E027 Bill Clayton

Passionately Wrong Podcast Episode E027

ASH Interview with Bill Clayton

Topics covered in this video: 

• Bill’s time in the Hague, in middle school and his senior year of high school
• London, New Jersey, Houston, New York, South Carolina - stops on the journey
• The middle school projects were magical (Holland, France, England, Greece)
• Amazing teacher engagement, how ASH gave him a break that changed his life
• Our respective experience with AP courses
• How foreign experience (traveling, languages, etc.) gives one advantage later
• How going to ASH makes it more likely one will find their way overseas again
• The ASH Facebook groups have had an impact on keeping ASHers in contact
• The joy of being able to get around independently (bike, public transportation)
• Decision-making advice - doing research, e.g. on learning how to invest
• Giving friends advice: focus on their perspective and needs, not yours
• Passion vs. planning
• Determining good advice from bad advice
• ASH quick round: Frites, snacks generally, journey to school, extracurricular activities

Transcript

Bill: 0:00

I'm very much aware of the outsize influence that school's had on my life and, I'm very grateful for it. But when you are immersed in it, you don't realize it's a privilege and it's unusual. It's only afterwards when you get out into the real world and look back that you realize, wow, did we have something exceptional going.

James: 0:23

Greetings, friends. I'm James.

Randy: 0:25

And I'm Randy. You're listening to The Passionately Wrong podcast where we challenge your assumptions, offer some different perspectives, and hopefully help you make better decisions.

James: 0:36

Welcome to the Passionately Wrong podcast everyone. We're glad you're here. I'm James, and I'm here together with my co-host, Randy. And today we have another Ash guest, bill. Clayton. Bill, thanks for joining us. We're delighted to have you on. You are early on in the series where we interview people who went to the American School of the Hague, and we're still feeling our way a little bit about the best way to get into people's, so interesting history and background. One way that we like to do this is simply to ask, when were you in The Hague? What were you doing there? Or presumably your family. Maybe just give us a little bit the timeline of your, period at the American School of Hague.

Bill: 1:18

Sure. So thanks for inviting me on. I'm a little nervous. It's my first podcast ever. so I don't mind admitting that. so I actually lived in The Hague twice. My, my father worked for Mobile. He worked for the Chemical division and, was born in New Jersey, but quickly moved to London in 1970 and spent a couple years there. got a British accent, which I immediately lost when I came back to the States and went to first

Randy: 1:45

grade.

Bill: 1:46

stayed in New Jersey for a few more years. Went to Ash, back in. I guess 1977 and, entered fifth grade there, stayed fifth through really the beginning of ninth, even though I didn't go to ninth grade at Ash. The school had started before I left. moved to Houston and did ninth, 10th, 11th grade there, and then came back, for my senior year of high school, which was a fantastic experience. So class of 85,

Randy: 2:16

we got a lot of crossover.'cause I'm, I was born in Houston and, went, I was born in Memorial Hospital and, my parents lived it, near Kate, not just. east of Katy on the edges of Houston at the time. So we have a lot of crossover there too. Plus, I lived in London, I graduated high school in London. I also, I was in London when I was in fifth grade too, when we got evacuated Iran. So there we definitely have a lot of crossover. That's crazy.

Bill: 2:39

You got evacuated. That's amazing.

Randy: 2:42

Yeah, during 78 when, Shaw left and Comey was coming in, so it was before the embassy. The embassy got taken down November of 79. And, but there was a lot of problems and they got, the embassy got taken over once or twice before that and then the students just gave it back and said, ha, we did that. and then, I don't know if you remember, Ross Perot had his executives taken hostage. That happened in February of, 89? I think. we got evacuated. Chris, I think the hostages were taken in December and we got evacuated in November. Like Ross Perot was like, everyone go so. Scary. when you're nine, not so much. You're just like, what's going on? I

James: 3:21

I think it's partly an attribute of kids, but I suspect, and this is something I realized talking to Ashers, that probably most Ashers did, which was you learn how to be a little bit of a social chameleon. You joke about having developed a good British accent bill. But I have no doubt that you did. And I bet you did too, Randy. And I think it's because part of the way that we are successful in a new place is just observing what's going on and a little bit figuring out, how to thrive in that system. I know from our previous discussions, Randy, that you're a wizard at figuring out how systems in the military worked and just making your way. And that's something maybe we'll come back to, in terms of what we picked up from our time in Ash and how it helped us in other places. But already, bill, hearing you talk about your early childhood years and even just joking about developing a British accent makes me think that. I suppose if you had to have your years broken up, it's good to graduate, your final year from Ash somehow. Senior year, is fun. A lot going on. after you graduated 1985, where did your path lead you back to the us and if so, what did that feel like?

Bill: 4:34

I don't remember any feeling of kind of accommodation or getting used to being back in the states whatsoever. I came back, to go to college and I went to school in upstate New York, Rensselaer and got my undergrad and master's in PhD in physics there. And, then went to South Carolina. I've been in South Carolina since 92 with a four year stint in France, in Claremont, Ferran. I've able here 20 years.

Randy: 5:04

we just talked to another, one of our class a six yesterday. And so you were in Houston drinking age was 18, probably didn't matter to high school students. But then you go back to, been going back to Holland, you can drink free, I mean you can drink legally. And then when we, when you go back, you can still drink at 18 for a year. And then the drinking age changed when you're in your sophomore year. Probably because when I was in my freshman year, we could drink for two months or something like that. And then the age changed on the top of us. But, we, for us it was a, especially since we spent Four or five years in Europe. Before we went back, the drinking thing was a big, like all of a sudden I'm a criminal and from being legal and stuff. and then it was just kind of a silly, a silly transition. Like in the middle of the school year, they're like, Nope, no more drinking in college.

Bill: 5:57

So I was a year ahead of you, and I was in New York and I, it sounds like they did things a little differently.'cause when I got there, I wanna say the drinking age was, yeah, the drink drinking age was 18, but no, the drinking age was 19, but I was 18. That didn't matter. And then when I turned 19, it went to 21 and it kind of mattered. that whole transition period was a transition and went from a free for all to, whatever it is now. I know my daughter had two fake IDs at one point, so

James: 6:31

they still do that. I,

Bill: 6:32

there's a whole bunch of things I was hoping to touch on from the ash experience, and I don't even really know where to start, but one of the things that stands out in my mind, in my memories is, the class projects that they did in middle school. So every year, fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth grade, sixth, seventh, eighth for me, the entire class went away for a week. And, in fifth grade we went to, a youth hostel in the south of France. se seventh grade was, I said South France, south of Holland. Seventh grade was, in, Normandy. The whole class went to a town called San Milo. And then eighth grade we all went to England. yeah, for a week. I remember, and my memory is we had a dedicated class to this. for the whole first semester before Project England, we studied medieval culture. We learned what they ate, what they drank, what their music was. We studied Shakespeare in detail, and then we went to Stratford upon Avon and saw Shakespeare in the globe. And, we studied France and we studied the Battle of Hastings and we studied the Bayou Tapestry. And then we all went and saw the Bayou Tapestry. And, we went to Mos and Michel, we went to the Isle of Jersey. And the memories at that formed, and I think more the way they combined, like in school learning with experiential learning and taking us to the places that we studied, that stayed with me my whole life. And, I think we're very privileged to go to a school that has that level of, teacher engagement, but also just commitment to learning. And, that's probably what sets Ash apart the most in my mind from the other schools I went to. And between us, we got a pretty good sampling of Yeah, different education, approaches. But the ash people, I found them to be super engaged and, that wound up being really important to me. so fifth through eighth grade, in the Netherlands, I'm a little kid, everything's fine, everything's happy. but in ninth grade when we went to Houston, my parents got divorced, basically, I. Immediately upon, upon landing in the States. And that was super tough on me and I fell in with a bad crowd and my grades suffered. And actually this is a good story. 11th grade, I actually found my 11th grade report card from Kingwood High School, Houston. and I had two F's, a D, and a bunch of C's, my last semester there. Wow. I got to Ash and they're like, bill, it's so great to have you back. You were an awesome student. We're gonna put you in AP calc, AP physics, AP English, ap this, ap that write down. You're doing mu, you're doing Model United Nations. You're doing all this. I said, okay, great. we contacted your school in Texas, but they haven't sent us your transcript yet. I said, okay. And, I get into the, the ball starts rolling. I get a few months into it. I've got these bad habits from Kingwood. I'm not doing my homework. I'm not studying. The teachers nailed my butt to the wall, but in, the word's not aggressive. The word is maybe something like proactive. It's like they would not let me fail. And, they did it with caring and compassion. And within a matter of, I don't know, a month or something. I was doing great. I was back on track. I was acing all my tests. I was getting A's in my courses, and, about halfway through the semester, they called me down to the principal's office and they said, Hey, we still don't have your transcripts. the school's really given us a hard time. they're being a pain and unreasonable, but your teachers say, you're doing great. You're one of their best students, so keep on keeping on. So I have a great semester, and right before Christmas time, they call me back to the principal, and this time my mom's there. And the principal, I think it was Mr. Herd. Does that sound right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So Mr. Herd's like, oh, and, Andy Nicastro

Randy: 10:47

is in there. Yeah, yeah.

Bill: 10:49

I'm like, okay, what's going on? And, my, my physics teacher, Ben Bennett maybe. Anyway, all my teachers and my parents are in there. I'm like, oh boy. They're like, yeah, we got your grades, bill. There's obviously something wrong with that school and you're doing really well. So what we've done is we're gonna change these grades and keep you in these AP classes. And that is how I got into college.

Randy: 11:14

Wow. That's crazy. I don't even have the words for

Bill: 11:17

that.

Randy: 11:18

Yeah. that's, wow, that's really interesting. Then it basically

Bill: 11:21

changed my entire

Randy: 11:22

life. and I've noticed that with my, with my kids too, going to school in the US system, growing up, Coming back and going, Hey, I got,'cause I, I was estranged for my kids for a lot of their, most of their life. But when I wasn't, they'd come home and say, Hey, the, I took this test today, multiple choice. And they said, there's 52 states, and I got it. they said, I got it wrong. I put 50, isn't there 50 states stat? I was like, yes. So I go to the office next day, it's who's teaching these courses? And then, same thing with not some schools, I depends on the state, and depends on the school district, but they're not sticking around after school to, or during lunch or whatever to help people with that need problems and things. They're just like, yep, that's it. I'm outta here. Or something like that. And there's no more investment in the student after that, unless it's like at the football field or something like that.

Bill: 12:14

Yeah. E exactly. and, it, it just, It really affected the whole trajectory of my life.'cause I, maybe I would've gone to community college or something, but I went on, get a degree in physics. I had, I was a good student. I just had fallen on a bad year. And, they recognized that and gave me a chance and made all the difference.

Randy: 12:38

I owe everything to James and, some of my other friends because I don't think I ever would've taken an AP class except that all my friends were in AP classes. So if I wanted to spend time with them, I had to like up it. And I was horrible at pretty much everything. I got B'S in all my AP classes, which looked like a's and more. But, I suck. I suffered in those classes a lot, especially history. I remember I. Falling asleep a lot.

Bill: 13:06

they gave me enough AP credit to graduate in three years with a double major. Wow. I brought five AP classes Yeah. In the college. And I, since I was paying for it myself, I really appreciated.

Randy: 13:21

Yeah. Yeah, I did. I brought five AP classes too. what about you, James? You might, you probably brought 10, didn't you? Yeah. no.

James: 13:28

I had four. I got the first semester of college, out of the way from that. But I think what you guys are describing, bill, that's a good story and it really shows you how powerful a little bit of compassion along the way could be. But I think there's two sides to that about Ash that are so special. For sure. The teachers themselves, and I guess I call three aspects, the things that they would undertake, like those school trips to, other places for a week. That's a really big enterprise. If you look at. How that contrasts with the types of school trips people can manage today. if you can get 30 kids on a bus and take'em to a local zoo or museum, that's a big deal. but anyway, the attention and care from the teachers is extraordinary. And I wonder, Randy, if there's something to be said, for, did the fact that we knew kids came and went with their parents, right? You're there for a year, you're gone'cause you're dead, or mom gets assigned somewhere else, then you're back for a couple of years. There was a an element of you can't take your friendships for granted. Or the people who are there for granted, I don't know, for it somehow seemed more intense because people you had to take people for when you had'em and you couldn't be sure that they were gonna be there in the following year. So something about that experience was quite, vivid. I,

Randy: 14:42

I got three different points from Bill's story here. So one, the first time I ever used a compass, Was in England on the England trip when we were going cross country by ourselves. Like we could have got gored by a cow for all I know, it was crazy. I don't know if they, let's still do that or not, but it's crazy. We were going cross country with two other guys who had no idea to read a map going from place to place. And, and I ended up joining the army and learning how to, how actually compasses work and everything. That was pretty interesting. The second thing is, I was in Amsterdam for the first two years. I was in Holland. I lived in a small town called Amos near Den, and so it was easier to go to Amsterdam. So I went to i s a and our school trip in sixth grade was to Greece. So we went to Greece for two weeks, and my mom, they asked for parents to volunteer and they would pay for'em to be like the sponsors, to make sure to corral the kids, And so my mom was the sponsor for that. So that was awesome. we studied Greece all year, just like you said, and then we'd go there, we see the Parthenon and the, the Olympic stadium and all that stuff. That was awesome. And, and then the, yeah, just there was a next step. it was a private school, I think we have to go there, right? It was a private school. The teachers were probably paid very well. and it was probably in their best interest to, on every, to make everyone happy as well. But they were just really caring people, and they really cared that our grades were good and, I, it was an amazing experience in London and Holland. And then back to the accent thing, which we started with, why I didn't get a British accent. I went to an American school, I had a few British people there, but we were more overwhelmed by American accents than anything. And he went to a British primary school. So that's where he got his accent.

Bill: 16:23

Yeah. I was in whatever the equivalent of preschool would be in London. I remember Mrs. Holzer and corporal punishment.

Randy: 16:33

Wow. You'll speak with the British accent. I got a

Bill: 16:38

few words wrong in spelling me color, things like that. yeah, got

Randy: 16:43

my hand slapped. I work as an editor now, bill in, and I'm in Europe, so I get a lot of British, Australians sometimes. And, when I'm going through there, I have to restrain myself not to do Copy editing me as I go through. and sometimes I have to go, is that a misspelled word? I don't even know if they spell something like that differently than we do. And I'm like, but, yeah, I know. I noticed that more than I did ever before.

Bill: 17:06

you triggered a train of thought, which is a little bit of a tangent, but, I think I'll launch it. it occurred to me that this experience, and maybe it's, maybe it really starts with having expatriate parents. Living abroad. Going to school abroad made me realize that I really enjoyed travel, I really enjoyed other cultures, and that I had a relative advantage with respect to my, fellow Americans. And that I'd been exposed to three different cultures by the time I was, what, 10 heck and lived in'em 7, 8, 9 years overseas. So I said, when I decided I wasn't gonna go into academia, which is a whole nother story involving the fall of communism, right? But, when I had made that decision, I said, I'm gonna, I'm gonna look for an international company and I'm gonna try and get next Patriot assignment because I know how to work in an environment of Europeans and Asians and people with different cultures and, Heck, I got, I speak a little bit of Dutch now. I speak French. I didn't speak good French at the time. but, so I hooked up with Michelin tires, which is a French company. And, just another way being at Ash and living abroad aimed the arrow of my life and kept me in, in an international trajectory.

Randy: 18:34

yeah, I think James and I, same thing. I'll let Jim talk on his behalf, but when I was thinking about joining the military, I was like, I don't like college. I did it for a year. I want to travel. I want an adventure. I wanna scuba dive, I wanna skydive that military will pay me to teach me all that stuff and they'll move me around the world. That sounds like a great deal. And that's the mentality. I went into the military and then I know James, I'm not sure what motivated him to go overseas, but a love of being overseas probably.

James: 19:02

That was definitely part of it. And it's like, you guys said the experience already of being at the American School of the Hague and then the international exposure, you get there, it's not just being in the Hague. Our classmates were from all over as well. So you really were exposed to lots of different backgrounds, lots of different cultures. I was out of the US for 10 years when I went back to the US for college, and I really felt some culture shock. I, even though I was going to, a university with international students, it really felt, oh man, the, at least the Americans there looked at the world very differently, very insular, and it felt a little stifling to me. I got past that. but, after mostly my education, college then law school and business school, bill and I overlapped at R P I, by the way, I was there getting my M B A when he would've been finishing up his, his ex PhD, I guess by that time I was there. 90 to 93. but anyway, it started to feel a little bit, adventure was calling and I was like, oh man, is there a way to, to get overseas again? And I was able to work that out with my first law firm and, actually I switched law firms to go to work in Frankfurt, but I don't think that would have made any sense at all. it wouldn't have been something that would've occurred to me if I hadn't already spent time overseas. So for sure, I think going to Ash and having expatriate parents, like you said, bill exposed us as kids to the idea that, Hey, hey, there's a whole nother world out there, and people live in it, and it's interesting to spend time in it and visit it, whether it's just travel or whether you have the opportunity to work there. you probably didn't have in mind when you went to Michelin that you would work overseas, or was that already the germ of an idea in the back of your head? Because it was an international company.

Randy: 20:42

Yeah, absolutely.

Bill: 20:43

I said, hey, French company based in France, I'll have the opportunity to be an expat. I've had, I don't know, three years of French training. So plus I've been in France and had a chance to try and throw it around a little. And, I could get around. I couldn't have a conversation really, but that turned out to be a huge advantage when I got to the company because 100% of everything was in French. You wanna use a computer code, it's in French, the documentation's in French, everything was so that, that worked to my advantage. but yeah, I absolutely went into it saying I'd like to get back overseas.

Randy: 21:23

I, I got a couple ideas. One is that, the reason I think that I have closer, ties to the people in Ash. Is that it was just so much easier, and I don't know why this didn't turn over the a s l once, but it was so much easier to get together and hang out. Like I didn't have to drive when I was, in ninth grade or whatever, 10th grade, I didn't have to drive. I could get on a train and we, I could meet James somewhere. I'd get on a bus, meet James somewhere we could go do something. And e even after school, I didn't have to wait around for someone to pick me up and move me around. all that, all the things we could do together on weekends or after school, go to SC and go to the arcade and the McDonald's by the beach and in, in the, Wherever. I don't even remember the names of everything, but I know where you guys know the McDonald's I was talking about. Yeah, the bowling alley and all that stuff. all that stuff. You could do that without, having your parents get involved in getting out of work early or stuff like being soccer moms and things like that. And so that made it a lot easier to build these relationships. if I was gonna go, play Dungeons and Dragons somewhere, or whatever, I could go and I didn't have to have my mom drop me off somewhere or something like that. I think that was a, that, those were big things. And then that you talk about the language, I think our language classes overseas, I didn't, I only took Dutch for one year. I took it in Amsterdam, but I took Spanish for two years from a Spaniard. and, I forget his name, but he was very aggressive. Spaniard. but, I feel like that class was probably better than what they're getting in the United States. and because I live in a foreign country, I took it a little baby a little bit more seriously. So when I came in the military and they're like, Hey, speak any languages. yeah, I took two years of Spanish. Like, well, I, I, so did I, but I don't speak a lick. I was like, that's weird'cause I do, and then when I took the Spanish test, I actually scored, enough to get me pointed in. Like I, I ended up being a Green Beret bill and I worked in South America. Because I took a language test and I already spoke a little Spanish, and they could see that on their test. So they like, oh, we're gonna put you in the South American division. And and so as opposed to, I could have ended up in African or European, I think they were looking for Russian and Polish speakers, or Asia or the Middle East or something like that. I didn't, they didn't ask me if I spoke Farsi fortunately. But, but so yeah, the language thing was a big thing. and I feel like the people in the United States, when they take language classes, they feel like they're never gonna learn the language based on, the high school Spanish they got. But I don't think I ever felt that. I took two years of French, three years of Spanish and a year Dutch and a couple years of Farsi, when I was in Iran. So I had a smattering. And even when I went to Afghanistan as a soldier in 2003, I. Iranian, Farsi is very similar to Dari. so much so that you can understand in similar words and things. And, but, and when I spoke to my interpreter for the first time in Farsi, he's like, you have Iranian accent. Thank you very much. yeah. language I think is a big thing, a big deal that we all experienced over there. a more appreciation that is possible to learn another language where I think a lot of American students when they grow up, they're like, eh, I'll never learn a language. I tried it for three years and I never learned anything and I never got anything out of it.

Bill: 24:42

yeah, I was taught to swim in the middle of the ocean there. I, before I went to France, I bet I had more language training than any expat in the history of the universe.'cause I took Michelin's, intermediate French, advanced French. And then I had another advanced class, and then I had nine months of one-on-one French tutoring. And it was an hour a day or something like that. Might've been two hours. But when I went over there, I was like, man, I am so well prepared. And

Randy: 25:14

the first day

Bill: 25:17

I'm at a meeting and I'm like, I have no idea what's going on. There's 20 people in the room. And I realize, oh crap. They're going around the room. Everyone's expressing their opinion on something and it's coming to me. And I figured it out and I was able to spit out a sentence or two, but that was very

Randy: 25:37

humbling. I was the same way they threw me. No one's ever told me I have a French accent, that's for sure. no, me either. Yeah. Never I, my accent in French. Yeah, me either. Me either. Yeah. I, my, my girl wife doesn't, he would speak very Spanish hardly at all. And when we go to, Spain, we're moving to Spain in a couple months, but we went down there to look for some houses and stuff. And when I'm talking to Spanish, she's like, You're so American. I was like, you don't even speak Spanish. She's like, yes, but I can, you have an American accent no matter what language you speak. and then the army threw me to the, into the middle, to the middle of the ocean too. In Columbia, they're like, here, teach classes on, how weapons and how to save people's lives in Spanish, ready to go. And of course, I've been training for this and I get there and it's so fast because I'm talking to these guys and this guy's like, Hey, anybody question, this guy stands up like Sargento, blah, blah, blah. It's like, Hey, hey, this por see me, sarto, blah, blah, blah. Say, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey. I said, talk some more slowly or I can't understand you, just like one word at a time. And then he did it again. I don't know what possessed me, but I just was like, wha. I slapped him and everyone was like, Ugh. I was like, talk slower. He is like, see,

Bill: 26:53

I didn't know slapping was an

Randy: 26:55

option, but that would've been useful. This a Spanish thing.

James: 26:58

I wonder how important, the Facebook group was towards, building this sense of ash cohesion. I guess you guys are both on the ash, Facebook groups. There's a couple different alumni groups. I wasn't on Facebook for a long time and I only came back on by virtue of the invitation from Andrew, in connection with the reunion. And he was trying to track down all of our classmates and that is an active group. And I think he's by now managed to find almost everybody in our class of 86. But I know the ones, there's a bigger ash group for everybody who went there. and there seems to be. It's a bit of a chicken and egg, problem. Are people on there because they have such fond memories of ash or just joining it help, you remember stuff that you wouldn't have otherwise remember. But I know for me, that group was useful in putting me back in touch with people, that I maybe hadn't been in touch with. I found you Bill, by virtue of a post you had made, finishing your, your marathon in the local stadium Here. I'm like, Hey, that looks like Greenville. Are you in Greenville? And you're like, yeah. I don't know. Did you guys, did you spend much time there? Did you meet other, classmates by virtue of that group, or is that just a nice thing to have now after all these years?

Bill: 28:10

No, absolutely. That's, I could probably list the classmates that, just popped up on the feed and I'm like, oh, there's Tammy Holman. There's Nicole Gruff. Invite friend and then have a, have some chats and catch up a little. And and then Facebook helps me just keep on top of where they are in their lives. but yeah, I was really instrumental, when that group first started. I spent several months just diving into where is everyone now, catching up with people and I've got classmates in New Zealand and just all over the world. So it was fascinating.

Randy: 28:50

I, I, that's the only reason, that'd mean for the longest time. That's the only reason I kept my Facebook.'cause I never chatted. I never posted in it. I just wanted to see what, who, what was going on there. And I wanted to be available if anyone knew me to reach back, to reach out to me. And actually my, when you go to basic training, you have a battle buddy. And he, and for the first two 10 weeks, You and him are like, if you're not within arm's length, you're wrong and you're being punished. And so you're right next to each other and you're, you know everything about each other for the most part. And mine was Ralph Tyrone and we all, we're all put in line alphabetically. That's why Tyrone Surs. That's the only reason we, that's the only reason we were battle buddies. And this is bef way before Facebook or anything. This is in the eighties, late eighties, 87 is when I came in and, he went his own way after 10 weeks or I, we spent four months together actually.'cause we went to infantry train together after four months, he went his one way and I went another. And there's no way to keep in touch. we didn't even know where we were going, so we couldn't even give each other's address. And, he reached out to me like 25 years later. He's Hey man, what's going on? I'm in Virginia. And so we've talked a couple times. We haven't linked, we haven't met. I really want to meet up with him in the ne pretty soon. but, and then also I have, I've never had anybody from everybody that I was really good friends with, like James and Tom, Robert, bill, all those guys. I kept in contact with those guys over the years just with the rotating telephone numbers. I had this black book that it with crossed out numbers because people would move and you didn't have cell phones back then, so you had, when you moved, you had to change your whole number. And I, and most of the time I had their parents' numbers, so I could always, if I lost, if I hadn't talked to'em in two years,'cause I was deployed so much, then the number was disconnected and I'd call their parents or something like that. But, Facebook really helped me solidify a lot of those relationships so I could find out where they were and I could change my travel plans and detour an hour and see someone in. Carrie that lived near Raleigh or something like that. that was really cool. Facebook was really instrumental in that. I liked, I appreciated it.

Bill: 30:54

Yeah. You made me realize Facebook, alerted me to the fact that there's some Ashers living near my mom in Boca Raton in South Florida. So Robert, Zi Netti and Fred Doreen and I would get together, almost every time I went down

Randy: 31:11

there. I'll to Robert's house. Yeah. I'm staying at Robert's house, in like next week when I'm in Miami.

Bill: 31:16

Please, give him my greetings. he is a super interesting guy. They both are. And, but I really enjoyed that and it is amazing how it takes two seconds to be comfortable with people you haven't seen in, 35 30, yeah. 35 years. It's,

Randy: 31:34

yeah,

Bill: 31:35

I guess there's that

Randy: 31:35

shared experience, but you gotta get used to the dad jokes from Robert.

James: 31:40

Yeah,

Randy: 31:42

he's an interesting guy. I really

Bill: 31:44

liked getting to know him. two, two other ash things I kind of wanted to work in. One is, you had mentioned how great it was to be able to get around a town without relying on your parents. And for me, that was my bike. And starting in sixth grade, I bike five miles to school each way every day against the wind, right in the

Randy: 32:06

rain, whatever, the snow. And that's

Bill: 32:09

stayed with me. I still bike. I'm, in fact I'm planning a bike trip, hopefully with James, for September. and the other, Exceptional thing that I realized is, okay, how does your high school help you with your college application? Oh, we have these counselors and they'll give you career advice. Ash hosts the model. United Nations. You need something for your college application. How about the representative from Venezuela? and I don't know what percentage of Ashers participated in that. was it? A hundred percent?

Randy: 32:42

it's huge. if you weren't a representative of a country, you're a security guard. So you did something. You did something. Yeah. and geez,

Bill: 32:50

you wanna talk about a privileged environment that's a premier event in, in, in, in education. M u n a lot of people are study, study all through high school to get to go to that.

Randy: 33:02

And we, yeah. The other schools had to get invited, right? Yeah. Actually

James: 33:07

right now that you mentioned it, that's so many things like the school trip, like model un you just take for granted because okay, that's what we do, but it's not normal.

Bill: 33:14

It's not normal.

Randy: 33:16

Yeah. And then the bike. The bike, yeah. I missed, I, every time I went to Europe or any, foreign country out, when I was in the military, I'd be like learning the public transportation system. And my American counterparts are like, what are you doing? Just take a taxi. I was like, I don't know if I can trust the taxi drivers half the time. and that's true in some of these countries, they warn you may get kidnapped, be careful. but the bus drivers, there's 20 people on the bus already, so I just have to watch and make sure I don't get pickpocketed. but I'll get there eventually and then, I'll always be able to figure it out. and then when I moved to Italy too, like all my guys that lives weren't worked on the base. They all drove, but gas is so expensive in Europe and I was just like, I wanna walk, take the bus, or, you know why? I was like, why not? What's the big deal?

James: 34:02

I moved back to the US after 20 some years abroad. we visited a bunch of states in a bunch of cities, and we really made our lives difficult. We realized in hindsight, because our criteria were, can we walk around this place and is there good public transportation? So we're, we're walking to the bus terminal in all these cities and it's mostly not a very inviting place. We're like, oh, this city's terrible. But it was really just, people don't walk. I remember a few places we were visiting and we, one place, we didn't even get a rental car. We said, we're just gonna walk everywhere. And people looked at us like we had two heads. what?

Randy: 34:37

I, that's where I got most of my reading done. I literally, I. It took me an hour and a half to get to and from school on a bus. A train, a bus.'cause I lived in Lighten. And and basically like even now, like I'm an editor, like I said, and people, science fiction, fantasy, I edit their books for'em. they send me their manuscripts and I edit and then I'll make comparisons, comp titles. I'm like, Hey, this is similar to this, but if you remember when he did this is what he did with character, blah, blah, blah. And my wife and my partner who I edit with, they're always like, how do you know all these books? I was like, I spent five years in Holland, basically spending three hours a day on the train. So after I finished my homework on, going in an hour, I was just going through books like they're going outta style and I must have read like 500 science fiction and fantasy books. So I'm a, I'm well read in this genre and so that's why people hired me. But that's where I got all my reading done. That's where I got my schoolwork done too. Pretty much all my homework. I can get, if you did track and field or something after school, you weren't getting home till 10. So Bill,

James: 35:39

I we're gonna have a few more final, quick. Answer ash questions for you. But before we get to that I, two things. One, any other ash related points that you had noted in your prep that you would like to comment on? And then otherwise we would turn to a few of the passionately wrong type aspects, critical thinking, decision making. But first, before we get to that ash points that you either prepared for or were triggered by virtue of what we discussed, even good about raising them.

Bill: 36:07

just that, I'm very much aware of the outsize influence that school's had on my life and, I'm very grateful for it. But when you are immersed in it, you don't realize it's a privilege and it's unusual. It's only afterwards when you get out into the real world and look back that you realize, wow, did we have something exceptional going. So ask away, James. All

Randy: 36:32

right.

James: 36:32

we were talking about it, yeah, before we started, but the purpose of the Passionately Wrong podcast is to help us, take a better look at how we think and how we make decisions, and ultimately to realize when we're being silly and learn how to make better decisions. And that does involve a bit of looking back and introspection. to start with, I'd ask, is there a decision or two that you can think of that had a really big impact on your life, now your parents moving to someplace, but something that you decided and, ha have you learned anything about decision making as a result of looking back on those big decisions? Oh boy. And if you wanna minutes less about that, exactly

Randy: 37:12

two minutes. So it comes to mind.

Bill: 37:15

it may be boring, but it's, I guess relevant. I had, when I first graduated, from R P I and got a salary, I realized I don't know anything about money at all. I better read a few books. So I read, I read a few books on investing and, the point I took away was that, I should invest in mutual funds and not look at it and just buy the same amount every month moving forward, whether the market goes up or down. And I made a decision to do that, day one and, that, that enabled me to retire a certain number of years ago. So I don't know if that is the type of thing you're trying to get at.

James: 37:58

Oh, yeah, that's a good one. Bill. I. I thought you were gonna say that you, didn't know anything about investing. You informed yourself about the right approach, which you just described, and then didn't follow that approach, which is what most of us do, which is we say, ah, I could do better than that. And, you learn from mistakes, but, it's nice to hear that it's also, sometimes the case that you actually can learn by doing some research and targeted study and then following the advice that you learn. I, I like to think that it's possible for people to learn a positively and negatively. So that is you learn from your mistakes, but you can also learn by Yeah. Doing exactly what you just said. So that's good. One of

38:39

the

Bill: 38:39

most valuable lessons I got. From investing is that I am not a financial genius. I'm not even close. And some of the advice in the books was don't buy individual stocks. But if you're going to, buy what you know and do it with money you can afford to lose. And that second part turned out to be particularly important to me because I gained a lot of experience losing small amounts of money. And looking back at that, I realized if I had been successful by chance, I probably would've thought I was a genius and would not have continued with the prudent approach that paid off and actually let me retire. So I think my bad luck was my good fortune in that I learned, hey, I don't possess any special skill. I didn't pick Microsoft when they were two years old or anything like that.

James: 39:35

that is a bias that I think, people have that is quite prevalent and which distorts decision making, which is good. Things that happen to us are the result of our agency. We're smart, we're brilliant. We made a good decision. We did everything correct, which leads to gross and undeserved over confidence. And then at the same time, bad things that happened to us are the result of someone else's fault. Oh, that was just bad luck or the circumstances were bad. And so we don't often take the proper lesson from the things that go well and the things that don't go well. And as painful as it can be, sometimes a, for a person with the right mindset, small mistakes are really quite illustrative. yeah, I like that. how about poor decisions, bill? If you've made any, maybe it relates to your, I don't even know if it was a decision also, I'll just leave it open. anything that stands out as maybe a bad decision and something you've learned from it besides just the investing that you just talked about. If you're willing to disclose it here on air.

Bill: 40:37

I don't wanna air my dirty laundry, so I think I'll pass on that.

James: 40:42

how about just this generic question then. If you're, talking with a friend who's facing a big decision, how do you approach the process of giving them advice on making a good decision?

Bill: 40:52

that's interesting that you asked that.'cause I've had a somewhat of an epiphany, on that lately. I've discovered, I advise my friends to do it the way I would do,

James: 41:03

which

Bill: 41:03

is not always necessarily helpful or good advice for them. And, I have a friend right now who is considering opening a consulting business. She wants to move to Michigan and buy a farm where she can host retreats. And I'm like, have you written a business plan for this? Have you calculated your break even income? Have you? And I'm like, this is not who this person is. and it's not useful, to push that line of argument

James: 41:34

with her.

Bill: 41:35

so maybe I've learned a bit of humility in giving advice that my way is not the only way I'd like to think I have. I'm 55. It's not too late to learn trick new tricks, is it? No,

James: 41:50

we hope not.

Randy: 41:51

Boy. Oh boy. I changed my whole career in the last three years. I, I'm 55 too,

James: 41:55

I find. To your point, bill, one of the, I write short articles and publish'em on this site, and there's tons and tons of people who are trying to make a living with, a side hustle. So they're writing or consulting or, some non-traditional, I don't wanna go work for a company nine to five. And I see tons of people writing about, I did it this way. If you do what I did, you too can be successful. And that advice infuriates me because it really doesn't take into account people are different, circumstances are different, and all of the factors that go into making something successful, it's not just, I did it this way and therefore, so recognizing that the way you would approach a problem might not be suitable for your friend, does that make you not want to give advice or does it make you, how do you use that to advance things a step?

Bill: 42:45

I think about, put myself in this person's shoes, what would be helpful? And, y what type of thing, what type of argument, what type of conversation might be helpful to her as opposed to, let me say my piece that came into my head without relating it to you first.

James: 43:04

You mean people don't all think the same way? Yeah. that's good. Randy, any passionately wrong related questions? Otherwise I'd go to our quick round of ash. Fun facts.

Randy: 43:15

No, but there's something to be said about you seem to be very, I'm not sure what the word is. You think like I do, bill, especially about making a business plan and figuring out, your, I started a small business while I was in the military. It was the pre predecessor to take out taxi and, Uber Eats and stuff before the internet and g p s and ordering online. And I, and, and, I, I did that and I went to an S B P or a small business, association thing. And they're like, this is incredible. No one ever comes with this. this is amazing. So I got a lot of, I got a lot of oomph from it and so I made it happen and it wasn't a success. it was probably too early to be a success, but, but I think there's some merit in doing it,'cause I. Hypothetically, I could have gone to a bank with this thing and said, Hey, this is my plan. It was like, wow, this is a great plan. Here's some money. but I didn't wanna borrow money at the time. so if you want to go out and do it yourself and not make a plan, I think that's the hard way. and I do this with my editing clients all the time, passionately wrong. People who come to me without a plan for their book and they don't have a focus and be, they just put everything they ever wanted to put in a book. And I get it and I'm like, man, there's five books in here. and I, some of it, you're not gonna be happy, but I, half of this doesn't even belong in this book with the point that you gave me. And you gotta make a plan. It's I'm not a plan, I'm a pants. And I was like, that's great. You can start off as a pants, but once you get it all on paper, you need to plan it.'cause no one's gonna read a confusing mess. so I think, as far as if we're going pastly wrong, James, it's basically, The, I think people having a plan, a base plan is a good idea. And, I've seen a lot of people fail by not doing it. And I think the people that don't fail without a plan are the unicorns out there.

James: 45:04

So sorry. Pants are is a person who flies by the seat of their pants.

Randy: 45:08

they, in the world of editing and writing, it's the person who writes by the seat of their pants who doesn't go in with a plan. They go in with oh, I wanna make a book about a ninja who, talks to butterflies and he's going to, do this. And so they have this, they have a lot of, in a way, they have a lot of unique situations they brought to the table, but they're not all connected and there's not a gulf and there's not a character arc. and they have all these, they have a bunch of scenes that are cool, but all the interstitial. Fluid tissue is, the connecting tissue doesn't work correctly'cause they just didn't have a flow. And so that's what yeah. Pants are, is a guy who writes by the seat of his pants and then they got a planner who actually makes a plan. And a lot of time the pants have to turn the planners to get a good book together. So

James: 45:54

I'm getting a little bit the sense from this discussion that it is not actually passion that differentiates people. You can have plenty of people who are enthusiastic about their activity. You need that. If you don't, if you're not really committed to something, then you're gonna fail for that reason as well. It's like just an idea or just a, a fancy that I had. But then just like with successful investing, there are some simple rules that if you learn them, you can follow them. that's a plan, right? it seems like that might be a common factor to success in other endeavors, whether it's writing a book or building a house or whatever it is, developing a business plan, it behooves you, and it improves your decision making. If you take the time to not just follow your passion, but also understand a little bit the rules of the game or the ways that one is successful at this approach.

Randy: 46:38

There's always gonna be the outliers, the unicorns who beat those odds by accident or by fate or by luck. yeah. And those

James: 46:46

unicorns. Are the ones that annoy the crap out of me because they're the ones who write books saying, if you do what I did, you can be, a multi-millionaire too. It's maybe, but probably not. But you have met them, Randy, and you're helping write some of their stories, which is interesting. for listeners here trying to say, all right, you guys say, passion's not enough. You gotta have a plan. There are exceptions. all kinds of people are gonna be giving you advice. How do you determine which is the right sort of advice to follow? If I'm sitting here saying, all right, I wanna learn how to be a good investor. I wanna learn how to write a book, I wanna learn how to start a consulting business. Where do you go to get, reliable advice? How do you figure out what reliable advice is? And I know that's an open-ended question, and it's not a two second answer, but that's what we're trying to explore. But if you guys have thoughts on it, how do you determine good advice from bad? I'd be happy for your two second thoughts.

Bill: 47:32

something that jumps into my mind right away is, So when the unicorn writes a book, Hey, do it my way. This is how I succeeded. They tend not to recognize the element of luck or the role that luck and fortune played in their success. And the problem with duplicating their effort is you'd also have to duplicate their good luck at the right moment. And, so good advice to me is somewhat independent of the amount of luck that you have. Does that make sense?

James: 48:05

Yes. It can't be, first by the winning lottery ticket second.

Bill: 48:08

yeah. All right.

James: 48:09

and that goes back to the basic human tendency to take credit for good things that happened to us, including luck and to push away the things that, bad that we feel like weren't our responsibility.

Randy: 48:20

And I mentor a lot of people. That wanna write like nonfiction books about their success or about their life story and how it was, they got to where they are. And I always, I, my, I feel like my job is to call'em on stuff because I'm like, I ghost wrote a book bill about investing in rental real estate. This guy's a very big, he has a company that does it, and he was writing a foundational book for his business and we're, we made a plan and we're going through it. And I never, I didn't ask him the right questions. I didn't ask him who he's writing this for. I figured he was writing it for Joe the Joe, the guy that's working. And hey, if you buy your first property and rent it out and then you buy another property and when you get to 10 or 15 properties, you can quit your job. I thought he was writing for Joe. And then we get halfway through the book, and this is an, a fiction book about a fictional family that represents. What I thought was average Joe.'cause that's what we started with. And it turns out average, his average Joe made$130,000 a year and had a partly partially paid off mortgage that he could, get equity from and stuff. I was like, whoa. That's not average Joe. He's what do you mean? He is the people I work with every day. I was like, yeah, but I have to say the people that work with you every day are an average Joe, because that's not average Joe. Average Joe makes$60,000 a year. They might own their house, but they probably don't have any equity in it, and I don't think they can pull cash out to, to buy a house to rent it. So we need to change your reader, whoever your reader is. We need to outline what that is. And so we had to go back to the drawing board and kind of start over. And then one of the, one of the turning points, I don't know if I told you this, James, in the middle of the book, he's and then they inherited a bunch of money from their aunts so they could go buy a house. It's whoa, I thought this was an average Joe book. He's Joe has aunts. He is like rich aunts. Every Joe has a rich aunt. I don't think that's true. So I think we need to make, if you wanna make this accessible to average show, we need to even not average show, you got, it's gotta be something that they can do with within the concepts of their normal life. Every everyone can do it, or at least a large percentage of people can do it. Your readers can do it. but yeah, I think that represents what you said, James. Excellent.

Bill: 50:31

If you have a way of telling good advice from bad, I think you'd quickly become one of the richest people

Randy: 50:36

in the world.

James: 50:37

that's what we're working towards. And I suppose you need to have big goals in order to achieve big things. it is a tiny minority of people who cause change to happen, so it is actually the unicorns. It doesn't mean that you can easily emulate them, but it does happen. It does happen all the time. So I'm holding out hope that we have, some ways to get closer to the holy grail of good decision making.

Randy: 51:02

All

James: 51:02

right. So Bill, some ash questions and we'll see, how to expand the list with time. Do you, we'll see

Randy: 51:08

if you're a really, a real Asher this is the word comes down to me. Alright.

James: 51:12

no. Nothing like that. Do you like your fruits with or without mayonnaise?

Bill: 51:16

pachi flip. Mayonnaise and pinda sauce.

James: 51:20

Oh my God.

Randy: 51:21

So that was the second question. only way to go. He was

James: 51:23

on peanut butter sauce. Wow. All right. You're gonna be an outlier there, but today, I want them today. so you talked about how you got to school when you were in middle school, rode your bike five miles each way uphill. Good for you.

Randy: 51:38

did you

James: 51:39

change that when you were back for your senior year? Do you remember, did you ride a oped pub trance? how'd you get to

Randy: 51:45

school?

Bill: 51:46

yeah, I took the tram. I didn't have a bike there senior year, which is really a shame retrospectively. yeah, I was public transport all of senior year. In fact, my mom didn't own a car, so both of us were,

James: 51:58

do you remember a favorite meal at McDonald's or a favorite item to order? Was it puffer's

Bill: 52:07

powders? Puffs with powder sugar and stroke and butter. They have those at McDonald's. oh, at McDonald's in particular. Yeah. I got food poisoning in fifth grade at McDonald's, and I've never went back since. So I'm afraid

Randy: 52:23

I'm much of an expert. I, here's a question, pots or

Bill: 52:26

a school project because of it. I was super

Randy: 52:29

sick. All right. Ridges or pancake house? Oh man. they're both heavenly.

Bill: 52:34

I have, a whole thing, a p of Coke and plates, big dolf blue ones up in my kitchen. Yeah. Fond

Randy: 52:40

memories. I found a, Dutch pancake house. They called it a pancake house in London. I was doing a, I was doing a, I did my master's in creative writing. I did a study abroad down there, and I passed it and I brought all my, the guys that were in the class with me, I was like, gotta go here. You, you ever been to, never been outta states before. So we go there and they actually, it was a pancake house, but they actually had ridges too, because there was just basically all the, anything from the Netherlands and we had, and that they loved it. It was great. I remember it was awesome. Besides

James: 53:11

Poros or, your french fries with both mayonnaise and peanut butter sauce, any other snacks or food items that you remember, having in Holland that you haven't had elsewhere, but,

Bill: 53:23

oh yeah. Every Asher will tell you the same thing. Croquettes.

Randy: 53:27

Oh, yeah. in retrospect, I don't know, Hy Hygienic, they were to buy them at the train station, but I loved them, but I did it every time. So Me too. And the other ones, the little withered, the bur, hotdog thingies, whatever the hell those were called, I forget those. Those were fricking Derick Dells.

Bill: 53:44

Yeah. Yeah, you bet.

Randy: 53:46

Great name.

James: 53:47

I also came across, I saw it the other day. I was like, oh, something, a kind of soda that I only remember ever having in Holland, but I realized it is available elsewhere. And that was RC Cola.

Randy: 53:58

in these boot camps, I found some strip waffles in, in the States. In Atlanta. In Atlanta. I found a bunch of'em in, they sell'em in grocery stores now. In, in, in the States. Yeah. you can

Bill: 54:08

get'em anywhere now in here. And they're halfway decent too. So

James: 54:12

you do any extracurricular activities in school that you recall? Sports acting musicals.

Bill: 54:20

senior year I did karate and had a brief stint on a rugby team, but Oh, I did too. yeah, I wasn't much of a jock, in

Randy: 54:28

high school. I think I made it day one on the rugby teams.

Bill: 54:34

I, we, I played in one game. The team only had one game and then it fell apart. So it was quite a game.

James: 54:41

yeah. So maybe ish was not quite as standout when it comes to, sporting activities as it was with everything else. Maybe because our class was so small, but there were still plenty of people who did quite some sporting activities, interestingly enough. Didn't we do bowling as one of our activities?

Randy: 54:57

What say it was, I thought it was bowling. I remember that. Yeah. You were on the bowling team. Is that what you're trying to tell me?

James: 55:02

That could've been just

Randy: 55:03

for fun. All right. Here's

Bill: 55:05

another privilege of Ash story. our swimming used to take place at the indoor outdoor swimming pool next to the coor house, and it had a wave pool. Do you remember this place? yeah. Yeah.

Randy: 55:17

We used to go swimming. Didn't they take us swimming for physical education, once a week or twice a week. Yeah. We're all gonna a wave

Bill: 55:23

pool. Yeah. Indoor outdoor wave

Randy: 55:26

pool. That's fantastic.

James: 55:27

Doesn't

Bill: 55:28

everyone do that? Exactly.

James: 55:31

All right, bill. So this was fun. We've, added to our list of possible questions for Ashers, but also more importantly, we've got to hear about your experience and your life. Thanks for sharing with us. your interesting trajectory. There were a few more areas that we, didn't get into as much as we could have, but mostly your post ash, life. But I suppose that's okay. we'll leave it at that and say thanks very much for agreeing to be a guest and talk to us and hopefully all the fellow Ashers who will listen to this. And thanks everybody for listening. And maybe, hopefully you also got a good idea about decision making, although I'm not sure we've cleared up too much yet.

Randy: 56:11

I think we need to call the ash, the pass the wrong ash versions. ash privilege.'cause all the things we just talked about. I'm like, man, we were, they really treated us nice at that school. I forgot about all that stuff. the wave pool. I forgot about that.

Bill: 56:25

Yeah. I'm gonna go change my will when we get off the call.

Randy: 56:31

All right. thanks everyone for joining us. Thanks a lot Bill. And we'll see you guys next time.

Bill: 56:35

Thank you guys. Bye-bye.

Randy: 56:36

We'd love to hear what you think, so please comment on the show with your thoughts. We read all of your comments.

James: 56:41

Thanks for joining us, and thanks for subscribing. See you next time.