Latest / Arroe Collins Like It's Live / Reckoning From Author And CEO Jim Minarik Tragedy Triumph And Trancendence Oh And Murder
Transcript
- 0:00Speaker 1: Oh, we're having some fun over there on Arrow.net, A-R-R-O-E.net.
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- 0:24Speaker 2: It's Jim.
- 0:25Speaker 1: Hi, Jim. It's Arrow Collins. How are you doing today?
- 0:28Speaker 2: Good, Errol. How are you today?
- 0:29Speaker 1: Absolutely excited to share a conversation with you because, I mean,
- 0:33Speaker 1: your book is a page out of a chapter in
- 0:36Speaker 1: your life. And I want listeners and readers to understand that,
- 0:39Speaker 1: that it's not a legacy book or anything like that,
- 0:41Speaker 1: but it really is something that you experienced. And, oh
- 0:44Speaker 1: my God, and to put it in writing, to relive
- 0:46Speaker 1: it again, what was that like for you?
- 0:51Speaker 3: Well, Arrow, it was quite a journey. It was a
- 0:53Speaker 3: three and a half year adventure. And originally it did
- 0:56Speaker 3: start out as something that I thought for children and
- 0:58Speaker 3: grandchildren and descendants, but it really turned into an exploration
- 1:02Speaker 3: of what success is all about.
- 1:05Speaker 2: What achieving your dreams means.
- 1:10Speaker 3: And then what do you do once you've done that
- 1:13Speaker 3: and you have achieved success? And the questions that I
- 1:17Speaker 3: started to ask is what's beyond success?
- 1:19Speaker 1: Yep. Yeah, and what did you find? Because I've written
- 1:22Speaker 1: so much about it, and I've talked about it on
- 1:24Speaker 1: iHeartRadio a lot. When you become the used-to-be, and it's like, well,
- 1:29Speaker 1: am I? Because the Marines will tell you, I didn't
- 1:31Speaker 1: used to be a Marine. I'm forever a Marine. Why
- 1:34Speaker 1: don't we all have that case in attitude?
- 1:37Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, for much of my life, I believed
- 1:41Speaker 3: if I worked hard enough and achieved enough, I could
- 1:43Speaker 3: outrun the painful things in my past.
- 1:47Speaker 2: And by most outward measures, I succeeded.
- 1:50Speaker 3: I was a CEO for 25 years.
- 1:52Speaker 2: I rang the bell on the NASDAQ.
- 1:54Speaker 3: But I eventually had to face a tougher question. And
- 1:57Speaker 3: that was, who am I when the achievements and.
- 2:00Speaker 2: The titles come? Can't answer the questions anymore.
- 2:04Speaker 3: And Reckoning is the story of what happened when I
- 2:06Speaker 3: finally stopped running.
- 2:07Speaker 2: And I think it will.
- 2:10Speaker 3: Ring true with anyone who's ever looked at a life
- 2:13Speaker 3: that seems good on paper but wondered, why doesn't it
- 2:16Speaker 3: feel like it's enough?
- 2:17Speaker 2: Right.
- 2:18Speaker 1: Jim, don't you think that people are going to relate
- 2:20Speaker 1: with this book because they're going to ask their own selves,
- 2:22Speaker 1: they're going to go, wow, my own family or somebody
- 2:25Speaker 1: that I know in my family, this could have happened
- 2:27Speaker 1: to us at any given moment. Jim went through it.
- 2:30Speaker 1: How in God's name didn't we go through it?
- 2:34Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, Arrow, that's just a great question. And
- 2:38Speaker 3: for anyone that's dealt with tragedy or depression or anxiety
- 2:45Speaker 3: and either got through it or knows somebody that's going
- 2:47Speaker 3: through it, There's a lot of things that I learned,
- 2:50Speaker 3: whether it was through therapy, ultimately using some plant medicine,
- 2:55Speaker 3: some tremendous counseling that I think could really be helpful.
- 2:59Speaker 3: And that's my goal here, to be helpful to others
- 3:03Speaker 3: who are dealing with both dealing with both life's challenges
- 3:07Speaker 3: and the tremendous opportunities that we all have.
- 3:09Speaker 1: And you put it in a way that isn't offensive.
- 3:12Speaker 1: In other words, it's not a Debbie Downer. You put
- 3:14Speaker 1: it in a way to where we can relate with
- 3:16Speaker 1: it and we keep going to the next page, to
- 3:18Speaker 1: the next page. And I love that about your writing
- 3:20Speaker 1: is that it's like you were sitting physically with us going,
- 3:24Speaker 1: by the way, there's something I want to add to that.
- 3:25Speaker 1: And that's on the next page. And we do it.
- 3:27Speaker 1: I mean, you really do guide us through the story.
- 3:31Speaker 2: No, thank you.
- 3:32Speaker 3: As a first time author, I had a very good coach,
- 3:36Speaker 3: but I really appreciate that comment. And I worked hard
- 3:39Speaker 3: to be authentic throughout the writing process. And that was
- 3:43Speaker 3: always my question when I would finish a chapter. It
- 3:46Speaker 3: would be, is this true? Is this authentic? And is
- 3:49Speaker 3: this helpful?
- 3:51Speaker 1: You were 17 years old when this went down. And
- 3:54Speaker 1: that is a pivotal time. I mean, one of the
- 3:56Speaker 1: things that they always teach us in radio is, is
- 3:58Speaker 1: that when you're 17 to 19 years old, that is
- 4:01Speaker 1: the most important time of anybody's life. And that, you
- 4:05Speaker 1: were like right there at the core of it all,
- 4:07Speaker 1: and you're still holding on to it.
- 4:10Speaker 3: Yeah, well, it was a very normal life growing up
- 4:13Speaker 3: in western Pennsylvania, Pittsburgh. And my dad worked for U.S.
- 4:17Speaker 3: Steel for 40 years. I had an older brother and
- 4:20Speaker 3: a younger brother. And my older brother had a breakup
- 4:25Speaker 3: with his fiancée. And something went terribly bad. My father
- 4:30Speaker 3: found him holding a. 44 caliber pistol to his head
- 4:34Speaker 3: and stopped him from killing himself. And unfortunately and very sadly,
- 4:40Speaker 3: a few days later, he took the life of his fiance.
- 4:45Speaker 3: And the story's in the book, but of course, the.
- 4:49Speaker 2: First part is I realized I loved Rosemary.
- 4:54Speaker 3: And the pain that was inflicted on her, her family,
- 4:59Speaker 3: our families. And back at that time, there wasn't counseling.
- 5:03Speaker 3: We just had to live through it and work through it.
- 5:07Speaker 3: And as you mentioned, that was a pivotal time. And
- 5:10Speaker 3: I kind of really thought my life was over. And
- 5:13Speaker 3: all of a sudden, going from a happy kid at
- 5:15Speaker 3: age 17 to should my life go on was a
- 5:20Speaker 3: very real question.
- 5:21Speaker 1: Is that a case of that your mind was trying
- 5:23Speaker 1: to rewrite its own story, its own conclusion, and to
- 5:26Speaker 1: figure out, you know, to basically be the armchair quarterback
- 5:29Speaker 1: person doing the investigation?
- 5:32Speaker 3: Yeah, that was part of it. And part of it was,
- 5:35Speaker 3: why didn't I do something? Why didn't I see something?
- 5:39Speaker 3: Why didn't I say something? So there was a lot
- 5:42Speaker 3: of both conscious and unconscious second guessing. And then living
- 5:48Speaker 3: through the reality of this story being in the newspaper
- 5:52Speaker 3: and on television and going from this very middle class
- 5:55Speaker 3: family to the front page of the papers was just
- 6:02Speaker 3: very difficult to deal with.
- 6:04Speaker 2: And I had to find my way through it, and
- 6:06Speaker 2: I did.
- 6:07Speaker 3: And as the book explains, I ended up going to
- 6:10Speaker 3: Penn State and began to learn about business and really
- 6:15Speaker 3: learned that by doing, doing a lot of doing, I
- 6:19Speaker 3: could stay ahead of the pain. And the book talks
- 6:22Speaker 3: a lot about the process of going from being a
- 6:25Speaker 3: human doing, which I became incredibly good at, building my
- 6:29Speaker 3: company to nearly a billion dollars, I was not as
- 6:34Speaker 3: good as being a human being. And that is a
- 6:38Speaker 3: big part of the story.
- 6:40Speaker 1: You know, it's one of those things where I've got
- 6:42Speaker 1: to really do a one-on-one question with you here in
- 6:44Speaker 1: the way that, I mean, did that serve as fuel
- 6:48Speaker 1: for you to go to Penn State and to grow
- 6:50Speaker 1: from there? Because, I mean, and if that is what happened,
- 6:53Speaker 1: sometimes I wonder with all the people that I'm blessed
- 6:55Speaker 1: to share a conversation with that maybe I should ask them,
- 6:58Speaker 1: What are you hiding? Why do you think you have
- 7:00Speaker 1: this success? What are you running away from to find
- 7:03Speaker 1: what you think is the answer?
- 7:06Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, we all have our stories and I
- 7:08Speaker 3: can only answer it for me.
- 7:10Speaker 2: And it wasn't.
- 7:12Speaker 3: So much conscious as unconscious that I if I kept going,
- 7:16Speaker 3: then I could stay ahead of the pain and not
- 7:20Speaker 3: really address the core issue of what happened, why it happened.
- 7:26Speaker 3: what my relationship was going to be like with my
- 7:28Speaker 3: brother going forward. And as you know, from the book,
- 7:31Speaker 3: my brother was incarcerated for 55 years and he served
- 7:37Speaker 3: a sentence of life without parole, only passing away this
- 7:42Speaker 3: past June.
- 7:45Speaker 1: You know, it's, it's one of the, and once again,
- 7:46Speaker 1: we go back to that part where people are going
- 7:48Speaker 1: to be able to relate with the story, because even
- 7:50Speaker 1: with my own brother who was put in prison because
- 7:52Speaker 1: he was addicted to meth and And have I forgiven him?
- 7:56Speaker 1: I'm using your book to find that answer because I've
- 7:59Speaker 1: got to figure out how to get back into this
- 8:01Speaker 1: guy's life because mom gave us birth. She didn't give
- 8:04Speaker 1: us separation.
- 8:06Speaker 3: Yeah, well, I encourage you to do that, Arrow, because
- 8:11Speaker 3: in my case, it was very difficult and I didn't
- 8:15Speaker 3: really forgive John.
- 8:17Speaker 2: I continued to love him.
- 8:18Speaker 3: And by the way, in the end, even though he
- 8:21Speaker 3: was convicted of this crime and he did the crime,
- 8:24Speaker 3: He said to his dying day he had no recollection
- 8:27Speaker 3: of actually doing it, and there was alcohol and drugs involved,
- 8:30Speaker 3: but that never made it to court. But during his life,
- 8:34Speaker 3: John then went on to help over 1,000 men get
- 8:36Speaker 3: their GEDs, high school equivalents, their college degrees. He achieved
- 8:42Speaker 3: a master's degree in psychology from the University of Pittsburgh.
- 8:46Speaker 2: He created, along with Mr. Rogers, Fred Rogers of Pittsburgh,
- 8:51Speaker 2: the first prison.
- 8:52Speaker 3: children's visiting rooms that eventually rolled throughout the state.
- 8:56Speaker 2: So he could.
- 8:58Speaker 3: Never undo the worst thing that he did in his life,
- 9:02Speaker 3: but he tried to demonstrate that he was more than
- 9:06Speaker 3: the worst thing he ever did.
- 9:09Speaker 1: How do you deal with that in the way that,
- 9:11Speaker 1: I mean, with you just sharing that story with me,
- 9:13Speaker 1: all of a sudden I'm back with my pastor, Stephen
- 9:16Speaker 1: Furtick from Elevation, that goes that the most greatest things
- 9:19Speaker 1: that happen in life come from the paths of darkness
- 9:21Speaker 1: and doubt. And I sit here and I listen to
- 9:24Speaker 1: and I read the story like this about your brother
- 9:26Speaker 1: and I'm going, my God, this is a biblical story
- 9:28Speaker 1: right here in front of our face. If we do
- 9:30Speaker 1: not sit here and learn from this and that, you know,
- 9:33Speaker 1: just because there's a major crime doesn't mean we have
- 9:35Speaker 1: to turn things off. Let's figure it out. Let's continue
- 9:39Speaker 1: to love.
- 9:41Speaker 2: Yeah, Iroh, so beautifully stated.
- 9:45Speaker 3: And as a result of this with my brother, I've
- 9:48Speaker 3: learned about something that about our justice system, which has
- 9:53Speaker 3: very little forgiveness or redemption or mercy in it. And
- 9:57Speaker 3: as the book explains, at the end of his life,
- 10:00Speaker 3: my brother had sepsis and pneumonia and was unconscious for
- 10:03Speaker 3: four weeks.
- 10:04Speaker 2: He was in a hospital, in.
- 10:06Speaker 3: An intensive care unit outside the prison, and they still
- 10:09Speaker 3: had his hand shackled to the bed as well as
- 10:12Speaker 3: his leg. The man couldn't breathe on his own, certainly
- 10:17Speaker 3: couldn't stand, couldn't talk, was unconscious. And I began to
- 10:21Speaker 3: ask myself the question, is this what the people of
- 10:24Speaker 3: this state, this country really want.
- 10:27Speaker 2: Being done in our name? And yes, it doesn't.
- 10:31Speaker 3: Of course, he did a terrible crime, but I don't
- 10:34Speaker 3: think most human beings would want that to be the
- 10:37Speaker 3: way that their wills are being carried out.
- 10:41Speaker 1: Please do not move. Jim Minerick is coming right back.
- 10:45Speaker 1: The name of the book, Reckoning. We are back with
- 10:48Speaker 1: author Jim Minerick. One of the things that gets me
- 10:50Speaker 1: right in the heart, because I am a broadcaster of
- 10:53Speaker 1: 47 years, there have been many times that we have
- 10:55Speaker 1: covered stories and I have stood up and said, don't
- 10:57Speaker 1: do this one. Don't do this one. And they would
- 11:00Speaker 1: sit there and they would tell me over and over again,
- 11:02Speaker 1: it's the news, you got to. And I would say,
- 11:03Speaker 1: protect the family. Please protect the family. And this is
- 11:06Speaker 1: one of those stories that was in the media over
- 11:08Speaker 1: and over and over again. And I just felt like
- 11:11Speaker 1: that sometimes the media overdoes it because they're shooting for
- 11:14Speaker 1: the ratings and people to buy the magazines and the papers. Whereas,
- 11:17Speaker 1: what about the family? And that's where my heart has
- 11:19Speaker 1: always been. What about the family? Protect the family.
- 11:25Speaker 3: Yeah, I certainly agree with that. And as I think
- 11:29Speaker 3: back as a young man, I was terrified. It terrified me.
- 11:33Speaker 3: I thought somebody was going to come in our house
- 11:35Speaker 3: and kill me and kill my family. And nobody at
- 11:39Speaker 3: the time said, you guys should get some counseling. And
- 11:42Speaker 3: as I do explain in the book, I did go
- 11:44Speaker 3: to our church and I asked the pastor if he
- 11:49Speaker 3: could come and spend some time with my mom, who
- 11:52Speaker 3: was a devout Catholic pastor. And he said to me, Jim,
- 11:56Speaker 3: I can't do that, but I'll pray with you here.
- 11:59Speaker 3: And I felt as though that was the final evidence
- 12:05Speaker 3: that we were now unsalvageable.
- 12:08Speaker 2: And that was a devastating blow.
- 12:10Speaker 3: And when I look back on it, it's still almost
- 12:16Speaker 3: unimaginable how my parents managed to get through. And the reason,
- 12:20Speaker 3: the only reason they got through is they had two
- 12:22Speaker 3: younger boys that they really loved and wanted to see
- 12:26Speaker 3: have some kind of lives.
- 12:29Speaker 2: But of course, as a parent, one never really recovers
- 12:33Speaker 2: from that.
- 12:34Speaker 1: Yeah. One of the things that's happened with your book, Jim,
- 12:37Speaker 1: and I would love to see other readers and listeners
- 12:39Speaker 1: and see how they're going to react, is that you
- 12:41Speaker 1: inspired a heavy-duty research and story that I did on iHeartRadio.
- 12:46Speaker 1: And that is, it's the way that I took this.
- 12:48Speaker 1: It's tragedy plus triumph plus transcendence. And I go, in
- 12:54Speaker 1: the writing, I go, one crime, a lifetime of wait.
- 12:57Speaker 1: But the word I wanted to put in there, though,
- 13:00Speaker 1: was W-A-I-T and not wait, W-E-I-G-H-T. Because I believe that
- 13:06Speaker 1: what goes on in a situation, there is more waiting
- 13:10Speaker 1: than the wait on our hearts. Am I wrong in
- 13:13Speaker 1: thinking like that? And that's what I put the emphasis
- 13:15Speaker 1: on was that four-letter word and not this one here, W-E-I-G-H-T.
- 13:21Speaker 3: Yeah, no, I think you're absolutely right. And part of
- 13:25Speaker 3: it is waiting. Part of it is just waiting for
- 13:29Speaker 3: clarity to come through. And then, as I explained during
- 13:32Speaker 3: the transcendence section, some of the tremendous people that helped
- 13:37Speaker 3: me navigate working through how my neural pathways were so
- 13:43Speaker 3: programmed to achieve success and build shareholder value.
- 13:46Speaker 2: Yep.
- 13:47Speaker 3: And I really wanted to figure out what is beyond success.
- 13:52Speaker 3: And that's something maybe a lot of people don't think about,
- 13:55Speaker 3: but we.
- 13:55Speaker 2: All have varying degrees of success in our lives.
- 13:59Speaker 3: And as we reach retirement and our later years, it's
- 14:04Speaker 3: really important to spend some time in thinking about what's
- 14:07Speaker 3: beyond work. And I try to deal with that in
- 14:10Speaker 3: the book. And it certainly was a cathartic process for me.
- 14:14Speaker 1: Well, you hit us up with a serious question here, dude.
- 14:17Speaker 1: When the title goes away. Yeah. When the title goes away,
- 14:20Speaker 1: what's next?
- 14:23Speaker 2: Yeah.
- 14:24Speaker 3: And for me, I made a conscious decision a decade
- 14:27Speaker 3: ago that I wanted to retire as the CEO and
- 14:30Speaker 3: chairman of a near, at the time, half billion dollar company.
- 14:35Speaker 3: And I wanted to get out. I wanted to see
- 14:37Speaker 3: what else I could do in life. And I had
- 14:39Speaker 3: about two weeks of joy. And then all of a sudden,
- 14:43Speaker 3: I was I was in big trouble with a severe
- 14:46Speaker 3: case of anxiety and depression and I could not understand it.
- 14:49Speaker 2: It made no sense. The book really explains.
- 14:53Speaker 3: I came to understand what was going on and how
- 14:56Speaker 3: common it is, because with most male executives, especially if
- 15:01Speaker 3: they work that long and that hard, what happens is
- 15:03Speaker 3: they retire.
- 15:04Speaker 2: And then, you know what they do, Arrow?
- 15:06Speaker 1: They shrivel up.
- 15:08Speaker 2: They shrivel up and die.
- 15:10Speaker 3: They do. And I'm very proud to say I had
- 15:12Speaker 3: a very rough patch.
- 15:14Speaker 2: But 10 years later, we continue.
- 15:16Speaker 3: To travel the world, enjoy, meet new people, get great
- 15:21Speaker 3: opportunities to talk to people like you.
- 15:23Speaker 2: And in this case, share my story through reckoning.
- 15:27Speaker 1: How important was the writing? Not necessarily writing this book.
- 15:30Speaker 1: Did you pick up a journal? Did you document things?
- 15:33Speaker 1: Did you defrag, as I call it? In other words,
- 15:35Speaker 1: breaking it down, asking yourself the questions, and then questioning
- 15:39Speaker 1: those answers.
- 15:41Speaker 2: That's exactly what happened.
- 15:43Speaker 3: I began thinking I was going to write something for
- 15:45Speaker 3: the kids, grandkids, descendants.
- 15:48Speaker 2: And I began to make notes.
- 15:49Speaker 3: And then I serendipitously met a writing coach on one
- 15:54Speaker 3: of our travels who said, really helped me realize we
- 15:56Speaker 3: can all remember much more about our.
- 16:00Speaker 2: Younger years than we imagined. And he taught me memory techniques.
- 16:04Speaker 3: And I began to journal and write that stuff and
- 16:08Speaker 3: write it down. And then actually the story emerged. This title, Reckoning,
- 16:15Speaker 3: A Journey Through Tragedy, Triumph, and Transcendence, just emerged from
- 16:19Speaker 3: the writing.
- 16:20Speaker 2: I actually didn't make it up. It just came out.
- 16:24Speaker 1: I'm not shocked because I'm a student of Julia Cameron's
- 16:26Speaker 1: The Artist's Way since 1994. And all of the amazing
- 16:30Speaker 1: things that have come through creativity have started through that writing.
- 16:33Speaker 1: So I'm not shocked and I'm anxious to find out
- 16:36Speaker 1: what you're going to be doing next because now that
- 16:38Speaker 1: you know what the power of the pen and storytelling
- 16:41Speaker 1: does to a person and other people that read it,
- 16:43Speaker 1: oh my God, dude, I just can't imagine what you're
- 16:46Speaker 1: going to be doing next.
- 16:48Speaker 2: Oh, well, thank you. I'm thinking about that.
- 16:50Speaker 3: And I really encourage your listeners to think about writing
- 16:56Speaker 3: because once you start, it's very hard to start, but
- 16:58Speaker 3: once you start, you get into that flow space.
- 17:02Speaker 2: And all of a sudden my writing coach told me
- 17:04Speaker 2: write an hour a day. And sometimes that was hard.
- 17:06Speaker 3: And other times it'd be five hours later and I
- 17:09Speaker 3: was lost in it.
- 17:10Speaker 2: And it was so enthralling. And it is a wonderful
- 17:14Speaker 2: way to spend time and to share your, what you've
- 17:17Speaker 2: learned in your life with others.
- 17:20Speaker 1: It's so funny that you say that. I saw a
- 17:22Speaker 1: picture of Taylor Swift about a month or two ago,
- 17:24Speaker 1: and I didn't see her in the photo. What I
- 17:27Speaker 1: saw were 13 or 14 different journals that she writes in.
- 17:30Speaker 1: And then I looked at my own life going, holy crap,
- 17:34Speaker 1: I've got just as many. If people could put pride
- 17:37Speaker 1: into their writing or their journals... amazing things happen. And,
- 17:42Speaker 1: and this book is definitely, definitely proof of that because
- 17:45Speaker 1: you took something that was so negative. You wrote about
- 17:47Speaker 1: it openly and now look at it.
- 17:51Speaker 3: Yeah.
- 17:52Speaker 2: Well, well, thank you. It was hard to write about it.
- 17:54Speaker 3: And, you know, ultimately, uh, my brother was alive at
- 17:57Speaker 3: the time the book was finished and I was really
- 18:00Speaker 3: worried about how he would feel about it, but I
- 18:03Speaker 3: decided to give it to him and he read it and, uh,
- 18:07Speaker 3: He told me, Jim, it was very hard to read
- 18:11Speaker 3: back to what happened and the impact I had.
- 18:14Speaker 2: On all of you. And I'm so sorry.
- 18:17Speaker 3: And he said if he could live it over, there
- 18:20Speaker 3: would have been no crime. But again, going back to
- 18:24Speaker 3: for all of us who've had either in our own
- 18:27Speaker 3: lives something really bad happen or know someone where something
- 18:31Speaker 3: really bad happened, it begs the question, can.
- 18:34Speaker 2: A man or a woman be more than the worst
- 18:37Speaker 2: thing that ever happened to them?
- 18:39Speaker 3: And I believe my brother's life is a demonstration that
- 18:44Speaker 3: that answer is a definite yes. It never undoes what happened,
- 18:50Speaker 3: but it does demonstrate that we can all be more.
- 18:55Speaker 1: I just did a study on that moment before we
- 18:58Speaker 1: do something like pull the trigger. And in that study,
- 19:01Speaker 1: my question, my real honest to God question was, why
- 19:05Speaker 1: aren't we thinking clearly in that moment? And it goes
- 19:08Speaker 1: on to explain that it's because we're not thinking about
- 19:11Speaker 1: where we're going and what's going to happen. It's what
- 19:14Speaker 1: has happened and that they're trying to get people to
- 19:17Speaker 1: understand that you need to think about the other side
- 19:20Speaker 1: of things too. When you are having such dark thoughts.
- 19:24Speaker 2: Oh, wow.
- 19:25Speaker 3: I want to read that. I want to read that.
- 19:27Speaker 3: Make sure you share that with me. That's absolutely true.
- 19:32Speaker 1: And then you got to live with it. And that's
- 19:34Speaker 1: where people are going, oh, my God. Oh, I guess
- 19:37Speaker 1: I did. Oh, my God. I can't believe that I
- 19:39Speaker 1: did that. But yet, where was that decision making before
- 19:42Speaker 1: it happened? It wasn't because we tend to blank out.
- 19:45Speaker 1: We tend to go in a different direction because we're
- 19:47Speaker 1: putting the past ahead of all other things.
- 19:51Speaker 3: That's very true. And we become so focused on the
- 19:56Speaker 3: big problem. We think it's a big problem. And all
- 19:58Speaker 3: we really need to do is get up, get up
- 20:01Speaker 3: to 30, 40,000 feet and look down at us on
- 20:04Speaker 3: this small blue dot out in this vast universe and realize,
- 20:08Speaker 3: oh my God, I've made.
- 20:10Speaker 2: Something so big.
- 20:11Speaker 3: That's actually not no matter how big we believe it
- 20:15Speaker 3: is trying to get out and get perspective, which by
- 20:18Speaker 3: the way, In Transcendence, I explained that's the benefit of
- 20:22Speaker 3: a lot of these plant medicines, where you can get perspective.
- 20:26Speaker 3: And that's why you hear about things like Ibogaine curing
- 20:32Speaker 3: strong PTSD and addiction in one session.
- 20:36Speaker 2: Those people finally get perspective.
- 20:39Speaker 3: And that's why our government's spending $ 50 million researching it.
- 20:42Speaker 3: The state of Texas is researching it. Joe Rogan is
- 20:45Speaker 3: all over it. These are not lifelong drugs. These are
- 20:49Speaker 3: things that can deliver healing in a way that's very
- 20:53Speaker 3: difficult to even believe.
- 20:56Speaker 1: So now I've got to ask you a writer question,
- 20:58Speaker 1: writer to a writer here, is that I've been a
- 21:00Speaker 1: daily writer since July of 1994. And now I got
- 21:03Speaker 1: to ask you, because you've openly admitted that you journaled.
- 21:06Speaker 1: What are you doing with the books? Because are you
- 21:08Speaker 1: going to leave them for the family? Or are you
- 21:10Speaker 1: going to be like me? You're going to dig a
- 21:11Speaker 1: gigantic hole out in a forest and you're going to
- 21:13Speaker 1: put it right back in the earth.
- 21:18Speaker 2: TBD.
- 21:19Speaker 3: Right now, I'm in the middle of trying to share
- 21:22Speaker 3: the story with as many people, and I'm very grateful
- 21:25Speaker 3: for the opportunity to chat with you and your audience.
- 21:28Speaker 3: I've got a book event coming up this weekend at
- 21:31Speaker 3: Penn State with the College of Business and the Restorative
- 21:34Speaker 3: Justice Initiative. I'll be in Pittsburgh on Monday the 28th.
- 21:38Speaker 3: I've got events planned in Miami, in Chicago. So I'm
- 21:41Speaker 3: trying to get the word out and do the best
- 21:44Speaker 3: that I can to, to, to give life to this
- 21:47Speaker 3: book and this story. And then after a period of time,
- 21:51Speaker 3: I will let it take its own course. I did
- 21:53Speaker 3: record an audio book that will be done very soon.
- 21:56Speaker 3: It's up on Amazon and generally available. And anybody that
- 22:00Speaker 3: does want to get more information or read about it
- 22:02Speaker 3: can find me at read reckoning.com. And, uh, Again, I
- 22:08Speaker 3: really appreciate the opportunity to chat with you today.
- 22:10Speaker 1: You got to come back to this show anytime in
- 22:12Speaker 1: the future. Just come back and let's talk about writing,
- 22:15Speaker 1: about what you're doing and how we can help others
- 22:17Speaker 1: as well. Because in reality, you know, as Furtick always
- 22:20Speaker 1: tells us, it's not about us. It's about who we
- 22:23Speaker 1: are reaching through us.
- 22:26Speaker 2: Yeah, well, this has been so enjoyable.
- 22:28Speaker 3: I hope you have a great day and thank you
- 22:32Speaker 3: so much.
- 22:33Speaker 1: You be brilliant today, okay?
- 22:35Speaker 2: Okay, you too.