11 - Billy Christensen - Finding meaning and mid-life crises

Billy Christensen joins us today. Billy is another one of my fraternity brothers from the SMU Lambda Chi Alpha house. Billy now lives in Atlanta and works in consulting. He reached out via email to propose a discussion about meaning and purpose. This is really cool conversation as it's less about interviewing Billy and more about a back-and-forth discussion of some of the root causes of mid-life crises. Billy is really open and shares a lot about the struggles he feels even while he has all the traditional markers of success - great job, great wife, great kids, etc. He has a really intriguing take about bottling up emotions and looking for those big emotional releases, big highs and lows, and if that could be part of what causes guys to seek out flashy cars or other mid life crises cliches. We also talk a bit about philanthropy as a path to fulfillment and immortality as well embracing of different cultures including spending WAY too much time talking about K-Pop. We end with a talk about therapy and feeling that you are enough.

We spend a bit of time talking about Stoicsm as well. If you're unfamiliar with Stoicism it's an ancient philosophy that's gained new prominence. Here are a good site to get you started, the Daily Stoic.

Billy also mentioned Brené Brown's TED talk on the "Power of Vulnerability". If you haven't seen it I strongly recommended it, check it out here.

We also joked a bit about K-Pop and Billy's experiences with karaoke in Korea. He suggested a band called BIGBANG...here's a video for you to peruse.

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