And it's just like, I did all that shit for me, and it's not like I don't need people in my life. It's like, let's acknowledge the strength and the power, where it comes from. And that is ultimately you. 

Especially if you're an artist, right? Especially if you're and look, this is obviously coming from a perspective of an artist, so take it with a grain of salt. But you're this vulnerable creature, and this is the thing about artists, that I'm an artist and I don't understand it. 

You're this vulnerable creature, and you look at the space, the space of nothingness, and then you create something. That's magic to me. There was nothing, and then there was a song. There was nothing, and then there was a film. 

There was nothing, and then there was a piece of visual art. It's like, what do you understand that that didn't exist beforehand and that the fact that that thing got created is pure magic? Hello, hello, hello. 

Welcome to the I should have learned the sooner podcast. I'm your host, Tim Winfred. Together, let's take a dive into amazing stories of personal growth as my guests share their answer to the question, what is something you know now that you wish you had learned sooner? 

From overcoming impostor syndrome, investing money, lessons and more. Join me and my guests as they share their stories of challenges they faced head on and how they came out. On top today's episode is Tom Goss, a friend of mine and an artist in Los Angeles, a musician. 

I wanted to bring Tom Goss on because he is a different type of guest than I've had this season. Everybody that I've had is sort of in the financial and real estate world, and Tom is not. He's an artist, a content creator, and he manages his own business, traveling the world, traveling the United States, releasing music, touring videos, editing everything you can think of that ties into a content creator in this modern world. 

And he's been doing it for over a decade and a half. So Tom has a lot of beautiful insights in this conversation, and I am so excited for you to hear it, because we break down a lot of ideas related to what actually makes people happy. 

It's not really money, right? Money does provide a sense of security, and it gives a lot of opportunities. But at the end of the day, something as simple as skipping can make you happy. So without further ado, let's jump right into this episode with Tom. 

Here we go. Hi, Tom. Thanks so much for joining me. Hey, Tim. Good to see you. Yeah, it's been a while since we've actually had the opportunity to see each other in person, so this is very nice to have this chance to catch up. 

Yeah. But I feel like I see you every single day on social media, and it's just been so wonderful to watch your journey. So I'm happy to be connecting with you. Thank you. And I always love following your story and checking out your lives and all your traveling. 

Whenever I messaged you recently, I was like, where in the world is Tom? San Diego. And you said you're home, which has. Got to be nice. So where are you? Are you in Colorado now? Yeah, I'm in just north of Denver. 

Okay. I should send you this. I'm constantly at this Instagram page. I think it's called this old House. I don't know the exact same one, but they just have, like, crazy old cheap houses everywhere. And I don't know how I've never sent you one, but I have to send you these things because they are just mind blowingly great. 

I feel like it's similar post to what I see from you sometimes, for sure. Well, before we get too far in for anybody who's unfamiliar with you, can you give a little rundown of who you are? Yeah, sure. 

My name is Tom Goss. I'm a st or I'm a songwriter. I write music, I make records. Sometimes I act in things, sometimes I do other things. I don't know. I make a lot of music videos, which people really like. 

So my first record came out in 2006. So it's been 17 years. So if you don't know who I am, then you've really missed some great opportunities. Well, they have the opportunity now to check it out. You got a catalog for people to go through now? 

Exactly, yeah, it's like I'm in the process of I have a new album coming out in a month. I'm in the process of writing new BIOS and stuff. And it's just like every time. You're like, 9th record. 9th record so funny. 

It's awesome. I mean, to quote one of your songs, you're living your best life. That's absolutely right. Yeah. For people who are unfamiliar, one of Tom's songs is called Best Life, and it's one that I play regularly and I think about it and I sing it regularly, so you're in my head more often than you realize. 

Did I ever send you the demo for that? We actually wrote it for another artist and he did a version of it, and it's very sad. That's unfortunate and colic. And then they never released it. And like, a couple of years later, I was like, whatever happened to that song? 

That song was dope. And I was like, hey, man, I'm going to release it. He was like, okay. Totally changed. Yeah, it's that and endless summer. With undercover summer Undercover? Yeah. Sorry. I was thinking of Miley Cyrus's album. 

Yeah. Undercover summer with Devin, right? Devin Green. Yeah. Devin's amazing. I love Devin so much. Yeah, those two songs have been my BOP since they've come out. Those are BOP. Those are fun tracks, for sure. 

So I want to jump right in. We do have an hour, and I'd love to hear your story and dig into the questions. So for anybody who is new to the show, the podcast is broken into three primary questions. And the first one is, what is something you know now that you wish you had learned sooner? 

You know, I think it's something that I still don't quite know. I think, you know, it's something that I'm constantly trying to learn in that I don't have to please everybody and I don't have to take care of everybody. 

I don't have to be a peacemaker. I don't have to make everybody comfortable all the time. I don't have to put myself on the back burner in order to meet other people's needs. And I think that I spent way too much of my life doing that and as a result, spent way too much of my life feeling undervalued, which is, frankly, what I'm doing to myself when I do that. 

So I think for me, it would be like, meet your needs first. Make sure that you're comfortable before you go out of your way to meet everybody else's needs. Yeah, definitely. As we age, we slowly start to figure out, like, once we start to make ourselves happy, people around us are happy as well. 

I like that. Yeah, because it's really all anybody wants, right? The one you make yourself happy, the people that aren't happy, those are the people you're like, oh, maybe they don't need to be around me anymore. 

Exactly. It's so true. The people who are around you whenever you're just there to please other people are the people who are just taking from you. They're not there to. Cheer you on and they're not there to lift you up. 

It's like they're there because you're making them feel good. Yeah, exactly. And then some people come in and out of your life for a reason, and you have to occasionally usher people out of your life. 

How has this manifested for you as an artist? Has it impacted you over the years and what you decide to release? Not release. I think this new record this new record comes out July 7. It's called? Remember what it feels like. 

I'm really excited about it. It feels really fun and empowered. It's called? Remember what it feels like. A little bit of everything, but without sadness, without resentment, without anger, with just like, life is what it is, and I am in this moment has captured it in this song. 

Right. Every time you write a song and you finish the song, you could go back to it a month later or a year later or a day later, and you're not the same person. Right. For me, when I write, I was in a session yesterday with this new girl that I had never written with before, and she was very anxious. 

And I'm also like, I'm loud. And when I'm writing, when I'm in my power, in that I'm written a lot, I'm really good at it. I know what I'm doing. I tend to just often take the lead. And in situations where I'm comfortable, it's easy for me to take the lead. 

When you're in a writing session and nobody's kind of taking the lead to kind of like me. And at one point in time, I was just like, this song. And I'm always stopping, like, hey, what does everybody think? 

I'm trying to get input. I'm like, hey, I don't want to steamroll the song, but if we don't capture this moment, then we don't capture the moment. You know what I mean? This song is about this moment and that's it. 

And the other lady I was working with, she was like, no, I've worked with you before. I know what's up. We're doing this. I'm not a person that's going to go into a songwriting session. For an hour and come out with one verse, we're going to get that song, we're going to capture that song, and we can go back to it later and tweak it. 

But the moment isn't captured. The moment isn't captured. So I guess I would say that the moment that I'm in always reflects in my art, because that is all we have. We don't have the past, we don't have the future. 

All we have is the present. And my job as an artist is to really tap into the moment, the present, the now and what that feels like and translate that into art. It's so beautiful because a lot of life as I've grown, and I'm sure as you've grown as well, and you've evolved, and especially going back and hearing your decade and a half of music, you're in a certain mind state mindset in a given moment, and that can change minute to minute. 

You could be hungry and feel a certain way. You could have had too much coffee and feel a certain way. Yeah. And then you go out an hour later or something and you're feeling great or whatever it might be. 

So to capture that and to really turn it into something, it's so beautiful because you're able to later hear that. For me, it's like writing and these podcasts and going back to old episodes. I'm like it's so funny how that person that you were at that time is not something I regret in a lot of situations, but it's like that is a moment in time that is gone. 

And I don't know, it feels so like speaking with you, in particular with the art piece of it. It's like art is so subjective and there's so much to it and it can be perceived in so many different ways by different people. 

So I guess I don't know what I'm trying to say, except for the fact that we all live in the moment. I think I understand what you're saying, and I think, first of all, once you finish the art, like, the perception of the art is the art, then, right? 

It ceases to be whatever it is, and even your perception of who you were at the time has changed what the song is, right? So the perception is I mean, perception is all we have humans anyway. Even our memories are fallible, right? 

Nothing that we have is real. And I think what you're saying is interesting because when you're reflecting on the things that you're creating I don't know, how long have I known you? Seven years, probably now. 

The evolution I've seen in you has been so profound in so many different areas of your life. And I think the great part about evolving as humans is looking back at your former selves and saying, like, oh, wow, they really didn't have it together in the way that I have it together now, but they were also doing their best. 

I'm proud of that person. I'm proud of the person a year ago. I'm proud of the person five years ago. I'm proud of the person ten years ago, even if now, you know, like, oh, shit, you were totally fucked. 

Because, you know, the ending hindsight's 2020. But, yeah, it's really interesting. And I feel really grateful to be living a life and to be having in a career that's passively self reflective. And I come from the Midwest, and I come from a very emotionally stunted lineage, which I think all of us do in the Midwest. 

And I feel really grateful to not be that, and I'm not that, because this is the profession that I've chosen, and this is the process that I've chosen. And I think it's a really beautiful thing to constantly be reflecting and to constantly be growing. 

Oh, yeah. There's a lot that I know now to sort of take the idea of what's something I know now that I wish I learned sooner. There's a lot that I know now that younger me wouldn't have heard, like. You have to go through that, and you have to iterate and evolve and go through those steps, even if they are painful. 

And you do f yourself somewhere along the way because that version of you from five years ago who now reflects and goes, wow, I wish I had known that then maybe you wouldn't have even heard it or, like, heard it in the same way that you hear it now. 

There's definitely times when when you're absolutely right, when I come to that conclusion, and then you hear the person that said it ten years ago, and you're like, that's what they meant. Have the perspective. 

Right. And you don't have the set of experiences that leads you to that conclusion, but that's what life is, and you have to come to it on your own terms. I was in this writing session yesterday again, and it was all these queer artists, and we were just kind of sharing our stories and sharing our perspectives, and I was listening to what they were saying, and I was like, Whoa, these people are young. 

And it was like, no judgment to it, but yes, I thought like that 15 years ago. Yes, I agree with you 15 years ago. And now I have another 15 years of experience in this community that leads me to another conclusion, and I can say, like, oh, that's a really interesting thing, and with another 15 years, this is a conclusion. 

I've come to it from that. And they can say, oh, that's cool, I agree with you, or, oh, that's interesting, or, wow, you're wrong. You don't know what you're talking about. You're old. You know what I mean? 

It's like, we could do whatever we want to with the information, but life is wonderful and interesting, and as long as you don't spend too much time being judgmental, both outwardly or inwardly, it's going to be an interesting ride. 

Yeah. And there's a lot to like young people. I mean, I still consider myself relatively young. How old are you? I'm 33. That's great. Yeah, I know. I'm not on my deathbed. Anytime soon. But I'm also not in the generation that says bet and all the new phrases that I like. 

It's just not part of who I am. But a lot of young people get shot down or something. I think there's so much value to have youth in your world because as you age, for better and for worse, you learn certain habits or you pick up ways of surviving and getting through without breaking your own heart sometimes. 

And the world tends to break your heart in many ways. Whenever I was younger, I was just chatting with a friend about this the other day. I joined a startup, thought it was a great idea, and I was employee number three. 

And I had asked the owner at some point, I was like, well, what's the long term plan? He's like, oh, I want to sell it and take a big fat paycheck in five years or something. And I was just so disappointed in that fact because I wanted to take this idea and just go go with it sort of thing. 

And the difference in I think our age was probably like 15 years and having that desire to get in escape. He had a different world. He had a wife, a child. He didn't want to work until he was 65 to take his 401, retirement, whatever. 

He has Social Security. And me, I was like, I had a low salary. I had my whole life ahead of me out of college sort of thing. And just having those different mindsets, I think, really reminds you, like, yeah, not everybody for better and for worse is in the same mindset as me. 

And I need to recognize that there is beauty and there is a place for that. Yeah, I think you're absolutely right, and I think what you're saying about having young people in your life or frankly, having seniors in your life as well, right? 

Is really great. But I think this is a conclusion that I've come to. I think this is why people have kids, because the world you're right, is so fucking harsh and people are so wounded and they're constantly wounding each other. 

And especially, like especially if you're a straight dude living in the Midwest, living in the mountain states, living in the Deep South, there are very clear paths for your life, right? And once you're born, you are grooved into that path. 

And if you are I don't want to say lucky enough, because that's not it, but if you happen to be, like, straight, and if you happen to fit all of these little constructs, the group just gets deeper and deeper and deeper and deeper. 

By the time you're 25, you've done your life. Your life in that context is over. You now need to start. And I feel like that's a very constraint feeling. Like, if I had to feel like that at 25, I'd be like, oh, shit. 

You have to take on the responsibility. And then you start having kids so that you can continue to live life and that you can continue to see it afresh through their eyes. And I think in a lot of ways, it's beautiful. 

In a lot of other ways, it's like so exhausted being like, a homosexual. We are the most brilliant, the most amazing, the most creative, the most illuminated people in the world, and all we can think to do is go to a bar and get shit faced. 

Right? Right. What are you doing? We have forgotten what it is like to be a kid and be like and see the joy in everything. What do you want to do? I don't know. There's a puddle. Go jump in it. There's a million things that we could be doing. 

And especially with our minds that are so full of creativity and so full of vibrancy. And I think as adults we really get in these ruts and some of it is comfort. Like we're comfortable going to this dark club where we feel safe and putting substances in our body that help us forget the pain, right? 

That's what it is. Instead of something else. So anyways, I'm just agreeing with you wholeheartedly. And as I say this, a guy is walking his kid and the kid has a giant gun that shoots bubbles. I love just running around the neighborhood with a giant bubble shooting gun and his dog and there is nothing in the world that looks more joyful than that to me. 

Right. And there's nothing stopping us from still doing that right now. Not a damn thing, right? Have you seen the TikToks and other videos that are like older people trying to remember how to skip? I skip all the time. 

No, this is the funny thing. I learned this, I don't know, ten years ago, ten years ago or 15 years ago, I don't know why I skipped for some reason. And you cannot not smile and laugh when you're skipping. 

Exactly. Possible. And so if I was walking somewhere, even still to this day, if I'm walking somewhere and I'm like a little bored and I'm maybe starting to get a little moody or whatever, I just start skipping. 

And you're like fly. Fly. And you start smiling, you start laughing. There is something, I don't know what it is, but somebody should do a study about skipping because some kind of magical thing in this world, I don't even understand it. 

But no, I haven't seen those and I would like to see it. And I'm 100% down for whatever they have to tell me. Oh, yeah, it's great. It's funny because I don't know, I've seen two that really stand out. 

One is this just older man whose family is, like, busting up laughing as he's doing it. But there's this really beautiful, like, CCTV one where this man is walking past this younger girl and this girl is skipping. 

She's skipping, and as soon as she gets past him, he starts skipping. And it's like there's so much in the world or in the opposite direction, they're crossing each other. Okay? She doesn't see him skipping, but it's just that it's that reminder, like that youthfulness and that joy of childhood and creativity of it that I was talking about. 

Sometimes the world breaks your heart, and people just give that up to go back to what you said, which is, you don't have to please everybody. There's a lot of people who use that phrase, right? Grow up and act your age and things to that effect. 

And I have been perpetually the sort of person who I like to have fun and I like to take the seriousness out of things. And in some ways, I think maybe it's hindered my career and advancement in some ways, but at the same time, I think that vulnerability and that realness people are attracted to. 

And I, for a long time, would beat myself up because I was just like, you a silly guy who walked through this world and just made jokes and had fun and danced and tried to get other people in on that in that bubble shooting gun out there, chasing the dog sort of moment. 

And people can be so rigid and defined. And like you said, there are people in this world, by the time they're in their mid 20s, they've accomplished everything that they think they need to accomplish because it's defined in the movies, it's defined in the people that surround them. 

And then they just get into this divot or rut and. The meaning of life, the hierarchy of needs. They've met everything, and then they just don't know what the meaning of life is. And so now we're even going through the quarter life crisis. 

It's not just a midlife crisis anymore, because there's all this opportunity to see what you're missing out on. Oh, my God. And I mean, social media really is the worst, because regardless of there's never a time in my life where I'm sadder than when I'm on social media. 

Look, my life is unbelievable. My job is unbelievable. My place is unbelievable. I live in a gorgeous place, my husband's great, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. When I hop on social media, I'm like, oh, but I don't have that, right? 

Oh, but I don't have that. It's like, what's the saying? Comparison is the thief of joy. And it is 100%. And I think I'm of the mind where the only thing that matters really is joy is happiness. That's the only quality in our life that's completely intrinsic to us. 

It's not like I want this car. Okay, why do you want this car? Because it'll make me feel good. And why will it make you feel good? Because it'll make me feel powerful. And what will make people powerful? 

Make you feel happiness. Okay, well, so it's just happiness. Like, it's always happiness. It's always joy if you break down any need or want. And so I guess my goal in life is always to cut out the middleman, to be like, okay, I don't have that car, or whatever physical thing it is that I might want. 

I don't actually want cars. I don't give a shit. But you get what I'm saying? It's like, what is it around me in this moment right now that can get me to the ultimate goal, which is joy? And I think if that if we perceive so much of getting that is getting off your fucking phone, and so much of getting that is looking around you and being in the moment that we are in. 

And so that's what I try to do, sometimes successfully, sometimes not. Yeah, there's a lot to what you said about the comparison as a thief of joy, because. Sometimes comparing yourself to yourself is necessary to remember where, like, we chatted a little bit before we started recording about how busy you were. 

And I get into a lot of that as well. And I get so busy, and I just get into the hustle, and it's like, I need to get the next, bigger, better thing so I could be happy. Searching for that happiness. 

This and not realizing sometimes, like, being content with where you are at this moment and realizing the person that you were five years ago or wherever there was a time where maybe you were wishing you were the person you are today. 

It's like, if you pause and you reflect on that fact that, wow, I am where I wanted to be, it's so easy to just like I don't know, just feel this sense of the world slows down. And you can pause and you can be in that moment, and you can feel that happiness and realize, like, even though I have all these goals for the future, if I were to just stay in this exact moment, the past version of me could be so happy with where I am now. 

And that just is so comforting. Yeah, that's such an interesting thought, like, considering the past version of you. I love that. If you went back to yourself when you released your first album and I can't you wanted to tour, right, and do all the things you're doing now. 

Yeah. I mean, it's really interesting. You know, I think for me, the thing that's the most telling about it is my first music video was this video called Till the End. Actually, it was my second music video. 

My first music video that anybody cared about was called Till the End. I released it and it got a ton of ton of press, which even the words in which I'm using to describe it. And I remember just thinking, I was in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, I think, a couple of days afterwards for some gig back in the day. 

This is 2008, so you're talking about, like, Toll Road and Joe. My God. And they were, like, picking it up. It was like, even pre, like Huffington Post, Queer Voices and stuff like that. There were blogs like, these small time blogs were really the thing that were driving the Queer Voice s, and they were all picking it up, and it was just so successful. 

And it's funny because I always think of that as being like the happiest, because I was like, oh, my God, this thing that I made, people are seeing. It was my first real taste of that. And so for me, it's like the benchmark of accomplishment. 

And I remember I don't remember what I was releasing something else, and I was feeling like it wasn't going well. I wish it could just go as well as till the end, right? And then I went back and I was like, whoa, check yourself, Tom. 

What did that actually do? What did that actually do? And I went back and I looked at the numbers, and it was like, I don't know, a couple of thousand views. It was like nothing. I was like, if anything that I did in my life got the numbers that that got, I would consider it an absolute failure. 

An absolute failure. But context is different, right? In that context, it was the most success I could have ever seen in the history of my career. I couldn't believe it. So, yeah, I think you're absolutely right. 

The interesting part is I don't think that my past self would recognize me, and I'm not sure that I would recognize my past self. I think we would respect each other, and I think we would acknowledge what we're doing is cool. 

But I think change happens so fast, and it also happens incrementally, right? It's like when you have a kid, they're born and then they're ten. You're like, how did that happen? Because you saw them every single day. 

You know what I mean? But I'm like their long lost uncle who never talks to them. I see them at Born and then I see them at Ten. I'm like, oh shit, you changed. It's just kind of like that. So I have. 

So my heart explodes with warmth and comfort and love for my younger self in all of the trauma that they are going to endure. And I want to do everything I can to heal that person. And my heart explodes with pride for the person that I am today who always has and always will endure regardless of the situation put in front of them. 

It goes back to the fact that the person you were in the past is so different than who you are now. And as I said, that person wouldn't hear things through the same lens as you would hear now. However, you wouldn't get to where you are today without all of those overcomings and figuring out along the way how to unravel those little traumas. 

That one of my last guests, Rockham Sabri. I didn't even know this was a thing but a financial trauma. He focuses on the world of financial trauma. And a lot of it is tied to if you grew up in a household and maybe there was a food insecurity or the lights went out or or whatever it might be like that. 

A lot of what we go through, we have to unravel and unpack slowly, incrementally, piece by piece. And so last year I went on a road trip. And a lot of people asked me what was my goal behind doing. Was I going to live in one of the cities? 

Was I, like, going to check out the places? I had planned to come back to Los Angeles, where I was living before the road trip at the end of the year in November or December? And one of the things about traveling and doing that is I was getting my world view changed so much. 

And I know you've traveled a lot around the world. I mean, you had a whole album that was cities around the world and places you had gone to. And something I've taken from that is to not hold yourself accountable to what you feel like you need to accomplish. 

Today I've started prefacing whenever people ask me what I want to do next with, well, I say this in a lot of episodes, but I don't know what I'm having for lunch tomorrow, let alone what I'm doing in six months. 

So now I start to preface whenever someone asks me, oh, what's your next plan with your real estate journey? Or whatever? And I preface it and say, well, right now I'm feeling like I want to do X. And so I sort of want to ask you, what is something that you want to do now? 

That maybe I want to be happy. That's honestly, it for me. I don't know what that means. I know that making things makes me happy. I love creating things. I love playing soccer. I love being active. I love good food. 

To me, I know this is a goal oriented question, but to me, the ultimate goal is always happiness. I want people in my life that value me for who I am and whoever I am authentically in that moment. So my answer is a non answer, but it is still my answer. 

I just had happiness and what I think. Makes me happy has changed over the years. And there are some things that have been constant. Making things has been constant. Playing soccer has been constant. 

Skipping has been constant. It's not even a joke. Stopping and petting every dog I see has been a constant joy in my life. And so these are the things that, look, I'm fucking busy. I'm busy all the goddamn time. 

I never take a day off. But you know what? When I see that dog, I'm going to stop and pet that dog. Because if my ultimate goal is happiness, then these other things have to take a backseat to it, even if it's just for 30 seconds. 

And so my goal in life is to be really in that moment and really conscious and honest about the things that make me happy. Getting another 10,000 social media followers has not increased my happiness, right? 

Period. End of story. It hasn't. Every time I think, oh, getting a million views out of music video, getting 5 million views on a music video has not increased my happiness. It's giving you joy in the moment. 

It's made me sometimes feel a level of accomplishment, but oftentimes made me feel like, well, why don't I have 10 million? I understand. Look, the stuff I have made in my life is amazing and truthfully. 

I did so much of this stuff before anybody else. That's just the realness of it. And so as an artist, as somebody who's been openly queer and honest about their sexuality from the day one, and who is now old, who's now 42, I can say I don't feel like I got enough respect for that. 

And that's how I feel. Does it mean that I haven't gotten a lot of respect from people and I don't love the people that respect me and love me and all these kind of things? Yes, of course, all of those two things exist at the same time. 

But ultimately, it has provided just as much self doubt and insecurity and sadness as it has accomplishment and joy. Because this business is a shit show. It's not like this business. Whoever's listening to this and is not in the entertainment industry, let me tell you. 

You know how you have a job and you get better at your job every single year, and so you get promoted and you get more money? Well, it's the opposite of that. You're in your job, you get better at your job every single year. 

As a result, you get demoted and less money. That's what it is. Because it's designed to take from you, and it's also designed to find the new, youngest people that it can take advantage of. And once you cease to be someone that can take advantage of, it has ceases to have use for you. 

So, yes, it has provided me with joy and accomplishment. 100% petting a dog has never given me anything but joy. It has never made me feel worthless about myself. Playing soccer has always I mean, sometimes I get in the fights on the field, but at the end of the day, it's just like, oh, I got to run around every time I walk by or ride my bike by kids playing on a soccer field. 

That's like, that's the only place I want to be. I wish my body could do that every day. So I have to cherish the moments when I can, right? Yeah, it's beautiful because I get what you're saying. There's so much that is produced out there that tells us, like, you need the next biggest, better thing to be happy. 

Like, you mentioned cars, but I think of promotions and next opportunities for making more money. People think, oh, if I just have more money, I'll be happy, honestly. Sometimes making more money gives you more anxiety because suddenly you have more responsibilities. 

You have more places that need to be managed. I don't know. It's a huge navigational challenge for me in my life as well. It's an interesting thing. I have this studio in Inglewood now, which I absolutely love, but it's not in my house. 

Right. And I spend some time, not a lot of time, but I would say I have the cameras. Like the cameras that go off when you go in. Blink cameras. I check them. That's weird. I never did that when it was at my house. 

And if you go to Beverly Hills, all those people have huge hedges and fences and all this kind of stuff. If you go to a poor neighborhood in the middle of America, they will open their doors and feed you. 

They don't have money, they don't know who you are, but they will give you what they have. And sometimes the accumulation and this goes back to what you're saying about life being hard and life breaking your heart, and I understand all that, but sometimes the accumulation of goods just makes you anxious for losing those goods when you. 

Don'T have the attachment to them. Exactly. It's like the attachment is the problem until we get to the point where we're not attached to these goods. In anything that you have, including money, somebody needs it, you give it to them. 

We're not designed to think that way because we live this capitalist society. But ultimately, there's so much that can be learned and there's so much that I think you and I are similar people, right? 

We left our hometowns. We have these ambitions. We're like, trying to do these things in the world. And I can go back to my hometown and go to the local pub and see everybody I went to high school with. 

Right. And I make fun of them, but I bet some of them are happy. Right? Exactly. And I bet you some of them did not have to do the crazy shit that I had to get to where I am now. Right. They just were like, oh, I like this hometown. 

Oh, I like this girl in my high school. Oh, there's something really wonderful to be said about that. There's a place for all journeys. Place for all of it. That's not my journey. Right. Know something you said I haven't even gotten to the second question, and we. 

Have about 10 minutes left, but you should go. On the question, I want to say. One more follow up, and then I'll ask it because you're the only guest, I think, who would know this reference. I saw a Jackie Beat sherry vine. 

I think it was like their 20th or 25th anniversary of doing drag together. And Sherry Vine had told this story about Jackie Beat giving her something. And Jackie's response was the reason I gave that to her, because it was something that I want. 

And the only things I think worth giving away are the things you actually want. So what you had said about poor people giving stuff away, where rich people accumulate and buy bigger houses to put all their stuff in, it makes me think of that. 

And I've tried to take that mindset, and it's like, I really want this for myself, so maybe I just give it away otherwise. Yeah, because you know the value of it, you know somebody going to value it. 

Exactly. Yeah. I love that. All right, so the second question we'll see. No, it was great. I wasn't going to stop it. The second question of the three primary questions, is there something, a book, a quote, a person, song, city, job, conversation, anything to that effect that has really impacted your life? 

Yeah, I'm just going to talk about the now, obviously, there's a million answers to this question as an artist, but I would say right now it's Emily King, and it's been Emily King for, like, three years. 

She's this artist, she's a musician, she's. Unbelievable. My best friend and bandmate, Liz De Roche has been obsessed with her for like, ten years, and all I would do was make fun of her for being so obsessed with this person. 

And then sometime in 2020, actually, so it's been two years, the 2021, at some point in time, I was like, maybe I should just stop making fun of Liz. I do respect everything that she does. Maybe should actually listen to this person. 

And I was like, okay. And I pressed Play, and it was like 3 seconds later. I was like, I'd never seen her live. And I went to Chicago a couple of weeks ago and I mean, God, she's just so empowered and so self assured and so sexy and so confident. 

And I flew to Chicago to see the show, and I just was like, I got the VIP tickets. It was like a little preshow thing. And I was just sitting there, you know, like like a little kid seeing his idol. And that's what it was. 

It was amazing. And she played this song, which I actually didn't know because it was like, on a deluxe album, which if you put out a deluxe album, I'm probably not going to listen to it because I already listened to the album and I'm just going to keep I already have the track listing in my hat. 

That's how it goes to be, you know what I mean? And there's this song in it called by I M it must be, I don't know. But that's a brilliant song, right? And she's talking about, whenever I needed you, you were there for me. 

You were always nice to my friends. You took my mom out to dinner, you paid the tab, you did all these great, and then the turnaround on the chorus is by you, I mean me, that I did all that shit for me. 

And it's not like I don't need people in my life. It's like, let's acknowledge the strength and the power, where it comes from, and that is ultimately you. Especially if you're an artist, right? Especially if you're and look, this is obviously coming from a perspective of an artist, so take it with a grain of salt. 

But you're this vulnerable creature and this is the thing about artists, that I'm an artist and I don't understand it. Like you're this vulnerable creature and you look at the space, the space of nothingness, and then you create something. 

That that's magic. To me, there was nothing and then there was a song. There was nothing and then there was a film. There was nothing and then there was a piece of visual art. It's like, what do you understand that that didn't exist beforehand and that the fact that that thing got created is pure magic. 

So anyways, she has saved my life many times over the past couple of years and I'm so grateful to her and I'm learning so much through her all the time. And that song was like hearing it for the first time ever live. 

And her live show is just so good. I was just like, oh, girl. Then I'm repeat, you know what I mean? So yeah, that's question number two. We did that R1 quick. Well, I think to respond real quick, I think what I got out of the By IMM, I wrote down the acronym so we could get it right. 

You were saying it. By you, I mean myself or me. Yeah, by you I mean me. It makes me feel like the gist of that is that you need to be there for yourself. At the end of the day, the only person who's going to be there for you is yourself. 

Yeah, like always, by I am, I'm not a person that's like, I can do it on my own. I'm the best. That's not me. I always. Want to be with people. I always want to bring people in my life. I always want to be a part of other people's lives. 

But ultimately, whoever we have in our life, and even if we have the best partner in the world and the best family in the world, we are alone. We were born alone, and we will die alone. And our existence is really here in our head, between our two ears, all our perspective that lives in this brain, and that is a solitary object. 

It's only one brain. It's literally confined to my head. So there are so many moments, and I would say probably the vast majority of the moments, even when you are with people, that you are alone. And so you need to really have a great understanding who you are, what you are about, what is important to you and how you want to exist in the world and a confidence around that. 

And I think once you have that, then the world feels better. You don't feel like people are trying to fuck with you. You don't feel like you're not getting the respect, because it doesn't matter. You don't need the respect. 

If you have self confidence and you have self respect, you need anybody else to validate that. You're just like, cool. You do you if it's not vital with me, I'm going to do me over here. And nobody has to hate anybody. 

Nobody has to fight. We don't have to fight any wars. We don't have to yell at each other or throw sticks at each other. We're just all happy. I wish it was just throwing sticks at each other that was happening in the world nowadays. 

We won't go down that rabbit. No, that's a lot. Long one. Yeah. I mean, what you said, it ties back into your initial thought, you can't please everybody sort of thing. Exactly. All right, final primary question is what is something you're working on learning now? 

I would say, like, the answers to these questions are not different. I would say that what I am learning on in this moment is, like, confidence without arrogance, self respect, boundaries. I think the real key is the confidence without respect, the self actualization. 

I think ego is pretty counterproductive, and so much of our feelings come from ego, and so much of our hurt comes from our ego, and especially in Los Angeles and especially in the industry. And from my perspective, the majority of my dissatisfaction in my life, the majority of my sadness in my life, the majority of my pain in my life comes from ego. 

And I think ego comes from insecurity. And if I am confident without being arrogant, I think I've had and I think this is a learned behavior. I think for me, I'm very passive is not the right word, but laid back about everything. 

Laissez fair. Yeah. Even if it's not like, what I actually want. Okay, cool, whatever. I'll do that. Okay, cool. Whatever. I'll do that. Okay, cool. Whatever. I do that. And in doing that and in not setting those boundaries, I start to feel insecure, or I start to feel unseen or unheard. 

And then by the time I'm like, this doesn't work for me, then all of a sudden, it's like aggression, right? And I think that aggression comes from a place of security, because I wasn't able to say, like, hey, this is cool. 

I'll do this, but I really don't want to do it. Maybe next time we do this other thing, or maybe next time I meet my own needs or I say, no, I won't do this. I'll meet my own needs instead. And so I think it's all kind of wrapped up in the same situation about just being confident enough to be myself. 

To meet my own needs, to allow other people to meet my needs when that fits, but not feel like that has to happen in that way. I think I've been like, hey, I need this. And then the other person is like, cool and walks away. 

You know what I mean? And instead of being like and then he'd feel like, Wait, what? And then instead of realizing I can just meet that need myself, then that person who obviously doesn't want to meet my needs can do whatever they want to do, too. 

But yeah, I would say it's about self confidence and shedding ego and having appropriate boundaries. But the establishment of the appropriate boundaries is not through aggression. That's what I didn't get when I just stabbed the other day. 

It's just through conversation, I guess. Yeah. It makes me think I've been reading the book jeez, I'm blank radical candor. And it's four quadrants, and the quadrant you want to be in is be radically candid and give feedback in a way that is respectful. 

And some of the other quadrants, the first one that I thought of is I fall into it a lot myself, is it's called ruinous empathy. And it's where you just don't want to cause a scene, don't want to like and sometimes you're just trying to be empathetic to make the other person happy. 

And at the end of the day, in the long term, especially if you continue to stack those moments on top of each other, then it ruins your relationship or whatever, because it's all boiling over, and you're just putting a lid on top of that pot. 

And the other is obnoxious aggression, which is, I think, what you were talking about, where that lid pops off because you've been putting it on instead of addressing that flame that's making the water boil. 

Yeah, that's it. You're right. Check it out. It's a great book. I've really been enjoying it, doing workshops at work. It's been really helpful. Sounds cool. It's taken from a management standpoint in business, so not entirely tied into your industry, but still has good take. 

I manage my own business, too. Yeah, you definitely do. You manage a lot of things. You've met people. All right, well, we are at time, but before we wrap up, you mentioned your album for anybody who wants to follow up with you, then check you out, check out your music. 

Where can they reach out and everything? Tom goss music. So if you want to do my socials, it's all at TomGossMusic. It's. T-O-M-G-O-S-S-M-U-S-I-C. Same thing from our website, Tomgossmusic.com. 

Search Tom Goss on any of your digital streaming platforms. And yeah, reach out. Hit me up. Always love meeting awesome people. Yeah. And are you going on any tours anytime soon? Yes, actually, on July 7, which is the day the record releases, I'll actually be in DC, which is my oldest stopping grounds for ten years, and really the place that made me who I am as an adult. 

Yes, I'll be in DC, New York Provincetown. Those are the gigs that I have this summer. But I'll be adding some West Coast stuff in August. And I'm really excited, really happy. Well, if you stop in Denver, I will definitely be there. 

Congrats on the new album, Tom, and I hope to see you soon. Thank you so much for doing this. Thank you. Hope to see you soon as well. Take care. Bye. Thank you so much for listening to that episode. 

I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did and took a little bit out of it about maybe I should skip a little bit more. And really what I'm saying is I hope that you realize that happiness is not just attainable through financial success. 

Happiness is a beautiful, complicated journey, and petting a dog on the street, as Tom said, can make you happy. I have my own dogs, and seeing them and playing with them and watching them just play with each other brings me so much joy and it's just so beautiful to have those moments. 

I like to pause right now as I'm thinking about it and just close my eyes and it just brings such a big smile to my face. So thank you so much for tuning in. There's only two more episodes this season, so check us out the next couple of Mondays and feel free to go back and listen to the catalog. 

If you enjoyed this episode, you would definitely enjoy season one of this podcast, so go back. It was filmed or recorded in 2020 and it's got some amazing, beautiful stories with lots of queer people. 

So anyways, if you enjoyed this, please don't forget to rate and review on itunes and Apple podcasts. It will really help me out. And check me out on Instagram and Twitter at contemporary. It's like Contemporary but more fun. 

Until next time, I'm your host, Tim Winfread. Take care of yourself. Bye bye. Music for this podcast comes from FilmMusic IO Acid Trumpet by Kevin McLead, Incompetech.org. Licensed by creativecommons.org licenses. 

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