#35 Sharing Advice From Johnny Depp's Limo Driver
Back in the late 80s Johnny Depp’s limo driver gave Kelly a piece of advice that stuck with her and became a part of who she is today.
Have you ever received a simple piece of advice that’s stayed with you forever?
Are you an open sharer - or do you tend to hold information close to your chest?
Mentioned in the Podcast
Marie Forleo's online business School - read Kelly's experience: https://myprojectme.com/make-business-dreams-come-true-marie-forleos-b-school
Let Kelly know what you think: hello@myprojectme.com
Read the Transcript for this Episode below:
Episode 35 of the Project Me podcast. Hi, I'm Kelly Pietrangeli, the creator of MyProjectMe. com. This podcast is designed to be an entertaining, lighthearted, inspirational, personal growth journey. Each episode goes in a mostly chronological order as I piece together the books, modalities, people and experiences that have fallen onto my life path exactly when I needed them.
And how often I resisted the very things I needed the most, or didn't see the gifts contained in the challenges until later. By sharing my stories, I hope to inspire you to reflect on your life path. What are the seeming coincidences that have led you to where you are today? What are the hidden gifts within your challenges?
And what magic is out there waiting for you as you let go of resistance and follow your own breadcrumb trail? At the end of each short episode, there's an opportunity. For you to reflect on how my story relates to your own life. You'll also find a PDF of journal prompts in the show notes or in the podcast section at myprojectme.
com. Hello, welcome back to the show. I've got more of an old school style episode for you today, where I go back in time to my early twenties. But first I want to thank everyone who listened to and fed back to me with so much positivity about the last episode, where I talked to my teenage son, Marco, about being gay and coming out and advice for parents on this subject.
Oh my goodness, it has been, I think it's the most listened to, most shared, biggest response I've had to any episode and I've been sending him your emails and screenshotting comments and just making sure he knows how well spoken you found him and how impactful and insightful you found our conversation.
Several people said that his argument in our little debate about some parents or grandparents needing more time to come to terms with finding out someone they love is gay. They said that the way that he put it made them actually get how hurtful it is for someone to need more time to accept you for who you are.
And yes, he finally opened me up to understanding that perspective too. So thank you to the Grounded Parents group for inviting Marco and I to your IGTV next month and to the Family Flow app for featuring the episode in your newsletter. Please, everyone keep sharing this one so it reaches those who may have their heads and hearts opened in time to make a real difference.
Just the other day, I was actually talking to my son, Marco, and I found myself repeating some advice that I received when I was not much older than him. That advice came from Johnny Depp's limo driver of all people. So after I shared this advice with Marco, I began traveling back in time to my early twenties and piecing it all together.
And I decided to make a podcast episode about it. So here we go. Episode 35.
I was 20 years old when I made the big brave move from Minnesota to LA, California with my boyfriend Scott. We drove across the country to get there. I had still never been on an airplane. We knew nobody. We had barely any money. Now that I have a 19 and 22 year old myself, I think, my God, I was so young to be doing this with no parental support or advice whatsoever.
Nobody in my family had ever left Minnesota. So they weren't going to know much more than I did about moving to California. I'm just grateful actually, that I never had any adults in my life telling me my ideas were crazy because my crazy ideas have led me on some very big adventures. After arriving first in Laguna Beach, California, and then realizing just how far south from Los Angeles it actually was, Scott and I headed up to the South Bay, and we found a small apartment in Hermosa Beach.
We were so worried the landlady wouldn't accept us as an unmarried couple, that we told her we were brother and sister. This feels so absurd to me now. It was 1987, so either things weren't as progressive as they are now, or we were just very young and naive. It turned out the landlady lived in the apartment below us.
So we really did have to stick to our lie and behave like brother and sister, which probably explains why even after we broke up, we're still great friends now. And my kids grew up calling him. Uncle Scott, as soon as we moved into our tiny apartment, we went yard sailing to find some furniture. I have this image in my mind of the two of us reclining on plastic lawn chairs in our living room, watching a portable TV that was sitting on a cardboard box.
We'd cracked open a couple of beers and we were feeling like we had it made. We were living the California dream. But we needed jobs. And we needed them fast. Scott set off to hunt for a job working at a car service station, like he'd been doing in Minnesota. I'd always been willing to work a whole variety of jobs throughout high school and university.
So I was pretty open to anything. I'd been a cleaner, cleaning houses, office buildings, and department stores. I'd worked in a pizza parlor, a sandwich bar, a packing distribution center. In a second hand clothing shop, in a few different dry cleaners, and I'd done some modeling for Levi's 501 colored jeans in the mid 80s.
I'd actually forgotten about this next part until I was just thinking through my long list of jobs and how I'd always lived paycheck to paycheck. Just before I moved to California, I was asked by the couple I'd used to clean house for in high school if I'd be a surrogate mother for their baby. I remember they offered me something like 10, 000 and I seriously considered it for the money.
I called my mom up and she said, believe me, once you hold that baby in your arms, you'll never want to give it up. I hadn't thought about it that way. I'd been more freaked out about having to give birth. And would I have to have sex with him to get pregnant? Remember, this was the 80s, before IVF became mainstream, so I really didn't have a clue how this kind of thing worked.
I politely declined their very awkward proposition, and the couple were absolutely gutted. We never spoke again after that. I never found out if they did have that baby. So all of this is really to illustrate that when I moved to California without money or a plan, I was willing to take just about any job initially.
But the bigger dream vision was to work in Hollywood in the entertainment industry. I'd been dreaming of that since my early teens. On that first sunny day after we moved into our apartment, I decided to walk up to the main street of Hermosa Beach to find a job. I was feeling super good and optimistic.
Within five minutes, I came upon the famous comedy and magic club. As I got closer and past the box office, something caught my eye. A help wanted sign on the window. I walked up to the box office window and saw a blonde girl about my age sitting behind the glass. I told her I'd just arrived from Minnesota.
I pointed to the sign. We got to talking. She slipped an application form through the window. I filled it in, returned it to her. She gave it to the owner of the club. She told him how much she liked me and what a good impression I've made. As soon as he saw I was from Minnesota, he immediately said yes to hiring me.
Apparently, anyone he'd ever met from Minnesota was honest, reliable, and hardworking. At that time, I only knew that one way of being, but it didn't take long to understand that a lot of people in California didn't have these Minnesota ethics. Scott and I began calling people California flaky. We were gobsmacked at how flaky and unreliable and full of BS and false faces people could actually be.
We'd never experienced this before in our lives and I apologize to any native Californians listening to this. I'm sure there are plenty of non flaky Californians too. So being a Minnesotan got me the job working as a reservationist at the Comedy and Magic Club. I tried working in the box office one night selling tickets, but my dyscalculia, it's like dyslexia but with numbers, it was terrible.
I'd get a near panic attack when someone handed me a cash note and I had to calculate the change back. This was back when we were in a cash society and long before the days of contactless payments. That cute blonde girl from the box office who'd handed me my application and put in a good word with me to the boss, her name is Cheryl.
And she's still one of my best friends today. Ah, and she's a native Californian and not at all flaky. So there you go. Soon after I got the job, Cheryl was promoted to be the boss's secretary. Then she became the company accountant and I got promoted to secretary. I was now in the back offices of the comedy club.
And this is where things started to get really exciting. Hanging out in the green room with the top comedians on the circuit, Gary Shanling, Seinfeld, Jay Leno. I'll never forget when Cheryl's boyfriend, Mark, arranged for Jay Leno to help him propose to Cheryl on stage during the comedy show. Cheryl and Mark are still happily married now some 30 plus years later.
Once I got a taste for celebrities in the entertainment business, I wanted to dive into it even more. I remember watching audition videos with our booking agent to choose new comedians to warm up the shows. And when our advertising and promotions manager suddenly left, I saw my opportunity to take over her position.
My boss didn't want to lose me as his secretary. So I put together a proposal, a raise, an expense account. Business cards with the title of advertising and promotions manager. And I do it all still assist him and run the ads. He agreed. I worked long hours and I was eager to prove myself. Then something happened that stopped me from getting too comfortable.
I was called for jury duty. And when you're called for jury duty, your work takes a backseat and you got to go for however long the trial you're assigned to last. I was bummed. My boss was bummed. I worked long after hours to get all the newspaper ads prepared ahead of time and left files and post it notes with instructions on my desk.
This was long before the internet or even computers. I used a typewriter in those days and I mocked up my ad artwork using scissors and glue. I tirelessly worked to get it all done. And then I headed off to the LA courthouse for jury duty. After a couple of days of just hanging around, I was put forward as a potential juror for the trial of a serial killer, the Night Stalker, Richard Ramirez.
Accused of murdering 14 women in their homes at night. There was no way I wanted to be on that trial. I remember being questioned in the jury stand by his lawyer and saying anything I could do to prove myself incapable and incompetent of such a role. Just now I Googled to make sure I got his name right.
And I saw his face again. That face freaked me out so badly back then. And again, just now, I really wish I hadn't looked at that. It says he died in prison in 2013. Anyway, I did not get assigned to that serial murder trial. Thank God I was placed instead on a tedious case of someone being injured at work and suing his company for medical bills.
Anyway, it was during that trial that Cheryl called me one evening to let me know that our boss had changed all of my ads and basically all of the extra long hours I put in before going away on jury duty were for nothing. I was furious. I'm talking absolutely stark raving mad furious with my boss for not appreciating me for how hard I'd worked.
Not quite mad enough to murder him in his sleep, but pissed off enough to do something pretty stupid and immature. I drove to the club after hours, used my key to go into the office, emptied out my desk. And wrote my boss a scathing letter to say I quit and good luck without me, and a few other choice words.
He was undeserving of my Minnesota work ethic. In hindsight, I was very young, immature, and self important to do that. But maybe I'd have gotten too comfortable if I'd stayed there any longer. It was time for this girl from Minnesota to head for the bright lights of Hollywood. I began working as an extra in TV shows.
While the other extras dreamed of being cast in bigger acting roles, my sights were set on becoming a director or a producer. I spent time picking the brains of everyone who worked behind the scenes. That was how I came to meet the limo driver of TV writer and producer Stephen Cannell, and I landed a job as a production assistant at Stephen J.
Cannell Productions on the famous Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood. Stephen was the man behind just about every male orientated action TV show in America in the 70s and 80s. The Rockford Files, Beretta, Columbo, Ironside, and the A Team. I pity the fool. And ultimately, the two shows I went on to work for, Hunter and then 21 Jump Street, with a young new actor called Johnny Depp.
I already spoke about my Johnny Depp days back in one of the very first episodes of this podcast, so I won't repeat that part again, but It was his limo driver, Michael, who gave me a piece of advice that has always stuck with me. Michael was the one who'd help me get the job, and he would pop in and check on me, and always took the time to give me great entertainment industry advice.
I remember one time saying, you're so good to share all this information with me to help me. You don't have to do that. Why do you? And that's when he said these golden words to me. Never hold information too close to your chest. If you know something that might be useful to someone else. Share it out. It might not be that same person who helps you one day, it could be someone else, but that's what you're putting out there, and it will come back to you.
I'd never heard anything like this before, but it resonated with me on a deep core level. Yes, share it out, and you'll receive back. Not expecting anything back from the specific person you shared with, but it'll come back in other ways. Now that I understand about energy, I see that this was the missing word back then.
The energy we put out is what we attract back. And from then on, I started sharing freely. Not in an annoyingly unsolicited advice kind of way, but more like, if someone mentioned they were struggling with something and I had a resource to recommend, I just went ahead and gave it to them. Be it the name of my plumber, or hairdresser, or a favorite restaurant, or some tip that could help them in their career.
I never held back on sharing something I knew, and I had a way of doing it that felt kind and respectful, not kind of pushy or know it all. I never thought, what's in this for me, or what can you do for me? I just shared it out, and without realizing it, it became a big part of who I am today. When I first moved to Madrid in 2010, I joined the International Newcomers Club of Madrid, and within a few months, I put an idea forward that I write a monthly column for their newsletter.
I called it Kelly's Little Black Book. In it, I openly shared tips and resources that were helping me to get settled into life in Madrid so I could pay it forward to others. Two years later, my friend Ilva invited me to write a column for her website. Again, I shared my advice and tips. That got my creative juices flowing about a book idea called Project Me for Busy Mothers, sharing how I'd overcome all these challenges in different areas of my life, and giving my suggestions and sharing my best tips and resources.
I didn't know how I'd get this book publishing deal with zero online presence, so I joined Marie Forleo's B School, and I remember one of the very first exercises she had us do in the program was to ask ourselves what other people often complimented us on. What are we so naturally good at that we do it anyway without being paid?
And I thought, hmm, well, people are always telling me that they never come away from me without some kind of a hot tip or a resource. One friend used to bring a small notebook in her handbag and whenever we were getting together because she said she always ended up wanting to write down the name of a book or a film or a website or my dentist, orthodontist or babysitters.
So straight after finishing Marie Forleo's B school, I launched. Myprojectme. com, and I created a page with things I love and recommend. The top of the page said something like, When I love something, I want to shout it from the rooftops. It became really popular, and I'd add my recommendations to my weekly newsletter.
I did get that book publishing deal. And if you have a copy of my book, you'll see it at the back. Kelly's little black book. I compiled my best resources for your eight key life areas. And of course, now I've got my membership site project. We, where we all share our best tips and resources for all areas of our life.
So I'm really into helping other people to share their resources too. I have indeed created a whole career out of just sharing what I know and what I love, and I'm getting close to retiring my husband. If you go to the work section of my blog, I share a lot about how I've created this amazing business.
I hope it inspires you too. So when I was speaking to my son the other day and I found myself telling him not to hold information too close to his chest, I explained the expression that if someone is playing their cards close to their chest in a game, they don't want other players to see their hand.
Which is of course fine during a card game, but some people kind of live their lives in this energy. They keep their plans, intentions, or information secret from others. They don't share information out, they kind of keep their cards close to their chest. I believe that when we're in the energy of giving, sharing, serving from the heart, that energy will be returned to us.
This has absolutely been the case for me. I feel like doors magically open for me. Just when I'm needing a resource or information, it magically appears. I'll be like, no way. I was just thinking yesterday that I need to find out who can help me with this. And then someone randomly mentions the perfect resource.
So, dear listener, gently and without judgment, ask yourself, are you more in the energy of sharing or withholding information? Could you bring a better balance to it? If you're kind of an over sharer or you tend to give out a lot of unsolicited advice, could you be more discerning or more tactful? And if you recognize that you're more in the energy of holding back, could you Could you step into it more fully and share your knowledge or helpful resources with those who need it?
Bring a sense of self awareness around this and see what happens in your life when you share from your heart.
Thank you for listening to the Project Me podcast. I'd love to hear if you have any ahas from this episode. And I'll also love to hear a piece of advice you've received that has always stuck with you. You can share that on my Instagram or Facebook post about this episode. On Instagram, I'm Kelly Project Me, or on Facebook, I'm Project Me, Kelly P.
Or drop me an email. Hello at myprojectme. com. I want to share something with you in case it's just what you're looking for at this time. You just never know. Marie Forleo's B School is about to begin. This is the same online program I did in 2013 that taught me everything I needed to turn my talents into my dream career.
If you're looking to grow your business or take the seat of a business idea and bring it to life, that's what B School is all about. Go to my project me.com to the blog section and you'll find my honest review of B-School, as well as the B-School bonuses I'm giving out for this only round of B-School in 22.
You'll have to use my affiliate link when joining B-School if you wanna get my bonuses, because the commission I make is what goes towards your free bonuses, so don't miss out on that point. If you're unfamiliar with the program and you want to know who it's for and what's inside of each module, head to the links inside of those posts or email me and ask me to send you B School info.
You know I'm going to share it with you, right? Hello at myprojectme. com is my email address. If you like the Project Me podcast, this is a great opportunity to flex your sharing muscles. Don't hold it close to your chest. Take a screen grab on your phone, text it to a friend, or post it onto your social media.
Tag Kelly project me in your stories and I'll share you back or use the share button in whatever app you're listening in and you can just share it with a friend immediately from your phone. I honestly do this all the time. If I love something, I just can't help but share it. It feels a little selfish to keep something great to myself.
You can also share with me what you think about the podcast. Please leave a review if you're listening in Apple podcast. Until next time, open your mind, open your heart. And stay curious. We all need some space in our lives for the magical and unknown.