Rob Schwartz, Son of THE Tuesdays With Morrie Talks About The Lost And Now Follow-Up Book The Wisdom Of Morrie (#241)

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Morrie Schwartz, who passed away from ALS at age 78 is the beloved subject of the classic multi-million copy number one bestseller Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Alborn, Posthumously releases a new book with his son and editor Rob Schwartz called The Wisdom of Morrie. In his new book, Morrie explores life questions in a profound, poetic and poignant masterpiece of [00:02:00] living and aging joyfully and creatively. Later life can be filled with many challenges, but it can also be one of the most beautiful and rewarding passages in anyone's lifetime.

 In his new book, the author draws on his experiences as a social psychologist, teacher, father, friend, and role model to offer us a roadmap to navigate our futures. 

Morrie was a professor of sociology and social psychology for 30 plus years at Brandeis University in Walton, Massachusetts before retiring at age 70, 

Morrie wrote on a variety of topics. His groundbreaking 1954 book, The Mental Hospital, made him a superstar in psychology and helped him earn a full-time professorship at his first university position. Morrie was dedicated to social justice and valuing human beings.

Rob Schwartz is the son and editor of his father's book on aging titled, The Wisdom of Morrie. He has many years of experience as a journalist, music and film producer and [00:03:00] entrepreneur. Rob has founded a number of companies, both in Japan and the US and held executive positions in others. 

He's produced numerous film and music projects with international teams. His areas of expertise include the entertainment industries in Asia, the US, and Europe.

His projects often have a special emphasis on music, film, online business development, and developing musical artists careers. In addition, Rob has been reporting for Billboard Magazine on Asia since 2007. 

Rob is one of the producers of Onetopia, a benefit music festival, slated from May, 2024. Rob recently appeared on Good Morning America, Nightline, PBS, News Hour and good Day Sacramento about this new book by his late father, Morrie Schwartz. 

Welcome to the Deep Wealth Podcast. And did you hear that introduction? Better yet, did you read the book? Did you see the TV movie? I am so excited and honored to have Morrie's son, Rob here with us today. And we're gonna be [00:04:00] talking about the art side of life, the art side of business, because as you know, Deep Wealth, we say business is personal.

Whoever said business is personal, either never owned a business or they're never in business. And if we can figure it out on the inside, it makes life so much better for our business, for our stakeholders, for our clients. But lemme put a pause on that. Rob, welcome to the Deep Wealth Podcast, an absolute pleasure to have you with us.

And I'm curious, there's always a story behind the story. Rob, what's your story? What got you from where you were to where you are today? 

Rob Schwartz: First of all, it's my honor. To talk with you, and I really appreciate you having me on the show. Wow. There's a lot of different answers to that. My story is very unusual in the sense that I moved to Japan right after college and I became a journalist, a producer, a business owner, mainly in music and film, mainly in entertainment.

I started a couple of record labels in Japan and I produced a couple of films, three in this country and one in Japan. And this actually relates to the story of the book, Wisdom of Morrie because there was a [00:05:00] brief period when I was back home before I moved to Japan where my father was writing this book.

So I got to sit and talk with him and hear all of his ideas. And then I moved to Japan. He continued to write the book and as many people who are familiar with Tuesdays with Morrie, he got ill. And he was never able to publish this book. And then I discovered it in his desk years later in the house that he had lived in and that my mother kept and his study, that she kept it just as it had been when he was alive.

So seven or eight years after his death, I pulled the manuscript out of a drawer cuz I was going back and forth between the US and Japan and discovered it and decided that I had to do something with this manuscript. My father really wanted it to be published

Jeffrey Feldberg: Both with the manuscript, which we'll talk all about now, and for our listeners, there are links in the show notes. Please visit the show notes. You'll click on the link, get a copy of the book. It's an absolute must read, and also Tuesdays with Morrie. So Rob people write books all the time, [00:06:00] and I don't know where you or your father were, if there was an expectation of how big the original book Tuesdays with Morrie would become.

I mean, what was that like behind the scenes? The book was written. It got out there, it gained popularity, it created really a whole movement. And was worldwide a worldwide phenomenon and really changing lives. What was that like behind the scenes?

Rob Schwartz: Right. First of all, to answer your first question, there was no expectation. Mitch Album was a very well known sports writer at the time. He had won Sports Writer of the year, AP Sports Writer of the Year 10 times. All of his books had been sports books. This is the first book he attempted that had nothing to do with sports.

And it was a very small book. And in fact, the year that it was released, it was not released to a big reception. It did not jump onto the bestseller list. And there was one media personality who found this book. I always like to quiz people, see if they could pick it up. In 1997, there was one media personality who found this book, [00:07:00] and because of this person, it jumped to the number one on the bestseller list.

Oprah found the book. She loved it. She put it on her Book Of The Month Club. She had Mitch on her TV show. The book jumped to number one, a New York Times bestseller list, hardback bestseller list nonfiction, and stayed there for five years, literally for five years.

Unbelievable. Incredible.

Jeffrey Feldberg: And Rob, let me ask you this on the personal side, because this is really a personal interview that we're doing today. It's your family, your father, your life. And I'm now speaking really from a son's perspective. Sadly, much like your father, sadly, who had passed away. My father passed away.

And I know it's always bittersweet when the topic comes up. I fondly remember my father, miss him, of course, and think of all the wonderful memories. In your situation though, how is that? Because on the one hand it's, you know, your father passed. It's sad he's not here today, but he's out there.

The story, he is become iconic. And particularly now with the new book that's [00:08:00] coming out, it's out there every day for you. So how is that, how are you dealing with that on the personal side?

Rob Schwartz: Yeah. Obviously losing a parent is very difficult, and we could talk about that whole grief process if you want. But on the positive side, yeah, we've been incredibly gratified by how many people were interested in my father's ideas and thoughts on life and wisdom, if you will, and how many people he touched.

I mean, the experiences that I've had since Tuesdays with Morrie has become this worldwide phenomenon as you correctly noted is just fantastic. I could probably talk for an hour just on that from people in this country coming up to me and when they find out who my father is, bursting into tears, big, strong, macho guys bursting into tears.

It's really wonderful actually. It's to see how touched they are by my father's words and messages, and from that to. I've done q and a after the play. Mitch also wrote a play. I've done it around this country. I've done it around the world. I did Q and A in [00:09:00] China, in Beijing, and Shanghai, numerous times where the play is extremely popular.

It's been performed over 250 times in the most prestigious theaters in Beijing and Shanghai, and believe me, as we know, China is full of people. These are huge theaters. These probably hold a thousand people and it's the interest and the love for this play in China is just mind blowing. So it's really a worldwide phenomena and it's really gratifying for us that people are so interested in my dad. I don't hesitate to say love for him. People come out and they just express so much affection from my father. It's wonderful. Really.

Jeffrey Feldberg: And so Rob, I'm wondering, I mean it's almost a movie in and of itself. You find this hidden manuscript for all these years that have been there, and serendipitously you found it and you now get this published and it's getting out there. And again, for our listeners, the wisdom of Morrie living in aging creatively and joyfully.

So big picture [00:10:00] wise. Through you now through your words, Rob, through the words of your father at the time. What do we want to know? What do you want the listener to really take away big picture-wise from this book? And from what you're saying, I'm loving that it's really cross-cultural. Doesn't matter where you are, it's striking a chord around the world with different people, different walks of life.

So let's start there. Big picture wise. What's the takeaway for us?

Rob Schwartz: Sure. Well, I think particularly for your audience, we have to remember that I think your audience is extremely successful. They have financial stability, that's not the be all and end all of life. You're going to have to create a life for yourself and live creatively and joyfully as the title says, to really be satisfied with what you've done in life. So my father addresses a lot of issues. Basically, we can break it down into two about why people may not be able to live creatively and joyfully, especially in their advancing years. This book really is aimed towards [00:11:00] people who are aging, I think it is applicable to people of any age. And as we know in today's society, depression is a really serious problem. Mental health is a really serious problem, and I think that this book addresses all of those things. But let's stick with aging for a second.

So, my father basically breaks it down into two categories. One is more psychological, and of course my father was a social psychologist. That was his training. He was a professor at Brandeis, sociology and Social Psychology. And the other is really practical tips and ideas and strategies on how to live more joyously and creatively.

So those are the two broad categories, and I can talk about them very specifically. If you like, we can talk about the strategies that he comes up with. To try and move your life forward to try and be more creative, more joyful.

Jeffrey Feldberg: Yes, yes, yes and yes. Rob, to all of your comments and questions because here at Deep Wealth and offline, you and I began to talk about this. Yes. The community's successful. They have a liquidity event, they become [00:12:00] even more successful. But, and it's a big one, a liquidity event is a means to an end.

We don't wake up one day and say, I'm gonna sell the business. I'm going to create all this Wealth just because I want to create Wealth. There's a means to an end to that. But oftentimes we are not preparing in a Deep Wealth. We're all about preparation. Grow your business. You have to prepare for that.

Sell your business. You have to prepare for that. Your post Exit life, you have to prepare. And I'll share with you, Rob, and I'm not alone in this for myself. I failed in the post Exit life. Never thought about it, never prepared. Some of my biggest mistakes came after the biggest deal of my life. And it's interesting.

I've been playing catch up ever since. But we take my failing, my heavy lifting, and we reverse engineer that. And so the members of the community, when they go through the default mastery, they're learning how do you, to your point Rob, how do you optimize your life for happiness now that you have perhaps more time?

More capital, more resources. Okay. That's nice. It's not going to [00:13:00] make you happy long-term wise. It's not going to fulfill you. And offline, we're talking about success without fulfillment is failure. So for our listeners out there and a lot of pressure on you. So I suppose what this question has as we think through it, what would you want them to know about optimizing for happiness and combining that with aging?

And just to throw another layer into this. With social media now, which really wasn't around at the time when your father wrote the books and this manuscript, we have the fear of missing gout and we're seeing how everyone is looking absolutely perfect and toned and fit and healthy and really aging.

It's almost like we're putting that off to the side and we don't want to talk about it. We don't wanna recognize it. We'll find ways to live forever. So you throw all that into the mix. There's a lot going on there, Rob. What would you say to that?

Rob Schwartz: Right. I think that what you said is extremely pertinent for today's society, and my father addresses that though. He doesn't [00:14:00] address social media per se. But the idea that, you always need to look perfect and all of that sort of thing, and the basically the fake worlds that people create on social media.

My father is addressing that and saying, that's not the real value in life and that's not what's gonna make you happy. You can have the perfect hand and you can look perfect on, Instagram or whatever, but that's not really gonna make you happy and basically the fundamental value in my father's entire life, and this comes through on Tuesdays with Mor, as well as the wisdom of Morrie, is he says, you need to concentrate on the relationships in your life, on the people in your life to share love with them, to share, wonderful experiences with them.

That's what's gonna make you happy. And if the relationships of your life are out of whack, then yeah, you're not gonna be happy no matter how much money you have, no matter how good you look on Instagram. So the first order of business would be to get the primary relationships in your life in order, whether that's your [00:15:00] wife, whether that's your parents, whether that's your kids, whoever you feel that is, your close friends.

All of those people are extremely important in my father's view. And if you have issues with them, you need to work them out in a loving and respectful kind of way. You know, It never works to blame you did this wrong or something that's never gonna work out the issues. You've gotta come in a sense of love and understanding.

Everybody has a different battle in their life. And if you come with that love and understanding, there's no doubt that you can work it out to a place where you're in a good situation with your most important relationship. So that would be the number one thing. And we can move on from there.

There's a lot of other angles to that. My father also believes that you can create other relationships people who you have never met before, or people who you've lost contact with, or all sorts of people who can become important in your life. But fundamentally, what's gonna make you happy is sharing love [00:16:00] and great experiences with other people.

Jeffrey Feldberg: So important, and let me ask you this because I know some of our listeners are saying, Rob, I hear you. I acknowledge what you're saying. That said, here's the but I'm busy. I'm growing this business. I don't have a lot of time. Yes, I know I could be better in this relationship or that relationship or mend this or do that.

I'll get to it maybe tomorrow. Maybe the next day I'll get to it, but I just don't have the time right now. I'll find it whenever I can find it. What would you say to that or some variation of that?

Rob Schwartz: Sure. Certainly this is a common theme in today's world, but as many people would tell them, not only me, as you'll realize this isn't my direct insight, this is very common. You need to prioritize, and by that it means not prioritize your business over all of your relationships.

Certainly you need to make your business a success. You can't prioritize all of your personal relationships and then your business fails cuz you didn't pay enough attention to it. That's not gonna work, but the other way is not gonna work either. [00:17:00] You pro only prioritize your business. All of your personal relationships fail, then you're gonna be unhappy.

So you need to think very carefully, okay, this is crucial for my business. I need to do this. That's prioritized, but this is crucial for my personal life, for my personal relationships. So I need to do that too. That's a step above this little thing in my business, which is really not that important or most likely not that important.

So you need to prioritize both your business and the things that are crucial in your personal life.

Jeffrey Feldberg: And it's a terrific strategy as well as philosophy that you're sharing with us. And if you think about it, if I continue to focus on a strategy, a life philosophy of let me build deep, meaningful relationships, it's not how many relationships I can count on my hands or my feet or my toes, or a gazillion.

But do I have meaningful relationships? And both on the business side, on the personal side, they both Mel together. Everything is really about relationships and the importance of that. And on [00:18:00] the business side, people don't like doing business with strangers. They would rather do business with a friend.

No surprises there. And as you're talking about this, Rob, it's also interesting. With your father and his background with psychology. I mean, all kinds of studies have found they took two groups of people. One particular study I was just reading about and for one group, okay? Be on your phone, have some alone time, do whatever makes you happy, and the other group, go talk to strangers.

And I believe it was 10 strangers in a day. And then they rated both groups as subjective obviously. But then they rated both groups. How'd you feel and to everyone surprised the people who spoke to strangers who were really, I don't know if I can do that. That feels awkward. Are they gonna think I'm some weirdo speaking to them, they actually had a higher level of happiness.

It fulfilled them. Meeting people, sharing stories, and just connecting. So you're so spot on with Connect, have that relationship and then the feelings of love and gratitude that go along with that.

Rob Schwartz: Absolutely. And I would add, and this is where you started out, that we have a whole new set of [00:19:00] challenges in today's world with social media and interacting on your phone is not the same thing as interacting with somebody face to face, in person and it's so ironic because we're so connected digitally now in a way that we were never before.

I can text my friend in Tokyo and he received it immediately. This was a dream. I don't know exactly how old you are, but when I grew up, it was impossible to contact somebody on the other side of the world immediately. So now we have this incredible connectedness and what has it done?

It's made us more disconnected from the important people in our life. So this is a paradox, this is an irony of social media, and people need to realize that being on your phone is not the same thing as sitting down with somebody face to face and hearing them and talking to them, and hopefully, having a meaningful interaction with them.

Jeffrey Feldberg: Absolutely. And to pick up on that, Rob, the baby boomers, who through every phase of their lives, have shaped the culture [00:20:00] of the country, and I'm gonna say the world while they're at it. And so now the boomers are getting up there in years and it's different for them. They're at a different age. They're perhaps not able to do what they have been able to do in the past.

And I know in the book, there's a lot on accepting with grace aging, and perhaps you can't do things as much or at all that you could before. And for a lot of people, number one, aging, it's a difficult thing to talk about. We're talking about our mortality at one point and then the loss of some things that we, we can't do.

So for our listeners out there who themselves are fortunate enough to be on this journey for some time now, and they're entering a new chapter as they get out there. What would you say to them in terms of age and acceptance of that and what's ahead?

Rob Schwartz: Right. You hit the nail on the head. There's a lot of information and advice in the book, particularly about acceptance and overall I would say, This book is about [00:21:00] examining the stumbling blocks that keep us from being happy. And one of those stumbling blocks is the inability to accept reality.

To accept I'm not as young as I used to be. I can't walk as fast as I used to do. I don't have as much energy. When you accept that. And take it as a natural part of life, and my father explains this in great detail in the book. You're just naturally gonna be happier if you're always fighting against that, you're fighting a losing battle, right?

We all age. Our bodies change. That's just something that you have to accept. And my father talks about different ways to incorporate acceptance into your life. And I'm gonna work in, it's somewhat off, a little bit off at an angle, but I think it relates. It's also about forgiveness. I think people who are highly motivated and highly successful, like your listener base is they tend to judge people harshly because they're not as successful as they are, or not as something as they are.

And essentially forgiveness [00:22:00] is as well as acceptance are two subjects that my father really explores and explains like, you need to forgive people. People generally are doing the best that they can. They're not evil people, right? If they did something that you felt was wrong or hurt you, forgiveness is the best way to move forward in your life.

If you're always holding something against them, you are the one who's gonna suffer. It's gonna harm you. Forgiveness actually helps you as well as the other person, of course.

Jeffrey Feldberg: And Rob talked to us about that because we're talking about life strategies, and again, to me it cuts across business and personal. I mean, I can throw examples out in business as an example. A client doesn't pay or a client switches to another competitor, another company, and it hurts or a client says, not so nice things.

Or on the personal side, maybe a family member, a close friend. Insults you or you feel that they insult you or they say some not so nice things and we feel this inside of us. And forgiveness. It's [00:23:00] another F word. I mean, Our F word today is having fun, but this is another F word forgiveness, where some other explicitives can come into that.

Sometimes hard for people to forgive and to live and let go. So with growing up with Morrie, with the books now, with the new book, with what you've seen, what life advice or strategy would you give in terms of forgiveness? We know why we should do it from an intellectual level, but actually doing it is a very different matter.

Rob Schwartz: Right. Well, you ask a very different question. My father addresses that in the book, but of course it's very difficult, especially, and I really think these are great questions for particular for your listeners because especially with people who have been successful in life, then. This is just part and parcel of the modern world.

It puffs your ego up. You think I'm great. I'm smarter than other people. I'm richer than other people. And certainly for a lot of your listeners, they are richer than other people. But you have to remember, and my [00:24:00] father stresses this at all times, we're all part of this greater humanity.

Essentially all of our experiences are the same. If someone is less successful than you, yeah, maybe you are more talented than them. Maybe you weren't. But remember that talent also comes from something that you didn't actually have a control of. That comes a lot to do with your birth, your genes, your parents, how you were raised.

So instead of making it your ego, think about, I did this, you need to think of it as an integrative whole. I exist in this situation, and I was blessed to be able to come into this situation. It's a matter of gratitude, right? Everything that people have accomplished, certainly it's about their talent and their intelligence and stuff, but it's also about the world that they were born into, the opportunities that they were given.

If you look at it in that kind of perspective of wholeness, I think you're more able to have an attitude of gratitude of understanding that everybody is doing the best that they can. And that attitude makes it much easier to forgive people, [00:25:00] much easier to accept when somebody else doesn't live up to what you think they should be doing.

Jeffrey Feldberg: And it's interesting as we're talking about forgiveness and expectations and living up. As you're talking about this, we're always so forward thinking at times.

 Take a picture today for all of our listeners. One thing you can do, take a picture today of what you think is an ordinary event. Maybe a family dinner or at the office with some people, whatever it is, and save it. Put it away. Look at it, 20 years from now, 10 years from now, today will be the golden days that you'll be talking about.

Even though today you may be saying not so great. I don't feel this, or I could be so much better here or there. You know, when you start thinking about those things, and that's all about, aging gracefully and really getting back into the book, Rob, of one of my takeaways was, hey, just appreciate today, appreciate the journey.

No one knows what tomorrow is gonna bring, but to your practice of gratitude that you're sharing, what a gift, what a treasure that the book gives us a very visceral reminder [00:26:00] of how to be looking at life today and moving forward. Thoughts about that?

Rob Schwartz: Yeah. Yeah. I think again you're spot on. I think that's exactly right. I have so many examples that I could share with you. Some I had a hint or whatever you would like to call it a headstart that, obviously this was gonna be important when my father got ill in 1995 with ALS we knew that he wasn't gonna be around so long.

So what I did was I set up a video camera. And I just videoed him just talking to his friends. I have hours of videotape of him talking to his friends, and people who are familiar with the book will know that there are letter writing sessions in the book. My father was answering letters that people had sent to him because of the Ted Coppel interviews.

I have those on videotape, and in fact, Mitch based his scene in the book, the letter writing scene on the book on videotape that I sent him. And these videotape, they're just treasures now. I just watch it now and it's like something that I would never [00:27:00] have that is so meaningful. That is so powerful to just to see my father talking and relating to people and stuff.

And what you say is so true. Like we go through everyday life and think, oh, this is what it is. It's so hard to appreciate at the time, and 20 years later you realize oh, that was incredible. Or my wife is just so powerful in that moment. Looking back it's so different than experiencing it in the moment.

And if we can connect to the present moment a little bit more, then I think we'll be a little bit happier.

Jeffrey Feldberg: And Rob, let me ask you this, because I'm sure for every person when they go through the books, both books, even, I remember the Tuesdays with Morrie and when I knew we were having this interview went back and just relive that and went through that again. But the wisdom of Morrie, I mean, on the one hand I felt like I knew your father never met him.

We spoke about that offline with the Tuesdays with Morrie, but the wisdom of Morrie, it was really ushering in a whole different side, a much more personal side, and the wisdom was flowing out there and it was just incredible for [00:28:00] me. But that was me. I'm a data point of one. So for our listeners out there who may be on the fence, okay well, you know, I either watched the TV movie or I read the book Tuesdays with Morrie, I kind of get it what's in store for them when they pick up a copy of the Wisdom of Morrie, whether it's the audio book or they read it, or whatever the case may be. What's there for them that will really resonate?

Rob Schwartz: Right, right. So what I usually tell people is that Tuesdays with Morrie is a very slim volume. Mitch wrote it that way on purpose, and it is what it is. It really touches people. But this book is really a much deeper dive into my father's thoughts. It's much more discursive. He writes in long paragraphs about what he thinks you can do, strategies to become more creative and more joyful and In Tuesdays with Morrie, he would be like one sentence. Right, because it was an interview with Mitch and Mitch distilled the very, short parts of my father. But this is really a longer explanation [00:29:00] of his thoughts and it goes off into a lot of different directions. I mean, my father really tried to embody what he was saying with including different articles from newspapers and examples and poetry, and he includes a whole bunch of different things.

He's trying to inspire people to be more creative and more joyful. So it's really a much deeper dive into my father's thoughts. It also has a lot more variety to it. Mitch's book is wonderful. It's basically Mitch talking to my father, and that's what you get. This book goes off in all sorts of different directions.

As I said, with poetry, there's even photos in there from our family, which I've included. My father talks about himself, his own personal experiences, his life stuff, which is people who have read Tuesdays Morrie would not know. And he really goes into great detail with that. So you certainly get to know my father in much more detail, but you also get a lot of [00:30:00] strategies about living.

Jeffrey Feldberg: And Rob, on a personal side, if I can put you on the spot for just a moment. We never spoke about this. I'll just throw this out there. We'll see where it goes. You know you're going through your own life journey. And for all of us, it's never a golden brick road every step of the way. Stuff happens, things happen. You know, we feel stressed or other emotions come up. And I'm wondering, both growing up, obviously in your family, you've had the really, the advantage of that, but now also more recently with the wisdom of Morrie book and it's writing the title, The Wisdom, it's all there, The Wisdom of Morrie.

Can you share perhaps any story or any particular episode in your life where you're going down one direction and then, oh, you know what I remember from my dad or from this book, Hey, let me stop, pause and rethink this and, take it from a different direction.

Rob Schwartz: I have to think. Yeah, it's pretty direct. Sometime after my father passed. We mentioned in the very beginning that I started a [00:31:00] couple of record labels in Japan. The first one was actually with another guy, and we did it for a while. And we just had our differences and it was clear that it was gonna come to a head.

And things were gonna be not so pleasant. So I decided okay, you have your way of doing things, I have my way of doing things. Why don't we part amicably and I'll start my own record label. And that's what we did. And that was much better. And there was no ill feelings with us. We'd actually worked together in various capacities after that split, which was completely amicable. And I think that was, very much influenced by my father and what he taught me. There's no reason, to feel negatively towards the person. He has his way of doing things. It wasn't working with me. I have my way of doing things.

Let's split amicably and move on with our lives.

Jeffrey Feldberg: Yeah, what a great story that you share because so often a business divorce, as many people call it, it's often said that a business divorce can be more [00:32:00] painful, even more hurtful than a marital divorce or, you know, personal divorce. 

Rob Schwartz: More nasty. 

Jeffrey Feldberg: and more nasty. And it's so interesting that the values, the stories, you're able to reflect on that and really navigate your way through what otherwise could have been not so terrific in terms of how that ended to be something that's very amicable and friendly and still going forward.

And so let me ask you this, because it seems as we continue to move forward and technology marches on, life gets faster. It feels like there's more pressure today than there was back in the day and back in the day. It could be five years ago. It doesn't have to be 50 years 

Rob Schwartz: Right, right. 

Jeffrey Feldberg: yet. In the strategies, in the wisdom, in the book, The Wisdom of Morrie, it's really taking us back to tried and true ways to live, particularly as we get up there in years that bring us back to perhaps values that we've maybe overlooked from time to time or society's gone in a different direction. I would love your thoughts on that.

Rob Schwartz: Yeah. I think you're absolutely right. I [00:33:00] don't necessarily like to look at it in terms of a chronological five years ago, or 10 years ago, or 15 years ago, but more about our experiences and our values. I mean, We can live in today's world with our cell phones and our, I. Zoom conversations and at the same time give great emphasis on our relationships and the things that are really important in life.

And, increase and focus on the things that really are important to us. You don't have to, put away your cell phone in a drawer and never use it. You just have to be. Cognizant of, okay, now I'm using my cell phone and I'm, disconnected from the people around me. And I'll do that for a period of time, and then I'll put it down and I'll connect with the people around me.

It's just a matter of using this technology in a little more cognizant way I think.

Jeffrey Feldberg: And speaking of that, and using technology in a cognizant way with the wisdom of Mor and for our listeners, I really recommend this. Listen, some books are terrific. You listen to the audio, you read it on [00:34:00] the digital, whatever's easier for you. It's really portable, the wisdom of Mor, at least for me, I'm gonna go old school here.

It's the paper-based version. It's a good old fashioned pen. It's having a journal and is underlining as I'm reading and furiously writing in the journal, these insights that I can go back to and refresh myself and just, Hey Jeffrey, why don't you think about this? Or why don't you start doing this? I picked up blind spot.

I'm speaking to myself. Jeffrey, here's a blind spot that you've been doing The wisdom of Morrie points it out for you. Why don't you stop it and look at it from this other perspective? Love your thoughts on that.

Rob Schwartz: Yeah, no, I agree a thousand percent and. In fact, what I tell people, cause people often ask me like, how should I digest this book? And I say, I think the best way is to read it in the beginning, cover to cover, but not think like that's gonna be the end of it. Put in like post-it notes and places where you think you need to think about something or there's a piece of advice that may work for you.

And then after you've finished it, [00:35:00] because there is a lot of personal information about my dad and. And I also have essays in there that give a lot of information about our family and people are interested in our family because of Tuesdays with Morning. So once you've read all of that, one of my essays is at the end of the book.

Then you can go back and focus on the things that you really think can help you in a like day-to-day basis. So it is like a workbook or a something that, you can refer to constantly. And I think that the paper version does help with that. I think that stuff that's online or in audio, tends to disappear from our consciousness.

Having something that you can hold in your hand and flip through and have a posted note go, yeah, Morrie suggested, maybe try this. It's really helpful for people.

Jeffrey Feldberg: And Rob, as you're out there and you're now paying it forward, you're reintroducing a whole new generation to Morri and reminding people who knew Tuesdays with Morri, Hey, here's a whole other side. If you like Tuesdays with Morrie. Just wait. You haven't seen anything yet, because here's [00:36:00] straight from the man himself and his wisdom and his words.

If we were to fast forward however fast, you know, whatever period of time, 10 years, 50 years, a hundred years, it doesn't really matter. But as we fast forward, you're out there spending part of your life now to really continue the legacy. Big picture wise what are your hopes and dreams when all is said and done as you're out there and reintroducing people to Morrie, what does that look like for you as you think about this?

Rob Schwartz: Wow. That's a big question. I'm a little bit hesitant to answer it because obviously I would like everybody to be exposed to my father's wisdom and hopefully it would help them. That's a little bit too idealistic. But yeah, I would hope that the book could get out there and touch as many people as possible.

It's funny, but it's actually completely unrealistic to think that this book will be as well known as Tuesdays with Morrie, because Tuesdays with Morrie was so unbelievably successful. I mean, I've read in numerous places that it's the bestselling memoir of all time. I mean, I don't know if that's true or not.

I've just read it in [00:37:00] many different places. So that's a pretty big you know, legacy to live up to. But if it, this book can approach that kind of reach with people then I would be overjoyed and I hope that people find it useful and take my father's wisdom on board. If you want to talk big picture, extremely big picture, the biggest picture, then yeah, then I hope that this book would influence people to be more loving towards their loved ones, towards their friends, and towards society in general.

I mean, my father's overall, viewpoint was if we could all just treat each other better, then life on earth would be paradise. If everybody was nice to each other, this world would be such a wonderful place despite, you know, our differences, they're not important. Different religions, different races, what have you.

That's all very superficial. What the fundamental thing is that we're all human beings. We all love our families. We all want to have a nice life where people are sweet to us and we're [00:38:00] sweet to other people. That's fundamental throughout the entire world. And if my father could move the world in that direction, it would be extremely gratifying to me.

Jeffrey Feldberg: It's really heartfelt. Rob, as you're speaking through that and as you're talking that through, it brought up a question, let me put this your way, and you're really in the unique position. Obviously you grew up in the family with Morrie and living it day in, day out. And then you've been culturally to different countries, Asia, Japan in particular, you've seen a different way of life with different people.

So I'm coming at this from two different angles, but they both have the same outcome. So from a business angle, and for our listeners, we always want them to have at least one actionable takeaway. And we mentioned one a little bit earlier in our conversation, hey, take a picture of what you think is just a ho hum regular moment.

Put it away and look at it 10 years, 20 years from now. But the other actionable item in our business lives. Rob, as a leader, as the owner, founder, entrepreneur, what advice would you give of how can we take the wisdom of [00:39:00] Morrie and really embed that for our team, that it becomes part of our culture, that we can have the members of our team really taking it to heart and in our world, in our business world, doing that, paying it forward with all the stakeholders and then perhaps to add onto that, while we're doing that also on the personal side, for our team members, for ourselves, with our family, with our perhaps children, nephews, nieces, cousins, what, whatever the case may be, that for the youth as well, we can embed these values. What advice, what strategies would you give to really have people take that's a heart.

Rob Schwartz: Sure. I think it's the same piece of advice for both of those situations, and I think, whether people can integrate this into their business or not is completely up to them. But I think that it's been shown in a number of different cases where business owners. People who have responsibility for their employees, the better they treat their employees, the better the business does.

There was a couple of newspaper articles about very extreme cases where a guy distributed the ownership of the company [00:40:00] throughout his employees and the company just absolutely took off. I'm not suggesting that people go to those lengths. But if you treat your employees better, if you do, even just something nice for them, unexpected, it doesn't have to be a financial thing, whatever you think that they would enjoy, I think it's gonna make them work harder and make your business more successful.

And it's the same advice of course, in your personal life. If you do something nice or something sweet for somebody close to you, they're gonna wanna do the same thing for you and it's gonna make your life better. It's a feedback loop which never ends.

Jeffrey Feldberg: Some terrific advice there. And Rob, I'm wondering as we go into wrap up mode, are there some questions I haven't asked or is there a message that we haven't really spoken about that you'd like to get out there to the listeners?

Rob Schwartz: Yeah. I mean there's so much in the book. It's hard for me to think about one thing to focus on, but since I think a lot of your listeners are the exact demographic for this book, they're [00:41:00] probably over 55, let's say. So, they're aging. I think that as we started, basically where we started out, which is that people don't want to think about the fact that they're aging.

They wanna push that into the background. And I would urge people to understand that's a mistake, that you need to accept where you are in your life, where you're going with your life, and in order to you know, accept your aging and to deal with it. I think this book offers a lot of advice and strategies on that.

So the overall message would be like, don't try and push your aging into the background and I'll deal with that in 20 years. Or I'll get some surgery and I'll look fine. That's not gonna solve the issues for you. That's not gonna make you happy.

Jeffrey Feldberg: Some terrific advice there, and really for our listeners, you're here and get straight from the source. I mean, Rob, you've lived this your entire life. It doesn't really get any better than that, and particularly today, again, offline, we're speaking just of how pervasive these messages are. That is easy to lose our own internal path of where we can optimize our life for [00:42:00] happiness, both today and down the road as we age gracefully and accept that.

So really appreciate that. Rob, we're at the point where we start to wrap things up here, and I have the privilege and the honor to ask you a question I ask every guest on the podcast. It's a fun question. Let me set this up for you. When you think of the movie Back to the Future, you have that magical DeLorean car that takes you to any point in time.

So Rob, here's the fun part, is tomorrow morning you look outside your window. Not only is the DeLorean car there curbside, the door is open and is waiting for you to hop on in. So you hop in and you can now go back to any point in your life, Rob, as a young child, a teenager, whatever point in time it would be.

What would you tell your younger self for life wisdom or life lessons or, Hey Rob, do this, but don't do that. What does that sound like?

Rob Schwartz: Wow, there's so much. Well, certainly I would like to go back to a time when my father was alive and my mother as well. My mother just passed away fairly recently.

I would probably go back to the eighties where I was [00:43:00] mature enough to understand that this was a special man and spend more time with him. I think that anybody who's lost somebody really important would wanna do that. What advice would I give to my younger self?

This is something that I've been super focused on because I spent a lot of time outside this country, so I don't know if this will speak to your audience at large, but for myself, I've realized that language is so important and I would tell my younger self to concentrate on learning foreign languages because it just opens up your world.

 A new language is like a new world. It's not just a code that you communicate with. It opens up a completely new world. And as you probably know, it's much easier to learn foreign languages when you're younger. I mean, I speak Japanese because I lived in Japan, but I would like to speak a lot of other languages and experience those cultures. So that might be one piece of advice I would give to my younger self.

Jeffrey Feldberg: Well some terrific advice and talk about, [00:44:00] you're so right when you can speak in other languages, whether it's personal or business. You speak someone's mother tongue as they say. It's such a pleasurable conversation for all involved.

Rob Schwartz: If you want to do business outside of this country, and you can speak to them in their language it really impresses people. People think that you're more intelligent if you can speak their language, and that's not necessarily true. It may be true, but it's not necessarily true.

But that's just the impression that they get. Especially if you have Felicity in their language, if you can speak it well, they think oh, this guy must be super smart, 

Jeffrey Feldberg: Exactly, and I don't know about you, Rob. My experience has been, even if we don't speak it so well, if people see that you're trying, there's the utmost respect. They really appreciate that you're making the time and effort for that.

Any other projects that's coming on board, either with The Wisdom of Morrie beyond the book itself or with the onetopia that you mentioned? Anything else going on?

Rob Schwartz: I'm doing one project that I really think is continuing my father's legacy. So as I mentioned at the beginning, my father was a social psychologist. He was really [00:45:00] concerned with mental health, and I think we all agree there is real mental health issue in this country right now.

So we are doing a project which is based around mental health. We're gonna do a benefit festival in Los Angeles in 2024. It's called Onetopia. O N E T O P I A. It's gonna be the one Topia Festival. We already have a website up. It's onetopia.com. It's gonna be a major music festival. We're gonna have major music artists there.

All of the money is going to go to charities. To mental health organizations throughout the country to education about mental health. We hope to have a lot of education at the festival. We hope to make it an annual event. I'm working with two really great producers. One is international, one is based in Los Angeles, and this is something that, we hope to focus attention on mental health, which really needs some attention focused on it.

Jeffrey Feldberg: Terrific. And again, for our listeners, we'll have that in the show [00:46:00] notes. It'll be a point and click. And Rob, as you're talking about that for our listeners, Hey, why not? Why not pick up some tickets? Go to Los Angeles. If you're already local, terrific. If you're not, what a great excuse just to get out and be around other like-minded people.

Support the cause. And even if you can't make it, hey, pick up some tickets and gift them and just pay forward that way. So we'll have all that in the show notes. That's terrific.

Rob Schwartz: Wonderful. Thank you so much. Yeah, and all the information will be on the website, one topia.com. We hope to make major announcements and get lots of media coverage for that. But certainly people can go there to find out what's happening. We also started a foundation, which is also a complete benefit.

We're all working without taking any salary for that. And we're gonna try and benefit mental health groups and educate people and shine a light on mental health.

I have a lot of projects. So in terms of this book, there is a thought, and I've thought about this for a long time and actually been working on it, that I might write something on my dad not like this, where he, directly gives people [00:47:00] living strategies, but more personal thing because people are so interested in my father, I interviewed a lot of his colleagues, his friends, family members for stories about my dad.

So I have a lot of interview notes. I may write a book on that. That's one thing. On a more concrete level I'm a founder of a virtual concert creation platform online. It's called Mosh Pitt. You can see that at moshpit.live. We're going live with that very soon. And that's to give people an opportunity to show their music to create concerts in a virtual world. It's actually a very big field right now, virtual concerts. There's a lot of multi-billion dollar companies that are doing it. So we're fighting in a big arena there, but we really think we have superior technology. It looks fantastic.

It was founded by a sound engineer, a Grammy award-winning sound engineer. So I think our sound quality is also superior to other platforms out there that's moshpit.live. Those [00:48:00] are basically onetopia and Moshpit are my two major projects in terms of music.

I also produce film. I'm always looking for scripts to produce. And I don't know, I may take on board your idea that the publishing of The Wisdom of Morrie could be an interesting movie.

Jeffrey Feldberg: Love that. And when you do that, please circle back. We'd love to talk about that and revisit. And just for listeners, and again, we'll have that in the show notes moshpit.live. And again, for listeners, you don't ask to remember any of that come to the show notes. It's point and click. It doesn't get any easier.

Rob Schwartz: Great. Thank you so much. 

Jeffrey Feldberg: And again, for our listeners, it's all in the show notes. Pick up a copy of The Wisdom of Morrie: Living in Aging Creatively and Joyfully. And while we're at it, Rob, if someone has a question or they wanna reach out, or perhaps as we're talking offline, hey, this is a great story. I wanna get this out there to other people or to the media, or just share this. What's the best way if someone wants to reach you online?

Rob Schwartz: There's two ways. I set up a website for this book, which is wisdomofmorrie.com, and there's an [00:49:00] interactive page on that. You can reach out, but I'll give you an email address. I can announce it right now. It's easier to have it little bit written because it's actually a word from India, so it's a little bit unusual.

But yeah, people can email me directly my general email address is G A N G A M A T I. That's gangamati[@]yahoo.com. Gangamati is the River goddess of the river which we call the gangis, but in India, it's called the Ganga G A N G A and mati just means a mother or goddess. So it's the river goddess.

Jeffrey Feldberg: Wow. We'll talk about a memorable both email, but Rob, what's the quick story behind the story on that one? You could have picked any email address, but here we are.

Rob Schwartz: I spent a lot of time in India and I had a lot of influence. It's a very spiritual culture. It moved me in a spiritual direction, you know, not one particular, I don't take on one particular religion. I'm not Hindu or anything like that. But [00:50:00] there's a lot of value in every religion. There's a lot of value in Christianity.

There's a lot of wisdom there. There's a lot of wisdom in Hinduism. There's a lot of wisdom in Buddhism, and I try and take what I find valuable from each of those, beautiful traditions.

Jeffrey Feldberg: Terrific. Well, Rob, thank you so much for sharing your wisdom and your insights, and as you'd like to say here at Deep Wealth, may you continue to thrive and prosper while you remain healthy and safe. Thank you so much.

Rob Schwartz: Oh, thank you. 

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Jeffrey Feldberg: Are you leaving millions on the table? 

Please visit [00:53:00] www.deepwealth.com/success to learn more.

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