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Finding Happy: Hollywood Stories, Foster Care Truths & Life Lessons with Peter Samuelson · Captivate the Mic: Master Public Speaking & Video, Build Confidence and Boost Visibility

• 0:10
  welcome to Captivate the Mic with Elaine Williams.
• 0:13
  I am so excited for you to meet this guest.
• 0:18
  I have never been so inspired listening to a book.
• 0:22
  This guy is amazing.
• 0:24
  He has produced over 27 Hollywood.
• 0:26
  Feature films.
• 0:28
  He's also started seven charities, one for foster kids, one for terminally ill kids, one for the homeless.
• 0:38
  I could go on and on, you're gonna love this guy.
• 0:40
  He has amazing stories.
• 0:43
  Please take a listen and share this with somebody you love.
• 0:47
  You're gonna be listening to Peter Samuelson and he just wrote a book called Finding Happy.
• 0:53
  And I encourage you to get several copies.
• 0:56
  Number one, it's going to inspire you and put a fire under you in case you have been a little distracted and overwhelmed by what's going on in the world.
• 1:05
  Number two, it's really good for younger people.
• 1:09
  He shares a lot of very exciting.
• 1:13
  Stories from his life as an unlikely film producer and that whole evolution.
• 1:19
  And then, he ties it in with life lessons and he's aiming it specifically at younger people who are going through transition.
• 1:26
  Maybe it's junior high to high school, high school to college.
• 1:29
  Or college to life.
• 1:31
  'cause I know all of those transitions were really hard for me and I was especially lost, I would say 18 to 30.
• 1:39
  That was a really rough time for me personally, I just can't wait for you to meet this man and hear his stories and go by his book Finding Happy.
• 1:48
  Enjoy.
• 1:56
  Hi everybody.
• 1:57
  Welcome to Captivate the Mic with Elaine Williams.
• 2:00
  You are in for such a treat.
• 2:02
  Today I have the most amazing guest, Peter Samuelson, who has produced 27 Hollywood movies, probably more, has started seven charities, and he has this amazing book called Finding Happy.
• 2:17
  Peter, thank you so much for joining.
• 2:20
  So honored.
• 2:21
  Back at you and I'm so happy to be with you.
• 2:24
  Oh, thank you.
• 2:25
  I have to tell you, I was listening to the book'cause I love your accent and listening to your stories and I kept choking up.
• 2:33
  I was so inspired.
• 2:35
  And what I love about the book is it's very instructional.
• 2:39
  The stories are fabulous and I really think it's, yes, it's aimed at a younger generation, but I think.
• 2:46
  Any age will get so much out of it.
• 2:49
  Can you tell us like what inspired you to start writing this book?
• 2:55
  Sure.
• 2:55
  So I would say it must be almost two years ago now.
• 3:00
  I.
• 3:00
  I realized that I've mentored hundreds and hundreds of young adults, one-on-one, one on seven, one on 30 through First Start through the mentor project, and just people I run into or someone asked me to talk to them, whatever, and I realized I've got pattern recognition, meaning there's two dozen things that come up more than anything else in all of these conversations.
• 3:32
  Things that perplex and confuse and bother and, I'm being bullied.
• 3:37
  I dunno what career I can have and my teachers mean to me and I can't communicate with my parents and this, that, and the other.
• 3:47
  I thought, these, if I wrote these down.
• 3:50
  They're chapter headings and maybe I could do a book.
• 3:54
  I'm always looking for leverage, do once and replicate many kind of thing, right?
• 3:59
  And I thought if I did a book, I thought I'd have to self-publish it.
• 4:04
  So I started writing the book.
• 4:06
  I think you have to have a bit of self-discipline'cause it's, it's a bear of a job writing a book as well, I started getting up at five o'clock every morning and making myself right for an hour, and a book took form and I realized I can illustrate.
• 4:23
  I.
• 4:24
  With so many crazy things have happened to me.
• 4:27
  A film producer, you work with so many bonkers people and funny things happen to you and scary things.
• 4:35
  So for example, I, I realized, if I have a chapter and I do, what is a good risk?
• 4:42
  What is a bad risk?
• 4:43
  How can you tell the difference?
• 4:45
  Oh, I've got all four examples.
• 4:48
  Risks I should have taken.
• 4:49
  I didn't take, I did take, and that worked out great.
• 4:53
  What risks I, I took that were really stupid and I nearly killed myself.
• 4:58
  Those kind of things.
• 5:00
  So it I put these little memoir things in and I wanted to make the chapters fairly short so that it's very palatable and what I've been saying.
• 5:09
  I've been discussing it now.
• 5:11
  The publisher told me I was.
• 5:13
  R mad to put my email address in the book, and the compromise was I did put it in, but it's near the back and it's buried in the text.
• 5:21
  So read the book to find the email address, but I'm getting these, really at the moment it's a couple of dozen emails a day.
• 5:30
  The publisher said, what are you gonna do if you get 25,000 emails?
• 5:34
  I said I should be so lucky.
• 5:36
  I'll hire people and we'll answer them together.
• 5:39
  But I've got this sort of feedback loop going now, and it's really, it's my joy finding happy.
• 5:45
  Maybe the culmination of my finding happy is to put it all in a book and then.
• 5:51
  Interact with the people who, honor me by reading it.
• 5:55
  I love it.
• 5:55
  I think so many times as we grow and evolve, we miss the connection.
• 6:01
  And knowing that you're making a difference, you've done so much.
• 6:05
  Gosh, I loved your stories.
• 6:06
  I loved your stories about when you were gonna drive through the Alps for your love.
• 6:14
  When you were in high school, like that was hilarious.
• 6:17
  And I love, so many great stories.
• 6:19
  I love the story when you had to do all kinds of crazy stuff to get gas into Spain for a movie.
• 6:28
  And how old were you?
• 6:29
  Like you were dealing with all kinds of stuff and you were pretty young, right?
• 6:33
  I, I it's interesting.
• 6:35
  It's a very perceptive question.
• 6:37
  I look back on it now, and I think it's like completely absurd how much responsibility I was given so early, and I focused on that this Saturday.
• 6:50
  Because my wife and I, we went and saw with a couple of friends, we went and saw the new film, the Brad Pitt film F1 Formula One.
• 7:01
  Okay.
• 7:01
  And that made me immediately think that my gap year between high school and university.
• 7:08
  I had 10 months on the Steve McQueen Lamar Motor Racing, which is film, but I it was completely absurd.
• 7:16
  We, we had a, there was a terrible accident while we were filming where a driver called David Piper got trapped in a car.
• 7:24
  He couldn't get out, and the fire engine had been instructed.
• 7:28
  It was not to drive against.
• 7:30
  The direction of the cars, it had to go all the way around the track in order to reach him.
• 7:35
  And while it was doing all of that, those were the, the six minutes where he was burning and he lost his legs.
• 7:42
  And so it, it was the most awful thing.
• 7:45
  So what did they do?
• 7:47
  They said, okay, we gotta, they fired the track safety guy and they said, oh, we've gotta get someone who speaks French and English and that we trust.
• 7:57
  So who did they choose?
• 7:59
  They chose me and I was 18 years old.
• 8:02
  Oh my gosh.
• 8:03
  I was suddenly respon.
• 8:05
  I was up at night worrying about have I, prepared this well enough and that well enough, and nobody got, thank God nobody got hurt.
• 8:14
  But I remember my father visited and when he realized what I was actually responsible for.
• 8:21
  In the making of the film.
• 8:23
  He went to the producer and shouted at him, are you crazy?
• 8:27
  He's a child.
• 8:28
  Yeah.
• 8:29
  And yeah, too much, too early probably.
• 8:33
  And but God bless, because I got propelled right into producing, every time somebody on that film got fired, I got promoted.
• 8:43
  Oh my gosh, that's so crazy.
• 8:44
  But I love it.
• 8:45
  Like you were there at the right time and you had a good attitude and you were like, whatever it takes.
• 8:51
  And that's such an important message to young people and old people, right?
• 8:56
  Yeah, I think so.
• 8:57
  I think, luck.
• 8:59
  You can't make yourself have the lucky bolt of lightning, but you can be in the right place at the right time and repetitively.
• 9:11
  And in order to do that, you have to put yourself out.
• 9:14
  The metaphor that I use when I'm teaching and I put it in the book is imagine if you were sitting cross-legged in an envelope and it's dark.
• 9:25
  But, and you have a pencil, you can either just sit there and do nothing, or you can explore, you can poke in the dark with the pencil and Sure.
• 9:35
  If you do that once in a while, the point of the pencil will go through and you'll say, I.
• 9:40
  Whoops.
• 9:41
  I will never be a concert pianist.
• 9:44
  Okay?
• 9:45
  But then you have the great privilege as a young person.
• 9:49
  You haven't got a mortgage yet you're not responsible for, three kids and a spouse.
• 9:54
  You don't have job responsibility as a young person.
• 9:57
  Your great honor and privilege is you can pull the pencil back and say, okay.
• 10:02
  I'll just play the piano for fun, but I won't earn my living doing that.
• 10:07
  But you can then explore and go find another, oh, maybe I'm an engineer, maybe I'm an architect.
• 10:13
  And that exploration, one of the reasons why I say I.
• 10:18
  It one, one of my nonprofits.
• 10:19
  First are we house, educate and encourage teenage Foster kids, grades nine through 12.
• 10:27
  And we do it on the campuses of big universities.
• 10:32
  And we've got 17 of these things across the United States.
• 10:35
  Wow.
• 10:36
  And a few are in the uk.
• 10:37
  And one of the things that I say is, why do you want to go to university?
• 10:42
  I'll tell you number one,'cause you'll learn stuff and it will help you.
• 10:46
  Build the ladder to your career if you choose the right course, which of course I didn't.
• 10:51
  But then, trial and error.
• 10:53
  But the other reason to go to university if you're a foster kid is you can't be homeless while you are in college.
• 10:59
  Because First start won't let you go to university unless they'll let you stay in the dorm through the vacations.
• 11:06
  Don't get kicked out, don't have to couch surf, and it gives you an extra.
• 11:11
  Four years to find yourself what, what am I am I a pianist or am I an architect, kind of thing.
• 11:20
  And to have a structure, and the structure declines in its pressure on you.
• 11:26
  The older you get by the time you get to your senior year, they actually don't care whether you go to the lectures.
• 11:33
  They don't care if you go to the tutorials, whatever, because the only person you're hurting if you don't climb up the ladder is you won't get to the top.
• 11:41
  But that's gentle.
• 11:42
  They keep a good eye on you in your freshman year and it declines as you take on responsibility for your life.
• 11:49
  And I think also, especially for young men, you don't make very good decisions right in, in, in your late teens and early twenties.
• 11:59
  And it, there's a reason for it.
• 12:00
  The frontal lobe of your brain, right?
• 12:04
  Hasn't developed yet.
• 12:06
  So you are making decisions based on the back of your brain.
• 12:09
  The amygdala.
• 12:10
  Which, amygdala, which is never good.
• 12:12
  Yeah.
• 12:13
  Which is never the, what I love to say is it's fight or flight, right?
• 12:18
  The back of the brain, oh, there's a tiger.
• 12:21
  It's about to eat me.
• 12:23
  What do I do?
• 12:24
  Do I run or fight it?
• 12:25
  And of course what you don't do is to use the front of your brain'cause it hasn't developed yet, which says to you, ah, I don't have to run faster than the tiger.
• 12:37
  I only have to run faster than my friends standing next to me and the tiger will eat him and I'll get away.
• 12:44
  So it the chess game of life, especially our young men, I dunno why it is something in biology, young women.
• 12:53
  Are more mature earlier.
• 12:56
  We know that.
• 12:56
  Yeah.
• 12:57
  And more self preserving and more, friendships are easier for them and so on and so forth.
• 13:03
  Our young men who I'm particularly focused on,'cause I find in the mentoring boy, they need a lot of help and they have aha moments.
• 13:13
  If you are doing the mentoring well, that first half of your twenties.
• 13:19
  There's a lot in this book that stuff I've learned that young men need.
• 13:24
  We're cruel to our young men, it's so hard.
• 13:27
  I think it's hard.
• 13:28
  The way we socialize women and girls and boys is so hard, and I, what is the statistic of foster kids?
• 13:36
  Because they age out at 18.
• 13:38
  Yeah.
• 13:38
  And then so many of them become homeless.
• 13:41
  They're still babies and they haven't had structure and support.
• 13:45
  Yes.
• 13:45
  I think that's exactly right.
• 13:47
  Elaine, have you ever met an 18-year-old where you.
• 13:51
  Say, oh, have a nice life.
• 13:53
  Let us know how it goes.
• 13:54
  I was a complete disaster and I came my, I came from a dysfunctional family, but I was a disaster at 18.
• 14:01
  I can't imagine what it's like if you've gone from foster home to foster home, yeah it's a cruel system which defines its job in a very limited way.
• 14:13
  And we use this phrase in loco parentis.
• 14:16
  In other words, it's the government saying, all right, so there's been an allegation of abuse or neglect.
• 14:23
  A police officer and a social worker will investigate, and if they reckon it's true, they will remove the child and put them somewhere.
• 14:32
  Where they won't be neglected or abused.
• 14:36
  Fair enough.
• 14:36
  That hopefully.
• 14:37
  Hopefully, right?
• 14:39
  Yeah.
• 14:40
  But more often than not they aren't reused or Rene neglected, but that's not what parenting is, if the system is putting itself in instead of a parent or as a parent you don't stop raising your child by making sure they're safe crossing the road.
• 14:59
  You encourage them, right?
• 15:01
  You give them unconditional love.
• 15:02
  You, you say, oh, you enjoy playing the piano.
• 15:06
  Would you like to have lessons?
• 15:07
  We could do that.
• 15:08
  Oh, you run really fast.
• 15:10
  We gotta make sure you are on the track.
• 15:12
  Team.
• 15:12
  Oh, let's get you that book.
• 15:14
  Let's get you that.
• 15:15
  Course or whatever you, I think you're not doing too terribly well in math.
• 15:20
  That's okay.
• 15:21
  I didn't either.
• 15:22
  Let's get you a tutor.
• 15:23
  Look how cool will it be if you are ahead of everybody else in the class?
• 15:28
  It's encouragement.
• 15:29
  It's the cruelty of foster care.
• 15:32
  I have an example every three days in, in the mentoring.
• 15:36
  I said to a kid the other day, we were having lunch and I said, I've never seen such a mound of food on a plate.
• 15:44
  You, you seem to be always hungry.
• 15:47
  Why are you so hungry?
• 15:49
  And he said I always go to bed hungry.
• 15:52
  And I said, why?
• 15:53
  And he said'cause I'm not allowed.
• 16:02
  So Peter, you were talking about the kid who was always hungry who would go to bed at Hungry at night, and you asked him why.
• 16:11
  Yeah.
• 16:11
  Because I, he's sitting there in the commissary at UCLA with the biggest plate of food you've ever seen.
• 16:18
  And I said, why are you so hungry?
• 16:21
  I've never seen someone eat as much.
• 16:24
  And he said I always go to bed hungry.
• 16:26
  And I said can't you just go to the fridge, in your placement and just get a sandwich or something?
• 16:33
  And he said, no.
• 16:34
  And I said why not?
• 16:36
  They're getting paid to house you, feed you and clothe you and take care of you.
• 16:42
  And he said, I, no, I can't do that because there's a padlock on the fridge.
• 16:47
  I said, they have a padlock on the fridge, for goodness sake, who have keys to the padlock.
• 16:53
  And he says, the, the husband and wife and their two teenage kids, they all have keys.
• 16:59
  I'm the foster kid, I don't get one.
• 17:01
  And I thought to myself, this is so cruel.
• 17:04
  This is such a, a squash of this is blowing up self-esteem in a young person.
• 17:12
  It's an awful system.
• 17:14
  So I'll give you another example.
• 17:16
  When a foster kid generally is moved from one placement to another, what do they give them to put their worldly belongings into clothes and the diary and the poems and the music and so forth?
• 17:28
  A trash bag.
• 17:29
  What is the message to your soul of the appropriate receptacle is a trash bag.
• 17:37
  It means you are trash, right?
• 17:39
  So on the first day in First Star my charity that works to propel teenage foster kids into college first star.org.
• 17:50
  I say to them, roller the drums.
• 17:53
  And so they do this on their desks and the door opens and the youth coach is push in a conga line of roller board suitcases, brand new and gorgeous.
• 18:05
  And they are stunned.
• 18:07
  So in, at the very beginning of their ninth grade with us the residential portion, they all get a laptop.
• 18:14
  How can you tell who is a foster kid in a high school class?
• 18:18
  They're the ones who don't have any technology'cause nobody bought them.
• 18:22
  People are getting paid to buy it for them.
• 18:24
  They just don't do it generally.
• 18:26
  Wow.
• 18:26
  So it's a cruel old world, but given the opportunity of reliable grownups, unconditional love.
• 18:35
  The kids build a family with each other in a very real way, and some of our oldest graduates, our alumni, they're off into careers and so forth.
• 18:46
  They are still fully bonded as siblings with the scholars we call them, that they first met in ninth grade.
• 18:56
  I love it.
• 18:57
  In your book Finding Happy, you talk about the girl who was performing and she got a little stage fright and then her fellow, came to support her.
• 19:09
  Do you wanna tell that story?
• 19:10
  Yeah.
• 19:11
  My new theory, one of the things I am most bad, at least good at, is hiring and my new theory of hiring for any of the seven charities.
• 19:22
  Is if the per I try and ask a question about which child moved your heart.
• 19:29
  And if in telling me they don't tear up, I think we shouldn't hire them.
• 19:34
  This is now my new litmus test of who gets to work for one of my charities is they better have an emotional relationship with the mission.
• 19:44
  Yes.
• 19:44
  The little story I put in the book that you are talking about.
• 19:48
  We had a talent show in the Northwest Auditorium at the University of California Los Angeles, and we had, 200 adults sitting there in the bleacher seats, and one by one down on the stage are coming.
• 20:03
  Our must have been 10th graders and they're singing a song or they're, they've written a poem or they're doing, two of them are doing little ballet or spoken word, whatever their thing.
• 20:16
  And it's going really well.
• 20:18
  And down comes a young lady called Catalina, and the music comes up and she's so frightened that she can't get the first note out.
• 20:30
  I'm thinking this is terrible because now the music's left her behind and now the music stops and she's just frozen on the stage and I'm thinking, oh, I can't believe that we put her in this situation.
• 20:43
  Maybe we didn't expect this would happen, but still this is disgusting.
• 20:47
  This is terrible.
• 20:48
  We must never allow this to happen.
• 20:50
  You don't wanna add to her stuff already.
• 20:53
  Yeah.
• 20:54
  And I'm seeing outta the corner of my eye.
• 20:56
  Carina, the director of the academy is getting up.
• 21:00
  She's gonna go down presumably and take her off and we'll go on to the next person and it's terrible.
• 21:07
  And then an amazing thing happens in the same cohort as Catalina is a young man who.
• 21:17
  In football, he would be the linebacker.
• 21:20
  He'd be the big guy, and he lumbers down there on the stage and he plants himself between the audience and our singer who couldn't sing Catalina.
• 21:31
  And we can't see her anymore except her shoes.
• 21:35
  And there's some whispering.
• 21:37
  Then suddenly two girls from the cohort go down and now there's four of them and they're whispering.
• 21:44
  Now there's eight, and then there's 15, and now there's 22, and now there's all 30.
• 21:50
  And it's like this big little scrum of teenagers.
• 21:55
  Whisper, and a hand on the outside does the upward movement palm up?
• 22:02
  Meaning.
• 22:03
  Start the music again, and thank God the person on playback knew to go back to the beginning and out of the middle, invisibly comes the little voice of Catalina and she starts singing her song, and the more she sings, the stronger her voice gets.
• 22:21
  And by the end of it sounds like Beyonce and she's just belting it out.
• 22:26
  I cannot tell you what a moment that was.
• 22:29
  Every.
• 22:30
  One in the audience, half the audience were crying.
• 22:34
  I had tears in my eyes.
• 22:36
  EE everybody was cheering and applauding and the kids didn't know what to do.
• 22:43
  They hadn't thought it through.
• 22:44
  And they just put their arms around each other and came down off the stage together.
• 22:49
  And I thought, we didn't do this.
• 22:51
  We, the grownups, we, the program, we first star, we.
• 22:56
  College, we didn't do this.
• 22:58
  We just created the opportunity for them to do what humans do if encouraged to do it, which is to show empathy, to show unconditional love.
• 23:12
  And I just felt tremendous.
• 23:14
  I was so overcome by emotion.
• 23:17
  And I'm still British enough that, that's tricky for me.
• 23:20
  So I went off and had a little walk and then came back.
• 23:24
  And yeah, that's the story of Catalina.
• 23:27
  Oh, it's it's like you create the safe container for them.
• 23:31
  I love it's first star.org.
• 23:35
  Yeah.
• 23:36
  Correct.
• 23:37
  Okay, Peter, and then tell us again, I love your stories.
• 23:41
  Can you tell us about meeting your wife and having similar values and how you that I just love that story.
• 23:49
  Sure.
• 23:50
  I'm happy to.
• 23:51
  So I had never organized a charity.
• 23:56
  I'd occasionally given some money to other people's charities, but as a young man, I was, being a film producer.
• 24:02
  And then my cousin phoned me from the uk.
• 24:06
  I was already in Los Angeles.
• 24:08
  I'd immigrated and I had a work visa and I was on my way to a green card and all these good things.
• 24:16
  And, my cousin said to me that she had met in Children's Hospital, a dying 10-year-old little boy called Sean, and that she had asked him perhaps fool heartedly, what would make you really happy?
• 24:31
  And he said, oh, I want to go to Disneyland.
• 24:35
  She said, I, what do we do?
• 24:37
  And I said we do it.
• 24:39
  Is the mother willing?
• 24:40
  So she talked to the mom, Brenda and Brenda said, yeah, that would be lovely.
• 24:46
  And the doctor said, this child is dying, but if you think you can get him to la God bless, go for it.
• 24:54
  The mother.
• 24:55
  The cousin and the little boy flew to la we didn't put them in a hotel.
• 25:00
  They all moved into my flat.
• 25:02
  It was back when I was single.
• 25:04
  I just love that part.
• 25:05
  You were in your twenties, were you in your twenties?
• 25:08
  Yeah.
• 25:08
  Yeah.
• 25:09
  I was upper twenties yeah let me just think.
• 25:13
  Yeah, I was like 27 or something and, we had a most wonderful time and he did, and his mom did.
• 25:22
  And it was like this big thing.
• 25:24
  And what do film producers know how to do we call meetings, right?
• 25:28
  So I stood at the after work one day, I stood at the end of the conference room table and I had invited who I thought you might need.
• 25:35
  To start a charity, what would we need?
• 25:38
  A lawyer, an accountant, a publicist.
• 25:41
  We need a person who understands hospitals and we need a doctor or three and we need a graphic designer and we've gotta do this, we've gotta do that.
• 25:50
  And I just told the story.
• 25:53
  I said, maybe we could do it half dozen times a year.
• 25:56
  What do you think?
• 25:57
  Everybody said yes.
• 25:58
  The lawyer said, okay, I'll form it a as an entity.
• 26:02
  I need to incorporate it and we need to get a 5 0 1 C3, so donors will get a tax deduction.
• 26:08
  And he said, what do you want to call it?
• 26:10
  And I hadn't given it any thought, but I knew I would need an accountant and I'd had one date.
• 26:17
  And then, terrible, I hadn't called her.
• 26:20
  And I phoned the accounting lady who was very beautiful, by the way.
• 26:25
  So I was stupid not to have called her.
• 26:28
  And I said, I, it's me.
• 26:29
  I'm, I have truly apologized.
• 26:31
  She said, yeah, I was very disappointed in you.
• 26:34
  And I said, listen, it's even worse.
• 26:36
  Because I'm having this charity meeting and I need an accountant, will you please come?
• 26:40
  And she came.
• 26:41
  And when the lawyer said, what do you wanna call it?
• 26:43
  I said, I haven't given it any thought.
• 26:45
  And it was the accounting lady who said you know that Children's rhyme, Starlight Star, bright first Star I see tonight?
• 26:52
  I wish I may, I wish I might have this.
• 26:53
  Wish, I wish tonight.
• 26:55
  She said, why don't we call it the Starlight Children's Foundation?
• 26:59
  We all said, yeah.
• 27:01
  And the graphic designer said, oh, I can see the logo in my head.
• 27:05
  It's a child reaching up for a star.
• 27:08
  And we all said, yeah.
• 27:09
  So that was the beginning of Starlight, and I won't tell you any of the middle bit.
• 27:14
  I.
• 27:15
  We have raised and spent on seriously ill kids and their moms and dads and their siblings in Australia, Canada, across the United States and in the uk.
• 27:27
  In all those years since, well over a billion dollars.
• 27:31
  Wow.
• 27:31
  But so that was my second date with this very pretty young lady.
• 27:36
  And then we have more dates.
• 27:38
  Then it was the Christmas party, which we threw at County USC Medical Center in the children's ward, and we brought in a live band.
• 27:47
  I.
• 27:47
  The kids were there all dancing in their hospital smocks and all the rest of it.
• 27:53
  But some of the kids were so ill that they had been wheeled in into the auditorium in their hospital beds, and one little girl was dancing in her bed and SeaWorld the amusement park had donated their used adult animal.
• 28:13
  Sea creature costumes and one of those was a dolphin and there was like a grill in its chest for the adult inside to look out.
• 28:24
  And I looked at the kid in the bed dancing seriously ill, and I looked into the grill.
• 28:32
  Where was the face of the accountant who I had been dating?
• 28:37
  And she was so moved by the little girl that all the mascara had run down her cheeks, and I thought, oh, thunderstruck, I love this woman.
• 28:49
  I.
• 28:50
  Anyway, cut to the chase.
• 28:52
  We've been married decades and we've raised four children together and we have three grandchildren.
• 28:58
  And that's Sarah.
• 29:00
  That's my wife.
• 29:02
  Oh, I love it.
• 29:02
  I love it.
• 29:03
  The me the mess.
• 29:04
  One of the messages of the book is if you wanna find happy, help someone.
• 29:10
  Go either volunteer or start your own or you could do it full-time.
• 29:15
  You can do it part-time, you can do it two hours a week.
• 29:18
  But if you wanna find happy, and for example, if you wanna find someone to be loved by and to love you, what are you gonna do?
• 29:27
  Seriously?
• 29:27
  You're gonna flip left and right on some app.
• 29:30
  It's all eyes.
• 29:31
  They did the photo with ai.
• 29:33
  That's not what they really look like and all their self description is all nonsense.
• 29:38
  It's what their friends told them they should say, and it's a hiding to nowhere.
• 29:44
  If you want to meet someone to love and be loved by, go volunteer somewhere and look to the left and look to the right.
• 29:51
  Who are these people who share what you care about?
• 29:55
  They care about also.
• 29:57
  Go out with one of them, see what happens.
• 30:00
  I did.
• 30:01
  And it's one of the pillars of me finding happy.
• 30:06
  I love it.
• 30:07
  I love it.
• 30:08
  You have so many inspiring stories.
• 30:10
  Peter, can you tell us one more about the work that you do with the homeless e edar?
• 30:18
  Yeah.
• 30:19
  When I realized I mean I had Starlight Star, bright and First Star and they were, really doing very well, power of a big idea maybe, and the work of hundreds or thousands.
• 30:31
  So I was looking for a another challenge.
• 30:36
  Because I'm a starter opera.
• 30:38
  It's what film producers do.
• 30:39
  Yeah.
• 30:40
  It's like what my toolkit is you make it happen.
• 30:42
  Yeah.
• 30:43
  And you don't just think about it, you actually do it.
• 30:45
  You call the meeting and you hire the people and do the business plan and work out how do I pitch this thing that doesn't exist yet so that people will want to help.
• 30:55
  So I came out of a business breakfast in a restaurant in Beverly Hills called Nate Nas.
• 31:02
  And a tall, smelly man, poorly dressed, came into my personal, invaded my personal space and shoved his hand palm up into my chest.
• 31:18
  And I was, flummoxed and I reached in my pocket and I got, I don't know, a dollar or$5 or something, and I put it in his hand and I.
• 31:26
  Hightailed it off to my car and I sat there thinking, this is ridiculous.
• 31:32
  He has nothing.
• 31:34
  I have everything and I'm intimidated by him.
• 31:38
  What's wrong with this picture?
• 31:40
  So I decided to lean into it and on weekends on my bicycle, I went and found homeless people and I asked them two basic questions.
• 31:52
  How do you get money?
• 31:53
  Where do you sleep?
• 31:55
  And an old lady, when I said, where do you sleep?
• 31:58
  She said come with me.
• 31:59
  And she pulled me by the sleeve and she took me onto the wasteland that's next to the interstate freeway.
• 32:06
  Freeway and Santa Monica Boulevard.
• 32:09
  And behind a bush was a huge cardboard box.
• 32:14
  It had been raining and it didn't smell good and it had a bit of blue plastic over the top and she said, this is where I sleep in there and on the side of the box.
• 32:25
  And I guess this was the kick in the chest for me to my emotions, my sense of injustice on the side of the box in foot high letters, it said Sub-Zero.
• 32:39
  And I thought, I'll be damned.
• 32:41
  I got the refrigerator.
• 32:44
  She's living in the box, the cardboard box.
• 32:47
  So my first thought was I'll build a building.
• 32:50
  I got an architect, a space planner, and a budgeter.
• 32:54
  Turns out to get a piece of cheap land and put up a hundred bed building is about$5 million.
• 33:05
  If you divide 5 million by a hundred, you've got$50,000 for each bed that you generate.
• 33:10
  And that doesn't pay to run it.
• 33:12
  That just pays to build the thing and build the bed.
• 33:15
  Build it.
• 33:15
  Wow.
• 33:15
  Yeah.
• 33:16
  I thought, okay, how many unhoused people are there in la?
• 33:21
  So they, we know it's in the census.
• 33:24
  It was a hundred thousand people back then who were unhoused.
• 33:28
  Wow.
• 33:28
  So I thought, okay, let's do the math.
• 33:30
  A hundred thousand times$50,000.
• 33:33
  That's$5 billion with a BI thought, I have no idea how to put a dent in that.
• 33:40
  I dunno how you,$5 billion.
• 33:42
  It's ridiculous.
• 33:43
  And they'll, the taxpayers will never, I.
• 33:46
  Go for that, right?
• 33:47
  Stump, go for that.
• 33:48
  Stump that up.
• 33:49
  So therefore, neither will the politicians.
• 33:52
  So I thought but for God's sake, we gotta be able to do better than a cardboard box.
• 33:56
  Yeah.
• 33:57
  So in my head, I.
• 34:00
  I had this idea for a thing that didn't have a name.
• 34:03
  In the daytime, you push it around, you do your recycling, you put your panty or over the top with the cans in, you put your clothes inside it, and it's like like a big shopping cart.
• 34:15
  But at night, the difference is because of the design you put on the brakes, you let the front down, you let the back down, and now you have a cot raised off the ground so you don't die of pneumonia.
• 34:28
  And it's got two doors and two windows and I couldn't design it'cause I honestly, I have the spatial design ability of a tadpole.
• 34:37
  Yeah.
• 34:38
  But I found the Pasadena Art Center College of Design, where they teach their undergrad and grad students how to design, retail projects and automobiles and stuff.
• 34:51
  Three dimensional stuff.
• 34:53
  I went off and met with Dean Korshe and I said, if I put up a prize, could we have a competition?
• 35:01
  And he said, fantastic.
• 35:02
  Let's do it.
• 35:03
  What do you want to call it?
• 35:05
  And I said, I don't know.
• 35:07
  And he said everyone deserves a roof.
• 35:09
  And I said, that's it.
• 35:10
  The acronym, ED r.org, EDA r.org.
• 35:17
  And we gave the prize to the two winners, Jason Zza and Eric Lindeman.
• 35:23
  Eric is still on the board of Ed A and we have hundreds of these things around.
• 35:28
  Primarily in the Sunbelt, from LA to Florida.
• 35:33
  It really, we have hundreds of these things with people sleeping in them.
• 35:37
  They get very my favorite lady is Brenda and she uses one on skid row and it, you could eat off it.
• 35:46
  It is so immaculate.
• 35:47
  And she has a welcome mat in front of the Proud she's.
• 35:51
  She's very proud of it and it's great also for ex-military people.
• 35:55
  We're very cruel.
• 35:56
  We don't do right by people who would, we don't.
• 35:59
  Who have served the country with, bravery and diligence.
• 36:03
  And then so many of them end up homeless.
• 36:05
  But it's great for ex-military people'cause they know how to make a bed and they know how to keep it spic and span and they're very proud of it.
• 36:13
  And they're 800 bucks.
• 36:14
  And every time we raise 800 bucks on e a.org, we order another one from the factory.
• 36:20
  And we're up to hundreds and hundreds now.
• 36:23
  And that my dear, is e a.org.
• 36:26
  And now a quick word.
• 36:28
  If you are a business owner, especially a coach, speaker, author, and you are not making short form video content about who you are.
• 36:37
  What you offer and what makes you uniquely qualified, this is your sign.
• 36:42
  The internet is not going away.
• 36:44
  Social media is not going away, and video is not going away.
• 36:47
  And I know a lot of people have a lot of opinions and ideas and theories about what it's like to be on video.
• 36:54
  Video, what it's like to be confident on camera.
• 36:57
  And you don't have to be perfect.
• 36:59
  You don't have to have perfect teeth or perfect hair.
• 37:02
  In fact, the more relatable and human you can be, the more people are likely to lean in and engage with you.
• 37:09
  Short form content is still the best way to get in front of new people who don't know about you yet, so that they can get to know, like, and trust you, and lean in and sign up for your email things and your free gifts.
• 37:24
  And your channels so that they begin to trust you and follow you, and then come play with you in whatever you're offering.
• 37:32
  So if the idea of doing video scares you, or you know it's time, reach out.
• 37:38
  I'd love to have a quick call.
• 37:40
  There's no pressure.
• 37:42
  I work with all kinds of people.
• 37:44
  I do one days, I have a group program, I do one-on-one.
• 37:48
  There's a lot of flexibility.
• 37:49
  My mission is to help heal the world with love and laughter.
• 37:52
  One joke.
• 37:53
  One video, one story, one interview at a time, and I can't do it alone.
• 37:58
  So let's connect and now back to the show.
• 38:06
  I love it.
• 38:07
  Peter you've done so much.
• 38:09
  You've started seven charities and the first star, the For Fosters Kids, you've raised over a billion dollars.
• 38:20
  Over a billion in Starlight, which is one for seriously ill kids.
• 38:24
  Okay.
• 38:24
  And we, I mean we've raised millions and millions of dollars for First Star and EDA and the rest of them, it's the work of thousands of people.
• 38:32
  Producers don't make films on their own.
• 38:35
  We put a crew of 150 people together and that's who makes the film.
• 38:39
  You know how to surround yourself with smart people, right?
• 38:41
  I.
• 38:42
  That's what you have to do and you are putting a team together and you have pattern recognition.
• 38:48
  Film to film.
• 38:49
  Every script is different, but how you do it.
• 38:52
  You think, oh yeah I've met this challenge before.
• 38:55
  This is what I did last time.
• 38:57
  That didn't work.
• 38:58
  But what I'll do this time is this.
• 39:00
  So you get better and better at it.
• 39:01
  You get up to 27 films and you worked it out how to do it.
• 39:05
  Yeah.
• 39:06
  But what I've done is take that toolkit sideways, so the book.
• 39:12
  Is like a self-help guide for teenagers, young adults, early twenties, I would say Gen Z and the lower millennials.
• 39:22
  And it's called Finding Happy.
• 39:24
  It's online, it's in bookstores.
• 39:27
  Amazon, Barnes and Noble.
• 39:30
  I also wanna say Peter, like I'm in my fifties and I loved this book and I'm going to buy another copy for my.
• 39:37
  For my niece, and I found it so inspiring.
• 39:42
  I was listening to it and I was choking up the whole, it took me a few days to listen to all of it.
• 39:47
  So if you're looking for a summer read, if you need some inspiration, get several copies.
• 39:53
  It's one of the most inspiring.
• 39:56
  Motivating books I've ever read, and I'm so honored to have been able to interview you today.
• 40:03
  And I apologize for the technical challenges, but we got through it, we got we got through it, we did the stuff.
• 40:10
  It's called Finding Happy.
• 40:12
  The website is, samuelson La, S-A-M-U-E-L-S-O-N la that's like my site.
• 40:21
  And right there you can see all the retailers and so forth.
• 40:25
  It's a audio book.
• 40:27
  It's an ebook on Kindle and whatnot.
• 40:30
  And it is a paperback and I would love to get reviews.
• 40:36
  No.
• 40:37
  If you hate it God bless and don't review it.
• 40:40
  But if you, I don't see how anybody could hate it.
• 40:42
  Yes.
• 40:42
  We all need to buy it and rate and review and help push it out.
• 40:46
  Yeah, because everybody needs this book it's, it books in bulk, which means orders of more than 25 copies and you get them kind of half price kind of idea.
• 40:56
  We are number one for the month of June.
• 40:59
  So I'm hoping that what that means is that maybe high schools and colleges ordered it, in bulk.
• 41:05
  Yeah.
• 41:05
  Or some teacher for, as a course aid or something.
• 41:08
  I think also churches, any kind of youth organization any kind of spiritual group would love this book.
• 41:15
  Book clubs.
• 41:16
  Yeah.
• 41:17
  Part of my life is speaking in mosques and churches and synagogues.
• 41:23
  And if only everyone knew that what we have in common is much more than what divides us.
• 41:29
  Oh boy, would the world be a better place?
• 41:31
  Ah amen.
• 41:33
  Yes.
• 41:34
  Amen.
• 41:34
  Thank Peter.
• 41:35
  I'm so grateful, Elaine.
• 41:37
  And, send me all your links and we will cross link this whole new Wonderful.
• 41:43
  Yes.
• 41:43
  Where I have a young person helping me on all the social media stuff.
• 41:48
  And we will push it on.
• 41:49
  Yes.
• 41:51
  X and absolutely.
• 41:53
  Thank you so much, Peter.
• 41:54
  Thank you for being this amazing guest and for your inspiration and for all the people you've helped and the power of example.
• 42:01
  You are.
• 42:03
  Whew.
• 42:03
  Thank you.
• 42:04
  Okay, thanks everybody.