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We're All One Bad Decision Away From a Train Wreck · 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: Today's episode is not really about writing.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_00: Today's episode is really more about life.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I've noticed something during my years as a pastor, as an educator, and now as a full-time ghostwriter and author coach and podcaster.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_00: Here's my observation.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_00: People in creative fields seem to be at a greater risk of sabotaging their lives.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_00: There's a really common narrative among creative types that giving birth to your art or making art or writing, that it's by definition a painful, destructive kind of a process.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_00: And people who live by this code are oftentimes called tortured artists.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_00: And they usually suffer from some kind of addiction to drugs or alcohol, and they're convinced that their darkness is an essential part of their creative process.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_00: Case in point, there's a group known as the 27 Club.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe you've heard this terminology before.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_00: And these are famous musicians who died at age 27.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_00: And this infamous club includes Jimi Hendrix, Janice Joplin, Jim Morrison, Kurt Cobain, and Amy Winehouse, just to name a few.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_00: Now, the greatness of their music and their art is never in question, but there's a part of me that can't help but wonder how much more music could those people have made?
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_00: How much more could they have given to the world if their lives had not been cut short by substance abuse, suicide, or other circumstances that were fueled by a reckless approach to life?
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_00: You know, over the last few years I've watched a few different friends in the online business space totally crash and burn.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_00: And it seems to be basically the same pattern over and over again.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_00: They build a business from scratch, they work really, really hard over a number of years and they become really successful, they go through some kind of big personal crisis, and their marriage crashes and burns, and then they have to start over.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_00: And in all of those cases, the person, actually, I'm thinking of three or four different people right now who I know personally, and who some of you would know as well.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_00: In all of these cases, the person came back to a healthy life and also a successful business.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_00: And in fact, in all those cases, they came back to an even more successful business after they went through that personal crisis, but they had to go through a really terrible ordeal to get there.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_00: Now, I want to be super clear about this.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_00: I am not coming from a place of judgment at all.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_00: I'm really, really not.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_00: Instead, I'm coming from a place of compassion, empathy, and humility.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_00: And the reason that I say that is because I work on the assumption that all of us are just one or two bad decisions away from a complete train wreck.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_00: Now, I've been around the block of life enough to know that we're all capable of bad decisions that can destroy us.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_00: I do not operate under the illusion that we're infallible, that we're so smart we would never make that mistake, or you know how sometimes when when you're around people who are judgmental, they'll somebody will come up in a conversation who's gone through some kind of personal crisis or they've made some bad decisions or their life has been a train wreck.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_00: And sometimes there's kind of some judgment associated with that.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_00: And somebody in your group will say something like, Oh, I can't believe so-and-so did that, or hey, did you hear about so-and-so and this big stupid thing they did, or this big crisis they went through?
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_00: And whenever I'm in those situations, I always think to myself, Wow, you know, I'm I'm a fairly smart guy, but um I'm capable of some really stupid things as well.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't operate under the illusion that any of us are incapable of those kinds of things.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_00: Every single one of us, you and me included, are capable of doing things that can easily wreck our lives.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_00: And I assume that all of us are just one or two bad decisions away from doing something that could completely wreck our lives.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_00: And I think the more successful that you become in a life, it's more and more important to become aware of this because the more successful that you become, the more that you can easily become surrounded by people who who congratulate your success and they lift you up and they tell you this thing that you did was really good and those kinds of things.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_00: And uh, I'm not saying I'm in that kind of a place necessarily, but I am surrounded by by a lot of people who seem to enjoy what I do and who are positive, encouraging, and uh they really keep me going and I feel really blessed because of that.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_00: But I also am smart enough to not believe my own press as well.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_00: I know that I'm a person who's capable of really stupid things, and um, I've known enough people in my life who have wrecked their lives because of you know addictions or just bad decisions or having affairs or whatever.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_00: I've known too many of those people to to believe my own press.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_00: And as much as I appreciate people saying, hey, I love the podcast, or I love this book, or that book, or I love the Daily Writer Club, or whatever it is that they like about what I produce.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, and while I'm grateful for that, I also realize, hey, I can produce all that stuff, but I'm also capable of wrecking my life as well.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_00: And and the same goes for you as well.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_00: None of us is infallible, none of us ever gets to a place where we are incapable of doing things that can completely and totally destroy our lives.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_00: So keep that in mind as you get more successful yourself.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_00: The more successful that you are, and the more people who know you, the harder you're going to fall whenever you make a big mistake.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_00: So, the moral of the story here is make sure to keep watch over yourself.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_00: Make sure to pay attention to your relationships and your mental health, your emotional health, and your habits.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_00: If you reach a level of success that is bigger than your own self-control, you will eventually crash and burn.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_00: It's just a matter of time.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_00: We've seen it over and over and over again throughout history.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_00: And in fact, we're even seeing it right now, right before our eyes.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, there have been there's been more than one young, very, very successful artist, music artist over the past uh gosh, I would say six months, who has canceled massive world tours because of their mental and emotional health.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, uh I'm sure that people in their in their circle, you know, they're losing a lot of revenue because of that.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_00: A lot of jobs are lost because of that.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_00: Because whatever tours are canceled, that's a lot of income that's not going to be created because those tours are not happening.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_00: But at the same time, I also look at those artists and I go, yeah, way to go.
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_00: Good call.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_00: If you know that you can't handle the stress and the pressure of doing that, if you're not in a place where you can headline a major world tour, uh, it's better to call off at the beginning than get halfway through and totally crash and burn.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_00: So my hat is off to people who go ahead and put the kibosh on something at the beginning, knowing that, hey, I'm I might be headed for a bad train wreck.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_00: So my hat's off to people.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_00: I have a lot of respect for people who make those really tough decisions, even though managers and other kinds of people probably are at their throats and really are disappointed because of that.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_00: Well, this episode has gone off in kind of a different direction than I had planned, but um, that's okay.
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_00: My hope and my prayer for for those artists and for myself and for you as well is that we can all go forward with a lot of humility and with a lot of emotional and mental and physical health intact so that we don't make those decisions that cause train wrecks in our life.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_00: So here's today's challenge.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_00: I want to encourage you to watch over your life and your habits really closely so that you can avoid your own personal train wreck.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_00: My friend, I want you to be in this for the long haul.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_00: I want myself to be in this for the long haul.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_00: I've known way too many people personally who have had these train wrecks and it's really, really heartbreaking.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_00: And it takes a lot of time and energy to come back from that place.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_00: And in many cases, people never really totally come back because there's always collateral damage from that, whether it's damaged relationships, damaged family situations, uh, you know, businesses that crash and burn, reputations, or whatever the case may be.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, I love talking about the writing and creative stuff here on the show, but um, I also want you to be a healthy person, and we should never sacrifice our mental and emotional health on the altar of publishing or writing or putting books out there or whatever.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_00: So that's why really almost all of this week here on the show, we're talking about these kinds of things where I just want you to be healthy and I want you to be a whole and complete person so that you and I can operate from a place of wholeness and of energy and of joy in our lives.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_00: So this, I feel like this has been kind of a downer episode a little bit, and I certainly don't mean it to be, but I'd just like to be real with you here on the show.
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_00: And uh I always appreciate it when other people are real and honest, and that's what I hope to do with you as well.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_00: Now, before I go, I do want to mention that today's sponsor is Thumbprint Creative.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_00: You've probably heard the saying, don't judge a book by its cover, and in the book world, it's absolutely not true because people do judge the quality of a book by its cover.
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, the cover design is the very first thing that people notice about a book.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_00: That's why my graphic designer of choice is Christy Griffith, the owner of Thumbprint Creative.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_00: Now, you've probably heard me talk about Christy here on the show before.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_00: She has been the uh formatter and cover designer for a number of my own books as well as a lot of my client books as a ghostwriter.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_00: And she is really, really good.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_00: I love working with Christy.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_00: Her rates are very reasonable, and she's super easy to work with, very chill, very creative, and really, really is just a joy to work with.
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_00: I like working with people who do good work and who really add something special to the process.
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_00: And whenever you work with Christy as your designer, she really takes your work to the next level.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_00: So I encourage you to go to go thumbprint.com.
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_00: There's a link in the show notes, go thumbprint.com to learn more about her services and see uh some of the stuff that she has worked on so you can get a clear sense of what she does and uh the vibe that she can bring to your project.
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_00: She's very, very good, and I highly encourage you to reach out to Christy and have her be the designer for your next book project.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_00: So make sure and check that out thumbprint.com.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_00: Hey, my friend, as always, thanks for listening, and I'll see you next time.