Ep. 11 - Keeping It Real: Guest Rick Morrone on Balancing Passion, Struggle, and Fulfillment

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Ep. 11 - Keeping It Real: Guest Rick Morrone on Balancing Passion, Struggle, and Fulfillment

How do you juggle a career, family, and personal growth without losing yourself? My friend Rick Morrone reveals how authenticity and commitment lead to a life well-lived.

Andy Leonard

Jun 02, 2025

Transcript

Andy chats with his childhood best friend, Rick Morrone, in a laid-back, heartfelt talk about living true to yourself and finding balance in life’s ups and downs. From their kindergarten days building block towers to now, Rick—a media pro, actor, editor, and mentor to students at the University of Michigan Dearborn—shares how staying authentic shapes his work and relationships. They riff on treating everyone with respect, the power of mentorship, and juggling passion with family time, all while sprinkling in nostalgic laughs about old coffee-drinking videos. It’s a cozy mix of real talk and wisdom about growing, connecting, and living for today.

Top 10 Quotes

Rick on Authenticity: “I just try to be myself as much as possible... whether I'm at work or whether I'm at home, I kind of don't really put on this work persona... I'm Rick, and I'm going to be Rick whether I'm on stage playing an instrument, whether I'm editing video or producing.” (03:43)

Andy on Authentic Connections: “Living authentically, people can only love you as much as they truly know you. So if you're putting on a face, they can't actually love you for who you are.” (05:12)

Rick on Respecting Everyone Equally: “Whether I'm talking to the president of a company or whether I'm talking to a guy wrapping cables at the end of a gig, I want to talk to them with the same amount of human respect that I would expect from them.” (08:28)

Andy on Engaging Others: “I like to blow drive-through people's minds because I engage them. I look them in the eye... No one ever looks in my eyes. Thank you for saying thank you.” (11:00)

Rick on Personal Growth Through Mentorship: “I have a lot of mentors that I can point directly back to and say, you know, this guy really helped me and really inspired me and took the time to say, hey, you're doing good, but you're doing this wrong.” (15:17)

Andy on Paying It Forward: “The only way to pay our parents and our grandparents back and all the people that have poured into us is to pay it forward.” (16:01)

Rick on Time as Currency: “You can always make more money, but you can't make more time... you have to value time over money as the currency of your life.” (43:11)

Andy on Commitment: “If you say you're going to do something, you got to do it. If you commit to something, you have to see it through. There's a lot of lessons learned, even if you don't want to be doing it.” (38:55)

Rick on Struggle and Growth: “I had to go through that low to know what that struggle was. Because now I can look back at it with a positive outlook... it was because I endured the struggle.” (34:14)

Andy on Balancing Today and Tomorrow: “You got to look at tomorrow without sacrificing today... When I'm laying on my deathbed, who am I surrounded by? What type of life will I have lived?” (47:25)