Tippy Talk Show With Tippy Felzenstein (2016)

Tippy: Yes, it is time to step into the Tippy zone where we explore the other side of reality. This side allows us to shape our life, step into our power, and connect to the fact that we are all one. Welcome to Tippy Talk. My name is Tippy Felzenstein and I am dedicated for a life to live with clarity, confidence, with control, and with awareness. We have a special calling of the angels today be sure to join us which I did not know until two seconds before we went live on air. But today, we not only have angels but we thought to have a human angel, Annie Margarita Yang. Not only because I personally like her which I do, but also for many other reasons.First and most important, Tippy Talk is here for your benefit, for my listeners. Here just for the listeners, and your feedback drives the direction of our programming. Annie joined us for an interview about money and meaning, and the feedback was very big. Everybody that heard it loved it and asked for more, so, of course, we're going to. Obviously, it tells me that my listeners like her as much as I do so of course, I would bring her back. But there are a few other reasons she's back which I will not discuss. There is one big reason she's here that I will discuss, and even focus on, is that Annie keeps on exceeding my expectations of who she is. Right now, Annie is at a crossroad. She has a major decision to make, and it's the way she's going about making that decision, that is definitely one of her biggest strengths. But also, it is a process where my listeners can have a huge benefit. If any one of you happens to be standing at a crossroad, now, or maybe if you'll be standing at a crossroad in the future, you can learn on this superior decision making process, and help you make a process in an objective, smart, and powerful way.This process that Annie is embarking on is not something that she created overnight. It's been accomplished through lots of learning, lots of discipline, and hard work. But all those things we can all do and ultimately, we have to make our own decisions on how we're going to incorporate our knowledge into practical methods for life, which is so impressive and how Annie went around to do that. Annie, who is on the conscientious quest to accomplish very concrete goals, has been in the process of making a major decision, so that's why I wanted to share this with my listeners. I want to really welcome Annie to the show, and thank you Annie for joining us. I am so happy to have you here.Annie: Good afternoon, Tippy. Thank you for having me on your show. I'm so excited to be here today talking on your show.Tippy: I'm so excited too. The first thing I wanted just to congratulate you for finishing the first chapter of your book. I know that's a huge project and I know that the majority of people that's over 80% of people that start, do not finish, so congratulations.Annie: Thank you. I mean, the first time that I was on your show we were talking about me writing the book, right? I was just starting to write the book and I was wondering when I would finish, and I actually just finished writing it last week.Tippy: Wow.Annie: It was definitely a marathon because I finished writing most of it in January, but then I took three months off from writing it because I just felt kind of down and I didn't feel really confident about my writing until somebody read my book, what I had so far and said, "No you should keep writing. I'm going to make sure you keep writing,” and then I was like, "Okay, all right" and now here I am.Tippy: Isn't that interesting? How the first time you started it, and now you've completed it and you're back here with us, which is really a nice completion of a circle. I didn't know that.Annie:  Yeah, I would definitely compare this process of writing a book to a marathon. In the beginning, it's just so difficult, but you have more willpower, right? But then by the end of it, you have less willpower and you're just like, I'm almost there, and you have to keep pushing yourself.Tippy: Another thing you brought up that is really important in writing a book or taking on any big project, is the fact that you stopped and you said, "Oh, God. This is not going anywhere." That happens to be a very typical part of the journey. We usually quit like three steps before we succeed, or we get to the point where we want to quit. We don't even realize how great of the work that we've already done and the people are actually waiting for us to finish it. We don't see that because we just focused on, "This is just so hard. I can't do it anymore.” Lucky for you had somebody to come and say, "Hey, wait a minute. I'm not going to let you give up."Annie: Yeah, lucky me.Tippy: Also, I want to congratulate you because I know that you discovered your purpose in life last year, and that's also a very huge accomplishment that you did. That was before you started writing the book?Annie: Yes, well, I had a general idea of what my purpose would be. I knew I wanted to do something related to personal finance somehow, but I didn't really have a clear idea of what my message would be, and I'm still in the process of figuring out.Tippy: It's a process.Annie: But right now as I'm on the show, I know more than I did last year, which is I don't really want to teach people math because that's how other people teach.They teach the budgeting and the form, right? How compound interest accumulates over time and that's all interesting, and I think the information is important for getting someone's financial life together. But as I've taught more, I realized it's really unemotional and a spiritual issue. I realized that and how this personal finance issue in people's lives actually connects to all areas of their lives.Tippy: Right.Annie: I've been coaching somebody for the past eight to nine weeks, and I'm watching him grow. He's getting his financial life together. But not only that, he also started writing every day. He writes 1000 words a day. Just recently, he kept complaining to me about his social life, and how he is so scared to step out of his comfort zone and say hi to people, right? I told him, "Look, I'll make sure you socialize. You'll be more confident." I pushed him to start inviting people to things like going out for a walk, or just start saying hi to people, and he's been doing it and now he's going to give a speech at Toastmasters. Great, right? This really all stems some personal finance because once he got that together, he's starting to get the rest of his life together.Tippy: Exactly. That really comes back to the fact that how you do one thing is really how you do everything. If you're timid and afraid, let's say of your finances, which is such a major part of life then you cannot approach everything else timid and afraid the same way. But once you get a little confident about one it spirals into everything else. You can isolate your life and become really excellent in one without it kind of affecting everything. You realize that it's more the spiritual quest and the emotional quest that you feel satisfied you see in coaching.Annie: That's really one aspect because I recently also just picked up a book called, "The Zero-Waste Lifestyle” and then in the book it talks about how Americans we consume so much and we throw out around 4.4 pounds of trash every day. That's a lot of trash we generate.Tippy: That's a lot of trash.Annie: That is totally related to personal finance because it all comes from us being consumers. We're always buying more, right? Something else that's related to personal finance would be living sustainably and living green, environmental, right? I'm sorry to make all these connections and how it's really just a holistic web.Tippy: Holistic and infinite circle.Annie: Yeah.Tippy: I want to suggest to everybody in order for them to understand a little bit more in depth to what we're talking about to go back, and to listen to our show that we did about money and meaning with Annie, and I think they will listen to that person and come back and listen to this and you'll also hear the difference in Annie, and how she changed in very subtle little ways between then and now and finishing the book between then and now. Discovering more of your life purpose. Also, I wanted to congratulate you on completing a few workshops that you've already done, and I think doing those workshops also gave you an idea of, "I like this and I don't like doing this so much. This is more where I feel drawn to." I think just putting your hands on and doing it made you learn so much more than just thinking about it.Annie: Definitely. I needed to experience it.Tippy: Exactly. The reason that we're really here today to talk about is I fell in love with the process of decision making that you chose to make. I don't know all the aspects of your decision making because I know there's more facets to it than one, but one of the things that you chose to do was to ask a few people for some feedback and very specific things.But before I go into what you were asking for, which is wonderful, was there any other facets of it that you want to share so that if somebody who's at the crossroad and wants to make a major decision, maybe they can tap into other things that they can do?Annie: Can you rephrase this in a different way?Tippy: Okay. Like one of the things you did. You have a major decision to make right now.Annie: Right.Tippy: One of the things you did was write an email to a few people to give you feedback and you told them specifically exactly why you want to get feedback, right?Annie: Yeah.Tippy: What were the other things that you did to help you make a decision?Annie: I did a lot of writing.Tippy: You did writing generally. Okay so that helps. When you were writing, were you asking yourself the question, trying to answer the question? Or was it a formatted writing or free writing or brainstorming?Annie: No, it's more of a free writing because when I was really upset I need to write to get my feelings down and then I'll read it, and then I'll think, "Oh, that's how I really feel." I mean, in my mind, I know but I need to actually see it on paper in a logical and organized way to process my problem.Tippy: Was it that you were writing because you were upset or you were writing because it was a tough decision?Annie: No, I was writing because I was upset. Well, the audience doesn't know this, but I have a huge racket about college, right? It's not that college is difficult. I just don't like school. I love education, but I don't like the institution of school.Tippy: Me neither.Annie: I was really upset about this whole thing and I needed to get it all down. I was writing and writing and thinking about this, and then I decided I'm going to finish college and three semesters instead of five years. But then I decided wait I also still want to do my personal finance and other activities that I still do, but I really need to cut down on my commitment. I needed feedback from my community on what I asked to give me more of an idea of what I should do.Tippy: Here's that one thing that you did was writing it out.Annie: Yeah.Tippy: Which is a great way to look at a situation more objectively like you said, once you write it out, you look at it. You don't look at it with as much emotional stress as you would when you just thinking about it without putting it on paper. It kind of detaches it from you so you can take a look at it. Writing it out is a great idea.Annie: That's right.Tippy: For a major decision. Especially like a decision like this that is not only personal but very important to you could actually be a life changer.Annie: Something else I did was meditating. When I'm upset I am always in this powerless state of mind, helpless, stressed out, lonely. People don't see me like that. They see me as some sort of social butterfly and confident. But I have those moments.Tippy: We all have those moments.Annie: Yeah, we all have those moments when I really doubt myself. What I have to do is I have to meditate, just calm down, and get into that state where like everything, all my problems just melts away.Problems are still there, but the feelings just don't affect me as much. It's swept away and I try to connect with what people would call a higher self or maybe God, and in that state, I would just pray and ask maybe give me guidance. Can you help me through this moment? People will normally pray with their hands touching and head down. I do that too, but I also do it in meditation because I feel that it connects me with God more.Tippy: On a more personal level. Yeah, I totally agree because the power of meditation is so much bigger than people realize and the form of meditation that we do varies with so many different types of meditations, so it's important. But meditation, I totally agree. It's a form of prayer, but I think it's the most powerful form of prayer.Annie: Yeah.Tippy: Like saying words that somebody else wrote that's completely different and it's more personal. That's huge meditating. All the things that you did basically describe your internal work. This is how you internally dealt with the situation which was very stressful for you. The decision that you have to make right now has to do with an education and institution, obviously. Instead of me reading the question that you asked, why don't you just tell us what decision it is that you have to make right now, and why it is so difficult for you to make that decision?Annie: Okay. I had to make the decision right now. How long I wanted to complete my college education? That's specifically what I wanted to do. Because before, when I entered college, I figured, “Okay, let me just take it slow. I'll take 12 credits a semester, and I'll graduate in five years instead of the standard four.” During my free time, I can do everything I did in the past year which was writing a book. Everything that I did and I did a job. No, I worked two jobs, right? It was great and I definitely learned a lot, but something happened recently at school that really made me angry, and I decided, “Well, let me rethink my plan.”What really happened was I had a professor who did not want to let me take the final earlier. I couldn't take the final on the day that's listed because I was selected by my school to attend a student leadership conference. I'm going to represent my school.Tippy: It’s not something out of school?Annie: Yeah, it's not like I'm just going to say, "No, I don't want to take the final." It's something school related. But my professor wasn't being understanding.He said, “No, you'll just have to get an incomplete and then take a makeup or whatever." But what he's saying is essentially going to ruin my financial aid and I'm wondering, is it worth it? What he's doing to me? I'm thinking college should be helping me. College should be giving me more opportunities. But stuff like this that really stops me from living my purpose, living my dream, because I wanted to travel to Mexico this summer and with him saying, "No, I couldn't.” I'm thinking, “No, college is actually stopping me. It's a hindrance. It's an obstacle to everything I'm doing right now.” I decided I wanted to finish it faster. That was a problem I had. Whether I should do it five years or should I do it faster? I decided, “Yeah, I'm going to do it faster. I'm going to finish everything in three semesters.”Tippy: Right. Basically, because of what he did he made you realize that the institutions are not necessarily going to support your needs and the faster that you get out of here the better of you are.Annie: I really wanted to go to Mexico this summer because I don't think of it as just having fun. I thought of it as it's an educational experience. I'm going to learn Spanish fluently. I'm going to engage in a different culture. I'll learn how to talk to people who are different from me, and I'll learn to be more accepting. I'll learn some dance. I want to learn ballroom dancing there.I wanted to learn how to be more free with my body and all of this whole experience is going to help me with public speaking. It really is.Tippy: Yeah for sure.Annie: Definitely. It's not something I can learn in school, but to hear him say, "No, you shouldn't go to Mexico in the summer. You should take summer school instead." I get all riled up. I'm outraged, and I'm thinking, “No, I should finish school as fast as possible then nobody can tell me no, you can't go to Mexico” because I'll graduate and then my life is mine to live. I make the decisions in my life. I'm the captain.Tippy: Well, I have to say you are very independent and you're very spirited. Even though you are 21 years old, you are already realizing that the independence how important it is and how important it is to make your own decisions. It definitely comes through. Your spirited attitude and you're just claiming your independence, and saying, "Okay, you know what? I'm going to go through school. I'm not going to be a quitter, but maybe there's a different way.” The different way would be basically, what you're saying is, you're going to go to two schools at the same time. While you are attending a community college, you're also going to be attending a university online at the same time. You'd be in two schools at the same time. You don't think it's too much of a challenge? You don't think it would be difficult?Annie: No, I don't think so. Something I think about intelligence is that it's not set. I don't think getting A's in school is about being smart. I think it's about having the right system set in place in terms of time management and studying. When you have the right system and the right habits, you will do well in school. I realized I already have an excellent system and habits set in place, so it's going to be no problem for me to go to two schools at the same time.Also, the other one is an online school, so I'll be doing everything at my own pace. I'm going to get a whole lot of flak about online school and how it's not credible, but honestly, at this point I don't care.Tippy: Yeah, actually, that was the first thing that I was thinking about. Is it very credible? Is it going to make a difference? But I think it depends with what you want to do. If you want to be an accountant, whether you look at your school record, then online school may not be the best. If you want to be a lawyer, whether your school record is really important and it gets very scrutinized not. But it all depends on what it is that you want to go to school for. Then it might or might not make a difference, but it depends on your image. That's for sure.Annie: Exactly. It depends on the career path that you want to go on and for what I wanted to do it really doesn't matter. To be honest, I actually just wrote a blog post today about what I'm doing and I'm going to document the whole thing and then I'm going to write a book about it later on how I did it.Tippy: I love it.Annie: I thought about this. If an employer doesn't want to hire me because I went to an online college, good for him because those are not the kind of people that I want to work with anyway. The kind of people that only look at status and something like that. Instead of looking at you as a person, looking at your character, your personality, your past experiences, and your achievements. Because if he look at the rest of my resume, he'll see that I'm very independent, very motivated. I have high integrity. If he makes a whole decision based on where I went to college, that's his problem. I don't need those kinds of people in my life.Tippy: Absolutely, he's going to go.Annie: He's not going to be a positive impact on my career.Tippy: Okay. You do have a major. What did you decide already on the major?Annie: Yeah, speech communication.Tippy: Communication?Annie: Speech communication.Tippy: Okay.Annie: Because I want to do public speaking.Tippy: Yeah for sure. I'm going to read one of the paragraphs that you wrote. "I'm writing to you because I need you to help. You are one of the most people selected, trusted people have chosen to ask. I want you to tell me through an email or whatever. What do you think are my unique strengths and talents? You can write more than one. I want you to be specific. It would be more useful to me if you illustrate with a concrete example." You don't mind people who just come and tell you, “You're wonderful, you're amazing, have a nice day.” You want it to really look you're going to tell me I'm wonderful, you better have something to back it up with. A past situation in which I used my strengths productively. For example, it's too general to say I'm generous. I’ll need specific moments of when I was generous. This may be difficult to some of you. That's okay because I purposely included you. You not only send a request to some amount of people to give you feedback that you needed to make a decision, you also gave them very specific guidelines on how to answer you because you didn't want to waste your time with a whole bunch of BS kind of answers. I really love. You see, it's one thing to call someone and...Annie: I did call someone in essence.Tippy: Yeah, I love that about what you did and I think that's one of the key things. That's one of your major strength that you don't just want them say, "Hey, I need your help. What do you think? Blah, blah.” You know exactly and that's because you did the journaling.That's because you did a meditating. Now you know. This is the answer that I need and this is what I want you to tell me. I would want to know exactly when you make a decision, what it is they may do. The decision that you have to make right now that you are asking to find out your strengths is not what kind of measure to take. You already know that. It's not whether you should go to school in two separate schools at the same time and do it because you already know you can do that and you want to do it. What is it that you deciding on based on the information you get and based on all the other things that you are doing?Annie: Okay. I'm asking people for my strength because I know that when I start going to two schools at the same time, my time is going to be really limited because I'm going to be spending a lot of it studying for an exam. Out of the free time that I have left, I really have to figure out what I'm going to do with it and I want whatever activity I choose to incorporate my strength so I could be more effective. What I've been doing before is I'll just take this, I'll take that on, that project. I have a whole bunch of projects going on at the same time and I'll handle it all fine. But now I just want to focus on specific projects where I can really use my strength, and my personality and my character will shine through. That's why I'm asking people what my strengths are. I do have some vague idea of what my strengths are, but sometimes it's not a good reflection or a mirror. Sometimes what other people think are just as important because they see things that I can't see. I have my own blind spots.Tippy: Right.Annie: That's why I asked this whole group of people, what do you think my strengths are? Then after they tell me what my strengths are I'm going to find the trends, the patterns, and analyze it to see if there's something that they all say in common.Tippy: Right. Let me be very clear. The reason that you're asking for your strength is you've made a decision to go to two schools at the same time, which is a huge thing that you're taking on, but you still think you're going to have time left over to do other things, and you want to make sure that whatever it is the other thing that you're doing is going to be something that's the best of the best of what you can be because it's going to be a limited amount of time. What I have to tell you before I go on is not so many people would be able to do that because most people going to school is a full time and they will not have time to do anything else. Are you sure you will have time leftovers do other things?Annie: Yes, I will definitely make the time. If there is space on my calendar to do it, it's going to be done. I mean, I've already been elected as vice president of education for that semester. That's a commitment I have to have. Then I was talking about the student leadership conference before and how I have to go. That's why I can't take the final on that day.Tippy: Right.Annie: The whole purpose of going to the conference is so that after I take it, then I come back to school in the fall and I create a program for my school. The counselor told me I can create any program I want for the students, and I decided to create a personal finance program. This is the first time I'll actually have my own curriculum that I created for the public.Tippy: Wow, that's huge.Annie: That's also another activity that I need to take on so it'd be great to know my strengths so when I designed the program and I teach it, my strengths really shine through.Tippy: Wow.Annie: I pretty much have to do extra stuff along with the two schools I'm going to.Tippy: Oh, you have to because it will be impossible for you not to.Annie: Yeah, that's right.Tippy: We have Robert here on the line. I'm wondering if he has any questions for you and if he does then we'll bring it in. Okay.Annie: Hi, Robert.Robert: Hello, Tippy. Hello, Annie.Annie: Hi.Robert: How're you doing?Tippy: You've been listening to us and to Annie and I would love to know if you have a quick question for Annie to answer for you.Robert: Yes, why speech communication?Tippy: That's a good question. What made you follow that?Annie: Why? Actually when I originally entered college in the fall, I had business administration as my major and then as I took the business classes such as macroeconomics and micro economics, I realized how bored I was. I was falling asleep in these classes. I think they're important, but I have no interest in them. I do want to be a business woman but I don't think I need these. I don't think I specifically need to major in something business related to be a good business woman. I think I might have that experience.Tippy: It was a process of elimination. You were like, “I can’t take.”Annie: When I was thinking this through, I looked at the college catalog to see what other things they had to offer and there was speech communication and I looked at the courses that were available and I'm thinking this is exactly what I need because these are the kinds of classes that they offer: business communication, intercultural communication, interpersonal communication, small group communication, voice and diction, and articulation. All these things related to speaking. Getting better at speaking to all kinds of people in all kinds of settings. I'm thinking this is a skill. These aren't knowledge-based classes, these are skills based classes, and they're exactly what I need because over the past year I have been doing singing exercises and my voice improved a lot and people started to respect me much more and I realized just how important it is to know how to speak, so that's why I'm choosing speech communication as my major.Tippy: That's a part of your decision making process. You take a look at AP, you didn't know what business major would be and you may have had the wrong idea of what that might have been, but that's what I said. The one thing that impressed me the most to the decision making process. Robert, there is a lot of noise where you're at. Did you have another question because I'm going to mute your microphone?Robert: I do have another question and the question is Annie, do you have a passion and what is it?Tippy: Okay. I'm going to mute the microphone. Go ahead, Annie.Annie: Do I have a passion? I would say my passion is meeting new people and learning new things. Do I need to elaborate why?Tippy: No, go ahead. Elaborate.Annie: Okay. I don't know. It's just every time I talk to someone, I feel so happy. I feel so energized from being with people.Sometimes it's straining, but in general, I just love to talk to people. They have so much to teach me and I have so much to learn from them. That's why I don't think education only comes from school. It also comes from outside. Part of it comes from interaction and dialogue with others. That's why it's my passion and I just have so many interests. I have an interest in sewing and singing and dancing. I do all sorts of things. I'm reading all the time. I'm always writing. Speaking is not definitely a passion. Traveling is a passion and I realized that the common denominator from all of them is my passion for learning.Tippy: Right. You talked about two really important things about learning. First of all, learning is not necessarily in school, but the truth of the matter. Most of the learning that we do in life is totally not from school. Also, the learning we do is in our life. We can either learn or we can hide away in our room and not learn. That's one of the huge things that you've touched on. Not that you don't need education. Everybody needs an education but again, it's not just the education. It's the institution that's giving the education, it's the rules the institution has if they decide what kind of education you're going to get, and it's also your learning ability. You can have 10 people take the same exact class and each one is going to walk away with something a little bit different from the class. Some people are even going to walk away with nothing.Annie: That's true.Tippy: Definitely, and you never stop learning. The day you stop learning is the day you are either dead or stupid. Those are two things. Then the other thing is that you love being around people and communicating with people and you said something really huge and you said sometimes it's draining.That's the key about people because if you're going to be around really negative thinking people, and I'm not judging people for being positive, but if people really emit negative, energetic force, I don't care how positive you are and how great of a mood you're in and what a great person you are. Even if you're standing in heaven, with a thousand angels around you when you're around someone that has got negative emitting from them, you will walk away drained totally.Annie: Definitely. I just want to go home and sleep after that. I need to recover. I really do.Tippy: Right. People are beautiful, but people have so much power in the energy that they're putting out and a lot of people are not aware of that. They're not aware that when they're smiling on the inside, everybody around them smiles on the inside, but when they're upset on the inside, even if they put on a mask and pretend to be all nice and bubbly on the outside, you still walk away drained and may feel it.Annie: People feel it. Yeah, they see this positive person, but they feel it. There's this sense of authenticity or this fakeness to them that really wants to push you away and walk away.Tippy: Absolutely.Annie: I'm sure everyone knows what I'm talking about. I'm sure. I'm talking about the sales person. They're trying to sell you something and they're all smiling and really happy and they have this giggle and high pitched voice. They're so happy to meet you. They think you're wonderful and they complement you and they flatter you, but for some reason you don't feel that connection with them, that rapport because they're being fake.Tippy: Right. They have an agenda.Annie: Then when they're gone, you feel oh my God. Thank God. You know what I mean?Tippy: Yes, I do. One person told me one time and I looked at her and she was not the most beautiful and not the smartest woman, not the most educated, but she said something to me the day I met her and as I got to know her, I saw her manifesting it and she said, "Oh, you know I love everybody and everybody loves me." As I got to know her, I realized she's surrounded by people who really wanted to hate her. She was getting married or whatever, and they all ended up loving her and hugging her and treating her really well because that's her mode of apprentice, I love everybody and everybody loves me. When you walk around saying I love everybody, the only people you're going to attract is people that love you and if they don't, those people are going to run like hell. They're just going to get away from you.Annie: That's right. You will tell them.Tippy: Yes, because they noticed they don't love me, so obviously they don't exist. That's very powerful. It's very powerful. That has been a lot of fun and we definitely exceeded our time here, but I feel that it was really important. I think decision making, the way you have chosen to make this specific decision is one of the most powerful ways. That's definitely one of the strengths that you have, that you are able to have that kind of discipline, and that kind of insight in such a powerful way. You listened to the show, “The Awakening” that we did and I recommend that everybody go and listen to that show before and try to kind of figure out where you are on that spectrum. That show can be improved and it will be, but it's about the awakening process and we're not going to go through it here, but please, if you could go listen to that and then come back here and then you'll understand what Annie is saying more, better and clearer, even though we will try to make it as clear as possible. The reason I'm asking you this is because I can see the way you proceed with things, the way you make decisions, the way you take on projects whether you're scared, you still take it on.Whether you have to drive 60 miles extra, you take it on so boldly, so powerfully. Of course, you're not perfect, you have your moments where you may go into your home and scream your brains off, but, but at least you don't take it out on people as much as New Yorkers do. On the process of the awakening, where do you see yourself right now the most? What do you identify with the strongest parts?Annie: Oh, right now as I'm talking to you, I'd say I'm on a third state, which is the awake state. Let's see. It says, “In this state, that's when I become awake and then I help others become awake and I put the light on everyone.” That's what it says and I think most of the time I operate under the state anyway because I care about myself and my health, but I do tend to be other oriented, so I will try to put myself in other people's shoes and I will try to help them the best I can. I think I'm operating under the awake state, but when I was dealing with the problem that I had, which was how long should I finish college? My professor said I can't take the exam on a different day. I was under the first state, which is the awakening because that's when I realized no. Something needs to change. I can't do that.Tippy: Right. That might have been an awakening moment for you. You preferred something so stupid. You can't do something even though you're involved in a school activity.Annie: That was the moment that just made me snap. Then I had the alignment for a few days and then now I'm in the awake state, which is, I have this challenge going on the 18 months college challenge. Me trying to finish college really early and I'm sharing it with everybody and I'm announcing it to the public and I'm telling them my process. I'm going to document everything and I think, yeah, and I'll write a book.Tippy: Everybody knows about it.Annie: Then anybody who wants to do what I'm doing, which is to go to two colleges at the same time or just finish in less than four years, they'll see my process and they can be inspired by it and then they can come up with their own method of doing it then they can do it themselves. I believe I'm spreading the message.Tippy: Just like people will get inspired with the decision making process and when they come to a crossroad they'd have to make a really important, powerful decision, they can follow a few of your steps, but with the book and with you documenting everything, it'll make it so much easier. It will be a step by step, right?Annie: I did research and I did see that there was one book I looked online. There was one girl who graduated Berkeley in two years and she wrote a book about.Tippy: Is it online?Annie: Yeah, online. It's on Amazon. I forgot the title.Tippy: Did she graduate online or did she actually go?Annie: No, Berkeley.Tippy: Oh, she went into school. Well, Berkeley also has an online university.Annie: Oh no, she did the in person classes.Tippy: Okay.Annie: But then I looked at her transcript, which is right on her website and she's getting B's and C's, mostly D's.Tippy: Nothing wrong with that.Annie: I know nothing wrong with that, but you could see that she's just flying through school without learning anything, really.Tippy: B’s, does not mean you don't learn anything, Annie?Annie: I'm sorry. Yeah, you are learning something, but she's not doing as well as I would like her to do. How about that?Tippy: But you're not going to get B's and C's.Annie: Right. Okay. I'm done. Yeah, I get A's on pretty much everything, but I too want to serve as some sort of role model that you can do it early. You can do all of this.Tippy: You can get A's.Annie: You can, right.Tippy: You can finish school in 18 months.Annie: Yes, and you can do it for less than $10,000.Tippy: Your journey is going to be unique and different from anybody else's. You can find another 25 books of 25 people talking about this subject. It's not going to be the same as your journey at all because you're unique and that's the thing about people's uniqueness. They think this is everybody's story. It's not everybody's story. It's your unique story and that's one of the things that we're really passionate too about is getting people's stories out there because your story can inspire people that you will never meet. Or maybe one day you will need someone and we'll say, you know, 10 years ago I read your book and it totally changed my life.Annie: That'd be a nice moment.Tippy: It would be, but you don't know. You are putting yourself out there like you're doing right now in order to have a positive effect on other people, in order to have a positive effect on life, in order to have a positive effect on your life, and in order to spiral into the light.That's your goal. That's what you want to accomplish. By telling your story part, it's part of that process, by going to school, by decision making a certain way. Everything that you do seems to come down to the same thing affecting people in the world in a positive way.Annie: Yeah, it does.Tippy: That sounds amazing. I'm looking forward to not talking to you while you're busy getting your A's, but hearing about your journey and are there any words of wisdom that you would like to leave everybody that's listening to it and maybe somebody that's actually on the crossroads right now trying to make a decision, what would you tell them?Annie: I would tell them to calm down. It's not the end of the world because your life really does go on. If you look back on all the other things that bothered you in the past, they don't bother you now, right? They look like huge obstacles back then, but right now they're nothing. First of all, calm down, and second of all, listen to yourself. Really listen to yourself. What is it that you want for yourself and your life? At the end of your life, are you going to be happy that you made the decision that you're going to make? Because when I was making this decision, I was listening to my mother. I was listening to my counselor, I was listening to you, Tippy. I was listening to my boyfriend who keeps telling me, "No, you should go to Soka University which is the school I graduated from. It's going to make you smarter and more educated." I'm listening to all these other people and I'm thinking, "Well, what is it that I want? Right? Because they don't have the same experiences that I do and they don't have the same goals that I have either. It's really important. Listen to yourself. You're not going to regret it. You really won't.Tippy: You're saying, listen to what everybody has to say, but at the end of the day, don't do things just because somebody else said you should do it.Annie: That's right. Consider their advice but in the end, the decision is yours.Tippy: That makes sense.Annie: Even if your decision ends up being the unconventional one, it's completely okay. It actually inspires other people who are scared and they live on the sideline. It really does inspire other people when you live unconventionally.Tippy: When you break out and do things your way.Annie: That's my advice.Tippy: That sounds just about right because at the end of the day, if you do listen to everybody else, and I could tell you right now, anytime I have listened to other people and took their way of thinking, and I can remember right now two big things in my life. I totally regret one of them now, but the other one also, I regret just not listening to my own voice and following blindly with what other people said. One of them was my mother and she meant well. She gave me the advice based on what she needed, not necessarily for my best interest. It was more for my sister's best interest and for her best interest, which she thought was the same. I don't think she meant to do it in any negative way, but it wasn't advice that worked for me. Right now, if I could take it back, I would, but you can't. You can't go back and take it back. I think it's great advice to listen to everybody, but at the end really make the decision that comes from your heart, from your meditation, from your contemplation, from your journaling, from your own journey because your journey is unique and Annie, you are definitely unique. You are very powerful. You have a much more influence on people than you even realize right now. You speak and you walk with a lot of confidence already. At the end, I'm really looking forward to hearing your decision, your journey. I know that everybody that knows you wants to hear that, wants to know more because you just said kind of a person that everybody wants to touch and be around and maybe you rub off on them a little.Annie: Yeah, I do. Somehow I rub off on them. I don't know how. Like when was this? Back in March I decided I'm going to get rid of my cell phone, right? Or more like I'm not going to bring my cell phone with me out in public. I'll only use it at home. At first Robert was throwing a tantrum here. What do you mean you're getting rid of your cell phone? I mean, this is a crazy decision. You need your cell phone, yada, yada, yada. Then he said this in front of everyone at Toastmasters. It was too embarrassing to me. I got up there. Do you know what I did? I got up there right off of him and I told everyone, "Look, this is really why I'm getting rid of it." Then he changed his mind and now he's not answering his emails. He's not on Facebook, but apparently I somehow inspired him to limit his use of technology.Tippy: Well, since you mentioned Robert. I want to give him a chance to respond to that. Robert, do you want to respond to that? Your reaction what to what Annie said? Okay. I think Robert is on mute so he's not going to respond to that, but I definitely understand that because he doesn't answer his emails. It's just the way it is.Annie: It's just annoying actually but okay.Tippy: Very annoying. Especially when you send 10 emails and then he's like, "Well, I never got that email."Annie: I know. Hey, calling is his preferred method of communication so we should just honor that. All right.Tippy: Well, exactly. Like for me it's very difficult when people text a lot because I'm not a texter and I think it's a great tool to have, but for me to sit and text all day, it would be such a huge waste of time.If somebody really wants to text me an address, it's very convenient rather than have to write it down or some important information like I'm outside your house, I'm ringing the bell will you answer the door? Or something like that. Yeah, but for me to just use texts as my major form of communication, I'd rather use the phone obviously. I'm on the same page. I would rather use the phone too, but I also know that I have to be a little bit on top of my email because it's such a tremendous tool. It's so amazing to even have email for us people who have been around before email was even a word. It's amazing. Why would you want to ignore something so amazingly wonderful? An opportunity to communicate with people on such a quick and such a efficient way. Yeah, it's a communication level. Thank you so much, Annie. I really appreciate everything that you've done and everything that you've said. I just want to add your own words back at you. Your decision is important, but your decision is not cut in stone. Whatever decision that you make will be a good decision. Like the same thing when you started the school, if it's a decision that is good for you for six months and then after the six months you want to modify it, improve it. If that decision is not exactly on your dime and you want to move towards your point, what you settle on as you go along and as you go to school, then it's okay to do it. It's not carved on the tablet for all eternity, but definitely, life is a journey and life is a process that basically as you said, it's not the end of the world. It's one decision. I think it's just an amazing process of making that decision. It is an important decision and it is the foundation of your life.Annie: Tippy, I want to thank you for letting me be on your show. I definitely had a great time talking and sharing what I had to say. It was definitely a wonderful experience.Tippy: Thank you so much and we have come to the end of our time together here at Tippy Talk. It has been wonderful chatting with you, Annie, and thank you so much for joining us.Annie: You're welcome.Tippy: Thank you. You've been listening to Tippy Talk. We bid you a magical journey and let your talent be your potion. My name is Tippy Felzenstein.Transcribed by Maureen Wawira