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Books4Guys - Joel McKay · Books4Guys

• 0:15
  SPEAKER_00: But no, dude, it's been cool, man.
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_00: I obviously started this podcast last summer, but I would say twenty five percent of my guests have been based in Canada, which has been yeah, it's been awesome.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_01: So you're learning you're learning a little bit more about Canada as you go here, right?
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, but everyone's located somewhere different, which is cool.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_00: Like obviously, I I know Toronto, I know Vancouver, but I everyone I've met has been somewhere that I really haven't been familiar with.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_00: So it's been pretty cool just for me personally.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_00: But no, Joe, man, cool to have you on the podcast.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_00: And I appreciate you coming on.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm excited to talk about your books because they're uh you've got a few of them, not just one out there.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_00: I think you've got what do you have?
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_00: You published three books now?
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, three.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_01: So two a novella, which is Wolf at the Door, which is a Thanksgiving werewolf kind of horror comedy, and then a short anthology of five stories called It Came from the Trees and Other Violent Aberrations.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_01: And then my latest is a full-on fantasy action adventure novel.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, man.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_00: It's exciting.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_00: And don't undersell it, man.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_00: You've been winning awards.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you put some good work out there, and and really, I would say, like, you're just getting started, you know.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_00: Well, that's kind of the hope.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it feels it feels odd at the age of 41 to just be getting started, but that's okay, right?
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, yeah, you guys gotta have an adventure in front of you.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_00: So that's right.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_00: That's right.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_00: Well, man, share share your story a little bit.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_00: Um, because then I want to dive into your books, but I would love to know just just a little bit about you, Joel, as far as growing up, what really got you into to writing specifically.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_00: Well, obviously, you've started this kind of a little bit later in life, kind of a mid-career thing, but what what really triggered your interest and then how you know, just your process of of putting these together and really starting to go down this route of of putting these books out there.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_01: I'll try and give you the the fly past here.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_01: So I was born and raised uh in a town called Burnaby, City of Burnaby, just outside of Vancouver, which is about uh 900 kilometers south of here.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know what that is in miles, 500 miles, 450 miles, something like that.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_01: It's a long way.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_00: It's still the only country that works off this system.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_01: It's uh it's a long way south of the uh bankers like Seattle.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, you know, it's rainy, it's coastal, uh beaches, mountains, like the whole thing.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_01: Beautiful place.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_01: I grew up um in a relatively low-income household in in Burnaby.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_01: My mom was a baggy teller, my dad was a cock.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_01: The classic sort of 1980s neighborhood where you hung out with all the neighborhood kids, and you're a pack of a pack of boys on bicycles, you know, roaming around looking for trouble or adventures.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_01: So I grew up at a, I think what was a really nice time, which was a time when you still really relied on your imagination and a group of people, and you had to make your own fun.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_01: And also a good time to be a fan of horror and fantasy.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_01: Though those were the days of A, before parents really sort of monitored what you were watching.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, and B, uh those are the days of like Conan the Barbarian Um and Willow and uh you know the sword and the sorcerer, and then of course um Indiana Jones, all these sort of adventure sort of, and then Slasher's galore, right?
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_01: Whether it was the nightmare on Elm Street, the Friday the 13th movies, Halloween movies, whatever it was.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_01: So that really ignited my imagination.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_01: Suffice to say, fast forward, I started writing fiction when I was 12.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_01: We moved towns.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_01: My brother was in a bad way, and my mom wanted to get both of us in a better place.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_01: And so we moved only about a half hour, 45 minutes away, but I didn't have any of my friends.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_01: He didn't have a driver's license at that age.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_01: I was 12.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_01: And I wanted to start putting what the stories that I had created with my action figures onto paper because it wasn't cool to play with action figures anymore.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_01: And so I started writing at that point in time and primarily fantasy adventure kind of stuff.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_01: And it it all sucked, you know, as it does, right?
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_01: And by the time I got into my late teens, I was still writing, but I was trying to figure out what I wanted to do after high school.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_01: I wasn't a great high school student.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_01: I graduated, kind of barely scraped through, worked for a few years and partied.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_01: And by the time I was 21, I decided I need to go back to school and get a degree.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_01: So I went back and got a journalism degree.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_01: The idea being that journalism would lead to publication, being paid to write, and then maybe I could finally be the novelist I always wanted to be.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_01: It doesn't lead in that direction, at least it didn't for me.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_01: I had a successful career in journalism.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_01: I was a business journalist.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_01: And then things changed in my mid-20s because I at that time in this part of the continent, uh, there was a lot going on with resource industries and major extraction projects up where I live now.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_01: And I covered mining and forestry and oil and gas, and I started traveling up here and I decided to make the move.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_01: And I got out of journalism and I got into public relations.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_01: I did that for four years.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_01: And then the strangest thing happened, I was appointed the CEO of the organization that I worked for.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_01: And so I was, by that point, I was 31.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_01: I was the youngest CEO in the BC Public Service, and suddenly in charge of like a$300 million corporation.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_01: No idea what I was doing.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_01: But I went from a writing job.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_01: What's most pertinent here is I went from a job where writing was was central to now everything is people, people in meetings.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_01: And what I found pretty rapidly when I took that on was that I needed a creative outlet.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_01: And that was the point at which I really turned back to fiction.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_01: And so I started getting serious.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_01: I did online courses to get better at writing fiction because it's so much different than journalism or business writing or anything else.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_01: So while I was sort of running the corporation, I got into writing horror, was sort of what really drew me in short fiction.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_01: I wanted to learn how to write short stories because I figured if I could write a decent short story, it would help writing a novel.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_01: And the rest is kind of played out.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_01: I think the background in journalism did actually help a lot.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_01: I was able to get at the writing a lot more cleanly and quickly than somebody who'd be starting from scratch.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_01: And then, yeah, since then I've carried on and published a few books.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_01: I just defended my thesis from my master's in English this past Friday.
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_01: So so I I went through and did my MA and out of passion, but for no other reason.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_01: And uh yeah, did eight years as a CEO and some board work on the side for the government.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_01: And then now I'm a city manager and I and I moonlight writing fiction still.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_01: So it's a really weird sort of pathway, Chris.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_01: But I I think suffice to say, kid, low-income family, loved adventures, loved uh had this massive imagination, always wanted to put it to use and fell ass backwards into all these careers I've had and have ended up back at the same place I wanted to be when I was a kid, which is writing fiction.
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_01: Now I just need to sell a million copies and then we'll be fine.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_00: No, well, man, I mean, I think the the story is a good thing.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_00: I, you know, I you don't see too many authors who get a degree in journalism and all of a sudden they become some big name, you know, in their early 20s.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_00: It just doesn't seem to happen that way.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_00: There seems to always be a roundabout story that makes it even better in the long run for you to look back and be able to share all of that.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_00: I think the journey is part of the the story, your story for sure.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_01: It is.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_01: And and and I am admittedly an oddball.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, you know, whether it was being CEO of of Northern Development, which is effectively like a financial institution, or now running a city, I don't have formal education on either of those things.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_01: I've got formal education in writing and communicating with people and organizing thoughts and disseminating information.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_01: So I am an oddball, but there's a couple of things I think I've got going for me.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_01: Uh one is I live in northern BC.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_01: And um, this is an area that's the size of France, but there's only 300,000 people here.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_01: So you it is one of those places that uh you can you can carve your own, you can carve your own destiny out still.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_01: And you can do things that in the big city where people would say, well, you don't have an MBA, you don't have a CPA, whatever it is, you're not qualified for this, your resume would be kicked over.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_01: Up here, if you show that you have the medal, uh, then you can do it.
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_01: And so it becomes a very if you have an entrepreneurial spirit, this is a good place to to set up your life, especially if you got a bit of that adventurer spirit.
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_01: So there's that.
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_01: And then I think the other thing was just timing luck and and getting along with people.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_01: You know, like what somebody said years ago, I can't remember who it was, like 80% of success is showing up.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_01: And I I think that's true, right?
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_01: Like I think if you show up, you get along with people, you do good work on time, you know, you don't make enemies, then you you know what, you're gonna do okay in life.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_01: And in my case, um, I was able to do some things that, you know, most people never get a chance to do.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_01: And then that's created the space to get back to creating my art, which is which is my you know, one of my primary motivations.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_00: That that that's why I think this journey is so cool, Joe, because you're sharing, you're sharing things that's bigger than writing.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_00: Obviously, the the the books are the passion and what's coming out there, but like the the life lessons you learned.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm you're I mean you're kicking on all kinds of things.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_00: One thing I'm thinking about is just, you know, people talk about proximity, and a lot of people are like, hey, if you're gonna accomplish something, you need to go be around a lot of people and and get network, and so you move to the big city, but also there's a there's a benefit to not which you've experienced being somewhere where you can carve out your path a lot easier.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_00: Now you may have a lot of learning hurdles because you don't have a lot of people to learn from to do the job you're trying to do, but that's also kind of cool in itself because there's there's nothing better than on-the-job hands training, you know.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and old-on training.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_01: That's that's very true.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_01: It would have been easy for me.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_01: So my parents live in the states, uh about you know, about half my family's in the states are American.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_01: It would have been pretty easy for me at some point to go from, you know, a media career in Vancouver to Toronto, which would be the obvious location in Canada, or or go down to the States and join family and carve out, you know, and who knows what would come of those opportunities.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_01: But to your point, I think at times there are benefits to going to big cities where the market is and you make those connections and you're in the network.
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_01: But the thing you got to worry about, or maybe not worry about, you gotta calculate there is that your competition is a lot more stiff.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_01: You're one in in volume, and when you get a job there, you're gonna be forced into an ultra specialization because there's just so many people.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_01: So you don't get the breadth of experience and the breadth of skills.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_01: Whereas if you go into a rural or northern area in the states that might be the flyover states or Alaska or something like that, in Canada, it's the provincial norths or the territories.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, if you go into those areas, you're gonna have more opportunities.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_01: There's not as much competition, and you have the ability to explore and test yourself across a variety of skill sets.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_01: And what that does is it can be a really steep learning curve, but you'll come out with, I think, a much deeper breadth of experience than experiences than if you were a specialist in like one job.
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_01: And I'll give you an example.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_01: So when I left the media and I came up here for public relations and communications, I had a job where I was I was sort of responsible for doing it for the corporation, but also helping out all these towns around northern BC, small towns, and doing work for elected councils, creating communications plans, media relations, social media strategies, internal communications documents, and like stone age tools to engage with publics in places where there's like a thousand people, two thousand people, like not much, right?
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_01: If I was doing a similar job like that in Vancouver or Toronto, I might have been exposed to media relations, or I might have been exposed to social media, or I might have been exposed to strategic planning, but I wouldn't have gotten all of them because there were other people doing those things.
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_01: And so I was able, and I think this is why I was able to advance my career so quickly, is I got that breadth of experience by doing it on the ground and bootstrapping it.
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_01: And then that really positioned me well on the professional side to sort of move up the chain.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_01: Because by the time I was ready to become a CEO, I had exposure to operations plans, financial plans, budgets, litigation, like all these different things that it that a CEO needs to have, right?
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_01: So I think there is an argument to going into these rural places.
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_01: I think it's a really good argument, and it's probably what both Canada and the states need is more people willing to do it.
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_01: But make no mistake, the learning curve is steep and the winters are longer.
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I love this, Joe, because I literally, you're you're talking about something I listened to.
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_00: I another podcast that I listen to a lot.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_00: It's called My First Millions.
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_00: And uh they had a high-level guy, uh, former Tesla employee, and he was talking about how they hired people.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_00: And he was using the example of he's like, you know, we'd have, you know, if you go to Nike and you're trying to find a marketing person, chances are they're they're so specialized, they're not going to be able to help us in what we need.
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_00: We need someone broader thinking who has hands-on experience in like 20 different things because that's who we are.
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_00: You we need you to do a lot of different things.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_00: So he's like, it's so challenging to hire someone from one of these big companies because you're so siloed.
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_00: He's like, I'm the entrepreneur type mindset who's done a lot of different things, even outside of what we're asking you to do.
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_00: And so I just, it's so funny that you and I are talking about that.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_00: I was like, I just listened to some high-level guy talk about this exact same thing.
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_01: It's true.
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_01: You know, a good friend of mine, I was just visiting in Vancouver last week.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_01: So he's a northern boy, he's from up here, and he started as uh as a city manager in really small places, like population of like 800 people.
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, he's the same age as me, and he was appointed last year's city manager, city of Vancouver.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_01: He's the youngest city manager in the history of Vancouver, as far as I know.
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_01: And um, he's 40 years old, and Vancouver is hands down one of the finest cities on the planet.
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_01: And this guy's in charge of it.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_01: And I it's not just because he's brilliant, and he is, and he's slightly insane, but also like he's got that breadth of experience that comes from northern places or or just even rural places outside.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_01: And and I think to your point, you know, that is such a superpower if you are willing to do that and get out of the rat race in these big cities.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_01: Now, it happen it helps in my case that I like fishing and hunting and being outdoors.
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_01: So moving to a smaller city in a rural area really suits me.
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_01: I do know some people who will come up here and they're like, yeah, I can't do six months of winter and like where, you know, where's the where's the ballet and where are all the theater plays?
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, we don't have as many of those.
• 14:42
  unknown: Yeah.
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_01: So it's it's trade-offs for sure.
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_00: No, that's awesome.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_00: Well, kind of transitioning to your work specifically, you were talking about, you know, needing an outlet, and and fiction was that that outlet for you.
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_00: And I think it's interesting too because just my personal reading journey for for me, I read a lot of nonfiction as I started really getting into reading for enjoyment.
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_00: But I also, it's really funny how that works.
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_00: Between job, work, nonfiction, I needed to find a different kind of outlet as well.
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_00: And while I'm not a writer, I did get encouraged to read more fiction.
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_00: And now it's probably 50% of what I read just because it's such a good outlet.
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_00: It allows me to be creative with my own mind and thoughts.
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_00: I'm creating or portraying what I'm reading in my own way, and I've learned how important that is.
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_00: Have you growing up, were you a heavy reader as well?
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_00: And do you still read a lot as a writer?
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_00: Or because I've talked to some people and they're like, man, when you're a writer, it's hard to read as much.
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_00: Number one, because of time, but number two, you get like this editing type mind, is what I've been explaining, where you're like, you kind of look at things differently as a writer.
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_00: But just what's your experience and journey with reading as well as writing?
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, well, I mean, it starts off with a giant thank you to my mom.
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_01: My mom insisted on reading at bed at night before I could read on my own.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_01: And then when I could read on my own, she set an example.
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know if it was directly or unintentional, where she was reading every night at bed, and so I did too, and my brother did too.
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_01: And so, yeah, we're a family of readers.
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_01: I started with fiction.
• 16:23
  SPEAKER_01: My brother was huge into fantasy.
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_01: That's how I got into it.
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_01: So, yeah, I read a lot as a kid, and then I started to chart my own path as a reader uh around, you know, the age of 10 to 12, where I went from fantasy, I was still reading it into horror.
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_01: And a lot of that was like Goosebumps, Spooksville, Stephen King, like so all that stuff, right?
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_01: And then Ann Rice and whatever else.
• 16:45
  SPEAKER_01: And so um to to this day, I I took to heart Stephen King's advice when I read his book on writing.
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_01: When I got serious around 2017, 2018 around writing fiction, one of the I read his book.
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_01: It was the second time I'd read it, and one of the key things he said in there, which I agree with, it's different for everybody, but this is what works for me, which is you have to read uh a ton.
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_01: And so I set a goal every year of how many books I'm gonna read, and I have a mix.
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_01: So I prefer fiction, but I read a lot of nonfiction.
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_01: So it's probably 60-40 fiction to nonfiction for me.
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I read poetry now as well, which I never used to before, but I find it just stretches the brain in a in a different way.
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_01: So I'll add that in, or I'll read like a play or something like that on top of it.
• 17:32
  SPEAKER_01: I do audio and I do in like tactile in print.
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm all over the map and I'm a big podcast listener too.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_01: And I still read the news because you know, you can take the journalist out of the newsroom, but you know, you can't lose that sense.
• 17:45
  SPEAKER_01: But I read now, I try to set a goal of about 50 books a year.
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_01: And um I do that because I find for me in the craft, I need to be, in order to be effective as a writer, I need to be thinking in sentences.
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_01: And the way to do that is to read a lot.
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_01: And so if I read a lot, then I'm thinking in the tempo and the cadence in which other authors are doing it.
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_01: But it is true there is this aspect as I'm refining my craft and and getting better at it, where I will go through books and I'll have sudden editorial comments flow through my head, where I'm like, I wouldn't have used that word choice, or I would have restructured this, or that scene is missing something.
• 18:23
  SPEAKER_01: And I was talking to a friend of mine who's a far more successful author than me.
• 18:28
  SPEAKER_01: And she had said, she said, that's good.
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_01: That means that you're you're now getting to the point now where your craft is so refined that you can see the errors in it.
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_01: And I think I would equate that to sports, right?
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_01: Like if you played a lot of hockey or if you played a lot of baseball, whatever your sport is, when you're just starting out, you're kind of watching everything superficially, you're just figuring out the motions, you're training your muscle groups and your body to function in a certain way.
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_01: But as you get advanced and you get into it, you start watching a game.
• 18:57
  SPEAKER_01: And I remember watching hockey games with guys who'd played for years.
• 19:01
  SPEAKER_01: They were picking out little, they were editorializing, like, yeah, that guy was at the wrong spot for that pass.
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_01: He wasn't thinking, just da da da da da.
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_01: And I think it's the same thing.
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_01: I think when you you really get into your craft, whether it's an art or sport or whatever else, you you do begin to think that way.
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_01: I don't think there's anything wrong with that.
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_01: To the point around time, um, yeah, it takes a ton of time to read that amount and then write as well.
• 19:27
  SPEAKER_01: And that is just a question of what you prioritize in your life.
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_01: And so for me, that comes back to this notion of atomic habits and discipline.
• 19:35
  SPEAKER_01: And so if if I wanna, if I want to, on top of my job and on top of trying to be a decent father and a decent partner and all these things, um, in every year, uh, if I want to get writing out, those other things are the priority, right?
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_01: Or priority.
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_01: Paying the mortgage, looking after my kids, making sure they're clothed and fed and feel, feel loved, be being there for my partner, being there for my friends, right?
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_01: Writing and reading comes on top of that.
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_01: So if I'm gonna make the time to do that, I've got to be disciplined.
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_01: That means that like I've got to eat well and I've got to sleep well and I've got to cut out the booze and like, you know, stuff like that.
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_01: And then you can pick up a half hour, an hour, hour and a half in a day, and then, you know, make a different choice around how you're gonna use that time.
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_01: It's the same as going to the gym, right?
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_01: It's always painful until you get there.
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_01: And it's the same with sitting down in front of Microsoft Word or whatever you use to write.
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_01: It's painful until you're you're into it.
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_01: And then you hit the flow state, your body's feeling good, and you go.
• 20:33
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 20:33
  SPEAKER_00: Dude, I love this, man, because I'm a former athlete and um my wife is too.
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, she's the most disciplined person I know, and she keeps I'm disciplined, but she keeps us in check, eating right, sleeping right, working out.
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_00: But I think it's so cool coming from you as an author because I haven't had, I haven't spoken with another author who talks about discipline the way you do.
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_00: I have had business leaders and coaches who who take that mindset, maybe former athletes too.
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_00: I've talked to a couple who've written books, former NFL player, you know, talk about that.
• 21:04
  SPEAKER_00: But there hasn't been a fiction writer that I've talked to that takes that approach to discipline the way you do.
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_00: And I just think that's number one, very important to, and and I love that you're sharing that because I've talked to some and they just seem so sporadic about it.
• 21:19
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, you're saying, well, hey, you could be probably better if you just get a little more discipline in your life in certain areas.
• 21:24
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 21:24
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, no, that is it.
• 21:26
  SPEAKER_01: You you and I think, especially as a guy, think discipline matters to stay on top of all the things that as a man you're expected to show up for, right?
• 21:35
  SPEAKER_01: In this day and age.
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_01: And you want to show up your best self as as often as you can.
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_01: And it then it's simply just a question of what you're prioritizing in your life and how you're gonna do it.
• 21:44
  SPEAKER_01: And if you feel like a bag of shit all the time because of what you're eating, your quality of your sleep, what you're putting in your body, that is gonna be detrimental to all of those things that you claim are your responsibilities.
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_01: So if those are your responsibilities, you got to get serious about it and stick with it.
• 21:59
  SPEAKER_01: But there's Joy in that.
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_01: Like, why, you know, we we look at hard work, and I'm sure you know this as an athlete, like, yeah, it hurts some days and your muscles are sore and you lose.
• 22:09
  SPEAKER_01: But like, that's that's the joy of life, is the challenge of it, right?
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_01: Like getting your ass handed to you on the court, on the field, in the dojo, or in front of the page, or whatever you do as your outlet is kind of the point.
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_01: You're never supposed to master anything.
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_01: You're just supposed to push against it as you go through life again and again.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_01: And that's been a real lesson for me.
• 22:32
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't fully understand that.
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_01: I don't think anybody does, you know, when you're a teenager in your 20s.
• 22:37
  SPEAKER_01: Took me a long time to come around to this, but my dad set the seats for it.
• 22:41
  SPEAKER_01: My dad was, as I said earlier, he was a police officer, but he was big into martial arts.
• 22:45
  SPEAKER_01: He he cross-trained across a lot of different disciplines and he studied a lot of ancient wisdom out of the martial arts and then philosophy.
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_01: And he always said to my brother and I, he said, discipline.
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_01: Like you got to tighten your mind.
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_01: That's that's how you fit all of these things in.
• 23:01
  SPEAKER_01: That's how you show up for people in the right way.
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_01: Now that's my way to do it.
• 23:05
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not a believer in a muse where you just suddenly wake up one morning and you have brilliance and then you put it on the page.
• 23:13
  SPEAKER_01: It that works for some people and and I'm happy for them.
• 23:17
  SPEAKER_01: But in order for me to get stories written, for me to get books out, I've got to be pretty disciplined, sit down, put one word in front of the other, and just keep going even when it hurts.
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_01: And that seems to be the right mix of things.
• 23:30
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 23:30
  SPEAKER_00: Well, it's kind of not thinking of the word purpose too.
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_00: It's kind of how you keep that purpose because you are think about it, you've accomplished something that a lot of people haven't accomplished.
• 23:40
  SPEAKER_00: You've you've become a published author, not with one book, you have three books.
• 23:43
  SPEAKER_00: Now you could stop and say, oh, cool, but you have greater aspirations.
• 23:48
  SPEAKER_00: So for you, it's really cool to know the journey is what the fun part is.
• 23:52
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm sure, you know, everyone when they come that book comes out, you have a moment where you're you're proud.
• 23:58
  SPEAKER_00: But after, you know, a week or two, it's like, okay, well, now I have so much more life ahead of me.
• 24:03
  SPEAKER_00: I gotta, you know, what's next and what's my purpose here.
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_00: And to to realize that, that's where that discipline comes in.
• 24:09
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, let's go again.
• 24:10
  SPEAKER_00: Can I can I be better at the next story than the last story?
• 24:13
  SPEAKER_00: Can I build on that?
• 24:14
  SPEAKER_00: And you you've even stated earlier as we kicked off the podcast, you know, like you you started this late, you're kind of just getting started.
• 24:21
  SPEAKER_00: So there's so much more work for you to put out there to entertain people and to share stories and to utilize just your thoughts and imagination.
• 24:31
  SPEAKER_00: Again, I just think it's so cool and I think it's so important that you're sharing that because um just not a lot of people share that that path or that thought process.
• 24:41
  SPEAKER_01: I think you pick up on a word that is particularly meaningful for me and is something that I think other guys women too, but you know, I when I think about this in the context of of guys, more so, because I think in some some ways we need it more.
• 24:54
  SPEAKER_01: I I feel our gender is a little more unanchored and struggling with its identity these days.
• 25:00
  SPEAKER_01: Uh and women have got us beat in in in some of that.
• 25:05
  SPEAKER_01: And I I think that notion of purpose is really important, especially for for men.
• 25:11
  SPEAKER_01: What are you getting out of?
• 25:13
  SPEAKER_01: Why are you getting out of bed every day?
• 25:14
  SPEAKER_01: Who are you there to serve?
• 25:15
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, hopefully it's your family and your friends, but yourself too, right?
• 25:19
  SPEAKER_01: In a in a healthy way, right?
• 25:21
  SPEAKER_01: Like what what drives you?
• 25:22
  SPEAKER_01: What's gonna keep you going?
• 25:24
  SPEAKER_01: I don't have any desire to be, I mean, it would be great, but like I'm not trying to be a New York Times bestselling author.
• 25:31
  SPEAKER_01: Like that, that to me, if that never happens, I will not consider that a failure in my life.
• 25:36
  SPEAKER_01: What I know is that I'm never gonna stop writing.
• 25:38
  SPEAKER_01: I have to write.
• 25:39
  SPEAKER_01: It has to come out.
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_01: And so if I'm gonna do that, then I might as well get good at it and I might as well see where I can go with it.
• 25:45
  SPEAKER_01: And so that's how I that's how I treat it that way.
• 25:48
  SPEAKER_01: That's my purpose through that art is to have that artistic outlet.
• 25:52
  SPEAKER_01: And if it's successful, great.
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_01: And if it isn't, it doesn't matter because the journey is the craft itself for me.
• 25:58
  SPEAKER_01: That's right.
• 25:58
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 25:59
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I think all the all the greats, no matter what they do, business, sports, writing, those awards happen because of that approach.
• 26:08
  SPEAKER_00: You know, when that comes, it's a great moment because you focus so hard on the day-to-day and you weren't worried about the Super Bowl, really wasn't the goal.
• 26:16
  SPEAKER_00: It was the byproduct of everything you did to get there and that you were disciplined about.
• 26:21
  SPEAKER_00: And I I was even thinking, you know, I don't AJ Brown, receiver for the Eagles, he was talking about that.
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_00: He's like three days after the Super Bowl, he's like, Well, that was cool.
• 26:28
  SPEAKER_00: Now what?
• 26:29
  SPEAKER_00: Now what?
• 26:30
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you gotta get back to work.
• 26:32
  SPEAKER_01: You gotta get back to work.
• 26:33
  SPEAKER_01: And I don't mean to sound like a downer when I say this.
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, success is great, and you you need to celebrate that and pause, breathe it in and and and feel that in life, but it doesn't teach you much in my experience.
• 26:45
  SPEAKER_01: You you learn, I've had successes that I I look back in hindsight and I'm like, I think a lot more of that was luck or timing or connections than anything particularly that I did.
• 26:55
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it's great.
• 26:56
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not gonna give it back, but like I don't know how much of that was.
• 27:00
  SPEAKER_01: Whereas when I have a failure or what I perceive as a failure, uh, there's a good teacher in that.
• 27:04
  SPEAKER_01: And I find I don't dwell on the failure.
• 27:08
  SPEAKER_01: I don't hold on to that and and let it interpret for me what my self-worth is.
• 27:12
  SPEAKER_01: But I do look and say, okay, well, what led to that?
• 27:15
  SPEAKER_01: What where was I not, you know, sorted out properly, personally, professionally, emotionally, whatever?
• 27:21
  SPEAKER_01: And how do I get better?
• 27:22
  SPEAKER_01: I will say that a lot of these thoughts and how I articulate them are things that have come and arrived around middle age.
• 27:27
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I've been thinking about these things for years, but my ability to articulate them, my ability to truly believe them comes from 40 years of being alive, making some mistakes, and then reflecting on it and thinking, okay, uh, you know, what do I, what do I do better in the future?
• 27:41
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 27:42
  SPEAKER_00: No, I love that, man.
• 27:43
  SPEAKER_00: You're right.
• 27:43
  SPEAKER_00: I'm sitting here, there's stuff in my life.
• 27:45
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, dang, I wish I had a known what I know now five years ago.
• 27:49
  SPEAKER_00: So you kind of kick yourself, but then you remind yourself, but in five years from now, I'm gonna appreciate that I know and I take this approach.
• 27:55
  SPEAKER_00: So it's that kind of aggressive patience once you start learning these things and figuring out that stuff.
• 28:00
  SPEAKER_00: Joel, I got I got one more question for you.
• 28:02
  SPEAKER_00: This has been awesome, man.
• 28:03
  SPEAKER_00: I I feel like I could talk with you for hours around this.
• 28:05
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, me too, man.
• 28:06
  SPEAKER_00: Because I love this.
• 28:08
  SPEAKER_00: But I'm always curious to know, and again, because books for guys' purpose, it's not to tell anyone what to read, it's to provide you with as many options so that you can read what you're interested in so that you continue that curiosity journey and that personal development.
• 28:23
  SPEAKER_00: So I always ask this question to everyone that comes on the podcast.
• 28:26
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm always curious, what is a book or two that has meant a lot to you personally or professionally?
• 28:33
  SPEAKER_00: And then when asked, what's a book you like to recommend to others?
• 28:37
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I mean, one book that was absolutely transformative for me.
• 28:40
  SPEAKER_01: I still pick it up and read it every few years, is Raymond D.
• 28:42
  SPEAKER_01: Feist's Magician.
• 28:44
  SPEAKER_01: It was, it's a two-port.
• 28:45
  SPEAKER_01: A lot of people would consider it young adult fantasy.
• 28:47
  SPEAKER_01: I don't.
• 28:48
  SPEAKER_01: I think it's it's really valuable.
• 28:49
  SPEAKER_01: I think Pug's journey from like a know-nothing kid to a supreme sorcerer is one that I've found a lot of meaning in over my life.
• 28:58
  SPEAKER_01: And the writing is just whip smart and quick, and like it's a yarn of and it's really inspired me.
• 29:06
  SPEAKER_01: So that book, another one where the language is absolutely beautiful.
• 29:10
  SPEAKER_01: Again, staying on the track of fantasy would be Susannah Clark's Mr.
• 29:15
  SPEAKER_01: Strange and oh, what is it, Dr.
• 29:17
  SPEAKER_01: Norrell?
• 29:18
  SPEAKER_01: Something like that.
• 29:19
  SPEAKER_01: I I'm forgetting it because my brain's a little foggy right now.
• 29:22
  SPEAKER_01: But just just Google Susanna Clark.
• 29:24
  SPEAKER_01: She's only got so many books.
• 29:26
  SPEAKER_01: They're all amazing.
• 29:27
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and that thing is like a thousand-page tomb.
• 29:29
  SPEAKER_01: It's one of the best books that I've ever read.
• 29:32
  SPEAKER_01: The book I would recommend to any guy, I mean, it gets a lot of coverage these days.
• 29:36
  SPEAKER_01: It's one I've read off and on for years, is Meditations by Marcus Aurelius.
• 29:40
  SPEAKER_01: That's stoic philosophy.
• 29:42
  SPEAKER_01: I find you probably can hear some of that in my voice uh coming through.
• 29:46
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, and then for your listeners, buy my novel, uh The Dungeoneers.
• 29:51
  SPEAKER_01: Go buy it.
• 29:52
  SPEAKER_01: If you're a human guy and you want to follow a young man's journey through uh, you know, failure, it's a that's a good novel to read.
• 30:00
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 30:00
  SPEAKER_00: No, and I was gonna tell you, so we've got that book posted on the website.
• 30:04
  SPEAKER_00: And then before this episode even gets released, your other two will be posted on there as well.
• 30:09
  SPEAKER_00: So we'll make sure we have all three of your books on there for people to go check out.
• 30:13
  SPEAKER_00: And then obviously, man, you're gonna write so many more books every time you do.
• 30:17
  SPEAKER_00: We're gonna put it on there.
• 30:18
  SPEAKER_00: And we'll have to do another episode when you come out every time you come out with one, we'll do an episode.
• 30:23
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, have more conversation around it.
• 30:26
  SPEAKER_00: And so, Joel, man, thank thank you so much for taking the time to do this and just share your thoughts, your process.
• 30:34
  SPEAKER_00: Again, I just think the way you think is so important for especially guys, young guys to hear just kind of that journey and what it takes to get to certain places and your daily approach.
• 30:44
  SPEAKER_00: It's just something haven't heard a lot of, but do think there it is so important.
• 30:50
  SPEAKER_00: And so, man, can't just thank you.
• 30:52
  SPEAKER_00: I appreciate it.
• 30:53
  SPEAKER_00: And we're we're proud to to spotlight you and your work, and we'll continue to do so as you continue to put out, even you know, more and more.
• 31:00
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I really appreciate that, Chris.
• 31:02
  SPEAKER_01: This has been a real pleasure for me.
• 31:03
  SPEAKER_01: I appreciate the platform uh to come on here and talk about these things.
• 31:06
  SPEAKER_01: You don't find it every day.
• 31:07
  SPEAKER_01: So it's it's a rare opportunity.
• 31:09
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
• 31:10
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, absolutely, man.
• 31:11
  SPEAKER_00: Well, we appreciate it, Joel.