Latest / The Daily Writer / Learning to Let Go

Transcript

Learning to Let Go · The Daily Writer

• 0:13
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the weekend edition of the Daily Rider.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_00: Each weekday we bring you a short lesson that helps you live out the four practices of a great writer creativity, consistency, courage, and connection.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_00: Here on the weekend edition, we take a deeper dive into those topics through conversations with writers, as well as teaching that helps us apply what we're learning.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_00: For more, you can visit us at dailyriderlife.com.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_00: Courage is a theme that it seems a lot of us have been talking about lately, and the last couple of years for many people have been a time when they've had to bolster their courage in the midst of a lot of different life changes.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, I can't remember a single two years in my lifetime where so many things have felt uprooted and tenuous in the world as a whole.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_00: But with change comes the need for courage.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_00: And this is as true for writers as anybody else.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_00: We don't necessarily think of what we do as courageous.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_00: On the surface, it appears pretty safe and secure, but putting yourself out into the world through your words or doing things like starting a business or striking out on your own by leaving a job, those things absolutely require courage.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_00: And one of the hardest parts of change and one of the areas that requires the most courage is the need to let go of things as we figure out who we are.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_00: And I really believe that you can't become more successful and you can't become a better writer by staying the same person.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, the very definition of change and progress means to become something different than what you already are.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_00: The hard reality of success means that you have to let go of some things.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_00: So in today's episode, I want to share three areas where we need to let go in order to be more successful as writers, and I believe to be more successful as people in general.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_00: I don't want to give the impression that I have this all figured out or that I do all this perfectly because I definitely don't.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_00: These are lessons that I'm learning right now as my life is in the midst of a lot of different changes.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_00: And sometimes change is painful.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_00: Let's face it.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_00: Growth is painful.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_00: Change hurts.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_00: It's not always comfortable.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's been said the only people who like change are babies with dirty diapers.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_00: And that's probably true.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_00: The older that we get, the harder that change becomes, I think, unless we become accustomed to the fact that life is just a series of changes.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_00: And that change could be a really good thing.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_00: And that as we go through those changes, we've got to let go of things that are not serving us well.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_00: So again, these are all things that I'm learning myself right now.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_00: And I hope that these lessons will be helpful to you.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_00: So let's dive in.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_00: These are three things that we need to let go of as we go through the process of change.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_00: Number one is this if we're going to be more successful, we have to let go of some books.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_00: Now, yes, you heard that correctly.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_00: I said you actually have to let go of some books.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_00: What?
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_00: What is Kent talking about?
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_00: Why would a writer let go of books?
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_00: That's crazy, right?
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_00: A few months ago, I left my full-time job as a college professor in order to become a full-time ghostwriter, as well as run my daily writer membership community.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_00: And of course, if you've listened to this podcast any length of time, even probably like three or four days, you've heard me talk about the daily writer membership community.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_00: I talk about it all the time because it's kind of like my big initiative outside of my ghostwriting for clients.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_00: However, even though I left my full-time college professor job, I'm still an adjunct professor there.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_00: So I didn't really feel an urgency to clean up my office.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_00: However, I recently spent a couple of hours going through hundreds of books that I still had in my office.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_00: And my intent was to give the vast majority of those books away to other professors and other students.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_00: And then whatever's left, I'll donate to our school library.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_00: My intent was not to sell these, really for a couple of reasons.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_00: Number one, I just wanted to be generous and donate my books.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_00: Number two, it's honestly a massive pain in the neck to sell books online and to ship those books out and pack them up and all that stuff.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_00: And I just didn't want to have to mess with that.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_00: So I thought, well, let me be, let me try and be generous and just give these books away.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_00: Now I only kept a couple dozen of those books out of, gosh, probably 300, maybe 400 books in my office.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_00: But why would I give all those books away when I had invested thousands of dollars in them over the last 15 or 20 years?
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_00: Well, the reason is because those books were helpful for a certain period of my life, but they're no longer helpful to my future journey.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that it's really hard to make room for new ideas or new blessings in your life if you keep on hanging on to other things that no longer serve your vision.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_00: Some of those books were ones that I had used as textbooks for classes.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_00: Others of those books were reference books related to worship, arts, film, sound systems, and technology, theology, ministry.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_00: Those are all areas where I used to teach in, but I'm no longer teaching those courses, so there's not any need to keep those books.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_00: Writers honestly have a hard time getting rid of books, at least I do.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_00: And the reason is because we have immense respect for books and what books can do for your life.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_00: My guess is that just like me, you can probably tick off 10 or 20 or 30 books that have had an immense impact on your life.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_00: So because books are so important to us, and because we write books and we write content, it's hard for us to get rid of those books and to pass them along to somebody else.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_00: However, when we do that, whenever we pass along those books to somebody who can benefit from them, we not only free up space in our office or our home, we also are able to bless other people.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, I think that you're doing a disservice to a book if you hang on to it after it's no longer relevant to your life.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_00: A book wants to bless other people.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_00: So the best thing that you can do for a book is pass it along so it can, it can fulfill its intention by blessing other people.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_00: A book is not meant to be a collector's item, and I really believe that.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I know people collect historic books and all that, and that's totally fine.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_00: But I think ultimately a book is meant to change people.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_00: It's meant to tell a story, it's meant to have an impact on their life.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_00: So give your books a chance to do that if you no longer need them.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_00: So I encourage you every once in a while, maybe once every year or two, go through all your books, weed them, and let go of the ones that are no longer serving your life or your future direction.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_00: So that's number one.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_00: If you're going to be successful, let go of some books.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_00: Number two, if we're going to be successful, we have to let go of some expectations.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_00: Now, writers, I think by definition, we writers tend to be an introverted group of people who don't like change.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_00: Most of us like systems, we like predictability, we like routine.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_00: We prefer sitting in a room alone for hours in front of a computer screen instead of being in groups of people, which is all totally well and good.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_00: But the downside of the typical writer personality is that we have a hard time with change and we have a hard time with risk, but you have to remember that nothing is certain.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_00: There are no guarantees either when you have a writing business where you're serving clients, or whether you're writing and launching your own books or podcasts or other types of content.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_00: There is more change and disruption happening in the world today than probably at any point in human history.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_00: All the bets are off.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_00: Every industry is undergoing massive change because of technology.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_00: But instead of seeing this as a threat, it's a great thing because it means we get to build the kind of business and life that we want.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_00: It also means that we've got to let go of our preconceived notions about what to expect.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_00: I think we have to learn to roll with the punches.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_00: We've got to learn to be nimble.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_00: And we've got to learn to be able to change and grow and take advantage of all the cool new opportunities out there.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_00: This means that your long-term goals are important, yes, but your short-term strategies might need to be reconsidered.
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_00: It's kind of like what Charles Dickens says at the beginning of his book, A Tale of Two Cities.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_00: And of course, you know this line.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_00: He says, it was the best of times, it was the worst of times.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_00: Now, the cool thing is that as a writer, you get to choose which one it's going to be for you.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_00: Is it going to be the best of times or is it going to be the worst of times?
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_00: And this process begins by letting go of expectations.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_00: It begins by having fun.
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_00: It begins by being willing to adapt and grow and realizing that you don't have to become like some calcified old person who is set in their ways and who doesn't want to change and who is always complaining that things aren't like they were 20 or 30 years ago.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_00: I can't stand to be around those kind of people.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_00: And on those days where I'm tempted to become that kind of person, you know, like when I'm talking to my teenage son, um, as I'm recording this, he's 17, and I love 80s music.
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_00: It's like basically all that I listen to.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I listen to movie scores, 80s music, and and of course some newer stuff.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_00: But I just love 80s music because that's what I grew up listening to.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_00: And we kind of have this running gag in my family that, you know, every time I'm in the car, I'm always listening to 80s music.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm sure my son gets sick of it.
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_00: However, I have fulfilled my fatherly duty and he can basically sing along to any 80s song on the radio.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_00: So I can say that for my fathering.
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_00: At least I've done one thing correct, I guess.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_00: I'm sort of joking, but it is kind of important to me.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_00: I love 80s music.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_00: And in those times when I find myself going, oh, the music just isn't as good as it was back in the 1980s, I've got to stop and think to myself, you know, uh, trends change, times change.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_00: The 80s was great for the 80s, but this is 2021 and different times call for different creative expressions.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_00: And the 80s are great, but there's a lot of cool new stuff being created now as well.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_00: So we've got to learn to change and adapt and let go of our expectations that everything's gonna be the same as it always was, because it's not.
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_00: And the sooner that we can accept that life is full of change and that we can embrace all the awesome new opportunities out there for us, then I think the happier we're gonna be.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_00: Now, here's the third area that that we need to learn to let go, and that is if we're gonna be successful, we have to let go of some relationships.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_00: Now, this one is the hardest one to swallow for us, I think.
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_00: And the reason is because most of us don't like conflict and we don't like to feel that we're leaving other people behind, and we don't like to feel that we're leaving other people out of our journey and out of our relationship circle.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_00: But here's the cold hard truth, you know, and you've heard me say this on the podcast before, if you've been listening for a while.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_00: And I like to just tell the truth.
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_00: I am committed to always telling you the truth as much as I possibly can.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_00: And here's the cold hard truth is that the circle of relationships that got you where you are now is not the same circle that's going to take you where you want to be.
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_00: And this fact alone stops a lot of people from growing because they're not willing to make tough changes.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_00: Now, you've probably heard about what happens in a crab basket.
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_00: You've probably heard this illustration before.
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_00: Here's what is up with the crab basket thing.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_00: When you put a bunch of crabs in a basket and one tries to crawl out, the other crabs try to pull it back in.
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_00: And most social circles work the same way.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_00: Whenever you try to grow or improve, the people around you who don't want to grow are going to try and discourage you.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_00: Now, they're not going to do it always directly.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes they're going to be very passive-aggressive about it, as humans tend to be.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_00: But they will say things like, Well, we don't know that your plans are realistic, or why would you want to do that?
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_00: Or you really need to have a backup plan.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_00: People always try to do that.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_00: I remember, gosh, this is back when I was writing my second book.
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_00: My first book was a basically a complete flop.
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, it was for a small digital publisher, and I think it sold like 10 or 20 copies, but it was a great experience.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_00: However, my second book, uh, when I was writing that a number of years ago, um, I remember my wife going to dinner with uh one of our friends from college.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_00: So at the time, this would have been like we had been out of college.
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_00: See, I graduated in '96.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so this would have been, I don't know how many years ago, you know, we'll see, this is 2021.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, I'm really bad at math.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_00: So, whatever number of years ago that was, I'm not a math major.
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_00: It was, it was a number of years ago.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_00: So, anyway, my wife was at dinner with this friend of ours, and this, and and she was telling this other friend uh that I was writing a book, and this other this friend said, Why would Kent want to do that?
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_00: That's really dumb.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_00: Like that she had kind of this sort of snarky attitude about it.
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_00: And you probably have people in your life who are like that as well.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_00: They constantly doubt things, they're constantly expressing this sort of snarky, cynical, somewhat negative attitude about the cool things that you're doing.
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_00: So if you're writing a book, if you have a podcast, if you're trying to start an online business or a business of any kind, there are going to be people in your life who are going to express negativity toward that.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_00: And I just want to encourage you to run as far away from you can as from those people.
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_00: The truth of it is that, well, there's two things.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_00: Number one, it's really hard to get away from those people altogether if you're related to them.
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, fortunately, you know, most of most of my family and extended family are very supportive of what I do.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so that's one thing.
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_00: But second of all, it's just uh it's difficult to do that, but but you've got to do it because if you don't do it, they're going to drag you down.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_00: And that's just the cold, hard truth.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_00: Now, here's another example.
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_00: Once I had been teaching in my college job for about 12 or 13 years, so this would have been, you know, five or six years ago, I knew that there was something more that I wanted to do.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't want to do that job forever because the context of our tiny college was very limiting.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_00: We had a small number of students, my salary was extremely limited, there was no potential for my salary ever increasing.
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_00: And most of the people that I was spending time with had no intentions of building a business or of writing books or of that kind of thing.
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_00: There's nothing wrong with that at all.
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_00: And they're they were wonderful people, and they still are wonderful people.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_00: I'm still friends with all those people.
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_00: But I did know one thing, and that was if I wanted to build a business, I had to start spending time around people who thought bigger and dreamed bigger and who were doing the kinds of things that I wanted to do.
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_00: So I started getting involved in mastermind groups and communities, and I started taking courses and investing in myself.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_00: I started doing freelance writing.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_00: I started podcasting and I started writing my own books.
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_00: And most of the people in my day job didn't really know what to think of all that because it simply wasn't in their DNA to build something of their own.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_00: They most of most of those people have an employee mindset, meaning kind of the idea is to get a job at a church or a college somewhere or an organization or a company or something.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_00: And that that's kind of that's how most people think.
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_00: Again, there's nothing wrong with that, but I wanted something different.
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_00: I wanted more control, I wanted more income, I wanted more options, I wanted more success.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_00: Those are the things that I wanted, and the context I was in at my small college was not going to get me to that place.
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_00: So that's why I started just kind of going a different direction in my side job or what you might call a side hustle.
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_00: Now, what I'm not talking about here is denying the value that some people have had in your journey.
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_00: You can be grateful for a season or a phase in your life.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_00: You can recognize its value, and you can value those relationships that you had in that season.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_00: But there also comes a time where you need to understand that you've got to have a different focus moving forward.
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_00: Now, those two things are not mutually exclusive.
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_00: It's not like I've cut anybody out of my life.
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_00: That's not what I'm saying at all.
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_00: You know, there are some people who are kind of very rigid about this and they're like, I can't have these relationships anymore.
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_00: I've only got to hang around millionaires or some kind of you know nonsense like that.
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_00: I don't, that's just not my vibe.
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_00: That's not my style.
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_00: I think you can still be friends with people, but it doesn't mean you have to uh continue investing a lot of time and energy into those relationships if if they're not mutually beneficial.
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, this isn't just a one-way street.
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_00: What I don't want you to hear is that, hey, if somebody's not serving your vision for your life, you need to kind of cut them out.
• 15:37
  SPEAKER_00: That's not what I'm saying at all.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_00: What I'm saying is that if a relationship is not mutually beneficial, then then maybe don't invest time into it.
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's not a good or bad thing.
• 15:45
  SPEAKER_00: It's just if that relationship isn't helping you go where you want to go, then then maybe just don't invest that much time into it, or any time for that matter.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but it's also the other way around.
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_00: I think if you are going a different direction in your life than uh than a friend of yours is, you're not gonna help them on their journey either.
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, for example, the friends of mine who still work at the college, and in fact, the college is shutting down at the end of this year, so nobody's gonna be working there this time, this this time next year.
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so those friends, I'm because most of those people still want to remain in a ministry or college kind of a setting.
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not really helping them on their journey.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_00: So this is a two-way street.
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_00: This is not all about looking at your life selfishly and going, well, those people aren't helping me on my vision, blah, blah, blah.
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_00: It's not that it's not about that.
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_00: It's that if I'm not helping them, I don't want to demand their time either.
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, you have to look at this in a in hopefully a very generous way where I want to be able to serve people well.
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_00: And what I'm interested in right now at this phase of my life is writing books, building a business, things like podcasting, developing online courses, um, mastermind groups, those kinds of things.
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_00: Ghostwriting, obviously, doing client work.
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_00: Those are the things I'm interested in.
• 17:03
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't want to burden other people in my life who are not interested in those things with all the stuff I'm interested in.
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_00: And you just have to learn to be okay with that.
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_00: I I think there's a huge need right now.
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_00: And now I feel like I'm getting off on a tangent, which I do sometimes.
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_00: You know, you can take the professor out of the classroom, but you can't take the classroom out of the other professor.
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_00: I've actually never heard anybody say that, but I just made that up on the spot.
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_00: But but I do think it's I do really think that's true.
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_00: You know, the thing is you can't um it's really okay.
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_00: We just have to learn to let go.
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_00: Again, this podcast is all about learning to let go.
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_00: That's the actual title of it.
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_00: And it's okay.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_00: If a relationship has served its purpose in your life and it's time for you both to kind of move on to other things, it is okay.
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_00: It really, really is.
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_00: It's totally okay.
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_00: And maybe there comes a time at which those people come back into your life or you come back into their life.
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_00: That's great as well.
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_00: I think life is, I think part of life is just kind of learning to hold to things loosely.
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_00: And well, maybe, maybe a better way to say that is a big part of the process of life is learning which things to hold on tightly to and which things to hold loosely to.
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_00: And the older that I get, the more the fewer things that I want to hold on tightly to.
• 18:17
  SPEAKER_00: And maybe that's a better way to put it.
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I feel like I'm really rambling here and kind of like I'm sort of like an old man, just like reflecting.
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_00: It's not like I'm 87 or something.
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_00: Not that there's anything wrong with being 87.
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_00: If you're 87 and listening to this, God bless you.
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_00: I want to know what you've done to to live so long and be successful in life.
• 18:33
  SPEAKER_00: So please hit me up.
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_00: I'd love to talk with you and and sit at your feet and learn from you for sure.
• 18:39
  SPEAKER_00: Well, my friends, the bottom line with this is that life is a journey.
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_00: And if you're not willing to let go of some things, you're not going to have room in your heart and in your mind for the people and the things that you need to carry with you going forward.
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_00: And I hope that this episode gives you some, it gives you some perspective on some areas where you need to do some pruning in your life.
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_00: I remember as a kid, uh, I grew up grew up out in the country, and we actually grew up in a double-wide trailer outside of a small town of Missouri, and um it was paradise to me.
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_00: We lived out in the country again, and it was wonderful because I loved being in the woods.
• 19:15
  SPEAKER_00: We had a huge yard, and it was just, it was like paradise to me.
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_00: My grandfather lived next to us, and about once a year, my my dad would have me help him and my grandfather to prune his apple trees.
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_00: So my grandfather had a, it wasn't a big massive orchard, but he had probably 10 or 15 apple trees and some pear trees and some other stuff.
• 19:35
  SPEAKER_00: He had a big garden.
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_00: And at the time I hated that pruning process.
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_00: It was such a pain in the neck because my dad and my grandfather would would get to use the fun tools, you know, to lop off those apple tree dead branches.
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_00: And I would have to pick up all those sticks, and I hated doing it at the time.
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_00: And it wasn't until later in my life where I realized the value of pruning, and that pruning is really essential.
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_00: And of course, now I would, I would pay a million dollars to go back and and spend that time with my grandfather and and be able to talk with him and learn from him about pruning and about gardening and all those things.
• 20:08
  SPEAKER_00: But as a kid, you don't really understand the value of those things.
• 20:11
  SPEAKER_00: I don't think you really are able to.
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_00: But as you get older, you you look back on your life and you remember those lessons that you learned and you try to implement those into your life.
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_00: So a lesson that I'm trying to implement right now in my life is this idea of pruning.
• 20:24
  SPEAKER_00: What do I need to get rid of?
• 20:26
  SPEAKER_00: What do I need to let go of?
• 20:28
  SPEAKER_00: And what is it okay for me to release in my life?
• 20:31
  SPEAKER_00: This is, I think, a really important concept that all of us need to be thinking about right now because the world is changing very fast, not just because of COVID, but also because of technology, because of shifting patterns and uh shifting, um, shifting things in the marketplace and shifting opportunities.
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_00: And we can look at it in a negative way or we can look at it in a very, very positive way.
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's it's very positive.
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, change is gonna happen anyway, so why not just embrace it and kind of go with the flow?
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_00: That's sort of my perspective.
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_00: So the more that we can learn to let go and to coast through the changes of life and enjoy these things, I think the better off we're gonna be.
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_00: Hey, sorry that I've rambled so much on this episode.
• 21:09
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I think it's pretty evident these things have been on my heart for a while.
• 21:13
  SPEAKER_00: So sorry.
• 21:14
  unknown: I didn't quite catch that.
• 21:15
  SPEAKER_00: Sorry, I hang on.
• 21:17
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know why uh Siri somehow I said something that triggered Siri on my phone.
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_00: Anyway, I'm not gonna edit that out.
• 21:24
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, this is all good.
• 21:25
  SPEAKER_00: So anyway, thanks so much for listening.
• 21:27
  SPEAKER_00: I appreciate you as always, and I will see you in the next episode.
• 21:31
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks so much for listening to today's episode.
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_00: If you've been listening to this show for any length of time, you know that one of the four practices of a great writer is creativity.
• 21:40
  SPEAKER_00: And in order to stay creative, you've got to have great input.
• 21:44
  SPEAKER_00: And that's where writing prompts come in.
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_00: A writing prompt is a sentence or two that helps you break through creative blocks, brainstorm new ideas, and get back into a state of flow.
• 21:54
  SPEAKER_00: Writing prompts are an awesome creative tool for journaling, storytelling, creative writing, stress relief, social media posts, and so much more.
• 22:03
  SPEAKER_00: But the great news is that you don't have to create these yourself.
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_00: We've put together an amazing package of 365 daily writing prompts.
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_00: So every day for the next year, you can have a shot of inspiration delivered straight to your inbox.
• 22:17
  SPEAKER_00: You can check it out at dailywriterlife.comslash writing prompts.
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks, and I'll see you tomorrow.