely into building science. I'm hugely into like healthy homes. I think healthy homes are the most important thing that we don't understand is is is going on that is impacting us every day. Um you're like a woo-woo person, but I'm a science person.
SPEAKER_00Stop calling me woo-woo because the woo-woo the woo-woo is science, sir. It's quantum physics. Is that not science? Go ahead. Look it up.
SPEAKER_01I'm not sure you know what quantum physics is.
SPEAKER_00I do because I I literally listen to all this stuff all the time. It's incredible the way you can affect your cells and your reality and your outcomes. You can do that. We're on a quantum field of energy. We're in a matrix. You want to get really weird.
SPEAKER_01No, we don't have to get that weird today. Um but I I think I would I would I would love a space where I could help people either design homes to be energy efficient, healthy, clean, you know, feel good, look good, use natural light to heat, use shade to cool, use insulation, you know, like that. Those are those are things that are attainable and doable, but most of our current stock of homes fail miserably at. And because they weren't the design objectives when most of our current stock of homes were built.
SPEAKER_00The Earth Ship. You remember I sent you the Earth Ship?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I know, yes, the Earth Ship.
SPEAKER_00Dude, those are that's I I watch that all the time. And the the guy that he's been making them like 30, 40 years for people, and like he's like, half of this shit is garbage, and it's beautiful, and it's freaking cool, and it's efficient, and it's completely off the grid, and all part of the earth. It all just nurtures like a very specific ecosystem. Um, he's like when you flush the toilet, your poop waters your plants, and then your plants give you food, and like I think I mean a lot of these ideas have been around for a super long time.
SPEAKER_01Not in the groundbreakingly new, but I think with it's just not mainstream, yeah. Like you said, you know, using you know, everyone everyone shouts about solar these days because it because grid scale solar is kind of getting a weird like uh dissonance from the public, but you say eventually essentially small scale solar, like pretty much every house that has at least a half acre could theoretically create their own power. And um, I I I think that's a future that is is laudable because people say, Oh, yeah, what happens to the solar panels after 30 years? Guess what? It's like it's a box truck full of stuff and it is recyclable. And if you think about the amount of energy and waste that's going into your oil or your propane or your whole infrastructure for those 30 years of making power, see that's what I'm saying.
SPEAKER_00It's a joke. There's so many negative, yeah, there's so many negative things people are gonna throw at you about a perfectly good solution. And even an earth ship, I'm sure there's plenty of stuff people can come up with. Why it doesn't work, why it's stupid, why is it you can't listen to any of that. And I do think there's going to be a movement for people to want more efficient homes, safer homes. That I mean, what does an earth ship cost to build? After that, it doesn't cost you anything anymore.
SPEAKER_01So that's that's precise. And I don't know about leaning as far into earth ship, but but yes, self-sustaining small home, you know, and and and modesty goes a long way too. Like, do we need that 3,500 square foot house? Do we need it? No, maybe you do. I don't know if I do.
SPEAKER_00I like big houses, but I would want I need a big pole barn to place that. Besides that, like big pole barn would be nice. I like big pole barns too. Yeah, but yeah. Well, that's the thing, like it's all about for me, like I said, my answer was building experiences. My answer was, you know, making sure. I mean, so what was my quote that was so amazing from season one? Like, your your house is where your life lives. Yeah, your house is where your life lives. So let's create that to be the best possible experience. So when you come home, you're recharged, you're safe, you're healthy, and it brings you peace, it brings you pride, you know, it brings you gratitude, like it brings you all those higher vibrational woo-woo feelings that help to positively impact the rest of your your life and your outcomes.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00So this was probably my favorite episode. So Google Earthship, if you don't know what we're talking about, Google quantum physics, and make sure Rich leave a comment for Rich that it is actually science.
SPEAKER_01I believe that quantum physics is science. I'm not sure what you're saying is necessarily quantum physics.
SPEAKER_00So if I send you a video, if I send you a couple of videos, will you watch them? No.
unknownYes.
SPEAKER_00So if I sent you a couple of videos, would you Yeah, I'm I'm an open mind, Jess.
SPEAKER_01I'm a I have a very open mind. Good so when I'm susceptible to new information.
SPEAKER_00When I send you flat Earth and stuff, you have to open that too. I know that's like I like to push those buttons a little bit.
SPEAKER_01I'm open to everything.
SPEAKER_00Well, what I'm open to is always asking questions. And I think that's your science background too. We should be relentless in the answers. Because there's a lot of stuff we discover every day that, oh, we didn't know that, oh, we didn't know that, oh, we didn't know that. What we thought was this very rigid answer. This is never gonna change, this is what this is. It's not. It's not, it's not. And there's a lot of research. Like I just saw this thing published in the 1930s. I gotta send you all this cool stuff. Like your blood, your blood is not necessarily a liquid, it's like more of a like a crystalline, you know, fluid that actually is supercharged with energy that you know carries all these things, you know, to your organs, uh, carries life itself. Like that's our electrical charge of life. That's like when you have a heart attack, they get a defibrillator and they shock you. Why are they shocking you with electricity if your body is not electric? So there's just interesting, that's what I'm talking about. I get into all these little interesting kind of things and little wormholes, and I'm like, wow, if I know more about my body, connecting to the earth, grounding, going in the sunshine, eating food that's full of life, like fruit, you know, that's hydrating for the body, that's healthy for the body. So those are the things I like to, you know, look at. And I'm always just trying to get better and have a more positive experience. And a lot of people are coming into that. A lot of people are waking up and realizing they are in charge of you know, whatever they want. They can create their life to be in whatever way they want it to be. You don't have to feel trapped.
SPEAKER_01I just like the idea of life costing less. And I think that like again, it might be a little bit more upfront, right? If you're, like I said, if you're building something or whatever, but like oh, this is the little tangent. I'll end with my little last tangent. So I, in my house, my house is I have a I have a lovely heat pump system, a mini split as people call it, to heat and cool my home. I did a lot of work to insulate and and create this system. It costs some money up front for sure. I love an incredibly comfortable domestic environment now that I can I can within a really economical way have the temperatures and and humidity conditions I desire. But I worked hard to design it that way. I'm proud of that. But so most of my electric most of my heating and cooling is electric. Most of my life is electric. I have one thing that's propane. It's my water heater. And I have like a tank, a classic old tank water heater. It's a propane fired burner. It's in my basement. So here's my concerns with this. First of all, I've got a combustion source in my basement. And and these things they have a little they they combust. They're they're burning a little fuel source, creating a combustion that creates heat, uh, goes into the tank, warms your water, makes your water hot. Great. But also you need to exhaust it. So you have to make sure your your exhaust is working. You potentially for carbon monoxide in your home. Uh so that which is almost all homes have this, right? This is not unique. I'm just saying uh that's one element, and then I get my bill, and because this might be a local thing, I don't know, but because I have such a low usage, I'm I'm low on the the totem pole, as it were, of propane use. I don't I have a one of the smaller tanks. So they charge me an obnoxious per gallon rate for my propane. And so I look at it and I'm like, my goddamn hot water is like one of my most expensive things in my life right now. And it's it's so dumb because there are other ways for me to do hot water. It just would take a little bit more of that capital upfront expenditure to get a much more efficient system. And so now I'm in this place where if we circle back to our last episode, Jess, where I always think about how long am I currently in this home and what it what is this home gonna be for me. I'm not sure at this point if further infrastructure, you know, uh if I put four thousand dollars into the electric and the the system to have a heat pump water heater, which are super efficient, it would reduce my my monthly bills by uh probably like 80%, right? But would I return that investment in four years? Probably not. But in 12 years, you know, the return on investment would be huge. So it's one of those balance things. Um anyway, it it I just I don't want to go too far into it, but it's one of those things that just pisses me off. Every time I get a bill from ProPane, I'm like, you motherfuckers, like this shouldn't be this expensive. Like, whatever. I don't want to say the number, but it's like it's it's like, why is this stupid little thing that I know there's a much more efficient system for, why is this gonna cost me so much for this one this one system? And we all have things like that in our life. If you probably have you probably get your groceries and you need that one whatever, tofu or whatever the fuck it is, and it's like, why is tofu eight bucks a pound? Tofu? I don't know. I'm not sure.
SPEAKER_00I know. Do you think because I believe in quantum physics I eat tofu?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, exactly.
SPEAKER_00No, I don't. I won't touch it. I don't know what that is. I don't care what they say. Not touching it.
SPEAKER_01I saw a girl, this is crazy. I saw a girl like doing a reel, and she like put like some seeds and water in a pot, and then then 18 hours later there was like a whole thing of sprouts, and she was like, You could just eat sprouts.
SPEAKER_00And I'm like, You could just eat sprouts, like you could.
SPEAKER_01I was like, you know what? That doesn't if it's like four cents for a big big pot full of sprouts, I'll get it on the sprout train. Um anyway.
SPEAKER_00That's hilarious. Well, you also said something too quickly. You said, like, you're gonna have to spend more money to like spend less money or spend more money to get like this is the conundrum that I'm in. I'm like, in order to like, for an example, get my house off grid, it would it would be so expensive to get my house off grid, but then I wouldn't have expenses after that. So it's like it's expensive to not have expenses. How dumb is this? It's a whole other thing we we want to solve for in our perfect lives by building earth ships.
SPEAKER_01Well, this is 100% why what where we, where you or at least when I look at what my potential future looks like as our business evolves, I would like to be on the forefront of putting these new structures together which do solve for that. And they are low running cost properties. So maybe the purchased price price is a marginally higher, but it's built into the build, it's efficiently and it's engineered to be a tight, healthy system, and your your running costs would be so much lower. And you talk to your neighbor and they're like, Oh, why my bill, my electric bill is 400 bucks a month. Well, you know what? Mine is 85 because this bitch is airtight, I've got it dialed in, all this stuff. And so anyway, that's the goal, that's my hope. Um, and to keep an open mind to all all the future tech and all the opportunities. But anyway, that's a long way of uh I don't know. I just thought this would be an interesting conversation. It wasn't definitely stay like pretty darn close to what we do, which is cool. That means I'm pretty happy.
SPEAKER_00So do you think that I don't know what quantum physics are? No my god, just so stuck on this now. No, that's my that's our segue out. We're pondering now. Does Jessica Sometimes I feel like we get real right now?
SPEAKER_01Next time on the Living You podcast, does Rich even know what quantum physics is?
SPEAKER_00Does Rich think that Jess isn't that intelligent?
SPEAKER_01That's not it at all. I don't know.
SPEAKER_00I'm I'm getting the vibe because I know how I carry myself and my personality. I like to be silly, I like to make people laugh. I don't I don't like straighten up and pull on my intellect too too much, actually, because I don't people don't care. People actually don't care.
SPEAKER_01I will not allow you to put that narrative on this. We don't spend this much time.
SPEAKER_00They don't care. They don't care how smart you are. So I don't I don't put that out. I put love out. But that doesn't mean I'm I lack intelligence. I just wanted to clear that. Not that Rich thinks that, but maybe someone else in the world thinks that. Because when I need to do it.
SPEAKER_01No, but you are you you project more heart and I project more head. I think that's that's that's all.
SPEAKER_00But that's why we're a good we're a good team. Yeah. On that note, let's have a solid outro. Thank you so much for joining us on the Living You podcast with Rich and Jess. We are excited to have you guys along for this ride. And this is our beautiful outro conclusion to season two, episode three point two.
SPEAKER_01That's very sciencey of you to even have that, like to know where where we are in the in the path. I don't even know if we're still recording, but um, you must have intelligence. It's way techier than than I would suspect from you. I think exactly. See, I just somewhere in the middle of season two.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, no, no, no. I know exactly where I am on the quantum physics matrix of energy field. And we'll catch you next time.