Getting Your Dream Mentor and Beating Anxiety with Charlie Hoehn
“The irony is that you do so much better, when you stop caring about the outcome and start connecting in the moment and being your best.” – Charlie Hoehn
In this episode, we have a guest I was very excited to have on: Charlie Hoehn.
Charlie graduated in 2008 into one of the worst job markets in history, and after a few months of fruitlessly throwing his resume out on Monster, started cold emailing entrepreneurs he wanted to work with.
That soon led to working with Ramit Sethi, Tucker Max, and eventually Tim Ferriss who he worked with for three years.
Charlie took what he learned from landing these mentorships and compiled it into a book, “Recession Proof Graduate,” which has been read by hundreds of thousands of people around the world, and was one of the first books that inspired me to get off the traditional college path.
But then, something happened. Charlie stopped feeling like himself, and after a particularly crazy week of work, he realized he was developing bad anxiety that was having a growing negative impact on his life. It reached the point where, as he said, his own girlfriend didn’t even recognize him, and only after trying everything under the sun did he stumble on play as a means of getting out of that mental state and getting control back over his life.
We dive into all of this during the episode, including:
- What makes someone stand out when reaching out for mentorship
- How to develop skills, on your own, that you can pitch to people you want to work with
- Ways to make the money work while you’re doing the free work you’re excited about
- Why you can’t rely on great grades and a degree to get you a job
- How to treat and prevent anxiety through play
- Ways to bring more play into your life and avoid the busy trap
And a ton more. Please enjoy, and say hi to Charlie on Twitter!
If you enjoyed mine and Charlie’s discussion around finding mentors, then you’ll also like my interview with Taylor Pearson, author of The End of Jobs, on how to find apprenticeships and what skills are going to be useful in this rapidly changing economy.
Links from the Episode:
Find Charlie Online:
Mentioned in the show:
- Monster.com
- Recession Proof Graduate (book)
- Play It Away: A Workaholic’s Cure for Anxiety (book)
- Charlie’s Play for a Living book Kickstarter campaign
- Buffer
- Programming for Marketers
- Career Builder
- I Will Teach You To Be Rich
- Tim Ferriss
- Scribe Writing
- Play (book)
- Man’s Search for Meaning (book)
- Pandemic (board game)
- Slomo (video)
- Supermensch (movie trailer)
Show Topics:
2:30 – Introduction
8:35 – Charlie’s story, him speaking on beginning his career, and doing unpaid work to find valuable connections.
18:00 – How Charlie made ends meet while doing unpaid work in the field.
22:03 – Charlie’s advice on how to reach out to people and succeed.
30:12 – Charlie on how he learned certain skills to offer to people.
32:52 – How Charlie found freelance jobs to hone his skills.
40:03 – Charlie speaking in-depth on anxiety and living more playfully.
51:07 – Charlie on the power of play, its benefits, and how vital it is for well-being.
1:06:51 – Simple ways you can bring more play into a busy lifestyle.
1:11:39 – Charlie’s advice on how to meet people with similar interests.
1:14:53 – Charlie’s wisdom for college students and the importance of creating your own agenda.
1:18:44 – Wrap up.
If you enjoyed this episode, don’t forget to subscribe at https://nateliason.com/podcast