E88: The Hidden Power of Your "X Factor" to Unlock True Purpose at Work with Paul Comfort

Most people spend their lives chasing a vague sense of purpose—until they realize they're stuck in a job that saps their energy and passion. Paul Comfort reveals a simple but powerful framework to find your unique "X Factor," the intersection of your interests and abilities, that unlocks true fulfillment in work and life. Imagine waking up every day fired up to do what you love—and getting paid for it. 

In this episode, Paul shares his personal journey from media-savvy transit advocate to the host of the world's top transit podcast, all powered by discovering his own X Factor. He breaks down the moment he knew his career was missing something—hating a job that drained him—and how he pivoted using introspection and self-awareness to find his purpose. You'll discover how to identify your passions, leverage your skills, and recognize the right timing to make life-changing moves. 

Paul emphasizes practical tools—like assessing your pain points and quieting your mind—to help you dive inward and align your life with your true purpose Perfect for anyone feeling stuck, unfulfilled, or eager to wake up with a fire in their belly, this conversation offers practical insights to help you find your purpose and rise to your fullest potential. If you're ready to stop drifting and start living intentionally, tune in now.

Connect with Paul

https://paulcomfort.org/

Want to be a guest on Work Sucks, But I Like It? Send Tony Tenaglier a message on PodMatch, here: https://www.podmatch.com/hostdetailpreview/worksucksbutlikeit

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:11

All right, welcome to the Work Sucks But I Like It podcast. Today we have Paul Comfort. He's the author of the upcoming book, Find Your X Factor. Follow your personal treasure map to purpose. He's an adjunct for graduate faculty at Villanova and serves as Senior Vice President and Chief Customer Officer at Modaxo. Modaxo? Get the right Paul. Thank you. The world's largest public transportation company. He is also the producer and host of Transit Unplugged with more than 500 podcast and TV episodes and over 11 million views across all platforms. Paul, welcome to the show.

SPEAKER_00 0:46

Thanks, Honey. Thanks for having me, brother.

SPEAKER_01 0:48

Yeah, no, looking forward to this. Paul, define work for us today.

SPEAKER_00 0:52

Work is something that is productive enough that someone will pay you for it. And hopefully it's something that you get some satisfaction from.

SPEAKER_01 1:03

I love that. So how does that look in your day today, Paul?

SPEAKER_00 1:06

Today I had a great day. I came back from an 11-day vacation in Myrtle Beach. Today was my first day back at work. And I love what I do and I'm good at it. And so it's what I call your X factor. That's the intersection of your interest and abilities. And so it's like getting paid for my hobby. So I hosted a town hall meeting for hundreds of our employees today, interviewing our chief product officer. I had several really interesting meetings. I reviewed schedules for upcoming filming of our TV show in St. Louis. I responded to around 50 emails. That kind of stuff, you know. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:48

All part of the work. No, love that, Paul. So I really like the concept of your book here, this X factor. So before you found your sort of X marks the spot with sort of your strengths and abilities and how you show up in the world, walk us through that sort of catalyst moment when you realize that something was missing.

SPEAKER_00 2:06

Interesting. Yeah. So I've always felt like I wanted to help people. I want to engage with people. I'm a people person. I'm not like a thing person, you know, not like a mechanic, an engineer. I can't, you know, look at something and size it up and say, oh yeah, that needs four sixteenth sheetrock there, whatever, you know, like my oldest son can do. He's a handyman. So I always gravitated toward jobs that help people. Government, public transportation is what I ended up doing. But in that, I always loved the media. So, you know, as soon as I could get on the radio, I did when I was 16 years old. As soon as I could get a car and get to a radio station and start working, spinning records on the weekends at WCTR AM 1530 in Chestertown, Maryland. And we played Still got it. Yeah, the music of your life, you know. So I did that for 16 years. I started a talk show called Comfort's Corner, where I interviewed local celebrities, county commissioners, you know, Adjutant General, the Maryland National Guard, that kind of stuff. Anyway, I just kept leading to that. Later on, I started television stations for local governments. I started America's only FM radio station run by a transit system. And I had a job one time, Tony, where I couldn't do any of that. And there was no media like no, no, like what I love doing. I remember, man, when I went to University of Maryland, I was a DJ at WUMD, and I had the 5 to 7 p.m. shift on Monday nights. And the studio was in the student union. So I could see out the window right behind me the students when I would play music. When I dropped that record player on Joshua Tree when it first came out, that's how old I am, dude. You too? That's all right. You too. I like it. Yeah, yeah. And seeing their eyes light up where the streets have no name. There's nothing like that, brother. But there was a job I had in Washington, D.C., where I worked for five years. I had to drive an hour and a half in, an hour and a half back, and the the I was helping people, but the situation was pretty bad, pretty miserable. I have a chapter in my book about it called When You Hate Your Job. Coming home, screaming on the phone to my wife, I hate my job. That was when I knew something was missing. So I ended up volunteering for something that would give me approximation of that, which was, hey, I'll do the new employee orientation. And that's a theme in my book, Tony, is that if you're if you're in a job that sucks and you know there's nothing there you really like about it, the situation is bad, your boss disrespects you, you're not being utilized, your capabilities aren't being utilized, you know, you're doing administrative work that you think is rote and boring, all that kind of stuff like that job was. You don't have to blow up your life to get some fun out of your work. And that's one of the key principles in the book is just lean into what you love. But first you got to figure it out. First you got to find what that spot is. I knew what it was. So I said, you know, I like being in front of people, I like helping people, I like communicating publicly. And so I will be the guy on Mondays that gives a new employee orientation for 30 new people that come into the office. And I loved it. And just like Mondays at 5 to 7 p.m. was my favorite time for about 10 years after I had that gig, because it just gets in your head, you know, that's my go time, baby. That's my golden hour. So I had the same kind of thing here where Mondays became my favorite day because that's when I could stand up for two or three hours and explain everything to I like showing the big picture. People always complain they don't know what in the world's going on at work. I like explaining to them. This is what's going on at work, you know? And I've I've had that problem myself. And so since I'm one of the big bosses here, I'm gonna make sure you get to know what's going on. So, anyway, that's a lesson I learned from a job that sucked, but I was able to make it suck less. And I learned some lessons there too. You know, by the time I was done, I could eat steel wool for breakfast. And I needed that in my next job. So, what would you say your X factor is now, Paul? So it is the intersection of your interests and abilities. My abilities are in are in transportation, right? So I've been doing transportation now for over 30 years. I've run small, medium, and large systems. I mentioned to you in the green room that I was CEO of the MTA in Baltimore, the transit system there, one of the largest systems in America, you know, with 5,000 employees and contractors, a billion-dollar budget, been elected county commissioner, I've been a county administrator, had all these jobs with a lot of responsibilities and budgets and all like that. So I'm good at government and I'm good at politics and good at transportation, all that government stuff. And you cross-reference that with my interest, which is passionate communication, energy, energetic communication. I love, you know, what I'm doing with you right now. This to me is fun. I love to, you know, they say nine out of ten people are scared to death of public speaking. Well, I'm that one out of ten guys that's not, that actually thrives on it. And so that's it. Where I can find an intersection where I can talk about leadership, transportation, and and then do it in a public setting where I've got the ear of the public. That's my X factor. And that's what I'm doing for a living now. I've been doing it for 10 years. I've been able to take the fun stuff and make it what I can get paid for. And I'm half decent at it, so people pay me for it. We have I have the number one transit podcast in the world now, I heard in 100 countries. And our YouTube channel, every show now is getting a million views. And I've built a network of 30 television channels across America that's airing it as well. So it's being recognized, you know, the award behind my shoulder, all these awards, these are all the awards we've gotten for the show. So we're being recognized for a level of quality that puts people in the seat where they want to be, where they can see and visualize everything. So I'm loving what I'm doing. That's it, Tony. That's the X factor. And people need to find theirs.

SPEAKER_01 7:38

So, Paul, I want to kind of explore that. So you say that you weren't an engineer, but I loved, I sort of gravitated towards your Cartesian plot, your XY plot of getting your X factor, right? You have the lower left of searching, you have the fire and the forge, and then you get your X factor. Walk us through how someone maybe is searching, right? Just find the terms of fire and forge so how we can get to our X factor.

SPEAKER_00 8:02

Yeah, man. Yeah. So, you know, do you wake up, like you and I are recording this on a Monday? Do you wake up on a with Monday morning blues or do you wake up with fire in the belly? That's a good way to know, you know, am I doing what I'm meant to do? You see, I believe that a lot of people, they really want to live their life on, they want to fulfill their purpose. You know, if you if you studied psychology, you studied Maslow's hierarchy of needs, you want to be self-actualized, you want to be at the top of that pyramid. But a lot of people don't know what they're supposed to do with their lives. They're not really sure. You know, I know I don't want to do what my dad did, or I know I don't want to do what my mom did, you know, or you have these parameters, you know. I had a a friend, one of my son's friends, his dad had an HVAC business. And his dad basically offered to give it to him. It was a million-dollar business. And he's like, I know I don't want to do that. I don't know what I want to do. Well, he ended up going to Montana and actually becoming a real cowboy, and that's where he's at now. So uh he's actually living the Yellowstone lifestyle right near where that's at in Montana. But anyway, I think he's in South Dakota, which is closer there. But the thought is to find that fire in the belly, right? That forge in the fire where you feel like, yeah, I'm waking up. It's not heartburn, it's like, you know, real burning fire in the belly. It is being able to do what you love, right? Now, there's an old adage, I've been a commencement speaker at a high school and a college, and I told both of them, look, most times somebody's gonna come up here and tell you, follow your passion. Well, I'm gonna tell you that's only half the equation. Tell you the story of my friend Don. I grew up, I had a play piano and keys, I sing, had a band, Sons of Thunder, in college. We toured, we made a record. We were okay. We weren't great, you know. But I had a friend Don who wanted to sing, and he was awful as a singer. Uh, you know, and he's like, Paul, I really have this passion to sing. I really want to sing. And I'm, you know, I'm trying to be nice to him. He's my friend. I'm like, Don, you know, have you ever thought about picking up guitar? No, I don't want to play guitar. I want to sing. How about lights? You know, we need a light guy in the band. No, I want to sing. Well, you see, the problem is if Don had tried to sing and he's awful, he'd have been embarrassed, he'd have failed, he'd have been miserable. And he would have followed his dreams, but it would have let him right off the cliff, metaphorically speaking. So you gotta also cross-reference that with what you're good at or what you can get good at. And so, yeah, Don could have taken singing lessons, you know, it could have taken him five to ten years. But a lot of people aren't willing to put in the work, right? To get, if you're four foot eleven and you want to play in the NBA, it doesn't matter how great your passion is, it ain't happening, brother. So this is getting the fire, is finding out not only what you're good at, but what you're passionate about and what you can find those intersections. It looks like you've looked at my website, findyourxfactor.ai. I'd encourage your listeners to do that. There's a couple free assessments on there. The book's not even out yet. So, but I'm trying to get the information out there to people to help you assess what is my X Factor, because I think that you can find your purpose in life at that intersection. And that's actually the subtitle of the book. Follow your secret treasure map to purpose. I believe, Tony, it's already hardwired into you what your purpose in life is. You know what you're interested in. You know, it's what makes time fly by, right? You're out in the, if you're a guy, you're out in the garage, maybe gal too, you're out in the garage, you're working on the car, the wife comes out and says it's dinner time, you're like, dinner time? I just got out of here an hour ago. No, you've been out there four hours, honey. Time is flying by, man, or at standstill, whatever analogy you want to use, right? That's probably something that you are really interested in, that you're passionate about. And then if you're good at it, you know, you can cross-reference that, right? Or you look, think about all the things you love in your life. Well, I like playing golf, outdoor sports, I like hiking, I like water skiing, I can't I can't make a living other things. Yeah, but did you notice they're all outside? Everything you love is outside. So maybe you shouldn't get a desk job because you're gonna be miserable. So it is, you know, what most of us are not that good at anymore, a little bit of self-introspection. That's what's required at the beginning to figure out what what is what is this thin thread through my life that I've always leaned into, that I've always loved, you know? And then what have I been praised for by other people that I'm good at? Not what your mom says you're good at. Your mom thinks you're good at everything, right? Oh, Jerry, how could no one love Jerry? Remember that at Seintel? But um, so what you're recognized for, right? The certificates, the trophies like I pointed to. What are people recognizing you for? Figure that out, put that on one axis, put that on the other, write them all down, and circle where the in where the intersection is. What could I do that I love but in an area where I'm good at? Boom, baby, you found your X factor. Then you start leaning into it. Don't blow up your life, don't quit your job. You could start searching for a job in that area. First, you got to figure out what that would be. It could be a handful of jobs. And then, you know, Tony, the last thing I know I'm talking a lot. Sorry, I'll let you ask.

SPEAKER_01 12:59

No, this is great, man.

SPEAKER_00 13:00

This is great. The other thing you got to work on, I was just talking to somebody about it this weekend, is timing. So you got your interest, your ability, and the right time. I talked to a young man, I was coaching him, I coach a lot of young men and women, especially young men and their job career searches. And he was telling me, you know, he had there was a job opening, a promotion that is work. That's just happened. And uh the job is actually still open. But he said, I don't know if I'm ready for it. I said, What have you been taking all these courses for? Getting all these certifications. You told me the reason you were doing that was so that you could get a promotion. Yeah, but I don't know if it's the right time. Because, and then he pointed out all these other factors going on at the organization and how things could be shaky. And he wouldn't want to step into this position, like so many things happen, and you get the break, you climb out on the branch and then someone saws off the branch behind you, right? So you often have to be wise in the timing of it. Is it the right time or should I pause? So that's a third factor to consider in there. But that's it, Tony. That is finding your X factor. I've got stories in the book of eight different vignettes, a lot of my stories, but a lot of stories of famous people you've heard of, you know, like Jim Carrey, when he wrote himself a check for $5 million and dated it, you know, on a certain date. And on that date he signed his uh it was actually $10 million for five years from now. And on that date, he signed for Dumb and Dumber for $10 million, and he cashed the check, you know, and the visualization power of putting these things into motion in our lives, following not only your passion but what you're good at. He obviously was very good at what he did. Uh, you know, he was probably the number one movie star in America for 10 years. But I've also got stories of eight other people who reached the heights in business and entertainment, Marconi Award winners, top sports stars in the country that I've interviewed, that told me their story about how they found that intersection. And that, Tony, is what you need to do today. If work sucks, you need to find out the intersection of your interests and abilities. Analyze yourself. You don't need anybody to help you. You don't need me to help you. You just need to do your homework, man. Do the work on yourself.

SPEAKER_01 15:00

I love that, Paul. So I did take your assessment, and interestingly enough, I found my X factor. So I thought that was very cool to kind of see the work sort of, I guess, paying off, if you will. So I'm very curious. I'm very I like understanding the definition of words, Paul. So let me get this straight here. So fire, we're saying is the passion, and then we're missing something else, which you kind of alluded to, right? You could be 4'11, but you're obviously not going to be a basketball player. I guess, like, is the forge the skills? Is that what we're kind of saying here? Fire is the passion, forging of the skills to find that X factor.

SPEAKER_00 15:31

Yeah, that's right.

SPEAKER_01 15:32

Beautiful, excellent. So, one of the things we like to say, Paul, on the show is that success is not a matter of good luck. It's good skills. So, what would you say is the most important skill that people overlook when finding their purpose?

SPEAKER_00 15:45

Good. So I think it all depends on what your skills are, right? So I do a lot of leadership courses for people in management, leadership, et cetera. And what I say there is if you're in a leadership position, the number one skill set is communication. You have to be able to communicate upward, outward, and inward. And there's a chapter in a book about that. So upward to the people who you work for, outward to the people that you're serving, and inward to the employees in your organization. And there's strategies behind each of them. You see, what happens, Tony, too often in life is uh I'll give you an example of a mechanic, right? His name is Joe. Joe is a great mechanic. He's an A mechanic on buses in the garage, and everyone loves him. He's a great guy, does great work. All of his skill set tests are all great. So then a supervisor job opens up, and they're like, well, who better to take that supervisor job than Joe? So Joe gets a promotion, $2 an hour raise. He's excited, he goes home and tells the wife. But and the training for him consists of the HR lady coming down and saying, Here's how you do payroll. And then the guy from the parts shop coming in and saying, Here's how you order parts. Now you're a supervisor. What the heck, Tony? They just missed the most important thing. He's been a regular Joe with all the other guys and gals in the shop for the last 10 years, and now he's suddenly got to be their boss. Who's gonna teach him those skill sets required to lead people, right? That's why people end up getting out on that limb, like I talked about, and then getting sawed off behind them because they're like, well, you didn't do a good job. I don't know what happened. He was a good mechanic. Yeah, well, you never trained him how to be a good supervisor. So the number one skill that people sometimes fail to get is training. So it's communication if you're in leadership, but then it's also the skills, the soft skills that you need in leadership to lead people, to get the people that you used to goof off with and drink with on Friday nights to then come in Monday morning and do what you tell them to do. That's a very different skill set for someone. And it's shame on us if we don't train Joe and Sue and all and Kumar and all the others who we've promoted, but then leave them stranded.

SPEAKER_01 18:02

Now that's excellent. So, Paul, I'm very curious, especially from your perspective of being, you know, high up in organizations and running them. Why do some workplace cultures overlook this important skill of building soft skills, if you will? They're always looking at the hard skills. Why is that? Why do we overlook it?

SPEAKER_00 18:20

You tell me, brother. I I I I you know, obviously it's overlooked by people, but you think they'd figure it out after a while because you keep putting these guys and gals in these jobs. And what I tell people is look, there is uh there used to be something called Fred Pryor seminars. So there's, I don't know if they're still around anymore, but I took one when I first got a supervisor job. It was a two-day class. You go somewhere, somebody sits in a room and they start talking to you about, you know, here's the legal things required to hire and fire people, what you can and cannot do, you know, here's how you motivate people, here's how you keep track of things, all the things you need to do when you're in supervision that no one teaches you. So the simple thing to do is find a two-day course or a one-day course and send your new supervisors to it. The class was actually called first-time supervisors, I remember. And it was awesome. It actually set me up for success the rest of my freaking career, Tony. This one two-day class I took. So if there's one thing you can do today, invest in yourself. If you've been promoted and you don't really know what you're doing, ask your boss, find the course, ask your boss to send you to it. If he won't or she won't, do it yourself. Take time off and do it or find an online course. Invest in yourself to make yourself good at what at what you're to improve your skill set, to forge those skills. It is critical. You don't want to fail, right? You want to take advantage of the opportunity, right? There's no such thing as luck, as you were saying a minute ago, basically. It is being ready when the opportunity arises. So the way you're ready is you take those courses, you get yourself ready, you build those skill sets so that when the opportunity comes, you can do what you love and also be good at it.

SPEAKER_01 20:01

So I want you to get technical, Paul, for our for our listeners here. So how do we know what we need to work on? How do you know?

SPEAKER_00 20:09

So here's what I taught uh a class about 10 years ago in Los Angeles. It was at the end of this big conference called the APTA, American Public Transportation Association conference. All the leaders of our industry, about 2,000 people in the room, and I took a chair and sat it in the middle of the stage and sat down and put my hands in my lap and said, Here's what you're not doing that you need to do. You need to sit still, quiet everything down, right? We have so much noise in our head now with social media and everything else, right? Quiet yourself down and metaphorically feel where the pain is. Where are you being bitten by the little dogs? Where are these pain points coming in your life? You know, for me, at my age over 50, you're always feeling a little pain in the lower back. But I'm not talking about physical pain. I'm talking about what are the little things that are bothering you that you've kind of set aside and you don't pay attention to them. So I would say do that. Let your mind tell you. It's a form of meditation, right? Letting letting all the thoughts come out. Come out, come out, come out, and then sitting still and seeing what comes to you. Come with a question to your subconscious, to your superconscious, to God, whatever it is you believe in, and ask for the answers. And I think it'll come to you and you'll be you'll be able to start seeing. You'll figure it out. The thoughts that, you know, they say that dreaming is your mind shuffling the experiences and the memories you have between the following cabinets, trying to get them in the right thing. So try to dream while you're awake. Try to do that reshuffling and figure out what is going on. Why is my boss acting that way? Why is my spouse acting that way? What is going on? Why can't I get any success at work? Well, how come no one recognizes what I'm doing? And you ask those questions, you know, in the car ride home while you've got the music blaring and you know, you're talking on the phone and you're texting and everything else. No, no, man. You gotta sit still, calm yourself, and let it come to you.

SPEAKER_01 22:00

So, Paul, people are afraid to travel inward, right? And I love the fact that you love transportation. And I feel like sometimes people use the excuse of taking themselves somewhere else, right, to a destination. Why is it so hard to travel inward?

SPEAKER_00 22:15

Yeah. Isn't that crazy, man?

SPEAKER_01 22:17

I know. I know. It's the best journey, I think. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:20

It's to go inward. You go back just 50 years and it wasn't such a it's the media. The media, everything, all the messages coming to us from the out. And I'm the, you know, I'm not Howard Stern, but I'm the king of media in what I do, you know? So I have the number one podcast, the number one TV show, I'm the number one author of books about this niche that I'm in, public transportation. But too much media are not holding it in perspective. Like so when I go downstairs in the morning, brother, Tony, you know what I do with my phone? I leave it on my nightstand. So I can go down and drink some coffee, have a conversation with my wife, read some inspirational work I'm I'm reading right now, and have some time to center myself in the morning and try to go for a walk if it's good weather. Give myself an hour in the morning just on focusing, centering myself to start the day, being the author of my life instead of the responder and the reactor to all the things that are going to come at me. Center myself, right? So it is very interesting that people don't want to go inward anymore. And you know, it could be because they're not living an integrated life. I talk about the power in the book, the dunemos power, the Greeks called it, which is explosive dynamite. It's a root word of dynamite. And that comes from when you live an integrated life. It's living with integrity. It's living what you believe. And most of us, I'm afraid, are not. Most of us know what we should be doing. We have inside an inner standard, you know, the original definition of standard, right? A pole and a field that you're aligning yourself by, right? You can have whatever standard you want, but you do have one. But you're not living by it. You you're not following what's inside of you that you know you should be doing. And so a lot of times you're trying to numb that voice inside through, you know, music, through wild lifestyles, through substance abuse. There's a chapter in the book where I talk about how that anytime at work somebody's behavior is unexplainable. I found there's usually substance abuse involved of some type. And I talk a story about that. And so a lesson I learned in my 30s. I had a secretary who could never reconcile the petty cash on Monday mornings after all the motor coach and limousine drivers would come in from their petty cash, and she couldn't get it right. She wasn't stealing money, I didn't think, you know, there was but she couldn't organize it all. And then the the day came for random drug tests. And she was the one that got the result, that got the test demands or whatever they call them, the requests from HR corporate. And I found on my she got there before I did, and I found on my desk her resignation letter. And I was like, why would she resign? And then I found the envelope with all the names in it. And I, ah, I put one and two together and said, and then people said, Oh, yeah, you didn't know. She's a big poghead, blah, blah, drugs on the weekend, blah, blah. Oh my gosh. You know, how come none of you suckers told me that? First off, if you already knew, and then secondly, how could I not have seen it? But I didn't. She was great at covering it, man, but she could never get that. So, all that to say, a lot of people, the reason, get back to your original question, that people find introspection so hard, they may not like what they're going to find. They may be trying to numb things, pain, inner pains that are inside of them. You know, my next book is going to be called Without Our Fathers. It's the impact that fathers have on our lives, especially after they're gone. I'm already about halfway through it. And uh what I find is a lot of men, especially, are trying to live up to something that their father wanted them to be or do, or they're running away from it. It's this pendulum back and forth, back and forth, especially men with their fathers, you know. Girls have their dads wrapped around their little fingers, right? I got four daughters and two sons. But boys, you know, they they want their dad to be proud of them. Even when their dad is gone, maybe he's dead. I talked to a man one time and I knew him really well. And I said, What are you doing, man? You're living your life based on you're not happy, you're not successful, you're not fulfilled, but you're trying to please your dad who's been dead for 10 years. What are you doing, man? Wake up, shake him, you know. So when people are not willing to be introspective, it's often because it's painful, right? There's an open wound there, and they are trying to salve it with all this exterior stuff we talked about, or they're running away from it, and it's causing big problems in their life. So a tool will help, right? Take the uh the free assessment, get the book, pre-order the book. Now you can get it come. I take every chapter, it takes you through practical tools on how to find your X factor, how to solve some of that interior, inside crossing you've got going on that we've been talking about, how to come to a life of internal integration, and then how to come out of that with power that will allow you to rise to the top of whatever you're doing, I believe.

SPEAKER_01 27:09

Love that, Paul. Love that. So this is the work sucks, but I like it podcast. What is one thing that sucks about your work and what are you doing to make it not suck?

SPEAKER_00 27:17

That's good, brother. One thing that sometimes happens is I film an I film a TV show, Transit Unplugged TV, and we work with local government agencies and the public transit agencies in the city to help set up. We want to showcase the food, fund, and culture, but we also want to showcase the transit agency. And a lot of times there's a lot of I'm a I'm the producer as well as the host. I have a lot of other jobs I'm doing, but in the producer role, there's a lot of details involved. And sometimes people don't want to help you and they want to stall and they're too busy and blah, blah, blah. I just had it happen recently last week, and so I knew the person, I knew the person's boss. And so I emailed the person's boss and said, listen, if it's too much trouble for you guys, we can just cancel filming. We can do it another time. Because I was getting the runaround by the staff. And so suddenly it all became clear to everyone what the priority was to be, and it was to be us coming there. The same thing might happen with a chef at a restaurant. We want the chef to come down and meet us and showcase the food, and the chef can't come. So I would say two things happen is I'm not getting the assistance I need. And what I'm doing to fix it is I'm either going over their head or going to them and directly addressing it, or on the other side, I'm going with I'm rolling with the punches. And so sometimes I feel like it wasn't meant to happen. And so, you know, I don't know what the grand plan is and all the stuff. I'm just doing what I'm supposed to do to make this the best product I can. And so I'm either directly confronting it or figuring out a way to roll over it or roll under it. You know, like we were at a we were at a place recently where the chef wasn't available. And they said, but, you know, this other guy is, and he's a part owner in the restaurant. And he I said, well, bring him out. We'll get him on the air. And uh, you know, it was a last minute change. He didn't really know a whole lot about we were doing. We didn't know anything about him. But we talked for a couple minutes, we got it together, and we just rolled with it. And so those are two things I'm doing right now. When when situations occur that aren't what I consider optimal, uh try to remember the big picture, what we're trying to do here, either roll with it if I can, or if I can't, boo, baby, come at it full force and see if I can make it happen.

SPEAKER_01 29:22

I love that. Take an action regardless. So, Paul, you've talked a lot about your book. Walk us through what the listeners will get. And first of all, when does it come out? Where will it be available? And uh, what's one thing that you want them to take away? I guess obviously your X factor, their X factor. But yeah.

SPEAKER_00 29:38

Yeah, great. So the X factor, you know, the concept behind it, as I said, I've had it for like 20 years. I've been thinking about this. I've been teaching it. You know, young people, even older people, middle-aged people go through midlife crisis. They're like, well, what am I supposed to be doing in my life? I know I don't want to be doing what I've been doing the last 20 years. I hate this job. All right, so pause, reflect, take a tool right there. That's what it looks like. And, you know, it's 20 bucks or something like that on Amazon. It might even be 18 bucks right now. You can pre-order it. It comes out August 11th. It's on Barnes and Noble, Amazon, Target, Walmart, Find Retailers, 2,500 independent bookstores. It'll be available coming August 11th, right? We're gonna do a big launch party here in Maryland where we're giving away free copies, signed copies, and food and drinks and all that stuff as well. It's published by Morgan James, a great publisher. It's my seventh book, but the first one kind of in his TED Talk style. So we also have a website, findyourxfactor.ai. You can dive into that. Everything's free on there. Information tools, sign up for a monthly newsletter, which I kind of tell the stories like I'm just telling you on this, but I, you know, give a reflection of what I'm feeling. It's not stuff from the book, it's stuff from my heart right now. What's things I'm coming up to. And so the idea is, and then we'll have courses where we're gonna teach you a little bit more how to dive into this. So the book itself walks you through how to find your X factor, explains it in more detail, walks you through how to do it, gives you plenty of examples, and then at the end, it gives you principles that you should learn from the book that are in bold, and then it gives you questions to ask yourself to do some homework. So it's five or seven pages each chapter, maybe ten. You read it in the morning, you make a few notes, you think about it, and then the next day you come back and kind of, you know, write write down your reflection. So it's a workbook as well as a tool. And what you're gonna get out of it, Tony, is maybe the most important thing. I don't want to oversell it, but it may be the most important thing you ever you ever get, which is finding your purpose in life. What could be more important than that? Finding your purpose. If you feel like you're not sure what your purpose is, take a look at this book, see if it helps you find it. I believe it will. That's what I wrote it for. It took me nine months to write it. It's the best thing I've ever written. I put all my heart and soul into it, all my experiences, all my lessons learned, good and bad, the failures I've had, the things I've learned from some of my best friends around the world that are top-notch people, what they learned, you know, how they've learned it, top lawyers, top business people. That's what's in the book. It is, uh, I think it will deliver. My book agent, she's uh represented 150 New York Times bestsellers. She told me, Paul, there's stuff in this book I've never seen anywhere else in any other self-help book. This, and she wasn't just telling me that, you know, she I don't pay her to tell me that. She she uh she was telling me what she believed in. That's why she represented me. And so I believe it'll help you. I believe if you're looking for your purpose in life, you want to wake up every morning with a fire in the belly, you want to be able to find the power spot where you come at life from a with power and you're accomplishing things, you're getting paid well for it, you're achieving success, you feel you feel like your life is fulfilled. That's what I want for you. That's what's in the book.

SPEAKER_01 32:38

Love it, Paul. We'll look forward to reading that. Thanks for being on the show today. Appreciate it.

SPEAKER_00 32:42

Thanks for having me, brother.

unknown 32:44

And there's a win blah blows across the place, and it seems