Episode 402 Corey Poirier Finding Your Life’s Purpose Transcript

This transcript is from episode 402 with guest Corey Poirier.

Scott DeLuzio: [00:00:00] Thanks for tuning in to the Drive On Podcast where we are focused on giving hope and strength to the entire military community. Whether you’re a veteran, active duty, guard, reserve, or a family member, this podcast will share inspirational stories and resources that are useful to you. I’m your host, Scott DeLuzio, and now let’s get on with the show.

Hey everybody, welcome back to Drive On. I’m your host, Scott DeLuzio, and today my guest is Corey Poirier. Corey is an author, a speaker, an advocate for finding purpose and passion to address the mental health crisis we’re facing today. Uh, his insights into this topic are rooted in his own personal journey.

And research, uh, making him a valuable voice in the conversation about mental health and wellbeing. And so with that, welcome to the show, Corey. I’m really glad to have you here.

Corey Poirier: Oh, thank you so much. I’m, yeah, [00:01:00] I’m really excited to be here. Looking forward to make some magic happen.

Scott DeLuzio: I love it. Yeah. Um, could you start off maybe by telling our audience a little bit about yourself and your background, kind of who you are and what led you to become a so passionate about the importance of finding purpose and passion in life, especially, uh, in the context of mental health.

I

Corey Poirier: I guess, Two sides to that in the sense that there’s what kind of, uh, I guess drew me to it from a, um, personal perspective in, in just in relation to what it did for my life. And then there’s also, uh, what I think is the connection, or I believe myself as the connection based on a lot of interviews.

So a lot of research to, uh, Uh, mental health as well. And so, first and foremost, I battled, uh, generalized anxiety and hypochondria for about four solid years. I mean, probably much longer than that with the anxiety, but four years that I can say for sure. [00:02:00] Um, the hypochondria side, for those that might not be familiar with it, I mean, I jokingly said, but there was probably some truth to it, I spent so much time in doctors waiting rooms that, you know, I probably should have my own coffee mug in their office.

And, uh, It was because, for those that don’t know, hypochondria is when you hear about a disease or an illness and you develop the symptoms of said illness or disease, even though you don’t have the symptom or disease. And so, uh, I battled that for about four years and it’s, honestly, it was like I compartmentalized my life.

Like, it was like, all I could picture was, like, I don’t know how to explain this, but it was like, minute by minute, like, everything seemed forever, because when you’re feeling like you’re not gonna, you’re not gonna live, because again, hypochondria, you think you’re gonna have a disease that will probably, uh, end your life prematurely, or you think that with anxiety, like, you’re always anxious and always on edge, um, you It’s really hard to look at the future, like, to see a future.

And so I say that to [00:03:00] say, how this relates to me is, I tried all your traditional and normal methods. For alleviating these two things I was dealing with and, uh, my mother’s bipolar mental illness runs in my family. So, uh, it would make sense that I would struggle as well. The only thing that ever changed it was ultimately, uh, Scott, whenever I.

This one night got tricked into performing stand up comedy and what happened was it wasn’t the comedy that did it. It was when I went to the office the next day, people in my office said, did you meet like a girl or something or because you seem like you, you know, you met someone or you have a different feel about you, an aura or jump in your step or something.

And, uh, and I I didn’t really still know what finding a passion meant, but I knew that was a hint. Like, I knew why, why do I feel different? I felt different too. It wasn’t just how they viewed me. And I’m like, what is this? Anyway, so I just went back and performed the next week, back and performed the next week, back and performed the next week.

And by the way, bombing, as we call it in comedy, like no laughs, [00:04:00] like it was a solid year before I got a hearty laugh. Like, and I was going every week, sometimes two or three times a week performing. Um, but I kept going back and even though I was bombing. I felt good. Like something had changed. And it was honestly probably less than a month after the people at my office said that something changed, that my hypochondria and anxiety, I realized.

I, I wasn’t thinking about them anymore. I wasn’t focused on them. Like, I wasn’t, everything had changed. Like, honestly, I can say that, as far as from a perspective of being in the doctor’s office all the time, literally, it stopped. Like, I mean, like, if you looked at the dates, like, I went from being there every three weeks to not being in the doctor’s office for like three years, just overnight.

And the only thing that changed is I had found what we’ll call a passion. Now I’ll say a passion, because to me passion is what you do, purpose is why you’re actually doing the thing. And usually for most people, in my experience, they don’t discover their purpose until long after they’ve been doing the passion for a while.

I say long, [00:05:00] that’s relative, it could be three months. It could be a year, it could be, you know, I mean for some people it might be two weeks, but I find for most people, they have to do the passion long enough to realize they love it, and then eventually they’re like, oh, this is why I like doing this. And so for me, the passion part came out long before I ever realized why I like doing it, but just the passion part.

Changed everything. And so I, I now say I took vitamin P on that day, uh, for passion. And I say, it’s the only vitamin you can’t buy in the stores, but it might be the most important one you ever take. And everything changed me once I started taking that fictional vitamin. Uh, but, uh, that’s how, why I guess we’ll say, um, it, it was important to me and, and how it sort of hit me in my life.

But then, like I say, the other aspect to it is mental health runs through and affects my family, but also of course, Everybody’s families. I mean, I don’t know the numbers now, but it’s like, I think it’s like every second person is affected by mental health in some way. And so that’s a bit about both.

That’s how [00:06:00] it impacted me and, and literally finding passion, because you tied the two of them together in the intro, literally changed my life. Like it literally helped me deal with this anxiety that was crippling me and changed everything. Now, the thing I can’t say, as I’m not a doctor, I can’t say that it would do the same for everybody else, but I will say.

A licensed doctor, Dr. Viktor Frankl, who wrote the book, man Search For Meaning About Being in the Holocaust. He actually created his own therapy, I’ll probably pronounce it wrong, but Lipa Therapy. He created it based on what he learned about how he survived the Holocaust, because he had meaning and he went from being a talk therapist to helping people find meaning.

And he said once he got to that stage, he could stop. He stopped treating mental illness. He literally just helped people find purpose and meaning in their life, and he found that that changed everything for them. So, again, I’m not a doctor, I can only cite what he said, but I also can say I’ve interviewed 7, 500 people, so I’ve done a pretty good research study too, and in my experience, Passion [00:07:00] and purpose is the missing vitamin that most people aren’t taking.

Scott DeLuzio: can see that, and you know, this show is geared towards military veterans and service members and folks in the military community. And a lot of times you hear people who are leaving the military, who have a, you know, Extremely big sense of purpose. You know, I’m serving my country. I’m, I’m defending, you know, I’m defending my country or my community, whatever, whatever it is that in their mind, like that is the purpose behind what they’re doing.

And then they leave their, their career in the military and they go off and they find a job somewhere. Doing whatever they’re sitting behind a desk, crunching numbers, or, you know, they’re doing some other thing that just doesn’t quite add up to the same level of purpose, uh, as you know, serving in the military or, you know, serving a community, like in a law [00:08:00] enforcement role or, or something like that, when they move on to that next career, they lose that sense of purpose and they start to Experience some of the things that, that you were discussing, uh, you know, the anxiety, maybe depression, uh, you know, other symptoms start to come out because in my mind, anyways, they, they are lacking that sense of purpose.

They have no, no, Reason for doing it that there’s no passion there either. Um, you know, when you, when you talk about your nine to five job, when you’re sitting in a cubicle and, you know, doing God knows what for God knows why you’re doing all these things and it’s like, yeah, there’s no passion. There’s no passion there, right?

And I’m not saying don’t work those jobs because it may be a great job. It may be a great career. Um, you may pay well, benefits might be great, and there, there might be reasons for that, but there might be a need for something else, right? [00:09:00] And I think that’s kind of, um, you know, the, the issue that a lot of times military veterans start to experience when they are leaving the military service.

So, I wanna talk a little bit about how, you know, you have obviously discovered this in your own life and where a lot of these symptoms have kind of faded away because you found a, a purpose, a passion, those types of things. But you’re now working to help others find their purpose or passion in life. Um.

You know, what inspired you to focus on this and help other peoples? And, um, you know, how, how are you doing that? And, and what, uh, kind of drove you to, to help those other folks?

Corey Poirier: Honestly, I, I feel like it’s, there’s, I mean, there’s probably a couple of reasons, but I feel like the biggest one is because of how much it changed my life. You know, so I was, uh, again, for [00:10:00] lack of better terms, struggling, like really, in a lot of ways, reaching out for help and struggling. And because I’d lived that and knew what it felt like, And I knew the difference.

Like, I, I think one of the biggest challenges, Scott, is that people who haven’t found a purpose, or even if I say a passion, don’t know what they’re missing. So what I mean by that is, it’s easy for Corey to say, you know, every day I wake up and I’m like that kid that loves Christmas. I literally wake up and I don’t count watch the clock and I’m excited to start a new day.

Uh, it’s easy for Corey to say that, but if you’ve never felt that, like I didn’t before, I discovered it ultimately. From stand up comedy. Before that, I’d never felt that in my life. If you told me this is amazing, I would just think, ah, here we go, another one of those, oh, everything is great, you know, whistle and, and call the birds to land on your hands, person.

But, but I, now I know what I know, and that this feeling I have, you can’t, I can’t get back behind the curtain. Like, I know what I know, and I, so I have to pursue this because I can’t imagine [00:11:00] not doing it. Feeling like I do every day when I wake up. And so for me, I wanted other people to kind of experience that and taste that.

Now, like I said, the biggest challenge is. Some people don’t realize why it’s worth doing the work, because they don’t know how good it can be on the other side. Um, Neil Donald Walsh, who wrote the book, Conversations With God, uh, and I, I’m actually, my newest book that we’re actually, um, in, in kind of launch mode now, with, it’s called The Enlightened Passenger.

And I include a quote in there by Neil Donald Walsh, and his words, this great quote he had said, life begins at the end of your comfort zone. And for me, um, that truly happened. But I didn’t get to the end of my comfort zone until I found something I was passionate enough about that I would actually push beyond my comfort zone.

Um, so for me, I guess the reason I want to help other people with it is because most people don’t know what it feels like, because they’ve never had that experience. And I want to show people Easier ways to discover that passion so that it doesn’t seem like it’s a big, it’s a big stretch. It doesn’t seem [00:12:00] like it’s actual physical work.

And the interesting part is honestly, if the approach that we take, which is really meant to be writing down stuff and, you know, like literally writing down what, what, when you do this, the times, the things that you do, You don’t watch the clock. Time sort of stands still. Uh, what is that thing? What is the thing you would do if you won the lottery?

What’s the thing you did as a kid and somebody talked you out of it? Let’s go back to that thing. What’s the thing that people say you’re really good at? And so on and so forth. Well, the cool part about this is when I’m getting people to do that exercise and figure out what they should be doing, when you start taking action, you’re literally doing things that you wrote on a list that you think you love doing.

How can that be bad? And so the other side is it doesn’t feel like work, but it’s also the thing that you would probably do if money wasn’t an issue. It’s also the thing you probably should be doing as a side hustle, even if you keep a full time job, because it’s going to bring joy into your life, which is going to make life worth living anyway.

So, um, the answer here, that was like. Going a bit deeper. But the answer to your question as to why I started doing that is because I felt [00:13:00] the shift in my life and I wanted other people to have the same shift in their life.

Scott DeLuzio: Yeah. And I could see that too. And I, I like that you mentioned how the, the, the purpose or passion that the thing that. That brings you joy in life may just be a side thing. It may be a hobby. It may not be a full time job. You know, um, you may really enjoy, uh, for example, you may really enjoy doing standup comedy, but which is, you know, what you, your example, if let’s say I discovered, I really enjoy doing it, but I’m not all that funny.

I’m not going to make a career doing it, you know, I’m, I’m not going to be going on tours and doing, doing all these shows where I’m, I’m making tons of money doing that. So yeah, I’m going to need another job to pay the bills and keep, keep food on the table and all that type of stuff. But that might be something that I can do.

You know, uh, at nights, [00:14:00] on the weekends, that type of thing, here and there, where, where, it, it kinda gives me something to look forward to, and that’s sort of the way I think of it, I’m not sure if that’s, that’s, How you think of it and how you approach it. But that’s, that’s in my mind anyways. That’s how I see it working.

Right.

Corey Poirier: Yeah, I think it can work both ways. So people ask me often, um, okay, this all sounds great about finding my passion, but how is that going to pay the bills? And I always respond, which, it’s not a sexy answer, it’s not the answer people want to hear, it’s probably not the answer I should even give them because then it puts me in a bad light, but I always say, if you’re going into it thinking, um, how am I going to get paid to do it, then it’s truly not your passion.

Because your passion you would do for free. I can tell you Knowing what I know now, if I was either A, independently wealthy before I ever started doing this, or I had a, like, mega high paying job that I could do it as a side hustle, and in fact, I was in sales and I was into six figures, so I was doing quite well as I did this on a side hustle.

[00:15:00] What I can tell you is, if what I do now, if I had to actually, and I shouldn’t even admit this, because, you know, you don’t want clients here that’s not want to pay you, but if I had to pay, like, if I had to pay a thousand dollars a month to do what I’m doing now, I would do that. How many people can say that?

I would literally pay a thousand dollars to do the job I do now and get paid to do. So what I’m saying is, but at a certain point when I started doing it, I wasn’t getting paid. Like, so if I go back to speaking, that was the first real kind of hint towards this could be a career. I was a speaker and I was doing after dinner things.

I was using my vacation days. Instead of going on vacation to do talks, like I wasn’t getting paid to do it early on. I mean, because it’s speaking, you know that there’s a career that could be had. Doesn’t mean I’m ever going to be good enough to make money doing it, like you mentioned in reference, but my point is, there can be a career there, but I went into it saying, if I had to pay to do this, I think I’d pay to do this.

And so, that’s the kind of passion. When you find that, all bets are off. And that’s when, you know, things get better. It’s like, um, I had this guy named John Dunsworth who’s an actor [00:16:00] in the show Trailer Park Boys and I had him, uh, one time tell me the story about him on the set of a show called Haven. And there were all these 14 year olds on set that day, and he’s like 65, and he’s dancing, saying, What are we gonna go do now, guys?

And they’re like, Oh my God, dude, like, what, what are you on? Now I gotta get home and rest. And he said they were drooling and stuff, and they’re like, 14, 15, 16, like, it was a show, an episode where they had a bunch of younger people on. And he said, he said, I’m gonna teach you guys something right now. He said, You need to figure out if acting is your gig.

He said, because for me, So they said, how do you have so much energy still? He said, for me, I’ve been doing this 40 years. And he said, this is my love. Like this, this is my absolute love. And he said, so I haven’t worked a day in 40 years. And he said, you tell me, however you describe work, how could I be tired?

If I’m never working, like I didn’t even work 14 hours a day, I didn’t work an hour, so how could I be tired? And I, and again, that’s a cliche, that’s similar to the cliche, if you love what you do, you’ll never work a day in your life. But to me, it’s a real story of a real dude that’s living that. Well, that’s the life I’m living.[00:17:00]

And so, again, going back to that, that original point, is I want everybody to experience this because, you know, imagine what life could look like if we all found our seat on the bus. And we’re sitting in the right seats. Found what we love. It’d be glorious. Now, having said that, back to your other point, I still, when people ask me how do I get paid to do this, I say you need to go into this as something you’d love to do and you don’t care if you get paid.

And, what’ll probably happen is, The path to getting paid will eventually reveal itself. So that’s, but people can’t go and throw in the towel on their job and say, I’m going to, I’m a knitter. I love knitting with yarn, and I think I can make six figures this year doing that. Probably not going to happen.

Now, having said that, I will say this, Scott, don’t ever discount that there’s a way to make money doing what you love, no matter what it is. Because I said this, this is somebody the other day about knitting and with yarn, and I said, but then come to think of it, Who’s to say you couldn’t start up a TikTok or a YouTube channel where you basically get, drink, you drink [00:18:00] and knit stuff.

With friends, and it could be like knitting with friends or whatever, but then like what Gary V ended up doing, uh, Gary Vaynerchuk, he ended up having a wine show years ago before his whole big push into the world that he is in now, and he would have like his mother on one episode, then he’d have like Wayne Gretzky on the next episode.

So like, who’s to say your knitting show couldn’t get big and you might not have celebrities on that are drinking with you, almost like the Hot Wings show, you know, that Hot Ones or whatever? Same idea, instead of eating Hot Wings and, and, and freaking out about how hot they are, you could have a knitting show where you’re drinking together and hanging out.

What I’m saying is, anything really now in the world we’re in, it is possible to make a living at it. But I think it’s more important to find something you truly love, figure out it’s a passion, and then worry about the money later. I will say, I want to comment on something you said though, Scott. Also Uh, don’t discount the idea that just because you’re not, quote unquote, good enough now to make a living at something, as you mentioned about the stand up comedy, don’t discount what’s possible, because I, uh, did stand up for seven, uh, sorry, nine years, 700 shows, [00:19:00] and my first show, I didn’t get a laugh, and I forgot to turn the mic on.

My last show, well I guess it’s my fourth last show now, because I came out of retirement last summer, because I was trying to get some video for, um, I was doing an audition, I wanted to audition for the Apollo in New York. Um, and so I had to record stuff without hair, because all my other stuff was with hair, because I had been retired so long.

But my last show, uh, before, uh, that, those three shows, was at, uh, Second City. So for those who follow comedy, that’s like an epicenter of comedy, like, this is where like, uh, Dan Aykroyd, Chevy Chase, all the greats, uh, Mike Myers, Jim Carrey, they all studied at Second City. I get to perform on that stage as somebody who, you know, Couldn’t even get a laugh.

I couldn’t hear the mic on. And then the, and I was, I performed in the Great Canadian Laugh Off in Canada. Um, So You Think You’re Funny on CBC radio. Like this is a person that, you know, couldn’t get a laugh. Couldn’t buy a laugh for a year. And then the other side is, um, on the music side, I was tone deaf, still to this day, can’t tune a guitar by ear.

Had a girlfriend tell me I was terrible the first time [00:20:00] she heard me sing. And my last CD was nominated for rock recording of the year. And the reason I bring this up is because I went on a tour that summer. Where I was charging about 400 a show, solo show, uh, and I played 30 shows. So what’s that? I don’t know, 12, 000 is that?

Um, that, you know, in a summer. So never even think that, like, I was tone deaf, terrible, and I put in 10, 000 hours and got better. You know, that’s what happened. And I remember reading an interview with Jerry Seinfeld one time, a book interview, where he said that it took him two years to get his first laugh. And look at the money he’s made from comedy. So my point is, even in a sub thing where you’re not that good to start, if you put in the 10, 000 hours, in my experience, Almost any field you truly can eventually, I’m not going to say master it, but become a lot better at it.

Scott DeLuzio: Yeah. And that 10, 000 hours that you’re referencing for the listeners who might not be familiar with that, that’s, that, that was the, uh, kind of mindset. Like if you put in 10, 000 hours in any particular [00:21:00] area, that will get you to that. Like expert level. Um, and I forget exactly what the terminology is, but you’ll get to that level where you’re, you’re in the elite class where, where people, like most people are not going to hit that level in whatever that category is.

And if you do the math out, uh, that 10, 000 hours, um, if you’re, if you’re doing it, Eight hours a week or so, like, or no, not eight hours, like an eight hour a day, uh, you know, 40 hour week type job. If, if you make that your job, um, that’s like three and a half years, give or take, I think if I, if my math is correct on that, but just so people know, this is not something that you can expect to happen overnight, right?

This is a process like, you know, Jerry Seinfeld said two years before he got his first laugh. Um, like. Yeah, that’s, that’s probably right. And he probably put in more hours than an eight hour day at [00:22:00] a comedy, trying to refine it and writing new jokes and trying new approaches at delivering the jokes and, uh, trying all these different things and, and like anything.

If. If you try something and it doesn’t work, well, okay, great. Don’t do that again and try something else and figure out what does work. And so, um, I would imagine the process of figuring out what your passion and your purpose is, um, Trying to figure that out involves a little bit of trial and error, I would imagine, right?

Corey Poirier: Yeah, it definitely does. And I mean, I’m not going to say it takes the 10, 000 hours. It’s going to be, and it’s going to be different for different people. But I always say, if you can make that list I mentioned earlier, but then also get really adventurous with your life, you’re going to find probably the passion in the adventure area when you’re willing to do things that, you know, You may not have done before.

Um, you might already know I love doing this. So it might be just a matter of doing, spending more time doing it. You might love taking pictures. [00:23:00] And you might think that’s something I would, I could do, even if, because the other thing is sometimes you don’t even want to get paid to do a passion because then it ruins it for you.

So I know, for example, people in my life that are really good photographers, but they will not charge a soul because they feel that dilutes the passion for it. So there’s a, there’s, like you said, there’s a lot of layers to this. Uh, but yeah, I mean, ultimately it does take some trial and error. And as I said, when I said make that list, you could have 10 things on the list.

That doesn’t mean all 10 of those things are going to be a passion for you. That’s the whole point about you take action. But at least if you put it on the list because you like it, at least you’re doing something you like. So if you have to put a few hours into something you like, to me that’s not that big a deal.

I will say to your point about the 10, 000 hours, to tell you what can transform. I, uh, went to, um, Liverpool last year. I actually, I don’t, probably can’t show it. I’m a pretty big, uh, John Lennon fan. I don’t know if you can see, it’s upside down, but I got a John Lennon tattoo in Liverpool in the same building they played in, which I thought was pretty epic.

Um, and, and I’m a Beatles fan, but I’m more of a John Lennon fan. So, uh, anyway, I went [00:24:00] to Liverpool and I was on the tour and I got to talk to, um, Pete Best, the original drummer, his nephew, and he got regaled with all this. Pete Best is still alive. So he got regaled with all the stories. In fact, uh, Pete Best’s mother, um, Had their first venue that they played at for a year and she was her I think his father was their manager like so they the family knew what the Beatle put in for time the Beatles put in and they said when they went to Hamburg they were an okay band like decent not that great but decent they put in so many hours in two and a half years in Hamburg when they came back they were the best band anybody knew in the area anywhere and what I bring this up because you said about three and a half years well they would say that that’s where they wrote the song eight days a week you Because they were literally playing like, it was like something like six shows a day or something insane like that.

So to your point, they weren’t just putting in 40 hours. They were putting in, now, they might not have put in like exactly 10, 000 hours, but I think even if they put in 8, 000 hours, but they put it into two years, You’re like, you’re, you’re cramming the [00:25:00] greatness into such a short period of time, you probably don’t need the 10, 000 hours, but either way, they, in two years, went from being a, like, again, a lot of people said, ah, they may make it, an okay band, to coming back to, like, everybody’s like, have you heard of the band The Beatles?

And, and again, all, and what was great about for them is they disappeared for two years. So like, it was like, people don’t even, wasn’t there a band called The Beatles, my friend was in? And then like, two years later, they come back, and you’re like, they’re what now? My god, is that, that can’t be the same band!

Like, they disappeared, so it wasn’t like, if you watched them in real time, you’d be like, I saw them get better. But, you imagine like, watching them, the same four members, I think it was, I don’t, I don’t, Ringo wasn’t in it at the time, but, the same, you know, same, three of the same four members, you see them one day at a show, they disappear for two years, you don’t know where they’re at, they come back, you see them again, and they’re like, next level.

Great. Like, it’s, it’s insane, but that’s what’s possible. From okay, to, this is the best band anybody’s ever seen.

Scott DeLuzio: Right. A lot of times people will see [00:26:00] folks who, uh, just sort of appear like that. Maybe you never heard of the Beatles before they, they disappeared or whatever. And the first time that you heard of them was when they. Reappeared, but you had never heard of them before. So the brand new to you and you go and check them out and like, Oh my gosh, these, these guys are like a overnight success.

How do I get that? Well, nobody is an overnight success where it’s just like, snap your fingers and, and, and. You know, all of a sudden you can sing great. You can play guitar perfectly, the drums, or, you know, whatever the instruments, you could do all that, you know, in your sleep, um, that doesn’t happen, or if it does, it’s an extremely rare, uh, occasion that something like that happens, but those people are off putting in the work before you heard them, and now what you’re hearing is the benefit of all of that.

All those hours of work going into it and, and [00:27:00] tying this back to the purpose and passion. I don’t think any of those guys who were in the Beatles, just using that as an example, because, because you brought it up, but, um, you know, you could pick any other great musician or band or athlete. I don’t think any of those people would put 10, 000 hours into doing.

Whatever their craft was, if they didn’t have some sort of passion about it, you know, if they, if that wasn’t driving them and that brought them joy and they, they were happy when they were doing it, I don’t think they would put that much time in it if it was just like a, eh, you know, it’s, it’s another job, you know?

So. I mean, maybe they would do it if, if it was putting food on the table and they was paying the bills, but, you know, that’s not gonna be something that they’re just gonna, yeah, let me grind it out and I’ll, I’ll do this, but, eh, it’s not that interesting to me, I don’t care, you know?

Corey Poirier: I would say, I think, honestly, Scott, if that was the [00:28:00] case, it was probably the lowest paying minimum wage job they’ve ever had in their life. Because when you factor how much they were working, like, to your point, there’s other ways you could make a better living. That, when they were starting, then being there doing that, um, compared to wrestlers, I asked one time this wrestler named, female wrestler named Trish Stratus, and she’s one of the most successful female, uh, WWE, you know, the big business wrestler, uh, and she spent time with Hulk Hogan, Stone Cold Steve Austin and The Rock.

And I was like, it fascinates me, those guys together, those three guys combined are bigger than the whole industry in a lot of ways. They’re not bigger than the industry, like, if they disappeared the industry wouldn’t exist, but I just mean they were as big as, the three combined were bigger than any other unit or anything that was in that business.

So I said to her, what do you think is the reason? And she said, well we all have to have passion to be in this business. But she said, it’s the level of passion. That they have, that she said, I’ve never seen either vibrating their passion. She said, you can almost see it around them. And she said, [00:29:00] that’s what she felt was the difference maker.

But the reason I bring that up when you said they wouldn’t do this, well, there’s this wrestler, I read his, um, uh, biography, I guess you’d call it. Um, his name is Mick Foley and he wrote four books on his life and three of them are New York times bestsellers. And he talked about in the first book, driving two hours.

Uh, in freezing snow, winter, what have you, sleeping in his car overnight, because he wanted to make sure he was there early, in a parking lot, where Jim was at, to go and wrestle for 25 bucks. And he said, when it would snow while I was sleeping, I would open up the back trunk and come out like a bear out of hibernation.

And he would go in and wrestle for 25 bucks, and then get back in the car. And drive two hours to go home. And he said, and then once I finally got in the big times, you know, he said, I was wrestling, uh, regularly. He said, we’d travel like four guys to a car and he said, we’d sleep four guys to a hotel room.

Meaning like you’d flip a coin and one got a bed and the other three were on the [00:30:00] floor. And at that point he was making like a hundred dollars a week. You know, my point, and also your point is who would go through that unless they loved it. So go back to the purpose, tying it back in. You only do that kind of stuff.

In my opinion. If you have a calling for it and or it’s a why and or it’s a passion.

Scott DeLuzio: is it. In your experience, um, you know, with the folks that you’ve worked with, is it possible that people just aren’t very passionate about things in general? Is it, is it hard to figure that out for someone like that? Or, or in your experience, is there something out there for everybody? Or, or, or are they, or are there some people who, who maybe just aren’t passionate people?

Uh, what is your experience with that?

Corey Poirier: I would go so far as to say, not only do I think there’s something for everybody, but I also think that, um, it’s already there. I, I don’t say we find it. I, I mean, I, I maybe even said it in this interview. I sometimes fall back and say, find it, but I really feel [00:31:00] we uncover it. So it feels like an onion layer and we just got to keep peeling the layers, but I do believe it’s there for everyone.

But you make a great point because there’s some other variables involved. It’s not as simple as. Yeah, yeah, here’s how you find a passion, like make a list, whatever. The other variable that’s involved in that is the want to do it. So, for example, whenever I was battling hypochondria and anxiety and all that, I didn’t know this at the time, Scott, and you don’t know usually when you’re in it, but I was a pessimist.

I was like, oh my god, tomorrow it’s gonna snow probably. Like, everything was always like, oh, it’s probably gonna do this. Oh, life keeps happening to me, not for me. And, but it was always like, for me, basically. And so, if you are in that mindset, it’s, and it was hard for me, because I, it was a happy accident that I got, I got tricked into performing stand up that night.

If that wouldn’t happen, I can’t tell you, I’d be, I wouldn’t be on this interview probably, and I don’t know if I would have found, you know, My passion, what I’m getting at is it had to be because I wasn’t ready [00:32:00] yet. It had to be tripped into me in the sense that as pessimistic as I was, if somebody said, Hey, make a list of things you love doing, blah, I would have been like, yeah.

So to your point, it’s not, I don’t think there’s anybody who doesn’t have a purpose built inside. I believe we were all born with a purpose. I also believe there’s at least one thing everybody’s passionate about. I believe there’s more than one, but there’s at least one. Having said that, the third part to this, which is, drives deeper to your question, is I don’t, and this is very blunt, but I don’t think everybody will find their purpose in life ever.

I don’t think we’ll ever get to a point where everybody’s figured out their purpose, uh, or a passion because of the fact that you’re always going to have somebody that really is, just can’t break free of the chains of, let’s just call it negativity. And so, so, and then when I say that, when we’re, when if I’m working with somebody on this, I would start at a different place if that’s where they’re at.

I would start at the point of, I’m not a big fan of the term fake it till you make it. But for some people, it’s necessary, meaning for some people, [00:33:00] you have to say, Hey, just stick with me for this. For one month, I want you to go to this website and read a positive quote every day. For one month, I want you to take out a positive person you know for lunch.

Like, you have to get them in that side of going to the point where so much of their life is positive. That all of a sudden it’s less attractive to be negative. So I think you have to get them in a positive mind frame if you want to also then next help them find a passion, which then helps them find the purpose.

The other option is they reach a dark night of the soul. Like I did with stand up, like, I was sinking, right? Like, I, hypochondria, thinking I was gonna die every day, anxiety, and then, uh, I wrote a stage play in a fringe fest, which was the only little bright in my tunnel, uh, I had to write myself a part, and I didn’t want to be, like, I didn’t want to be on the stage, I was terrified of that, I wrote myself a part, and then I, I had to because one of the actors injured his ankle, And so, I asked one of the other actors, how can I get comfortable with the stage thing, and he said, I don’t know if this is the answer, but I’m going to a stand up comedy workshop at the university, want to join [00:34:00] me?

And I said, that sounds horrifying! Okay, I’ll do it. And my thinking, Scott, was I’ll never get on a stage. I’m just going to go learn how to write and stuff and, and maybe just get the idea of how people get on stage in case I ever have to. But how we get tricked is, the person that got us to promote the show didn’t tell us that we were the entertainers.

And we found out with five minutes notice. Well, what I’m getting at is all of that stuff had to happen. And I also had to, I was sitting at the stage. People ask me, why did I eventually perform that night? I was sitting at the stage and I had this visual, which I never have. Me and an old guy, me as an old guy sitting next to another old guy.

Looking at the stage of somebody else performing stand up and say, you know, I was going to do that 30 years ago. Wish I would have. And the regret of that was worse than the fear of doing it. So I bring all this up to say, for me, it was like, even though it didn’t seem like a dark night, it was really my dark night of the soul because I was at the end of like, how much longer can I live like this?

And then this happened, stanced upon me. So what I’m saying is it won’t always just happen for people. And if you’re going to work with Chances [00:35:00] are they probably have some deep rooted negativity there that you have to work on before they can get to the point where they find a passion, which is before they get to a point usually where they’ll discover what their purpose is.

So I hope that answers the question, but I don’t think it’s as easy for everybody to just kind of go, you know what, I want a passion in my life and you know what, I want to know what my purpose is.

Scott DeLuzio: No, I agree. And I’m glad that you put it the way that you did because in my mind, uh, there’s going to be a lot of people out there who, and I’ve met a lot of people who just kind of have that negative energy, I guess, for lack of better words, where they just, I don’t know, nothing is interesting. They’re just kind of blah.

Plain, nothing, nothing’s really exciting. It’s, it’s, everything’s just, I don’t know, vanilla for a lack of better words. It’s not, not super exciting. I mean, it’s there, it gets the job done, but not, not really exciting. But, [00:36:00] uh, You know, even if you are or negative thinking where nothing’s interesting and nothing is exciting to me and nothing fills me with joy.

And you have that negativity going on inside of you. Um, first off, that’s an issue that you got to work on, I’m sure as well, but be open to trying new things. Like in your case, you, you said you were tricked to doing standup comedy, but imagine you were. You were there and they’re like, okay, your time, get, get up on the stage.

You’re, you’re going up there and you’re like, no, I’m not going to do it. Your passion was sitting right there in front of you, staring you in the face, and you didn’t know it at the time. Doing that thing enabled you to figure it out, and had you just not gotten on the stage, you may [00:37:00] never have figured it out.

And we may not be sitting here having this conversation right now, you know, so I think for the listeners, you know, be open to trying new things, um, actively seek them out yourself or, you know, a friend or a family member invites you to go do this thing that you never otherwise would have done. Go do it.

You know, even if it’s not something that you’re super passionate about, maybe you will be, um, you know, these, these types of things, you’re not going to figure it out until you try it. And, um, once when you try it, then, then you might have a little, uh, glimpse into what it could be like, and then, then maybe start going down that rabbit hole a little more.

And that’s the way I see it anyway.

Corey Poirier: Yeah, you know, I will say one last thing in that area is that, um, it is fascinating to me and it’s not, and I’ll say this is not for me to judge, but it’s fascinating to me. People that I know, even in my life, who say, [00:38:00] Oh, I always have a dark cloud over me, don’t I? And like, and I say, like, we, we know a couple people, like, if they go on a vacation, like, you shouldn’t, you know, jokingly, but say, you shouldn’t be with me, because I always have a dark cloud.

But what I find fascinating, Scott, is that, if you think, whenever I was battling hypochondria and anxiety, that I didn’t have a dark cloud over me, I don’t know how much darker a cloud can be. Like, I was literally thinking every day, like, this is it. I’m gonna live till I’m 20. This is it. And every day, I mean, so I had a dark cloud over me.

My point of that is, is I think they view it as, like, almost like a badge of honor that I just had bad luck. But what I’m getting at is, If that’s the case, then I shouldn’t have been able to get rid of that dark cloud. Because I had a dark cloud that was perpetual and every day, and all of a sudden now I don’t have a dark cloud ever.

Like I jokingly say, I carry my own sunshine around. But I mean, like, I literally got rid of that dark cloud. So what I’m saying is, I think they view it as bad luck. I think it’s simply because they constantly always think crap is gonna happen. That crap happens. Like, I do believe, even if you don’t get into [00:39:00] the, um, you know, the, like, into the very spiritual side of, like, what we think about we create, I think it’s at least, at the very least, safe to say, what you spend your time around is what you get more of.

Meaning, like, if you hang around with people that are breaking into places, And you join them, then you’re going to have similar results to what they have. And I think that we can all agree on, meaning like, uh, you know, and I think if you ride around on a motorbike, then you are probably going to hang around with people that ride around on motorbikes and, you know, and that’s going to be your environment.

And that’s, Hey, if that’s, that’s awesome. Like I have friends that that’s their life, like their, their passion and purpose is riding the motorbike on the weekend. But what I’m saying is, is that you don’t even have to think about it. Like the idea of I’m creating nothing into something. Just think about from the perspective of if I’m, if I, if I smile at everybody that walks down the street, chances are I’m going to have a better day than if I frown and growl at people.

I think that’s, I think we can all maybe deep down know that’s true. So what I’m getting at is that dark cloud, I believe, for [00:40:00] most people, is simply a representation of the fact that you think bad things are going to happen today. And so you’re, you’re experiencing those bad things because of the fact that that’s what you expect to happen.

And the universe is delivering. So anyway, I say that because I think the dark cloud thing, we have, like I say, three people that specifically say that terminology, and I think I had a dark cloud and I get rid of the dark cloud. So I think it’s possible for them too. Absolutely.

Scott DeLuzio: there’s a saying, if the only tool that you have is a hammer, all your problems are going to start to look like nails and you know, it goes to that mindset, if you, if you are always having that negativity, that negative thinking, um, That’s the tool that you’re carrying around with you to navigate through life.

You’re carrying around the pessimism, the negativity, the woe is me victim mentality, and you’re carrying that around, and all the problems that you now see are now, okay, well, yep. Naturally, that’s going to happen because I’m the victim. And [00:41:00] naturally that’s going to happen because, well, everything bad happens to me.

And that’s, that’s just the mindset that you’re going to have. But if you can twist that around and, um, you know, figure out a more healthy way to, to think about these things that might, that might, Help you out in the long run, you know, and if you’re hanging out with people who are pessimistic all the time, well, you’re probably going to end up being more pessimistic than you would had you not hung out with those people.

If you hang out with people who are more on the happy side, you’re probably going to be happier. You know, it’s just a matter of, uh, you know, what your, your, Uh, mindset is and enabling you to, uh, have that kind of growth and that, that happiness. So, um, so I, I like, I like how you, you phrased all that. And, and I think this hopefully gives.

The listeners, um, no matter where they’re at in, in their journey of finding their, their purpose or their passion, um, [00:42:00] wherever they are in that journey, hopefully this gives them some, some steps to start taking, you know, if you’re that type of person where nothing is interesting to you, you, you got all these, this negativity going on, well, Okay, step one, you got to figure that out and, and work on that.

And if you somehow somewhere along the way, sort of like you did stumble across your passion, um, well, great. Now you have that and you can work with that. Um, but. At least if you can break through that, it just a little bit, you, you at least open the door to the possibility that you can find something that brings you some joy and happiness and, um, sense of purpose and, and, uh, figure out what that passion is in your life to kind of get that, that spark in your life.

Um, you know, I, I know again, going back to the, uh, Military veterans, a lot of times, [00:43:00] um, they’re the type of people who want to serve other people. You know, the, the service of, you know, military service is that thing where you’re now serving something bigger than yourself. Um, if you’re looking for something and you can’t figure out what it is, I don’t know, maybe, maybe do some volunteer work.

Um, you know, in something in your community, it doesn’t have to be anything huge. It could be volunteering at a soup kitchen or at a veteran’s, uh, hospital or something along those lines to help other folks. And, and, That’s that you might figure out that’s your passion and maybe there’s something that you can do that kind of branches off of that and make it something bigger or maybe it’s something you do on the weekends or something in your, in your spare time, but you know, at least that, that Points you in the right direction and, um, you may, may start doing those types of things and you may hate it and you may [00:44:00] think this is stupid.

I don’t want to do this anymore. So, okay, good. Check the box. You tried it. Move on to the next thing. You don’t have to keep doing it and, you know, out that it’s just not working for you. Go on to the next thing, right? So, well, Corey, it’s been a pleasure, uh, speaking with you today. Uh, I’d like to give you the opportunity to, uh, tell people where they can go to get in touch with you, find out more about the type of work that you do.

And, um, you know, maybe if they are struggling and they need some guidance and, uh, a little bit of direction in finding their own. Passion and purpose in life. Um, maybe they can reach out to you and, and get some advice, but, uh, where people, where can people go to find you? And you mentioned your book earlier.

Um, tell us about the books and where people can go to find those as well.

Corey Poirier: Yeah, well, thank you so much for that opportunity. And so there’s two books I would [00:45:00] probably share that we have. And the new one, I mean, it’s literally, um, I have a copy in my hand. We have author copies. It’s literally launching June 25th. And so, you know, in real time when people are hearing this, because it’s evergreen.

It’ll be available. But I just say, that’s how new this is. It’s, uh, 2024. The timestamp it, uh, we are releasing it in June. And, uh, so this book is a fictional parable. So it’s similar to The Alchemist, or Celestine Prophecy, or The Greatest Salesman in the World, or The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari. But basically it’s Ten life lessons that are delivered through a fictional narrative or story.

Two passengers on a plane, basically old guy, young guy, strangers. It’s called The Flight That Changes Everything because essentially the old guy becomes the enlightened passenger to the young guy and teaches them ten life lessons. So that book has been in the works for three years. I’m really, really proud of it.

It’s been endorsed by a lot of really, um, people that I’ve been, you know, fans of their work for years, [00:46:00] which is really humbling. And so that’s one option is to grab that book, and I’ll kind of say in a second, um, you know, how to grab the stuff, but that’s one option. The second option is a book I wrote, which is more directly related to our conversation today, a few years back, called The Book of Why and How.

And that book, almost the opposite of this book, that book is non fiction. And it’s, uh, broken down into three sections, and one of them is finding your why. So exactly what we’ve been talking about today, and I go into depth or detail there around how to do it. So, you know, I always say for the price of the book, you can learn what it took me thousands of hours and thousands of dollars to learn.

But basically, we teach you how to find your why. And then the second section is on how to thrive once you have found your why. And the third section on is how to become more enlightened. So, how to be able to sleep at night when you’re serving people, essentially. And so, and then it has 400 quotes at the back by other thought leaders.

So, there’s either of those two books. Both are available on all the places you would expect, so. Uh, you know, all the retailers, like [00:47:00] Amazon, Barnes Noble, Walmart, Target, and so on. Books a million as well. Uh, so you can get either of those books. Uh, and then if you want to reach out to me directly, like just to reach out and say, Hey, I heard you on the show.

Uh, hey, I have a quick question. Uh, can you send me this around finding my purpose? Whatever that looks like. Uh, the best place is probably Corey, which is C O R E Y. At Blue, which is B L U without the E, Talks, with an S on the end, dot com. So, kori at bluetalks dot com. Uh, reach out there, that’s the best email and easiest one to reach out to me.

At, and like I said, either grab one or two of the, or both, one or both of those books. Uh, feel free to reach out via email, and I think that’ll give you at least a, a big window into all the stuff that we’ve been doing over the last number of years.

Scott DeLuzio: Excellent. And I will have links to the books and, uh, the. Email address that you provided. I’ll have all those links in the show notes. So folks who are listening, you can go check it out there [00:48:00] and grab that information, uh, if, if you need it and you want to get in touch with Corey or check out the books, uh, that type of stuff.

Um, now, interesting that you mentioned that you did, uh, you start kind of started off finding your passion doing standup. Uh, I like to end each episode with a little bit of humor, um, just as a way to put a smile on folks face, uh, so that way, you know, the, the topics that sometimes we talk about that might be a little heavy, a little bit, you know, a little bit much and people might be leaving, feeling, you know, A little down, maybe a little, you know, not, not so great.

And so I like to put a little smile on folks face. So, um, typically do this with either like a funny video or a joke that I tell. And with the jokes, the delivery or me, I don’t know, may not be all that funny and you can laugh at me and that’s perfectly fine too, because I’m [00:49:00] cool with that. So long as I get a laugh, um, I’m, I’m okay with it.

So, uh, If you don’t mind indulge me, I’ll, I’ll have, uh, this quick joke here and hopefully it produces at least one laugh. Um, even if it’s at my expense, that’s fine. So, there’s a lady, she walks into a bank in New York city and she asks for the loan officer. And she says she’s going to Europe on business for two weeks and she needs to borrow 5, 000.

So the bank officer says that the bank will need some sort of security or collateral for the loan. And the woman hands over the keys to her brand new Rolls Royce. And the car is parked out in the street in front of the bank and she has a title and everything checks out. And the bank agrees to accept the car as collateral for the loan.

And the bank’s president and its officers all laugh at the lady for using a 300, 000 car as collateral against a 5, 000 [00:50:00] loan. And an employee of the bank then took the keys and drove the car down into the bank’s underground garage, parks it there, and two weeks later, the woman returns from her trip and repays the 5, 000 and the interest, which came to 15.

15. And the loan officer says, Hey, miss, we were really happy to have had your business. This transaction worked out great. Um, but we’re a little confused. You, you, we checked you out and we found out you’re a millionaire, a multimillionaire. And what puzzles us is why would you bother to borrow 5, 000? And she says, where else in New York city can I park my car for two weeks for only 15 and expected to be there when I returned?

Corey Poirier: So, so, I, I, it’s not, it’s not often, but I saw where that was headed and I love it. Maybe, maybe that’s like I, without knowing, maybe unconsciously I heard [00:51:00] it years ago or similar, but like I saw it and I was like waiting for that punch because I was like, I, but honestly I wasn’t thinking, I knew it was going somewhere, but when you said the 15.

15. Then I was like, okay, I see where this is going. That’s awesome. I love it. I like, I actually love the ingenuity of it too. Like, I hope somebody hears this and actually takes them up on that.

Scott DeLuzio: I know, right? Like, why not go do it? And, and, uh, there’s going to be banks now in New York City who are going to be like, we need more parking spaces.

Corey Poirier: Absolutely. I love that. That’s amazing. Amazing.

Scott DeLuzio: So that’s great. Um, anyways, Corey, thank you again for taking the time to come on, uh, and sharing your story, sharing, you know, how folks can find their purpose and their passion in life, uh, and, and find some joy, create some joy in their lives and not, um, you know, feel like. It’s a dead end or whatever it is that they’re, they’re doing.

They, they can find those things. And, um, you know, if it’s, if money is an issue, money will, [00:52:00] we’ll figure it out itself out, uh, down the line. So find that, that thing, um, and, and stick with it and, and you’ll, you’ll make it through. So again, for the listeners, all the links that we talked about will be in the show notes.

So check it out, uh, get in touch with Corey and, uh, find your, your passion.

Corey Poirier: Thanks so much, Scott.

Scott DeLuzio: Thanks for listening to the Drive On Podcast. If you want to support the show, please check out Scott’s book, Surviving Son on Amazon. All of the sales from that book go directly back into this podcast and work to help veterans in need. You can also follow the Drive On Podcast on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, and wherever you listen to podcasts.