Charlie Hoehn | Keynote Speaker and Author of Play It Away: A Workaholic’s Cure for Anxiety | High Speed Low Drag Podcast

1549440_10101407613443363_652600385_nCharlie Hoehn is a keynote speaker and the author of Play It Away: A Workaholic’s Cure for Anxiety and Recession Proof Graduates. Previously, he worked for Tim Farris as his director for special projects, helping him edit and launch the Four-Hour body, which sold over a million copies.

Charlie is also the CEO of BookPop! , a company that helps authors market their books.

HSLD: Besides the little background that we’ve give about you, could you tell us a little more about yourself?

Charlie: I graduated in 2008 which was the recession and I spent months frustrated- sending my resumes to companies who didn’t want me.

Finally, I just started working for free for people whom I thought were doing interesting work- guys like Ramit Sethi of I Will Teach You To Be Rich. Ramit was just getting traction then and I helped him launch his book, which did very well.

I went on to help other authors- from marketing their own books, including Tim Ferriss.

I got burnt out after that and took some time off and when I wanted to go back to work, I decided to co-found an app startup with my friend Chad Muretta who is the author if App Empire. We did a product launch which went well.

After a few months I decided that I was still burnt out and that I needed to take some more time off. That’s how I ended up writing Play It Away.

I had written Recession Proof Graduate before that which was about how to get meaningful work and land jobs that you want but I had not managed to strike the work-life balance very well which was why I burnt out.

Now I’m speaking, work on individual projects on my own, consult and help other authors with their own work. For fun I do stand-up comedy and play basketball.

Click here to listen to this podcast on Stitcher.

Click here to listen to this podcast on iTunes 

HSLD: Can you share with us your connection to the military?

Charlie: I’m a speaker for American Dream U. They are an organization that helps veterans transition by teaching them skills so they can become self-starters.

HSLD: Do you have a success quote? What is it?

Charlie: There’s one that I kept on my bathroom mirror for the last 10 years was from Napolen Hill’s Think and Grow Rich. It goes:

I worked for a menial’s hire,

Only to learn, dismayed,

That any wage I had asked of Life,

Life would have willingly paid.

HSLD: Can tell us what is one thing that really impacts veterans to take action, based on your talks with them?

Charlie: I just came from speaking from a Montessori school and there are similarities.

If I just stand there and tell people my story that doesn’t really work. However, if I flip it and ask them about their story and situation then that gets more of a response.

HSLD: Can you tell us a story of failure? What did you learn from it?

Charlie: I have had so many failures in my life but the one that stands out was when I was working with Tim Farris. I considered it my dream job but I was also burning out.

I was so terrified of quitting. Also, no one around me was encouraging me to go after what I wanted. They all wanted me to stick with it.

There was also a period I went though panic attacks but told no one about it for a year. That was a failure because I didn’t want to admit it because it was a shameful things to me. I needed to listen to my body.

I was always trying to keep on going when my body was obviously broken.

Book_Pop

HSLD: Tell us how you got the job with Tim Ferriss

Charlie: I did some work with Ramit and Tucker Max which are friends with him. I was very intentional about wanting to work with Tim.

I knew he usually got hundreds of offers from people who wanted to work with him and for him. I also knew I was probably going to stand out.

So I needed to go through his network and find people that he trusted. I knew that these people had to recommend me to him so I would be considered.

HSLD: Who was that first big name that you got in contact with and how did you get into their good graces?

Charlie: The initial thing that I did was a virtual internship with Seth Godin. It started out with about 200 kids and went on for a summer.

By the end of the summer, everyone had basically dropped out except me and ten other guys.

I got some credibility from that as I could say I had worked with him. After that, I reached out to Ramit and told him about my virtual internship with Seth.

That’s when I got to work with Ramit and it was a domino effect from there.

HSLD: What was the reason why you felt so burnt out working with Tim Farris? What were those days like and what did you usually have to do on a daily basis?

Charlie: I don’t think it had anything to do with Tim. This was an inevitable thing that was going to happen to me because of my personality.

When I first started to work for him, I came from a very wholesome attitude. I wanted to do things that mattered to me but also meet people that would help me raise my game. I also wanted to have fun.

It started out that way and then we achieved major success. I achieved even more success after that.

All of a sudden I became, in my own mind, this badass who was so capable in his job. All of the success went into my head. My job suddenly became more and more, me working in a café all by myself, drinking coffee all day, sitting still, barely moving, checking my emails from the moment I woke up, barely sleeping and then binge drinking on the weekends.

I did this for months and months. And I thought this was normal as all of my friends also worked this way. None of us had any work-life balance.

After I while I became extremely anxious and wound up. A ton of it had to do with stimulants but also with the lack of genuine interaction, the lack of sleep and the lack of a healthy lifestyle.

I was working not because it was fun or meaningful. It became all about the money and the status. There was this disconnect and I could not have fun anymore.

Play-It-AwayHSLD: We’ve come to the end of this so why don’t you take a moment and give us an idea as to what your book is all about.

Charlie: Play It Away is the book I wish had existed when I went through the darkest period in my life. I wrote it because it was what could have saved me from an entire 2 years of intense debilitating stress and burnout.

If you have the symptoms that I mentioned or the work life that I described then you may want to check out this book.

If you want a preview of the book, you can google “Cure Anxiety” and my name should be among the first ones that pop up.

Click here to listen to this podcast on Stitcher.

Click here to listen to this podcast on iTunes