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Transcript

Writing is Just a Job · The Daily Writer

• 0:06
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the Daily Rider Podcast, where we bring you tips and inspiration each day to help you build habits for writing success.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_00: For more resources, including your free Daily Rider Starter Kit, visit DailyRiderLife.com.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_00: This week we're celebrating the release of the book The Faith of Elvis, which I co-wrote with Billy Stanley, Elvis Presley's stepbrother.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_00: Here on the podcast, I'm sharing a few lessons that I've learned from working on this project.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_00: If you pick up the book this week or any time in the future, you'll notice that one of the recurring themes is that Elvis kept his superstar status in perspective.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_00: He didn't see himself as any better than a regular blue-collar worker.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_00: He saw what he did as a performer and a musician as basically just a job.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_00: Now that's kind of hard for us to imagine in a day and an age where we worship celebrities and we see famous people as these larger than life figures, almost like gods in a sense.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_00: It's a great lesson for all of us as writers, especially when we start to have a little bit of success.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_00: Because at the end of the day, no matter what you achieve, you're not any better or more important than anybody else.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_00: You might have books in bookstores or even have your books on a bestseller list or be a famous speaker somewhere, but it's all just part of the job of being a writer.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_00: After all, the purpose of what we do is to serve people.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_00: The more success that we have, the more opportunities it gives us to serve other people.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_00: The problem is that it's really easy to get tied up in the emotions of what we do.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_00: As creative people, it's hard to separate our personal value and our personal worth from our rankings and our sales numbers and all that stuff.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_00: And that's why this perspective from Elvis is so important.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_00: We've got to separate the job part, which is showing up every day and doing the work.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_00: We've got to separate that from the exterior success because so much of that's out of our control.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_00: When we treat what we do as a job, we focus on being disciplined and putting in the work, we focus on doing the things that are under our control.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_00: Now, none of us is ever going to come close to the level of superstardom that Elvis Presley had.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_00: If it was good enough for him to view what he did as just a job, we can probably do the same thing as well.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_00: Here's today's question.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_00: How does it help you to know that what you do is a job that's no more important than what other people do for their jobs?
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_00: Just a question to think about.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_00: Well, the new book, The Faith of Elvis, just released and is now available at your local bookstore or your favorite online retailer.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_00: Hope that you pick it up, and I think you're really going to enjoy it.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_00: I had a blast working on this book, as you can tell from all the all the time that I've spent talking about it here on the podcast.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_00: I really believe in this book.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_00: It was such an honor to be involved in it, and I really hope that you pick it up and give it a read.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks for listening, and I'll see you tomorrow.