My Perfect Path
My Perfect Path is a podcast about uncovering the defining moments that shape meaningful careers.
Hosted by Daniel Koo, each episode features candid conversations with leaders, creatives, entrepreneurs, and professionals from all walks of life. Whether you’re exploring new opportunities, navigating a transition, or simply curious about how others found their way, this podcast offers real stories, practical insights, and inspiration to help you carve your own unique path—wherever you are in your journey.
🎧 Listen in and discover that there’s no one-size-fits-all path to success—just the one that’s right for you.
My Perfect Path
Sam Richards | The Iconoclast's Path: From Skipping School to Global Influence
Sam Richards never planned to become a sociology professor whose lectures would be viewed hundreds of millions of times. Starting as a working-class kid from Toledo who skipped school to read in libraries, his path has been defined by curiosity rather than calculation.
In this fascinating conversation, Richards reveals how a moment of clarity at age 20 led him to abandon his rock band, quit his job, and pursue knowledge full-time—despite having no academic foundation. What makes his story particularly valuable is his perspective on fear and failure. Having marketable skills as a house painter gave him the freedom to take intellectual risks without worrying about conventional success. "If I failed at this, I'd go back to painting houses and be a house painter for my life. That's fine," he explains.
Richards shares profound insights about teaching, learning, and measuring impact. Rather than trying to impart specific knowledge to students, he creates spaces for exploration where there are no right answers. His approach—walking into his very first college class and admitting "I don't know what cybernetics is either, but we'll figure it out"—demonstrates the power of authentic curiosity. Even more surprising is his perspective on success: he'd rather profoundly impact one person's life than accumulate millions of meaningless views.
Perhaps most inspiring for those feeling trapped by artificial timelines is that Richards' greatest impact came after age 50, when he embraced his entrepreneurial spirit. He suggests that his later-in-life success was a blessing: "If that would have happened to me in my 20s, it would have destroyed my life." Ready to rethink your approach to career planning? Listen now and discover why sometimes the perfect path is the one you couldn't possibly have planned.
For whatever reason, I was touched in that moment when I went to that phone and I knew that I had to quit everything. If I was going to learn to think and understand the world, then I was going to have to do it full time. And that's what I did. And it took a long time Because I was so far behind, so to speak. I didn't often get arrogant and think that I knew anything. So the way I am today when I think I don't know anything, I've been like that from the very beginning.
Daniel Koo:So you kind of approach it from a. You know, I'm curious, I'm curious, I'm learning my way through it. Yeah, and I think at that moment it must have been. I think for this stage, your first life lesson was you know, live without fear. Yeah, live without fear. I can't imagine what the thought process you had to go through at that moment. Yeah, Was there anything else that gave you kind of the confidence to move on from everything that you were doing?
Sam Richards:Well, it was. No, it was pure curiosity, naivete. If I would have understood what it meant to be an academic and a thinker and to take what would be considered the intellectual path, I'm sure I would never have done it.
Daniel Koo:Hey, welcome back to my Perfect Path. For those of you who are new, I'm your host, daniel Koo, and I welcome you to season two. For me, at large, pivotal moments of my life, such as applying to new colleges, applying to new jobs or determining what next career move is right for me I spent time researching and finding mentorship to determine what was the best path for me. I knew that this struggle was not isolated to me. Everyone struggles with this, simply because we cannot predict the future. However, I found something that is second best to predicting the future it's learning from those ahead of our career and from those who've seen more and experienced more. After all, there are not that many problems that have not been solved yet. If you've ever felt unsure about your next career move, you're in the right place. Today's episode is the season finale titled my Iconoclastic Path. We're interviewing Dr Sam Richards, a sociology professor at Penn State whose lectures have been viewed hundreds of millions of times on YouTube. He forces students to confront uncomfortable truths about race, privilege and power that most of us spend our lives avoiding. You might know him from his lectures or his insights about Korea, but today we're here to talk about his personal career journey and how he came to be. Here's what makes his story fascinating. He never planned any of it. In our conversation, he shares how curiosity became his driving force, why having a marketable backup skill gave him the freedom to take risks, and how his entrepreneurial phase after age 50 taught him that impact matters more than views. We both happened to be in Korea when we recorded this, even though we usually reside in the US, which made for a unique opportunity to sit down together. I think you're going to find this one both inspiring and liberating. Let's get into it, and thanks for listening to season two. Hello everyone, welcome back to my Perfect Path. I'm Daniel Koo, and today we're diving deep with someone who's made a career out of making people profoundly uncomfortable, and I mean that in the best possible way.
Daniel Koo:Sam Richards is a sociology professor at Penn State whose lectures have been viewed millions of times on YouTube Not because they're easy to watch, but they're impossible to ignore. On YouTube not because they're easy to watch, but they're impossible to ignore he forces students and, by extension, like all of us who are watching, to confront truths about race, privilege and power that most of us spend our lives avoiding. So I'm really excited to talk to you and gain insights over your career. If you don't know him, check out Sosh119. You know, gain insights over your career. If you don't know him, check out Sosh119. It's on YouTube and watch one of his lectures and you'll kind of figure out, like what he's all about. So I really recommend that.
Daniel Koo:Here's what makes Sam fascinating. He didn't start challenging the status quo in a classroom. He lived what he calls an iconic classic path. So we kind of divided today's session into four distinct life stages. That kind of took him from being a rock musician who skipped school to read in libraries to becoming an academic who's, you know, become a public intellectual by the age of 50. So I welcome you, sam. Thank you so much.
Sam Richards:Yeah, it's great to be here. It's really great to be here. I'm looking forward to our conversation.
Daniel Koo:I think just to introduce the big sections that we talked about First is kind of like your exploring stage, which is kind of your 20s, and you kind of talk about how you're getting your feet wet with a lot of different fields and you're just trying to figure out life, and then you kind of transition into this phase of intense curiosity, as you mentioned, kind of like studying really hard and finding out exactly what you want to study.
Daniel Koo:And then there's the grind, as you called it, the mid-30s to 50s grind of being a professor, of doing research, of publishing papers. So I think there's a lot to learn there as well. And then there's the last kind of stage that we talked about, which is kind of your entrepreneurial stage, which is from age 50 and onwards. I think that's super interesting because most people would imagine retirement or something like that by the age of 50, maybe they're looking forward to retirement at like 65 plus. But I think for you there's a really interesting kind of life that started after that. So I want to ask you, like how you were able to achieve that and what kind of led you to that?
Sam Richards:Yeah, this is really a nice way to organize this conversation, so thanks for that.
Daniel Koo:So my first question is if we just go into it, your SOCH 119 lectures have millions of YouTube views where you confront students with uncomfortable truths about race and privilege. When you see a room full of students getting visibly uncomfortable they're struggling with these ideas what's kind of going through your mind? Are you enjoying the discomfort? Or I guess what are you feeling, or like I guess what are you?
Sam Richards:feeling. Well, you know, first it's such a big classroom there's 800 students in there that most I can kind of look around the room and pick out a few folks, right, and I mostly don't see discomfort, I mostly see curiosity. At least that's what I focus on. And when I see that, when I see people really listening in and zooming in on what I'm saying, I feel excited. I know things are happening for them. And then when I hear discomfort, when I hear students voicing a certain amount of uncertainty or discomfort or something, I also feel excited about that because, you know, that's what thinking is about. Right, it's about stretching the limits of our imagination.
Sam Richards:And, you know, when you're 20 years old, you don't know much of anything. Well, I'm 64 years old and I don't know much of anything. You know, my knowledge base is very limited. Hold, and I don't know much of anything. My knowledge base is very limited. Yesterday or a couple of days ago, I spoke at the Korean Space Agency, you know, and they were walking me through some of their labs and different things that they were doing and I thought, oh my God, I don't. And I actually study astronomy a bit in space, a bit Like I'm really curious about a lot of it, but I was thinking about how much I don't know compared to these folks here, and that's just one tiny slice.
Daniel Koo:Yeah, I think you're awfully humble for saying that there's a. You know, you're obviously an expert in your own domain, but I guess at the same time there are so many other domains that we can't possibly know at the same time.
Sam Richards:Well, even in my own domain, though right, I mean, I study the world. I'm very much a generalist, so my job or my challenge is to know a little bit of something about everywhere, and I do mostly. I mean, you can pick out a country or culture on the map, and I probably can. I most often can say something right, and quite often I can say a lot, because that's what I do. I spend my life studying.
Sam Richards:But, man, the older you get, the less you know, and what that means is, the older you get, the more questions you have and the more you realize you don't know and you don't understand, and gosh, everything that's missing. You know, it's like I've traveled to about 50 countries now in my life and I've traveled to many of them multiple times, and some you know eight, nine and ten times, and I've lived abroad for many years of my life times, and I've lived abroad for many years of my life, but now that I'm my age and I'm starting to knock the countries off my list that I'm really never going to get to and it's far more than I've ever traveled to, and so I can see all the places that I will not go, and so that's similar to the thinking, I can see all of the things that I will never learn.
Daniel Koo:I like your perspective. It's very I think the only way to describe it is zoomed out. You know you're looking at it at a much wider perspective and that's part of, I think, the unique perspective you have, for you know, these sociological effects, right, these societal issues. I think your perspective on it is so zoomed out that you're able to see kind of like a neutral, balanced perspective, and I really like that.
Sam Richards:um yeah, yeah, I do too. Actually it's very it keeps me engaged.
Daniel Koo:One thing that I really like about your lectures actually is the way that you don't have a prescribed lesson, or maybe maybe you do. Maybe you do have something set up, but I really like that. You ask questions, like really good questions, and you bounce the students back and forth onto ideas. You're like maybe you start with one idea, but then you have a question to challenge it and to flip them onto the other side and then, once they're there, you flip them back right.
Sam Richards:That's a lot of fun. And then they get confused and they have no idea. They think I'm trying to get them to think a certain way, and then I you know, I trick, not trick them, but you know, then I flip them back to where they were sitting, you know? Yeah, I like doing that.
Daniel Koo:And I think you know that does capture. You know the complexity of a lot of the problems we're facing, the problems you're talking about, and I like that there's no prescribed kind of idea but you expose all of these different, I guess, angles that a certain issue has.
Sam Richards:Yeah, you know, I had that recently. We were talking about climate change and how students in different cultures think about climate change, and with this one particular student, I was kind of walking him through just climate collapse and like, wow, this is such a big issue and are you thinking about it and how are you? Why? How are you not thinking about this and that's going to impact your life? And oh, so we started walking down this whole path and then I turned it around. I said, well, why would you waste time thinking about this? Like you're young, you know you've got life to live, why are you going to waste time feeling negative? There's nothing you can do anything?
Daniel Koo:about climate collapse. It's not like we can physically go and change something because it's working on such a large scale. Yeah, yeah.
Sam Richards:But when I flipped it in that way, he was so confused.
Daniel Koo:He said wait, I think you're telling me, but when I flipped it in that way.
Sam Richards:He was so confused he said wait, you're telling me. But you know, going back to the class, you called it a lecture and it's not really a lecture. You know people call it that because that's what it's called. You know, in the, in the structure of the school, in the industry, right, but it's an engagement, right, and I think that if your listeners don't know, I mean, usually I pick a topic and then I have student volunteers and I bring some of them down front and then I speak with them. So it's a very different kind of environment.
Daniel Koo:Yeah, just to, I guess, provide context, usually the so-called lectures, the engagement Sam takes, I guess, a long list of volunteers and you know you choose a couple of people as a panel to come up front into the classroom and you basically just ask questions and have a discussion and really listen to what people think and the people watching. I'm sure they're happy that they're in the audience instead of being on the spot. But I think just seeing what other people think I'm sure they're happy that they're in the audience instead of being on the spot but I think just seeing what other people think, verbalizing the ideas that people usually don't, I think that's powerful and I think that really leads the conversation in a way that it's impactful and it changes the way we think.
Sam Richards:Yeah, I think that you know, just on this issue, I don't know if you're going to say but yeah, students, they really do want to talk. Of the 800 students, about 200 of them apply to volunteer and you know they want to be put on the spot and they don't just want to be on YouTube. They're always reluctant for that or at least like reticent about that, but they want to be on YouTube. They're all always reluctant for that or at least reticent about that, but they want to have the challenge, to think, and it's never about having an answer, because the key I'm asking them questions about what they see from their perspective, and that I learned from my wife, by the way. As long as you do that with people, they always have something to say and it's always interesting and, of course, that's why people watch, because they want to know what young people are thinking.
Daniel Koo:Yeah, and today I want to kind of get into what your life looked like. You know how you came to be at this point. You know, leading such an amazing kind of class and discussion. Such an amazing kind of class and discussion, and one of the adjectives that we chose today was iconoclastic, to describe your path. I guess for you, what does being an iconoclast mean to you, and what's the most sacred belief you have in yourself that you had to destroy, you know, because of that word.
Sam Richards:You know. So an iconoclast is somebody who questions traditional authority or things that are held sacred or of high value by a group of people. So you know, I was a working-class guy. I grew up in Toledo, ohio, to a family that was not very highly educated, and you know when I kind of came of age.
Sam Richards:I came of age on my own. I've always been kind of a quirky thinker, a bit of a comedian. I asked a high school friend grade school friend, actually high school a number of years ago what she remembered of me and she said you know, you're like a smart, but you were kind of weird smart, you know. And I thought, okay, that kind of makes it work. And I think for me that the thing I had to break, probably more than anything, is that, as a teacher, that I could have an impact on students' lives in a way that I imagined that I could Like. I could have a goal I want to help shape students, I want them to think a certain thing, not in a bad way, but like good things and I could make that happen. And I had to really realize that was never going to happen.
Daniel Koo:That was the first, thing, it really helped me as a teacher.
Sam Richards:It made me a much, much better teacher I had to really realize that was never going to happen.
Daniel Koo:That was the first thing. It really helped me as a teacher. It made me a much, much better teacher.
Sam Richards:Yeah, I guess it's also true that once you try to force an idea, on someone, they're less likely to accept it as well, or that anything I thought actually mattered to other people. I had to disavow myself of that idea. So I walk in the classroom, I have the idea there's nothing I'm going to say or nothing that will get said in here that has any value to anybody in this room or anybody watching the video. That's how I enter every single classroom. It's just a wide, open space for exploration. And then, because I have the sense that it has no value for anybody, there's no pressure on me, because I'm just, you know, we're just spending time together.
Sam Richards:You're just there, yeah you're not going to get anything out of this. I'm not going to get anything out of this. Well, I will get something out of it. I mean, I know actually, so I know it has value for me, but I don't think that any of the students in my class that nothing, that it matters to their lives.
Daniel Koo:That, I think, is it can be a very difficult concept to grasp.
Sam Richards:Yeah, I'm sure your listeners are going like what? What is he saying?
Daniel Koo:But you know, as a professor too, you would expect that there's some sort of content or some sort of agenda. But I think, with just your domain and you know the ideas you want to put out there or maybe it's not ideas but ways of thinking you want to put out there you know it's possible.
Sam Richards:you know, with your style and that domain, Well, you know, what I want is for students just to think. So if they're pretty certain that I'm not trying to get them to think in a certain way, then they'll be open to thinking and then they'll stop imagining that there's a right answer. You know that's the key. You know that's the struggle here in Korea a lot. The whole education system is built upon right answers and there are no right answers, and so you know you get that's. I want students to remember that always. So they're not. You know they don't fall into the trap of thinking First off A that I want them to think a certain way and B that there is the best way to think because there's not.
Daniel Koo:I'm sure this idea kind of applies to your entire career as well. You know, the idea of this podcast is that there is no perfect path but it's perfect because it's yours right. And so if we go back to kind of like stage one, like your first kind of how you grew up, you mentioned you had, like I think the exact wording was, you had an independent mind and you were kind of quirky and interesting.
Sam Richards:I don't know if I was interesting, I was quirky.
Daniel Koo:I imagine you were I don't know Quirky.
Sam Richards:Even quirky. I think I was probably. Fairly, I was very average. I'm still very average, but I was just an average kid. I just happened to be really well-balanced for some reason.
Daniel Koo:Tell me a little bit about your childhood. I guess. How did you grow up? What kind of family setting was it? What kind of city did you grow up in?
Sam Richards:Well, so my father was 56 when I was born and my mother was 45. My mother had been married and had three kids and then got divorced from her first husband and then met my father. But they just kind of lived together for quite a while. She didn't want to get married and he kind of helped raise my older siblings. And then at some point she got pregnant and she had my brother, who's two years older than me, and then she realized, oh wait, I can actually have another kid. She was 43 at that point, right. So then they had me. Now I was the only one of her five children that she planned. Okay. So I always think about that Like, oh, isn't that? So you know, my parents were older and then my father died when I was nine, nine and a half, oh wow.
Sam Richards:And so and he had been very science-oriented Now he didn't even go to high school, didn't graduate high school, but he took college classes. He was sort of outside the box in a way. Right, my mom didn't go to college, but she graduated 12th grade. None of my grandparents, by the way I don't think any of them, graduated high school. So you know what about your siblings? My one brother got a math degree. He was a math teacher. He retired, but my other three siblings, no, they didn't go. So some of my nieces and nephews went to college, but yeah, so it's kind of wild, like I didn't know anybody growing up who went to college None of my friends' parents. I had one friend whose father actually had his PhD in education. I think he might have been the only parent who went to college.
Daniel Koo:What gave you the idea to, I guess, go get a higher education after high school? Well, I wasn't planning on it.
Sam Richards:I was a really pretty poor student. Well, I wasn't a poor student. After my dad died, my neighbor used to take me to the library every few weeks and I'd come home with a stack of books and I would read through them. I was always reading. My father enjoyed reading. He was again science-oriented. We had books in the house. We had the great books. We had dictionaries. He made me memorize pi to the 10th decimal when I was five years old, that kind of stuff.
Sam Richards:I had a chemistry set. I had a chemistry set, I had a microscope, you know I had all that. He was. You know, I was going to be a you know scientist, right, but then he died and so my mother was working you know, two, three jobs and I was basically raised myself and she didn't pay attention to my grades. I mean, if I got C's, it was okay, you know, just get. How are your grades? Oh, they're good, it wasn't. There was no pressure at all. So I would read often, but I never brought books home. You know, in high school I never once brought a book home overnight to study. Well, I actually distinctly remember one time I did, kind of accidentally, but I didn't study. So I never studied for exams or anything you know.
Daniel Koo:I feel like you're either really smart or you're really irresponsible. No, I was both.
Sam Richards:I was irresponsible. Well, no, I was responsible because I enjoyed thinking on my own terms, right Actually, strangely, I found school to be pretty boring, so I would skip class and I would go down to the library and sneak in the library and go in the back so no one could see me, and I'd read books.
Daniel Koo:When you were reading, you were just reading stuff that you found interesting.
Sam Richards:I would go through the stacks and pick something out, and I'm still that way. I read everything, I'm so. When I was, you know, at the space agency in Daejeon you know they were I was speaking with one of the scientists there about solar flares. So we were watching a video of the sun. You know, it was live, a live shot of the sun, and the solar flares were happening. Well, I knew something about solar flares, right, because I study. I knew something about solar flares, right, because I study. I read everything, so I've learned more talking to her and obviously I only know a tiny, tiny, infinitesimal fraction compared to what she knew, but I knew something right. So that's the thing about me. You know, I've always been fascinated by lots of stuff. But in any case, after the very end of my high school career this might be interesting to your listeners, I suppose, or viewers At the very end of my high school career, the guidance counselor I had my one-time meeting with this guy, right? He didn't know me and what grade were you in at?
Sam Richards:this I was 12th grade, right? So I was getting ready to graduate. And he said what are you going to do? And I said well, I don't know. You know, maybe I think I'm going to try and be a musician, because I wanted to make a living doing that. And I said I can, I'll work. I was always working through school. I started a lawn mowing business when I was 11, you know. So you didn't say that you're going to do public lectures in Korea.
Sam Richards:Oh my God, no, no no, no, yeah, how shocking, yeah, the fact that I even he said well, you know, if you want to, are you thinking about applying to the university? I said no, I had taken the SAT exam and I didn't even know what my score was. I didn't even know the score, right, I took it and I'm like okay. So he said. I said well, and by the way, I should add, I didn't know what the exam was when I took it. I signed up.
Sam Richards:they kind of, I kind of got signed up for it you were just there and you're like just took it on an early saturday morning and I I think I can say I was hung over actually, so I also had a fake id at that time. So I go out drinking and stuff, and I was hung over and I was, I've got to go take this exam. Didn't know what it was. So anyway, he said, well, you can apply to the library or to the university here, university of Toledo. He said I can give you a pass, you can go out there and apply. I said, oh, and I can get the day off. Now it didn't matter to, because if I wanted to take a day off school, I would just take a day off school. But I said, okay, I'll go out and do that.
Sam Richards:So the next day I had a motorcycle and again, I had been working since the age of 11, so I always had money. I put my golf clubs on my back, I got on my motorcycle, I rode out, I applied, it took me about 15 minutes, and then I went to the golf course next door and I played a round of golf and then I had my fake ID. So at the end of golf I went into the bar and drank a beer, even though I was only 17. So anyway, and then I got in Later, found out that they admitted everybody to the university, so it wasn't anything special and I started taking classes. And then I was a house painter. I trained that summer to be a house painter, so in the summertime in two weeks I could make enough money for one quarter of my tuition. So in six weeks I could pay my whole year's tuition.
Daniel Koo:So when you said you were working since 11, what type of work did you do?
Sam Richards:I would cut lawns, I would do all sorts of odd jobs for people around the neighborhood. Everybody knew me. I was always doing something, things like minor, tiny construction. I really, as a young kid, I was doing all sorts of stuff, right? I worked for my mom. My dad had this factory, this tool and die factory, so you know, I would go and she would make these hospital supplies with, like these molds and so on and so forth, and she kept the business going. It was very tiny business, right.
Sam Richards:So I'd go after school and I'd, you know, get the key and I'd open it up, I'd fire up the generator and I'd fire up the machine and I'm, you know, I'm like 13 years old, right, and I'm making these parts with these. And it was so dangerous. You know my hands. I mean I'm doing all this stuff pulling it and my hands inside these molds and I mean, like my foot's pressing the. That's crazy. To think back on it, I'd have to climb up on a ladder and pour all the plastic beads into the hopper. You know that then we'd later make all the equipment. I mean it was the most amazing thing for a little kid, right. And then I'd lock it up and I'd go home, you know. So that gave me a lot of like kind of self-confidence. It also gave me a sense that it was good to work with your hands and be working class Like. I felt like a man, a young boy turning into a man, I guess it's also very productive as well.
Daniel Koo:Like you feel like you're there to do something. You're there to, like, fix a problem or you know, to do something.
Sam Richards:And I helped to make money for my mom. We didn't have very much money, you know, we were very working class and it was hard. Those were tough times, you know.
Daniel Koo:So anyway, that's how I ended up. I mean, I think even from then on, I feel like there's a sense of, like entrepreneurial kind of spirit. Yeah, you know, as a kid I think you know I was just playing in the playground you know, yeah, yeah, yeah, you know I was obviously, you know, there there's probably a bit of studying, a bit of playing in the playground, learning and things like that, but you're out there doing something. I think that actually sounds very similar to your entrepreneurial spirit. I feel like that's where it comes from.
Sam Richards:Yeah, that's right. At 14, I started working at a fast food restaurant. I would work school nights until 1, 2 in the morning sometimes and I had to get up for an early morning class in high school.
Daniel Koo:I think you mentioned at around 20 years old you kind of discovered what learning was. Yeah that's right. I think your phrase was you were finished being ignorant. Yeah, I really love that phrase. What was the specific moment that flipped that switch?
Sam Richards:Well, first off, at the time I had a girlfriend and her father who had not I don't think he even graduated high school, but he was one of these guys who was thinking all the time and arguing all the time and he would argue with her and then I would just sit back and watch the two of them argue and I couldn't join in because I didn't. This is so. This is like from the age of 18 to 20 kind of thing, you know. But finally I just got tired of that not being able to jump in and I had transferred to a two-year college because I kept starting a full load of classes in college and I would stop going. So you know, I was two years after two years of college, I was not even halfway through my freshman year, right, and my GPA was like one, nine or something. So anyway, I switched to a two-year college and I was on my way to my class. I stopped going to a couple of my classes. I was on my early class and I said I don't want to go to class. This is stupid. So I went into the library and I started reading and I picked out this journal on social work and prisons and I said, my God, that's Really interesting. I could work in a prison. So I went to the phone on the wall and I called the social work department and I said, hey, can I come talk to somebody about Applying for a job there? No, about studying social work. What could I Come back to the main campus and do that? And so he signed me up for classes.
Sam Richards:And then I went home that day. I called my bandmates. I said, hey, I'm quitting the band, you know, in two months. And I called. I went to my job. I was driving a forklift in a lumberyard and I said, hey, I'm going to stop. You know, in January I'll be going to school full time. And they said I thought you were in full-time. I'm like, no, no, no, this is different. I'm going to be a student full-time. And that was it, man. And then I was in. I was in up to my neck.
Daniel Koo:So it must have been a very big shift from your musician life into kind of, I guess, truly studying what was your life like as a musician as well. I guess we haven't covered that.
Sam Richards:Well, you know, I mean we weren't I started playing gigs. I started gigging, as they say, when I was 13 was my first gig. Wow, played at our eighth grade dance. You said you were a drummer, I was a drummer and that was pretty cool, like when you're in eighth grade, man, and you're playing in a band for the, for the, your manning, you're playing in a band for the for the, your eighth grade classmates. That was pretty awesome. Um, and then I got hooked to playing out. So I was always playing in places, because I was always seeking out places where we could play and we were in and out of bands. You know, um, yeah, it was, it was, uh, it's, it's a, it's a cool experience. I mean, you know, to be a musician like that, to be able to perform and to be on stage and to work as a band.
Daniel Koo:I think, as I grow up, it's really hard to find people to play with. Yeah, yeah, yeah it's hard.
Sam Richards:Are you a musician?
Daniel Koo:yeah, I play percussion throughout since second grade, okay cool, I play in the school orchestra and things like that. Right now I play at my church uh church band and it has a trap set like a drum set.
Sam Richards:Uh, yeah, like a drum set. Yeah, okay, very cool. Yeah, it's so, it's all. And then you know, in your drummer you got to take your drums everywhere. So that's a lot, but it's harder as you get older, right, um, but for me, that me. So those were really good times. I was like, you know, and looking back I realized I was always that kid doing weird stuff, right, like I was a drummer in a band and I was an athlete, I was a jock, right, and I was all sorts of stuff. It was really quite a remarkably fun life.
Daniel Koo:Yeah, and to, I guess, transition from that fun life into something else. What kind of what was going through your mind? Were you thinking that, oh, I had to let these things go in order to invest my time in something different?
Sam Richards:Yeah, I, for whatever reason, I was touched in that moment when I went to that phone and I knew that I had to quit everything. In that moment when I went to that phone and I knew that I had to quit everything, if I was going to be a learn to think and understand the world, then I was going to have to do it full time. And that's what I did, and it took a long time Because I was so far behind, so to speak. I didn't often get arrogant and think that I knew anything. So the way I am today when I think I don't know anything, I've been like that from the very beginning.
Daniel Koo:So you kind of approach it from a. You know, I'm curious, I'm learning my way through it, and I think at that moment it must have been. I think, for this stage, your first life lesson was live without think. For this stage, your first life lesson was, you know, live without fear. Yeah, live without fear. I can't imagine what the thought process you had to go through at that moment. Yeah, was there anything else that gave you kind of the confidence to move on from everything that you were doing?
Sam Richards:Well, it was. No, it was pure curiosity, naivete. If I would have understood what it meant to be an academic and a thinker and to take what would be considered the intellectual path, I'm sure I would never have done it. And at that time I was a house painter right, I was painting houses. I started my own house painting business. I was employing people to work for me. I made a lot of money out painting houses. So, no, I never would have done it. No, it was so big.
Sam Richards:And the more I learned, the more I didn't know. And I would study really hard for my exams, you know, at this point in time, and I'd get like a C and I'd be like, oh man, I study. And I'd be like, okay, I'm going to ace this exam right. And I would get a B. And I'd leave the exam thinking, oh, I got an A on that and I got a B. I just never could do that. I didn't learn how to study. I didn't know any of that, but I learned how to be curious. I always knew how to be curious, and so that was all that mattered to be curious, and so that was all that mattered. The A or the B didn't matter to me, what mattered was that I was able to sustain my curiosity. I like that.
Daniel Koo:I think many people have a problem distinguishing between smart caution and limiting fear. I think maybe the solution to that is, as you said, being curious and exploring your way through life as you said like being curious and exploring your way through life.
Sam Richards:Well, also, you understand now, all throughout this time I was painting houses and really I could make good money. I mean, I was in the working class but I could do quite fine in Toledo, ohio, so I had no fear. If I failed at this I'd go back to painting houses and I'll be a house painter for my life. That's fine. I enjoyed painting houses. You know, like being a working class kid, you don't have there aren't a lot of expectations. I mean, you're not thinking like I have to. You know, if my father had been a lawyer or a doctor, or my mother, I have to compete at that level. But I wasn't competing with anyone. So, mother, I have to compete at that level, I wasn't competing with anyone. So you know, when I taught my here's kind of an interesting story when I finally finished, you know, when I got my master's, I started working on my master's degree, also at the University of Toledo, because nobody else would accept me for graduate school because my you know, my record was pretty poor. But I knew all the professors at the university because I painted their houses, which is kind of fun. So you know, that's good. So one woman called me and said hey, I hear you want to go to grad school. Why don't you just come here, right? So I did.
Sam Richards:And then at some point in my second year, the community college, where I had switched to to take classes, they needed someone to teach a class. So they called over and one person said, well, we've got this grad student, sam Richards, he might be interested. He's kind of, you know, outside the box. So I went over and I talked to this person and I said, well, okay, maybe I was 24 years old. And he said, well, what's the class? And I said, well, it's called Cybernetics in Human Ecology. Oh, wow.
Daniel Koo:Wow, now that's kind of interesting. What could that possibly be? What could that be?
Sam Richards:I never heard of cybernetics before. I had taken a graduate class in human ecology, but I still really didn't understand it. And so I said, well, you mean like kind of technology in human ecology? He said, yeah, okay, that's fine. And human ecology? He said, yeah, okay, that's fine. I said, well, let me think about it. He said, well, you got about 15 minutes because the class is meeting down the hall, right? I said, okay, I'll do it, whatever, how much are you going to pay me? I think they paid me $1,200 or something. It was really you know nothing. And so I said, okay, I'll do it.
Sam Richards:So I went, you know, and I walked down the hall. I had nothing with me, it was just me, right. And I walked down the hall and I walked into the classroom and here was 60 or 70 people at least 60. I think there might have been 70, looking at me. I walked to the front of the room and I said, hey, does anybody know what cybernetics is? And nobody did. And I said, well, I don't either. I'm the instructor, so I really have no idea. But you know what? We'll figure it out as we go along, okay, and people are just looking at me.
Daniel Koo:And that was your first class ever.
Sam Richards:First class ever, 24 years old. Knowing with that naive confidence, I was like you know what? All I know is I'm more curious than anybody sitting in this room.
Daniel Koo:About cybernetics.
Sam Richards:About anything. I'll just attach that to cybernetics and I'll stay a step ahead of them and I'll have something to say Wow. And it turns out it's not like I thought that consciously, but that's what was kind of going on, like if I just allow my curiosity to guide me, I'll be okay. Well, it turned out to be a pretty good class. Well it was for me. I learned a lot, so I suppose they learned something, but of course they don't remember any of it, to kind of dive into your kind of learning stage.
Daniel Koo:What was the most challenging for you when you got into this stage?
Sam Richards:I couldn't really organize my mind. I didn't understand how to do that, so I probably spun my wheels more than I maybe needed to at a certain point. But at the same time it was good because since I didn't have those skills, I hadn't learned them from a young age. I never had the sense that there was a right or wrong way to think, a right or wrong way to do it.
Daniel Koo:Did that cause a lot of friction with the professors and things like that?
Sam Richards:No, not per se, I would do what I needed to do in the classes. But you know what? I had a really good mentor. My mentor was a brilliant, very well-known scholar in the Middle East. He didn't publish in English, he was a Lebanese scholar. He published in Arabic, wrote over 50 books. Nobody knew him in the West, but in the Middle East he was very, very well-known and so I was his final student. He was such a brilliant scholar. He was at the University of Toledo and he was there because he wanted to be kind of hidden away.
Daniel Koo:And do his own kind of print.
Sam Richards:Yeah, and he lived in Detroit. It's close to all the Arab community and that's where his wife's family was, and so it worked for him and he would spend many, many months overseas. But in any case, he was such a brilliant scholar that I knew that I would never be a brilliant scholar Because I could never be what he is. I mean, I just knew, and that was a gift for me, because I didn't have to compete, I didn't have to try to be really really special and really really smart, because I saw what it would take to be him and it was just like I was never going to happen and that it took the pressure off of me, you know, in such a really really lovely way.
Daniel Koo:So I guess when you saw that person, you felt like that person was on kind of a completely different path Totally. He was a scholar and kind of working at a different scale, kind of at a different frequency, almost yeah, and for you to see that then it was also a signal for you to not go towards that path. Yeah, so was that right?
Sam Richards:I tried. I have to say that I tried, but it was just like it was never going to happen and so it was okay. So I did it my own way. I just read and think and talk, and read, and think and talk, and, you know, just always trying to swim upstream. You know I learned from him that. You know he taught me a really important thing. First, this guy is the most brilliant scholar. You know I could name names but I won't name names. But who offered for him to be the national scholar of their country?
Daniel Koo:You know what.
Sam Richards:I mean and he was like no, I'm busy, I'm writing my 10-volume book on the history of ideas, so I don't have time for that. I got to go hide in my office and work, so it's just like such a gift to know that there's so many different ways to be in the world, so let me just do it my own way. Yeah, and whatever that would be, that would be fine.
Daniel Koo:I think you also described this stage as intensive studying. Yeah, and for that? What did that look like for you?
Sam Richards:I guess, Well, I'd wake up in the morning to the New York Times and I would back when you could get it delivered to your door. Even when I was in Ohio I would do that and I would just read it. I'd spend two hours reading I mean, you know, not the whole thing because there's no time in a day to read the whole thing but I would put stuff in categories and then it was just a nonstop process of thinking and reading and studying and, you know, not understanding stuff. But then I would just slowly, over time, I started to put these categories together and the world started to make sense to me and that just felt really good, you know, when I could be thinking about one place in the world and be drawing on ideas from another place and apply it to here. Especially as a sociologist, it was very satisfying in that way.
Daniel Koo:But I guess when you were starting out and learning, you didn't really know what you were trying to learn. No, I had no idea, you were just trying to absorb as much as possible, everything, anything I could possibly.
Sam Richards:And you know, it turns out strangely. The thing that I ended up focusing on my thesis for my master's and then my PhD dissertation was this kind of thought system called liberation theology, and it was about the kind of members of the Catholic Church who started to kind of get us in the 1960s that, you know, the church was not following the right path. You know, what we need is a preferential option for the poor. The church is interested in maintaining its own position of power and privilege and hierarchy, and what we really need to be doing is doing what Jesus would say to do, which is help the poor, and especially in South America, where, you know, there were so many military regimes and so much brutality against inequality and brutality against poor people. We, the church people, should be helping the people who are suffering right.
Sam Richards:Well, I came upon that because one day I was walking through the library and there was this book on Brazil and the church and I just I don't know why I saw it. I just picked it up, I sat down and started church and I just, I don't know why I saw it. I just picked it up, I sat down, I started reading it I went, oh my gosh, this is whoa whoa. You mean Catholics are doing this Like whoa whoa. Oh, this is pretty cool. So I took it with me. And then I got another one and another one before and I wasn't Catholic Before I knew it. I was so involved in trying to understand who all these folks were and in the end I wrote my dissertation and my first book on that.
Daniel Koo:Wow, I think just being curious is I don't know if you can learn that or if that's something that's innate in everyone, but I think tapping into that is maybe the key here.
Sam Richards:You know, the other day I was at a park with a bunch of Korean parents and their kids and I watched all these kids, I watched their curiosity. They were all curious. We were doing all sorts of stuff, you know digging through the dirt, digging through the water, digging the tree. Every single one of them was curious and I think it's rare that someone doesn't have the spark of curiosity. But it's also rare that the spark doesn't get extinguished by school. That's true. Oh my gosh.
Daniel Koo:I think you also mentioned that you try not to follow everyone else's standards. Yeah, you mentioned a little bit about the scholar that you're a mentor. Yeah, but was there anything, something unique that you did during this time that other people didn't do?
Sam Richards:Yeah, well, you know, a gift he gave me was he says hey, don't worry about where you go for your PhD, all you need is a library. You need a scholarship, you need an assistantship or a scholarship because you don't want to have to work, you need to spend all your time studying in the library. In any library you go, anywhere with a PhD program will have far more books than you'll ever be able to read. So that's all you need. Don't worry about the prestige. That was the greatest gift for me, right? And then I think I just followed that. I just never went for prestige. You know people would tell me oh, such and such a person, he's like such an important scholar, but can't be that important. I never heard of him.
Daniel Koo:You know, you know how important is he.
Sam Richards:Like I don't know. It's me Like I'm not, how important am I? Like nobody knows, you know? So it was like kind of yeah, so I always had that. That's also the working class thing. You know, you're suspicious of anybody with a title.
Daniel Koo:Yeah, you're like.
Sam Richards:I don't really know Anybody who thinks they're someone, or other people think they're somebody. When you're from the working class, you're just sort of like you know what? Can you rewire an outlet? Yeah?
Daniel Koo:Can you paint a ceiling? Can you paint a house?
Sam Richards:Yeah, can. Can you paint a ceiling? Can you paint a house? Can you change a tire? Can you change your spark plugs on your car? If you can't do any of that, what good are you? Well, that's how I grew up.
Daniel Koo:I think it's also refreshing. It's very competitive out there. Once you go to college, there's all sorts of maybe I don't want to say too much of elitism, but there is a certain hierarchy, totally. Oh, it's everywhere.
Sam Richards:Listen, your father's a dentist, right? Okay, well, me, I'd be like okay, well, what happens when his drill breaks? What's he do? Well, he calls someone. I'm like, ah, can he fix his broken drill? This guy over here can fix his broken drill. This guy's important. And of course, this guy over here needs your father to take care of him, and then your father needs this guy to fix his drill. They're both equally important. And that's the beauty of being a kid like me, you know. I never forget that, I never forgot it.
Daniel Koo:Yeah, so imagine this stage of your life for learning. It really put you out there. It really put you out on the map in terms of knowledge, right Like you started to learn about the world and you're getting a sense of what to do next. Yeah, Do you feel like you found that when you entered the next stage as a professor?
Sam Richards:I never had the intention truly of being a professor. I taught because it was part of what I did as a graduate student. I assume that I'd probably be a professor at some point in my PhD program because I didn't know what else it would be. But professorial jobs are tough to get, so it was probably 50-50 that I would be a professor or I'd be a house painter or something else. But I didn't think about success. I never thought about all the way through graduate school.
Sam Richards:There are a lot of graduate students who you know they're building up their vita because they want to make sure that when they enter the job market they're marketable. They'll get a job. Someone wants them. I never did any of that. I didn't think of it. I was building my Vita right through, you know, public. I published a paper with one of my professors. I had a Fulbright grant, I had an NSF grant. I had different things, but I wasn't for the purpose of building my media and my resume, because I had no idea what I was going to do. I was so fascinated, so interested and the wheel right of just learning and studying and that kind of stuff.
Daniel Koo:So the drive for you at this moment, it wasn't to kind of become something or like a title or anything like that that's right. That's right, but it was kind of purely based on curiosity and like what you wanted to learn.
Sam Richards:Yeah, it was curiosity and what I wanted to learn.
Daniel Koo:Again.
Sam Richards:I can't emphasize enough To young people go get a skill that's marketable, that you will never not have worked like painting houses, whatever electrician, plumbing, whatever. It is the weight off your shoulders, man, it's just, it's the greatest gift ever.
Daniel Koo:Because you feel like you have a safety net. Safety net the decisions that you're making is not based off of some sort of fear of failure or fear of not being able to feed yourself, but it's out of pure curiosity that comes from the center of your core.
Sam Richards:It's something that I never lost. I never had to lose it. I never had to do anything I didn't want. Well, there were certain things I didn't really want to do, so for you.
Daniel Koo:What would be an advice for people who are struggling to find that? You know, like their curiosity, maybe it was extinguished, you know, as you said, after years of school. But if there's any way to revive that or to look for that, what would be your advice?
Sam Richards:Okay. Well, the first thing is, don't start with something that you need to have Like well, but I need to make this amount of money or I need whatever it is right. When you start with that, you already limit what your options are. Okay, and I understand. You know people have student loans. Well, first off, if you're young and you know you have the option, or if you have children and you know you want them to, like you know, line up a whole bunch of student loans, well, all you're doing is you're destroying the opportunities for them to express and pursue their curiosity, because they're going to have to pay the loans back and they're going to probably have to do things that are not in their best interest just in order to pay the loans back. So that becomes a problem, right? And so I would say maintain the sense that you don't know what your life is going to be and you don't know what it's supposed to be, and you don't know what's necessarily in your best interest. And if you hold that, without starting with this idea that you need a certain number of things, then you're going to be far better off in the short run and in the long run and you're more likely to be able to have those invisible hands latch on to you. You know, like when you're on a really cool path Joseph Campbell said this, he's one of my really mentors, even though I never met him but when you're doing what you're really best suited to do and supposed to do, it's almost as though these invisible hands, they just reach out and they just pull you along and they just keep pulling you along. You never really have to try very hard. And when you're not trying to force certain things because of your own beliefs about what you should be and how you should be, then it's more likely those invisible hands can grasp on. And probably what's going on and this is my advice to everybody whatever you think you should be or you really want to be, those are just messages you got from other people. Like, oh, you know, I graduated with my high school and everyone expects me to do a certain number of things. Well, who cares what they expect? I mean, if you're going to live your life for other people, I mean this is silly. Like, even well, these are my parents or my friends or society. You know, I'm only going to going to have to. I won't think well of myself. I mean, whatever it is, all these kinds of things. It's the silliest stupid thing you could ever imagine.
Sam Richards:You know, like the one gift of my father dying is that from the age of nine and a half I knew death was coming and it was going to take me away and I was going to go where my father went, wherever that was, but he didn't take anything with him. The last image that I had of him was laying on the bed, his body, after he died. And I looked in the room and there he was. He was starting already to be discolored because it's a long story. But I was like wow, to nothing that he took with him. I won't take anything with me. So why am I concerned about any of that? And that has stayed with me my whole life. And the closer I get to death and I'm much closer now because I'm 64, I have these moments where I realize nothing. Nothing I have is coming my reputation, nothing, man.
Daniel Koo:Yeah, I mean there's obviously a lot of pressure from society that we already have right about what we need to be. Sometimes it could be parental pressure or peer pressure, but I think ultimately that kind of pressure pushes you in the wrong direction Totally and you know to your point it's. You know we only live one life and you know you kind of have to make that yours. You got to make it yours and I think you know what you said really resonates, because I think when you find something that you really enjoy, it doesn't even feel like work. I know that's a very cliche saying, but I think it's very true.
Daniel Koo:For me, engineering it's super fun. It's intense sometimes being in big tech, but it can be very enjoyable when we're going through it. And I can see it in the eyes of the people I'm working with because even though we have tight deadlines and things like that, we actually enjoy it a little bit and I think that's kind of a really good place to be. I know that's not going to be forever for my career, but it's a really good place to be. I think you give me the confidence to kind of chase that more. It's the same for this podcast as well and being able to enjoy what you're doing is, I think, is a very good signal. You probably agree with that.
Sam Richards:Well, you know everything I do like I come here to Korea. I'm here now three weeks. My schedule is packed every single day, even when I'm golfing you and I golfed a few days ago, right, but even that schedule is packed. I came home from golfing and I was working on a script, you know and uh it, but everything I'm doing it's like I wouldn't change any of it.
Sam Richards:You know, it's all. I'm meeting people, it's fun. It's like it's so much work. This morning my wife and I we got up early and we're working on this script for this program. We're doing and I'm like oh my god, but but I'm laughing. I'm looking at her. I'm like, oh my God, isn't this amazing? We're both totally pushing it really hard. But everything it's just life is exciting. Man, it's so exciting.
Daniel Koo:I think for you, like, this exciting time period didn't come without putting in the time right.
Sam Richards:Putting in the time, man. You can't imagine how much time I spend preparing.
Daniel Koo:Tell us a little bit about how you run your production of your class. What is the preparation that goes into it? How do you plan these conversations when you don't know what the students are going to say?
Sam Richards:Well, I come up with something that I'm curious about. You know. It's like, hey, I wonder what students? Are students really getting offended by things? You know I was like, is that really it we talk about? Oh, students are so offended. I'm like, are they really?
Sam Richards:And I wonder how they are in other cultures. Like what's this like, Right? So I'll say, like, okay, we're going to talk about the title. Is you know I'm offended? Okay, All right. So what do I want to know? Well, okay, we're going to go the U S, so let's talk about being canceled and like how it happens. I'm like, well, that's a different topic Like canceled canceled canceled.
Sam Richards:That was another topic I have. But, okay, offended, Like okay, so then, all right, so let me ask the question Okay, what does it mean to be offended? How often do you find yourself feeling like you're offended? And how about your friends and friends Do you talk about? You know, there are these kinds of questions, and then I get my questions, then I go to my wife, who's the you know the really the guru of asking questions, and then she, like rearranges them and gives me the really good questions.
Sam Richards:So when you watch my class, I'm always holding a piece of paper. Well, the paper just has questions on them, and their questions are the ones that I wrote. And then my wife rewrote them for me, you know. So, anyway, and then I'll pick, like, okay, well, what countries would be a good country? What if I choose somebody from a Muslim country?
Sam Richards:So we'll talk about, like, do you ever get offended when you hear Americans or Donald Trump or somebody you know talking about the Muslims? Right, yeah, Somebody from Mexico. So I get a student from Mexico, a student from maybe like Kuwait or Indonesia or something, and then Americans, and then we bring them up and then we do that. So the thing is, I have to think through the many different aspects of what it is and then maybe I want to put a couple of photos up, or I want a couple of graphs about being offended or something like that, and so then we operate that way and then I have to know it's a production right, it's like a television show. So I've got to kind of work here and work there and know when we want to send the mic out to the audience and you know, yeah, I was surprised you were very active in your um, in your lectures as well.
Daniel Koo:Like you move around, you go into the aisle, yeah, um, I think there was one about diversity, equity and inclusion, and you know you were visualizing what um kind of like the societal gap. If you start out with that, what happens, you know, and if you start out with that gap, you know someone's, like you know in the middle of the stairs, someone's at the base of the stairs, and even if you try to catch up, they're just going to move forward. You know, and that visual kind of element I think was really powerful and I'm sure that changed a lot of people's minds about well, why can't you just work harder, right?
Sam Richards:And I think Right and like you can work harder, but while you're working, I recognize. So is that person up there Exactly?
Daniel Koo:In fact they're less tired because they started. You know, they started way up there, yeah.
Sam Richards:And again you hear me laugh at that. I laugh. Again you hear me laugh at that. Everything is just laughter. You know they're like, oh my God, but it's the inequality of rich people. I'm like, yeah, whatever, you're not going to change that, just like enjoy, have fun, think about it. Yeah, do your best. I mean, I don't mean it's sheepishly like that. You know we have racism, we have discrimination, all these things are. They're really heavy Sexism. They impact people in really deleterious ways. Right, but I've been in the weeds on this stuff. I've been in the trenches for 40 years. If I don't laugh at the world, I can't go on, I can't continue to do what I do. And just because I'm a white man doesn't mean that it's like I don't feel things, but I laugh a lot.
Daniel Koo:I think it's also a different thing to be able to laugh about it and also to take it seriously.
Daniel Koo:I think that's kind of separate your actions will speak for your philosophies, but then the way you are able to discuss it with other people, that's a separate issue. So I think that's a good take on it, like if we are able to talk about it with other people, that's, you know, we were able to change, or the way I think, the way we think and things like that. So, all right, let's talk about's talk about kind of the last stage that you're in, which is kind of your entrepreneurial stage.
Daniel Koo:I'm kind of excited about this because you know, as we mentioned before, it's not like you've planned this out. When you were young, you were thinking about becoming famous in Korea for your love of Korea.
Sam Richards:Or famous anywhere.
Daniel Koo:Or famous anywhere right.
Sam Richards:I had a first bout with fame when I was kind of dealt, had it in the Middle East actually. Oh interesting yeah.
Daniel Koo:But nonetheless that's but I guess, yeah, for this stage like what is driving you currently. You know what's the most motivating force for you to do all these things in public in Korea and like doing these lectures, doing these talks, what's kind of like the driving force for you?
Sam Richards:Well, you know, first, the fact that you know, I get kind of to a place in my life where I actually have things that are really interesting to say, more interesting to say than when I was younger. That's one of the beauties of growing older as an academic, as someone who well, actually any job that you have, right, if I'm a woodworker or an electrician or an artist or anything, you just get better as you get older. You get faster. You know you're an electrician, you can do things more skillfully. It's cool, right. So it's really fun now to have an opportunity to talk, just like I'm talking to you. It's more fun to listen to myself and hear what I have to say. Just yeah, it's just more fun. You know I have more to draw on and yeah, so that's kind of what drives me, I suppose and again, never wanting to be famous, although it's funny I have a story. I don't know if I've ever told anybody this story, so I'm going to tell it to you.
Sam Richards:Remember the guy that called me on the phone to say, hey, I hear you want to go to graduate school. Why don't you come to our program". That guy when I was, when I got into and then I applied for PhD programs and I only got into one that gave me full funding and it was the lowest ranked program of the ones that I applied to. At some point I said, okay, well, I was talking to him and I said, well, that's where I'm going to go. And he said, well, all right, well, this is good. I said, well, that's where I'm going to go. And he said, all right, well, this is good. I said, hey, but you know what? One day I'm going to be really famous.
Sam Richards:And he looked at me like I had two heads, and I never say anything like that. I never say anything like that. That's just not who I was, yeah, but I said it to him and he said yeah, I don, I don't know, I'm gonna be a famous sociologist and that was it. I don't know.
Sam Richards:I just I don't know where there's a bit of premonitions somehow just got channeled through my crown chakra from the future into here. It didn't, never, never, it never drove me nothing at all. And then, look, I'm probably. This is the irony, right. I'm going to say this because of my videos. We're almost at a half a billion views and people know me as a sociologist. I might be the most recognizable sociologist in the world, right, so famous or whatever it is, but recognizable right, because so many people watch the videos right.
Sam Richards:So famous whatever it is, but recognizable right, Because so many people watch the videos right and like huh, isn't that odd? It's so strange.
Daniel Koo:Yeah, something happened back then to set you on this path.
Sam Richards:I don't know what it was, but I never tried to be so my entrepreneurial days were really once again kind of me feeling like, okay, I need a little something more. And then what I saw? Like you know what the work we're doing at World in Conversation, which is a facilitator training organization that I co-founded with my wife in 2002. Because you have all these, it's a big lecture class, but what you don't see is all those students are meeting in small groups week after week, right, nobody sees that. And so she trained the facilitators in a particular methodology and how to hold these conversations to move them forward. And then we started taking these facilitators, giving them more training to do conversations outside of that particular classroom. So at one point in time we were doing 3,000 dialogues a year at World in Conversation. We were the largest facilitator training and dialogue program based at a university in the world.
Sam Richards:And that happened because my entrepreneur because I'm mentally ill first off, and my entrepreneurial side just kept going, grow, grow, grow, grow. And my wife kept saying, dude, you're crazy, like we can't do this, like it's too much. But I wasn't thinking about the content of them, I was just thinking about giving these opportunities to as many people as possible and that was my that side of me just said no, I have to build something. So sometime, maybe around the in my early 50s, I said Laurie, you don't under. I think it's because I'm a man. Part of it's because I'm a man, part of it is maybe my astrological chart, I don't know what it is. I'm an ENTP.
Sam Richards:In the Myers-Briggs I said I got to build, I have to build something. I got to have some kind of a legacy, something. People have children, some kind of a legacy. That's something I don't. People have children. Some people have a house. They do this, they do that. I had to build something and I have to follow this entrepreneurial spirit. So I did. Then we really just took off with this thing and I don't understand, but it was just something in me that said I've got to make it happen.
Daniel Koo:So there's something about you that you have to build this out, did you have?
Sam Richards:to make it truly yours. Yeah, and I was lucky I had this guy Cole.
Daniel Koo:I was just going to ask him.
Sam Richards:He was a guy who was just. He's such a Cole Camp-Lease is his name. He's down at University of Texas now. He was a visionary for technology in the classroom and he watched a couple of my videos way back before I was making videos on YouTube in the way that I do today. But he watched these two videos and he said, my God. He said this is amazing. Who's helping you do this? I said well, nobody.
Daniel Koo:I mean.
Sam Richards:I just have a couple students that I recruit and we do it. And he's like okay, what do you need? Whatever you need, let's move this forward. He saw me. He was the first person that came along to really see me, and sometimes we need someone to see us. Now I didn't need it, I could have just kept going on the way I was going, but he came along and he just said, hey, do more of this. Whatever you need, I'll help you, just do more of it. And it was the first time in my life when I actually went, wow, hey, this is pretty cool, because I wasn't thinking it was cool, I'm just putting videos up. And someone said this is really. I mean, I thought it was cool for me, but only for me. It was just like what I thought was cool. I didn't care what anybody else thought, I guess it's interesting you were already creating at this point.
Sam Richards:That's interesting. You were already creating at this point, so I imagine you knew you had something right. You knew you had something, but what? That I was doing, something that I felt was really creative and I thought was creative, and it didn't matter that anybody was watching these videos. I have a couple of videos that Cole watched. One of them at the time had like a hundred views and for me it was like oh, look at that, that's such a cool video.
Sam Richards:It had 100 views. You know, I didn't care, it didn't matter, I thought it was. I'm like, oh, that was so much fun to do that in class and stuff, right, and so other people. Sometimes we don't need validation from other people in order to make something really fun and creative. It's like we really just have to see it ourselves. And then maybe the like some people write books and the book sits. The writer Hong Kong, here in Korea, who's won the Nobel Prize, and suddenly everyone's buying her books. Well, she was a well-known writer, but people weren't running out to bookstores to buy her books. And many writers, or even more so, they write a book and the book doesn't go anywhere. And then 10 years later, somehow it just takes off right.
Daniel Koo:We don't know when that entrepreneurial passion is actually going to take off. I think also, you know it's important that you know for Han Gang as well like she kept writing. You know you as well. You were consistently, you know, doing what you were doing until maybe some someone came in and said, hey, maybe you should like do more with this, or maybe you should apply this in a bigger scale. Right, I guess for you that was a very pivotal moment in a way. Did you feel like a lot of things changed after that?
Sam Richards:Yeah, it changed because there was a whole team of people that were suddenly who I respected and liked, these really fun entrepreneurial folks doing this work on teaching and technology, and they were all like, oh yeah, this is cool. Like whoa, sam, you actually have a lot of ideas. I know, I have a lot of ideas. I can't shut my brain up it's a mental illness, you know but what it did was it gave me like a little extra energy boost, you know, because I'm like, oh, okay, I needed to hear to go to the next level. Like my entrepreneurial spirit stopped right here. And then they said, hey, no, no, no, what if you actually look a little further? And I went, okay, let me look a little further. And like whoa, okay, then it went here, right, and so, like in Korea, it all started with a very one single video on BTS that I made.
Sam Richards:I had been talking about Korea, I put up lots of videos on Korea, but there was that one video that just took off, that I had no idea and here I am talking to you If it wasn't for that video one day that was an accident, really I woke up one day and I said I heard that BTS broke the record for downloads for Taylor Swift and I said hey, you know what, I'm going to say something about that in class. And so I did, and then it, you know, and it really took off. It took off. I'm like I've done so many other things. I'm like why didn't that take off? Or this should have taken off, but that one did you know. So that's kind of how life is to see.
Daniel Koo:It's the practice of creating consistently and at one point, you know, luck breaks out or something just falls together perfectly and it really takes off, and I guess the lesson there would I don't know if you would agree, but I think for me the lesson there is, you know, being consistent and like not depending whether you should continue something or not, based on external validation, yet right, and just being able to create consistently and kind of seeing how the world reacts to your content, right, or it could be content or your work, and at some point they're bound to notice it or or they're not, and that's okay, because if you had fun doing it, then that's good enough.
Sam Richards:And even being consistent or don't be consistent, just do it. And if you get distracted and do something else, then get distracted and do something else. But whatever it is you're doing, enjoy it. But you know, we start, and this is kind of one of the issues with the web right and where we're at with social media, it's like we feel like we have to start being really super successful. So here let me take this podcast, for example, that you're doing. Let's put up two options here.
Daniel Koo:What if?
Sam Richards:it goes viral and suddenly you know, three years from now, you've maybe got, you know, I don't know, who knows millions of downloads right.
Daniel Koo:Maybe 10,000 views or whatever. Just to start.
Sam Richards:Yeah, just okay. Or you have a really small number of views, but one of your podcasts is going to have a radical inspiration on someone's life and it's going to change their life, and then they're going to go do something like that. Which one do you choose? Which would you choose Really? What would you choose?
Daniel Koo:you choose. I think for me, changing one person's life radically is is far more valuable than, uh, maybe like an unquantifiable yeah you know value that gets kind of dissipated throughout, yeah, the internet, you know, yeah, exactly this is the thing.
Sam Richards:This is why I never watch my videos. This is why I never read anything. I don't, I have. No, I don't read the views. I don't, I don't, I have. No, I don't read the views. I don't, I don't know.
Sam Richards:Just because I make videos and some of them have, you know, a hundred thousand views or 200,000 or a million or whatever you know, and others have 120 or 200. Sometimes the ones with 200 views, I think like my God, that was a brilliant video, like, why didn't anybody watch that? That was so cool, you know, like, but I think, going, and then the one that gets, you know, 500,000 views, I'm like, oh, that's actually not very interesting. So, clearly, I don't know and I don't understand, but I don't pay attention to it because of that, I don't. It's the one thing that I've had. People have reached out to me and said, hey, that thing that you did absolutely changed my life. And I think, well, you know what? Okay, I changed one person's life and that's enough. I can go home, you know, pack up my video gear and go home. You know, it really is. So I lived my life with that idea. I don't need anything.
Daniel Koo:Yeah, I think that's a good way of thinking about it. I think you know, when you're trying to provide value of some sort that's what I'm trying to do with this podcast too right, so, to provide some sort of value for the people watching. Obviously, there's going to be the issue of getting it out there and, you know, spreading this interview out to a lot of people so that they can watch it. But you know, at the end of the day, what I want to do is watch it, but you know, at the end of the day, what I want to do is, you know, provide inspiration, hope, motivation for those that are looking to develop their career.
Sam Richards:So you know, it's a good way of looking at it. Well, first off, you want to provide inspiration and hope for yourself, exactly. Yeah, that too. Okay, that's the most important thing. Me, I'm teaching for myself. I don't. I really, honestly, I go in the classroom. I don't care what my students get out of it. I want to. What do I get out of it? That's the thing that I also have learned along the way Stop worrying about my students, don't care about them.
Sam Richards:So you want to do that for yourself, and that's most important. You're like, yeah, I want to have these conversations because I want to learn and I want to grow, and if other people come along for the ride, that's okay, and if they don't, that's okay too. You know, because you don't know what's best, what's in your own best interest, of course, right, this might be getting in the way of your own best interest. This place where you're, something you're going to do in the world, is going to have such a profound impact on two people, or 10 people, or 2,000 people, you don't know, and this might be getting in the way. So you never attach yourself too tightly to anything, and I think I've learned that over the years. Well, it works for me and I think that it's a challenge that's very difficult, but it's a worthy one.
Daniel Koo:Now, looking backwards a little bit, if you could go back to any of your life stages with your current wisdom, which stage would you go back to? And is there maybe a stage that you would like to change a little bit, maybe give yourself a little nudge to go on a different path?
Sam Richards:oh, oh man, I would probably go back to my when I was really studying hard and I was a young man trying to kind of find my way a little bit. I probably would the degree to which I felt uncomfortable about my future in any way because I wasn't pure, you know. I mean I did trip up and like, oh my God, what if I can't? You know, I would absolutely get rid of all of that. Yeah, I was lucky that it was very small, tiny voice that wasn't very loud, but you know I would get rid of all of it. Yeah, I would eradicate the voice, but at the same time, you know, it helped me be who I am. So it's all good, yeah.
Daniel Koo:I don't think it's necessarily like regret or anything like that, but you know it's I like that it's. What you're trying to say is that we shouldn't fear too much about that certainty of what's about to happen.
Sam Richards:Yeah, I would say that yeah, because we don't know.
Daniel Koo:If there's a message to the younger generation, who have unconventional ideas but are like kind of terrified of challenging anything. Is there anything that you would love to tell?
Sam Richards:them. Oh, that's so interesting, since you would think that I do right.
Sam Richards:I've been teaching for 42 years I've been saying things to students, except that at some point I stopped telling them anything. They sometimes ask me like what do you need? What do I need to know? Yeah, well, here's the one thing. This is the only thing. This is the life lesson. That is the life lesson, and you don't learn it until you're my age. But you don't really learn it. You're lucky if you do, but if you do, it's probably because you probably smoke a lot of pot or something, I don't know. But, okay, look, this is what I tell my students.
Sam Richards:Okay, at this stage, and myself, every day I live with this Every door that you walk through means there are other doors that you can't walk through.
Sam Richards:Okay, so you deny yourself the opportunity of other adventures by being on the adventure that you're on, and what that means is when really good things happen to you and something that you really want to have happen, you know it happens. Well, that means something else didn't happen that was going to be even better. Or it means that when that good thing happens, bad things are going to happen as well, because whatever happens, positive and negative occurs. So let's say that you finally get that promotion to the job that you really want. Well, you're going to have to encounter some things that are bad, and you don't know, some of the bad things might be really bad because they might move you to, let's say, paris France and you're working in Paris France oh my God, I've always wanted to work in Paris France. And you're walking across the road and you get hit by a bus in Paris France and you think I can't. And now you're.
Daniel Koo:If you hadn't gone, then you wouldn't.
Sam Richards:If you hadn't gone there, you wouldn't be that Like. This is how life is right. So every but every negative thing happens. If you get hit by that bus, something positive will happen as well, and that's the positive and negative are in play all the time. And so I'm late to a meeting. Like, ah, late, ah, I shouldn't be late to this meeting. This is such a problem. And the taxi is going slowly and like, oh, come on, dude, it's good, something positive will happen from that. I won't sign the contract right, because I'm late. Well, that's later in life, when you get to my age, you'll look back and say remember that contract I didn't sign. This other thing happened because I didn't. Because that happened, you'll be able to see all these connections that are positive and negative. And when you see that it makes life so much more rewarding and you stress a lot less, you know. So that's my message always to young people in particular.
Sam Richards:Of course you can't understand that when you're young you know, because you got to get into that graduate program that you really want to get into, and like you don't realize that if you didn't get into that you were going to meet your beloved and you were going to have two children and you were going to love those two children Like you can't even imagine. And like, yeah, and everything that happened, right, everything good that's ever happened to me was preceded by things that were bad, that I didn't want to have happen.
Daniel Koo:So like wow, I mean, I guess that's one way of saying you know, life is rocky and it's supposed to be that way, yep, and you know, you've told us so many stories about your childhood as well. You know the things that you had to go through. I just hope you know the listeners and myself as well, to accept those uncertainties and when things happen that you didn't plan, it's going to work out in the end in some sort of way.
Sam Richards:Well, it definitely will work out in the end. And if you've been on the path like a really good path of growth and curiosity and love I should say love and understanding and friendship and empathy and all of that If you've been on that path, it absolutely works itself out in the end. And you look back and you say, okay, yeah, it's been a good ride.
Daniel Koo:Well, thank you so much for the hopeful message, thank you so much for your stories Today. To quickly summarize, I think the number one thing I'm learning is have curiosity as your drive, and maybe not to be too prescriptive, as we talked about, but having curiosity as your driving motivation helps you a lot, because the ideas that are coming out, the motivation, is coming from your core, from what you're curious about. That's right, and the actions that come out of that make it truly yours. So if you do something with it, it ends up being truly yours, and I think that's something I see throughout your career and that's something that I'm taking away with me today. Awesome, yeah, that makes me happy. Also, don't fear uncertainty too much. I mean what you said just at the end. There is things that you feared may be the things that end up helping you, right. So don't fear. The last thing is I think the last thing is actually don't feel like you have to do things too early.
Sam Richards:Oh man.
Daniel Koo:Yeah yeah, yeah. I'm sure plenty of people would have said that you've achieved your success before your 50s, even as a professor. It's an honorable job. You're teaching, you've already amassed a lot of students and audience, but for something even more to happen after your 50s as well, I think that's incredible. And if we have this kind of limiting mindset of like, oh, I need to do everything in my 20s, 30s, oh my gosh, what a horrible.
Sam Richards:It's a terrible thing. You know what a tragedy actually. You know, honestly, if I just given, like when I'm here in Korea and the experiences I have here and who I'm seen to be in Korea and how people respond to me, if that would have happened to me in my 20s, it would have destroyed my life really. The only way I can deal with it successfully is that I lived for nearly almost six decades without having that kind of notoriety. Yeah, so I'm very thankful.
Daniel Koo:Well, thank you so much for being on the podcast today. I learned a lot and I think everyone's going to appreciate everything you had to say.
Sam Richards:Yeah, thanks for listening to my stories, and I know it's rather verbose and long-winded, but you know not everybody. I don't get asked these questions very much, so it's really for me an honor to have this opportunity to talk. Yeah Well, thank you.
Daniel Koo:Yeah, thank you Great.