One morning I woke up in a hospital. I had on a yellow T-shirt that was covered in blood but I didn’t have a scratch on me. (I’ll explain later in the post)
I was 14 years old, in a room I’d never seen before, wearing pajama bottoms that weren’t mine. My tennis shoes were still on my feet.
There were a lot of mornings like this during my teens. I routinely woke up on sidewalks, in rehabs and in jails the morning after big parties. I had a severe allergy to alcohol and blacked out almost every time I drank.
This morning, I happened to be waking up from a blackout at the Youth Shelter in Ada, Oklahoma.
The Lost Youth of Ada, Oklahoma
The Youth Shelter was a place where troubled teens in my hometown of Ada, Oklahoma were sent when they were out of control.
At any given time there were 5–15 kids who had been picked up by police for being drunk, running away from home or trying to kill their parents. They lived here until the authorities and parents could come to an agreement on what to do with them.
It was an interesting crew to say the least.
There were a lot of bedrooms, a living room with a TV, a pool table and a kitchen where you could make your own food. They had a team of adults – counselors, teachers and doctors on staff who were there to help get you back on track.
On this particular trip (I was there several times) I had to stay for a week or two. It was during the school year and since I couldn’t go to school – they sent me to a little classroom inside the building. It was a basically a small office with a chalkboard and some chairs.
It was during class in this little makeshift school room that an adult, who was supposed to be helping me during a troubled time, took it upon herself to crush my dreams and break my life in half.
To this day I’m still not sure if she did it on purpose, or if she was just so stupid that she thought she was doing the right thing.
Either way, this is what happened.
What Do You Want To Do With Your Life?
After an hour or so of regular school classes like history and math we had some one-on-one personal counseling sessions. The woman teaching the class took a little time with each student to help us plan out our lives and goals.
Here’s how the conversation happened. Keep in mind, I’m 14 years old.
Teacher: “So, what do you want to do with your life?”
Malan: “I want to be a musician, a rock star”
Teacher: “Well, that’s impossible, you need to choose something else.”
Malan: “Well…”
Teacher: “What else do you want to be that’s more realistic?”
Malan: “I don’t want to be anything else.”
Teacher: “Ok, you’re not getting it. Um… what does your father do?”
What My Father Does
For most of my childhood my dad had been in and out of our family. When I was born he was in his early twenties and for the first 10–15 years of my life he had pursued a career as a drummer. He pursued music while also having a wife, 5 kids and a pretty horrible drinking problem.
When he was sober he was the best dad ever. A really funny guy with a loud, deep voice. He sang songs, setup a tent for us inside the house, told jokes and played the flyswatter like a banjo.
When he was drunk he was a nightmare. His deep voice slurred, tables flew across the house. Some nights mom would scream for her life.
Over the years mom and dad were married and divorced twice. Dad just couldn’t keep himself together and every year he got a little bit worse. By the time I was 14 his hands shook, his vision was failing and he was living in another small town about 30 minutes away.
My younger brother and sister went to visit him some weekends. Me and my two oldest brothers were teenagers and we’d had enough. To us he was a monster and an embarrassment. By the time I was 14 years old – I hated his guts.
His music career
He’d pursued music for a long time with some successes along the way. But he had been fired from most of the bands he was in. He was a great drummer, but his drinking issues were out of control.
My dad, playing drums in a band as a kid
So he started working different jobs. He worked in fiberglass factories, he even sold vaccum cleaners door to door for a while.
At the time of this story – at the moment this woman asked me what my father did – he was living down a dirt road in a little brown shack. There was a small oil field just down the road from the shack. That’s where he worked.
My dad, standing in front of his house in Seminole, Oklahoma
I think his job was climbing into 100+ degree oil drums and cleaning them out. It was filthy, hard work for very little pay.
He spent his time off in his little shack, drinking, smoking weed and listening to classic rock with his friends.
He Works In An Oilfield
So when this woman asked me “What does your father do?” I didn’t know what to say.
Where did I begin? How could I explain the addiction, the depression, the fights, the divorces, the ruined Christmases, the terror we felt on the really bad nights. How could I tell her all that ?
I couldn’t…
so I just said.
Malan: “He works in an oil field.”
Teacher: “Ok. Then that’s what you’ll do. You’re going to work in an oilfield.”
And that’s when it happened.
She crushed me completely
In that short conversation she managed to listen to my dreams, told me they were impossible and condemned me to become my father – a man who would ultimately commit suicide just one year later.
This adult, who was supposed to be helping me plan my future had sentenced me to a life of failure, depression, minimum wage and suicide. All in a single 5-minute conversation.
The gravity of my new future weighed down on my 14 year old shoulders like a mountain of concrete blocks.
That feeling never left.
I still feel it to this day.
I was doomed
Her condeming talk stuck with me for the rest of my life. It crippled my existence. (I guess that’s kind of obvious though, because I’m sitting here writing about it all these years later.)
It became a self fullfilling prophecy.
I ended up going down a path that almost led me directly to my dad’s fate. Just before I moved to California (6 years ago) there was a moment in time where I came to the conclusion that my life had two options.
- Fly to Cambodia. Buy a pistol and an acoustic guitar when I got there with some money I’d saved. Play on the streets for money. Whatever happened, happened.
- Drive out into the woods, drink a bottle of whiskey and take some pills, then put several trash bags over my head and blow my brains out. (the trash bags were to keep it from being too messy, I wanted it to be tidy for whoever found me)
Really, I researched this stuff for weeks. Ask anyone who knew me at the time… things were not good.
Luckily things turned around
My Music
These days I’ve gotten my life together. I’m definitely not living on a dirt road in Seminole, Oklahoma, drinking myself to death and contemplating suicide.
And when I get focused I do pretty well with music. And it’s still a huge part of my life. I’m no rock star, but I’ve had some pretty good times…
Me, accepting a music award with my band Rewake.
Playing a sold out show with 311.
My Marketing
And along the way, I discovered online marketing which was a direct result of me being on a “make it in the music business” email list. (They happened to email out a link to a course on SEO marketing one day.)
I haven’t had a “job” in 6 years now – and I probably will never work a job again.
From this new perspective I’m able to look back at that situation and see it for what it was. She was just a clueless adult who had no qualifications to give life advice to kids.
And she gave me some really crappy advice.
Why I (Still) Don’t Trust Adults
I used to think of the woman from the Youth Shelter as this evil person. But as I write this, I’m probably older than she was back then. And now I can see things more clearly. It’s simple really.
Adults don’t have the answers.
They have their own, limited experience that they can draw from to give advice.
- Some adults have great experiences and tons of wisdom to share with you.
- Some adults have never done jack shit and have zero knowledge for you.
I’d say the ratio is about 95% bad, 5% good.
This woman at the Youth Shelter hadn’t done much with her life. She was just an adult (a grown up kid) who was passing down the same shitty advice adults had given her when she was a kid.
She had probably ended up as a part time teacher at a small town Youth Shelter because at some point, she had been told to “be realistic” about her life.
Maybe she wanted to be an actress, or a doctor when she was a little girl and her dad told her to “Be realistic” because acting was impossible and girls couldn’t be doctors.
And maybe her dad only gave her that bad info because it’s what his mom had told him.
And that’s where the problem lies.
Don’t Listen To Adults
If you have a question about life – never ask an adult that hasn’t done something with their life for advice.
It’s not that adults are bad it’s just that what they’re going to tell you is going to come from whatever crappy reality they’ve experienced – but they’re going to tell it like it’s the truth.
- If they couldn’t do it, it’s impossible.
- If they didn’t make it, it’s pointless for you to try.
It’s not necessarily even the adult’s fault.
The same thing probably happened to them when they were kids. When they answer your question they could be giving you bad information that has been handed down in their family for 100 years. You could be being limited by someone else’s failure from 1910.
Think about it.
If you ask Dave Grohl (nirvana / foo fighters) if you should pursue music, he’d say “Hell yes! It’s the most amazing life. You have to work your ass off, but If I can do it, you can do too!”
If you ask the same question to an adult that wanted to be a rockstar but ended up becoming a manager at a movie theater the same question, they will say “No way, it’s impossible. Trust me… don’t waste your time.”
Like it’s a fact.
See?
The next time you ask someone for advice, take a good look at their own life experience. Have they done what you’re trying to do? Have they done anything? If not, be very careful with their own world view they give you, disguised as advice.
How To Properly Use Adult Advice
If you really want to learn from an average adult, ask them what you should not do. Instead of asking an adult what you should do with your life, ask them what their worst mistake was, or what they’d change if given in the chance.
I once read an article where a nurse, who took care of patients who were sent home from the hospital to die documented the regrets of her near death patients. They gave answers like “I wish I had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.”
Now that’s some great advice. Imagine if every adult on earth, when asked by a child what they should do with their life they said:
“Live a life true to yourself”
instead of
“follow the rules, go to school and get a job.”
Life may be completely different.
If you want great advice from an adult. Ask them what they regret the most, or what you should not do with your life. Then you’ll get some real answers.
Or – you might want to try this.
How to get real answers
If you want real answers to what is possible for you in your life, ask a child.
Why? Because kids, up to a certain age (0-10) still have an understanding of our limitless reality that adults have either forgotten, been talked out of or just gave up on.
- They know money means nothing.
- Style doesn’t matter.
- And that hugs are important.
- They love animals.
- They give names to rocks.
- They don’t see skin color.
They haven’t been brainwashed yet.
It happens fast though, as soon as a kid enters the school system they’re at risk. By the time they hit their teens, it’s usually over. So when it comes to asking kids for advice, the younger the better.
Kids make great advice givers because:
- They know that it’s possible for anyone to do anything.
- They know that if your can think it, you can make it happen
- They have no concept of prior failures, no bad information (yet)
Children are the closet things to pure humans on earth.
It is only later, as adults get ahold of them that they “learn” how the world works.
- They “learn” that they have to be realistic
- They “learn” to fit in
- They “learn” they are rich
- They “learn” they are poor
- They “learn” to settle for less
- They “learn” to demand more
- They “learn” to hate people that aren’t like them
They “learn” to be adults.
Check your head
And you may be saying to yourself “But not everyone can be a rock star, and kids really do need to be realistic“.
Think about it… who told you that?
It definitely wasn’t someone like Mahatma Gandhi, Tony Robbins, Steve Jobs, Bjork or Michael Jackson. It was probably someone more like your Mom, Dad or “Uncle Larry”.
If you ask an enlightened adult who still has some child left in them for advice about your big dream – they’re not going to say “Be realistic, work in an oil field…” they’ll say something like: “Interesting… tell me all about it.”
Conclusion
When you ask an adult for advice, there is a pretty good chance you’re going to get a warped world view disguised as advice that can screw your whole life up.
So, the next time you need advice, ask a child. Children are the closest thing we have to pure humans, and they will give you the best advice there is…
that anything is possible.
P.S. Ok so if you read this all the way through I’ll tell you the quick story of how I woke up with no pants on, covered in blood with no cuts on me. The story goes like this.
- Me and a teenage friend were drinking Everclear in a kitchen, I black out.
- We walked into the backyard and started arguing.
- He punches out a few windows and cuts up his hands and arms badly.
- We hug and make up, his blood goes all over me.
- I step out of my pants and underwear to pee on the ground.
- I see a bicycle, get on it and ride into the night, naked from the waist down.
Later, police found me passed out, with a crashed bicycle, no pants on, covered in blood in someone’s front yard. They take me to the Ada Youth Shelter.
End of story.
Ironically though, and I don’t mean to be an asshole here, given that life is a series of events triggered by events and so on…that crap advice she gave to you aged 14 has got you to the point where you are at today, successful, out of the rat race, and an inspiration/idol to many people. If she had never given you that advice then, you could be worse off now….
So, true …
You are our Rock and Marketing star dude, great story.
Thanks for sharing.
Cheers
Really neat story malan, thank you for sharing it I can relate because my childhood was crappy my mom was in jail some for bad checks and my dad drank so my grandparents practically raised me and that didnt go that great either and ive realized alcohol causes alot of problems ,mostly for the ones that dont touch it,that wasnt the greatest thing for her to say to you but you are doig very good today ,I know you from rewake and you were awesome I think may e her saying that to you somehow inspired you to prove her wrong anyway you are awesome glad to know you and glad I can still keep in touch god bless you always
i’m struggling with a same circumstance and situation. Thanks for advice and
Fuck all idiot elder adult who always likes to give advice but they actually dont know the answer.
be yourself. and let your intuition and rules you believe to do the right things at the moment.
you wont regret till time you die.
Great post and just now catching it. One thing for me is that “adults” can be any age. A persons experiences determine a lot of how much of an “adult” they are and how they perceive their and your world regardless of their age. Personally I am 50 something, didn’t trust adults before I was one and still don’t trust them (some kids too). 🙂
The problem is not with realism, the problem is with people who distort that word to mean mediocrity. It is not likely the average person will become a rockstar, that is the statistical truth. If I accept this truth I can be better prepared to expend a lot of my limited time, money and energy because I am aware that is what’s necessary to achieve that goal. If, on the other hand, I realize that the cost of losing my resources is too high compared to how much I’d like to be a rockstar then I’d withdrawal from the idea completely, saving my resources for a goal I deem more fruitful. A line drawn in the sand, a forced fork in the road.
The advisor would surely be amazed at how possible your “impossible” life is, but also be careful of the opposite, the dreamers, cause they’ll wake up one day and realize all their time, money and energy was spent chasing something that was never going to happen and now they have none left for the things they loved the whole time. How impossible their “possible” was.
Remove all delusions about how hard it is to be successful and remove all delusions about how satisfying a mediocre life will be. A college professor of mine told me, make truth your friend.
Really interesting post Malan.
I have learned not to ask other adults for recommendations on my online businesses because they’ve got no idea about how to do it either.
It can be a little frustrating when your parents recommend you to stop trying things and go back to a 9-5 (more like 9-7) job so you can work hard and grow up in 10 years to be director or something else.
Best advice I received 2-3 years ago is just to talk about these things with people that do what you do. It’s not that your relatives or friends want to destroy your dreams. They actually think they’re doing something good for you, but it’s up to you to demonstrate they’re wrong.
I read this post last night and I can’t get this out of my head even after sleeping on it.
I recently attempted and failed (blacked out) trying to run a half marathon even though I have done it before and had prepared quite well. While I was preparing for it, all I wanted to do was finish in under 2 hours.
A few weeks ago I happen to hang out with a 7 year old and he asked me what sports am I into and I told him, ‘I like to run’. His next question was if I was the fastest runner in the world. I was caught off guard by that question and smiled and replied ‘no’. He then asked me who the fastest runner in the world was and I didn’t know the answer. Probably Usain Bolt.
The thing is, I have been into fitness and running for about 3 years now and I have never even thought of what it would be like to be the fastest man alive. Kids are just awesome.
This is clearly the favorite post of yours I have read so far because it made me think and it is still on my mind. I am wondering if I lost the kid in me. I thought I knew that anything was possible and that your dreams can come true if you put in the work, but now am wondering if I just ‘know’ that or if I truly ‘believe’ that.
Merry Christmas.
Thank you Arun,
I don’t know you (I think this is your first comment) but right now I feel like we’re brothers. Thank you for this real comment, I appreciate you taking the time and your honesty.
I think all of us lose our ‘child-like’ selves over time – the world is geared that way. We’re systematically stripped of our hopes, dreams and ability to think big. We’re taught to be “workers” and “productive members of society” instead.
What you got from that kid is probably as close to you can get as a true human mind in action. Limitless and spontaneous.
These days I’m trying my best to keep that kind of thinking alive in myself. It’s easy to forget, because the world is programmed to make you think differently. It takes effort.
But in my opinion, it is an effort that is worth it’s weight in gold.
Malan, I am truly honored that you shared your brotherhood with me.
I happen to be in close contact with a teenager over the last year and it was highly evident how “education” and society trims our wings as we grow up and make us more “practical” and “realistic” up in our brains thereby looting us of our true potential of what we can do with our lives only if we just believe.
I thank that spark of inspiration that made you write this article. Godspeed.
Great post. But, we should be sure the children we ask for advice have been raised well. There are also nasty children because they’ve been brought up by cruel parents. I met them in infant school in the first year.
me too.
Wow man this is as real as it gets. There is a certain feeling of realness and truthfulness in your posts, your words that touches very deep and you do not hold back or write to impress but rather from the heart. Coming from a very troubled childhood and a far away country where things are pretty bad, i can really appreciate this post. Thank you so much Malan, really great post and keep up the amazing work!
thanks fontavals – you can’t make this up. I can tell you this – if you’re having a hard time now, it will make for great stories later in life (“back in my day…”).
And there is hope for you (for all of us). So good luck to you.
“And you may be saying to yourself “But not everyone can be a rock star, and kids really do need to be realistic“.
Think about it… who told you that?”
You got me thinking Malan.
good Desmond. and thanks for reading.
Thanks for sharing Malan. I was curious what you were going through when we were kids. I miss your family… Love your mom and siblings. I’ll definitely keep this perspective with my four kiddos.
that’s just the TIP OF THE ICEBERG Aubrey – it was “interesting” to say the least… haha thanks for stopping by. – M
I’ve learned a lot from your videos and blog. You’re a rock star, man!
thanks Pelosi
Fun post Malan. I’ll have to ask my kids some questions to see how they think.
Me and you could probably swap some good stories of funny stuff we did while being young and drunk.
Talk later,
Remy
Remy, yeah use those little guys to your advantage. they’re smarter than you think.. 😉
Malan, thank you for this. Your success and advice in AM are what drew me to follow you initially, but it’s posts like this one that keep me here. I identify with your fears and experiences (much) more than I’d like to admit, but I’m so thankful to have found your example. Just wanted to let you know that you are genuinely affecting people with your frank honesty. It means a lot. Thank you.
thanks Rory – i’m never sure if should push Publish on posts like this, but then I do and then I get responses like this. makes it worth it – Malan
Hey Malan, that was a great post (article in fact). Valuable lessons indeed.
While reading, I kept wondering to myself how the woman would have responded if you had answered her question with “My father was a musician / played in a band”. Would she then have said – “OK then perhaps you will be a musician after all…”. Either way, thanks to hard hard work and dedication, you are where you’re meant to be now. Inspiring stuff.
PS. Looking forward to the upcoming Q&A!
Ken – I don’t know man. I was 14 years old at the time and really didn’t know what to say in the first place. I would expect a responsible adult to be able to make the best of the conversation, whether the kid said he wanted to be a ditch digger or the president.
Fuck me, man (well, not literally), but that is some epic motivational stuff. I’m wondering though if it is necessary for a person to have a traumatic experience in order to really change a perspective of his/her life? I mean which other impulse can also result in such a strong determination and focus of a human mind?
I don’t think trauma is necessary – but it sure does seem to make some interesting stories / people later.
Awesome post Malan. Great lesson here, thanks for sharing such a deep story. True, said but beautiful written. You had basically no future ahead of you, from what it looked like. Please write a book someday 🙂 it will really help others!
And man, you had such a great body at the awards! :)) That is for me another great lesson that shows that a turn in thinking, meeting the right people and putting in the work will definitely make a big impact on your life.
Well done sir, keep it up, tell the world!
hey Peter, I had a “great body” at the awards… not sure what you mean?
It’s a silly joke. It looked like u were a little chubby at the time and the progress you made is amazing. I’m not sure about your diet back than, but judging by how you used to spend your time, it wasn’t a great one, so going from that to weighting yourself everyday, counting calories, measuring your sleep, gym activity, etc. it’s a great lesson because for a guy who wasn’t raised with such a mentality I think it was very hard.
I hope you didn’t take it the wrong way. I really admire what you did and I always use example like yours to motivate others. For me it was easy because my father was a rugby player, I was in sports all my life so physical discipline came as second nature. Unfortunately this didn’t apply in other fields but I managed to make the transition slowly in the past few years even more with you guys around, like Charles and yourself.
Haha gotcha. Well, I was wearing some pretty baggy khakis and a weird asian shirt someone gave to me so I may look way fatter than I was. I was honestly only about 1/2 that size under those clothes. Fatness was never my problem, I was just loose.
Easily one of your best posts so far, if not the best. This one, as a father of 2, really touched me and made me realize I need to spend even more time with my kids, because they know what’s REAL. Thanks a lot for sharing Malan.
Eric – that means a lot thank you. I never know how these personal posts are going to go. Most people come here to get affiliate marketing info. But it’s always nice to hear that these posts are useful as well.
They sure are good for me.
Dude! You have such an amazing story… in your short life you have experienced the lowest of lows (and I’ll bet, have yet to experience the highest of highs). I’m sure writing this was cathartic for you, but for us Netizens — and fellow online marketers, it’s very inspirational. I’ll be buying “Malan – My Life Story” when you decide to write it.
haha Jeff – i’ll let you know if/when the book comes out. An to be honest – the stuff I share here is just the tip of the iceberg…
Wow, it takes balls to write something like this…A whole lot of balls.
Just shows that anyone’s potential is LIMITLESS, and limited beliefs are just made up by people who like to stay in their own shell their whole lives.
Awesome post man.
That
Was
A
Really
Good
Post
Well Done Sir
thank
you
marcos
Really awesome post, Malan! Dig the authenticity and vulnerability…I give similar advice to people about do what a child would do, good stuff!
Thanks for reading Zach. I’m liking writing these posts as well.
Thanks for another epic post man!
99.9% of adults on this planet perceive, interpret and understand things around them based on their personal paradigms. These paradigms are the source their attitudes and behaviors in life, and their relationships with others.
The paradigms each of us has are heavily influenced by our family, school, friends, media, etc., and help shape our understanding of what is right and wrong, our judgements, conclusions, etc. As a result we see the world not as it is, but as we are conditioned to see it.
The problem is that most people never examine their paradigms at their root to see why they have them in the first place, and whether they are based on correct principles, or if they are a function of our conditioning (family, school, media, etc). As a result, a lot of the advice we get is misguided to say the least, because the people giving it are basing it on their personal paradigms and world-view, rather than giving it while at the same time considering our unique talents, abilities, backgrounds, situations, etc.
The best advice that anybody can give you is you (and God if you’re a religious person), because no one knows YOU better than YOU! Next time you need advice that’ll never fail you, tune out all the noise, close your eyes and listen to what your heart has to say – it always gets it right! 🙂
Stan
nice Stan, you write much better than i do, you should start a blog
Thanks mate! Not sure about the writing better than you do part, but I do appreciate the compliment! 🙂 I was actually thinking of starting a blog someday, but for now too busy with my projects… maybe someday in the future, we’ll see.
P.S. Forgot to recommend an awesome book where I picked up the “paradigms” concept – the book is called “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People” by Stephen Covey, and it’s incredible, I highly recommend it to anyone who hasn’t read it yet!
Some people can’t or refuse to break free of this mentality, all the better for us Malan; less competition 🙂
Great post!
craigm, thanks. but i think in this case – it’s not about competition… at all. the opposite actually 😉
This is why I keep coming back to your blog. You’re real. Thank you for sharing slices of your life. It really matters knowing that others have found ways out of shitty paradigms and are now pursuing their dreams.
thanks Lucia, just writing it as it happened… glad you are getting some use out of it.