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Transcript

Never Forget Your Roots · 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: When I was a kid back in the 1980s, I listened to a lot of Christian music.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_00: My favorite album during that period was The Big Picture by an artist named Michael W.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_00: Smith.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_00: Now, some of you who are listening know who Michael W.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_00: Smith is.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_00: I've followed his music for pretty much forever since I was a kid and love his stuff.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_00: I still love his stuff.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_00: I think he's a wonderful, wonderful musician.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_00: And maybe you've heard of his album, The Big Picture.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_00: This was his third album.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_00: Came out in, I think, 1985, might be 86.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_00: But one of the best songs on that album was titled Pursuit of the Dream.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_00: And it contained one of my favorite lyrics ever, where he sang, Never forget your roots as you head for something new.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_00: Now, that lyric has stuck with me for decades as I have gone through various periods in my life and I've made a lot of changes, just like we all have.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_00: And it's particularly stuck with me over the last couple of years, since I had transitioned away from my job as a college professor, and I became a full-time ghostwriter and author and podcaster and so forth.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_00: Now, yes, I'm proud of my accomplishments from the last couple of years, but the truth is that I had a lot of help getting there, and I'm going to continue to need a lot of help as I go forward.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_00: None of these good things in my life would have happened without the support of my amazing wife Melanie, my son Ash, my mentors and coaches, and so many other supportive people in my life.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I'm just going to be honest with you.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_00: At the end of the day, I still feel like I'm just a kid from a small southern Missouri town called Potosi.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_00: And uh maybe a few of you listening are from Potosi or know about Potosi.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_00: I grew up there, and I grew up out in the country in a double wide trailer.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, to a lot of people who grew up maybe in the big city or you grew up in some big house somewhere, or you grew up in, you know, a more upscale neighborhood, you probably look at people like me and you think, oh man, you grew up in a double wide trailer out in the woods in this little town in southern Missouri.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_00: And it probably feels to you like I was somehow lacking, or I grew up kind of poor, or something like that.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_00: And that wasn't the case at all.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, I loved where we grew up.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_00: I think I had a more blessed childhood than the vast majority of kids did because we had this big family, we had all these family gatherings, we had this beautifully that we had this big, beautiful yard that my dad worked so hard to to create for us.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_00: My grandparents lived next door.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_00: Um, we lived up on this huge hill.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_00: It was it was wonderful.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_00: I absolutely loved my childhood, I really did.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_00: And when I was growing up, it never occurred to me until I got older that some people thought living in a trailer was like uh was something that was that was unusual.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_00: That wasn't unusual for for Potosi or maybe for a lot of other small towns, maybe for some big towns too.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but the way that our house was structured, it was again it was a double-wide trailer, but my dad had put so much time and effort into making improvements to it that it was it was like a house.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_00: We had this this cool back porch, this huge front porch, and it never occurred to me that anybody would think that that wasn't an awesome way to grow up.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_00: It really didn't.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm so grateful to my parents for giving me such a wonderful childhood, for giving us a great place to grow up.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_00: I really, really loved it and I'm so appreciative and grateful for that.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_00: I also had the good fortune of having a lot of amazing teachers at our school.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_00: Um, anybody who knows the Potosi Missouri School System knows it's a phenomenal school system.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_00: And in many ways, I think smaller towns have huge advantages over big towns because you can many times you can get more personal attention and it's easier for kids to get involved and not be overwhelmed by you know 2,000 kids going to the same school and that type of thing.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_00: No judgment if that's you, but I do think there are some advantages that small towns have over big towns in many ways.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_00: I had so many people over my lifetime help me.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_00: Teachers, uh, my parents who and my brother, who I've always been very close to, and so many mentors and coaches and teachers, and my goodness, I just feel so incredibly blessed by all the people who have helped me get to where I am today.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_00: And I feel like I'm just getting started.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I'm gonna be 49 in a couple months, and I honestly feel like the last two or three years of my life, things have just kind of started to really click.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_00: So if if you're around my age, or maybe you're older or younger, and you feel like all these decades have gone by and you feel like you're not really the wheels are not really spinning and things are not really clicking, man, it is never too late.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_00: I honestly feel like things are just kind of starting to really gain some momentum the last two or three years in my life.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_00: So the point of this, uh point of this episode is to keep in mind that whatever level of success you achieve in your life or your business, don't ever forget where you came from.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_00: Don't ever forget that.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_00: We're all born the same way.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_00: We're all gonna leave life in the same way, uh, in a casket, or maybe you're gonna be cremated.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_00: Uh many people are choosing to do that these days.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_00: But you know, we all come into life with nothing, we all leave life with nothing.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_00: So it's important to keep your success in perspective.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_00: And remember that it's all pretty pointless if you don't use your success to help other people.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_00: There's no sense, no matter what level of success you have, there's no sense getting a big head about it or getting egotistical.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_00: The only purpose for our success is for us to be able to give back to people.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_00: Of course, we want to enjoy our success, but what good is success if you don't use it to do some good in the world?
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_00: So here's today's challenge.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_00: Take a few minutes and reflect on how your roots shaped you into the person that you are today.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_00: I think that would be a really helpful exercise.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_00: And maybe even think about a few people that you need to thank publicly, maybe help on social media and thank some people who are really instrumental in your life and helped you get to where you are today.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_00: So that's my thoughts for today.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_00: But before I wrap up this episode, I want to give a huge thanks to today's sponsor, Total Life Freedom School.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_00: If you've ever dreamed of building a business and creating multiple streams of income, all while having more freedom in your life, you will love Total Life Freedom School.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_00: Total Life Freedom School is the roadmap that my friend Vincent Puglisi and his family used to create a life of time, money, and location freedom.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_00: When you join, you get access to a 30-minute lesson each week with actionable steps and live monthly QA calls where you can interact and get your questions answered.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_00: Best of all, Total Life Freedom School is only nine bucks a month, and you can get your first two lessons for free.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_00: If you're ready to stop dreaming and start building a life in a business you love, head on over to daily riderlife.com slash TLF School to check it out.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_00: Now, I want to say one more thing before I close up shop on this episode, and that is um, as I talk about people who I'm really grateful for, Vincent is honestly one of those people.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_00: When I joined his Total Life Freedom Community back in, I think it must have been 2019, I think.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_00: I don't remember exactly, but it's been like three or four years ago.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I was still a college professor and I was just thinking about getting into ghostwriting.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_00: And being a part of Vincent's circle and his total life freedom community was absolutely fundamentally important to me to get me started in building a business.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_00: Now there have been a lot of other people who've helped me in massive ways as well, but Vincent kind of came into my life at a really critical juncture where I needed that push, I needed that community to kind of get me going in the right direction.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_00: And in fact, he's the one who suggested that I create the Daily Writer Club.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_00: I had been thinking about doing a community for a while, but at one of the retreats that I attended where he was leading, he really pushed me to do that.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_00: And he challenged me in one of those sessions that we had at that retreat with this idea.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_00: He said, if you think you can help people, if you really think you can help people by doing a writing membership group and you don't do it, you're doing people a huge disservice.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_00: And he basically said, You have an ethical responsibility, you have a moral responsibility to do this for people if you really think it can help them.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_00: And I felt very convicted, and that's actually what led me to starting the Daily Writer Club.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_00: I would have probably gone another year or two before I started it if it weren't for Vincent.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_00: So I tell you that story because I want you to know Vincent is legit.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_00: He's the real deal.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_00: And man, for nine bucks a month getting some really great weekly lessons, that is one of the best deals that you will ever come across in your whole life, I promise.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_00: It's really, really good stuff.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_00: So, as always, my friend, thanks for listening.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_00: And here's yet another episode where I've gone on probably a little bit too long.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_00: But hope this has been helpful to you, and I hope that this inspires and encourages you in some way.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_00: As always, thanks for spending a few minutes with me, and I will see you next time.