Whiskey, Yoga, and Creativity: David Richards on Finding Purpose

Episode Transcript
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(00:04):
Create Art Podcast InterviewDavid Richards hello friends, this
is Timothy Keemo Bryan, yourhead instigator for Create Art Podcast
where I bring my over 30 yearsof experience in the world of art

(00:25):
and education to help you tameyour inner critic and create more
than you consume. So for thisepisode, I have another wonderful
interview brought to you bythe fine folks at PodPage, where
I do have an affiliate linkthere. And I got to interview a guy

(00:46):
that, oh my gosh, he and I hadso many things in common, you won't
even believe it. His name isDavid Richards and he's a former
Marine Corps officer with 15years of service as a corporate leader
in customer experience atCisco, and a sought after executive
coach specializing inexecutive presence and transformational

(01:09):
leadership. His work hasguided senior leaders at some of
the world's largest financialand IT companies, including Fidelity,
Microsoft and Cisco, helpingthem elevate their leadership and
communication impact at thehighest levels. But his mission extends

(01:30):
far beyond the boardroom. As anumber one international bestselling
author, he helps people awakentheir divine identity and step fully
into their faith drivenpurpose. With a unique blend of biblical
wisdom, neuroscience andpractical leadership strategies,
David is here to challenge theway we think about success, faith

(01:54):
and personal transformation.Now, you may be thinking to yourself,
well, why do I need to know,you know, all this leadership stuff,
all this, you know, personaltransformation and faith and about
success? Well, we dive into alot of different topics here. A lot
of mindfulness and leadership.And I take the approach of the Taoists

(02:21):
that if you can lead yourself,then you can lead others. So I am
going to step back from themicrophone here and let that interview
roll. I know you are going toenjoy it because I got a lot out
of.
All right, everyone, thank youfor joining me here on Create Art

(02:41):
Podcast. I have the privilege.Oh my God. I'm excited to talk to
this guy. His name is DavidRichards and he's here with me tonight.
David, how's it going tonight?
Tim, it's fantastic. I'm sograteful to be here. Thank you so
much for having me on. I'mexcited to speak with you.
Awesome. Awesome. Well, I'mjust going to go right into this

(03:04):
because that's just, you know,kind of like how, how I like to do
it. Your work spans multipledisciplines. Writing, leadership,
and mindfulness. How did thesedifferent aspects of your life influence
each other creatively?
Wow, you are jumping rightinto it. I always wanted to be a

(03:27):
writer, so I grew up on comicbooks, I grew up on Star wars, and
my creative juices that was mystrong muscle in school. I was in
theater. I excelled inEnglish. I had something published
when I was in high school, andI thought that was kind of going
to be it. And I grew up in themilitary. My dad was in the Marines.

(03:50):
And that's a very differentway to grow up. You don't necessarily.
And certainly back in theStone age, in the 70s and 80s, you
didn't have the same feederpipelines into academia or pursuits.
You didn't have, like, youknow, I wasn't taking an English
proliferation course tosomehow guide me into being a journalist

(04:12):
or being a writer. So Idecided to join the Marines out of
college. And doing that, Ikind of said, okay, well, I'm going
to step away from writing.That's just a childhood dream. And
now it's time to adult forreal. And as we were talking before
we started, spent some time inSomalia in combat there with the

(04:32):
Marines, traveled the world,experienced what it was like to be
a Marine. The writing thingnever completely went away. So in
2000, I started. I was takinga psychology class at George Mason
University while I wasstationed at Quantico, Virginia.
And I just. I got inspired tostart writing poetry. And writing

(04:55):
poetry in the Marine Corps isa weird thing because Marines do
not necessarily understand howanother Marine could write poetry.
And it never really took off.But as I went a few more years into
2003, 2004, I was taking somecourses, and I kind of started to
realize I am following mydad's blueprint for life, and I don't

(05:19):
want to do that. I like.Because he did 31 years on active
duty, then he did about 10years in corporate. And I said, I
just don't want to do that.And so I decided to get out. And
it wasn't part of my plan, butthe weekend I got out, I took my
first yoga class. And I don'tknow that I could have told you what
yoga was or what a studio was.I just saw a Sports Illustrated article

(05:43):
about NFL players using yogato strengthen their core. And I thought,
well, as a Marine, I could usesome core strengthening, and if football
players can do it, I can doit. So I took my first class and
wasn't really impressed. Itook my second class a few days later.
It was a different style. AndI'm like 30 minutes into class just
drenched in sweat. And at theend of class, you just lie down in

(06:06):
what they call savasana, orcorpse pose. And it was so wild because
there was a moment ofstillness in that. And I realized
I want more. I've been lookingfor that for a long time. Like I
was. We lived for three yearsin Japan. Growing up as a kid and
being exposed to Easternculture and Eastern philosophy at
such a young age had a hugeimpact on me. So I started trying

(06:28):
to meditate when I wasprobably 13 or 14, even though I
didn't necessarily know whatit was. And when I had that moment
of stillness, I became hooked.And so nine months later, I became
a yoga instructor. I took mymilitary training and leadership
into corporate America. I wentto work for Cisco Systems, the IT
giant. And those things justkind of all wound together. And part
of it was me decoupling fromthe military and figuring out what

(06:50):
it meant to be a civilian or aveteran in the civilian world. Another
part of it was understandingthe philosophy behind yoga, which
was very different fromWestern Judeo Christian upbringing.
And I also had the revelationthat after 36 years of being in and
around the military, I wasn'tgoing to be moving every two or three

(07:13):
years anymore. Like, my lifecould suddenly become something it
had never been. And I couldstay in one place. And that was an
invitation to realize I canstart writing again. Like, I could.
I could write my book like Icould write a book. And so without
going too much further beforeyou can ask another question, that
was kind of the journey thatthose things started to come together.

(07:33):
And for me, yoga was hugebecause it kind of put me in touch
with my deeper self, if youwill. And then that became a pathway
towards writing.
That's amazing. That is. Oh,my gosh. That's amazing because I
recently, in the past year,year and a half, hooked up with a

(07:56):
guy by the name of Yogi Brian.And guy curses like a sailor, but
that's what got me intomeditation. He also does yog.
Okay.
And I haven't. Haven't crossedthat threshold yet, but talking with
you now and getting to seeyou, I'm like, maybe it's time for

(08:16):
me to go ahead and cross overto that threshold and make that happen
for myself. One thing that youwere saying earlier, and it's a thread
I want to pull on, is you weretalking a little bit about Star Wars.
Yeah.
Got to ask you, what's yourfavorite Star wars character?
Oh, man, it's gotta be Darth Vader.

(08:37):
Okay. All right.
Hands down. Hands down. Sowhen we moved to okinawa, Japan,
in 1979, and we lived therefor three years, and there was one
American television channel,it was called the Far East Network,
so it was broadcast by Aphes,or the Whatever the military version

(08:57):
of networking was. And soafter school, and we sometimes, my
best friend and I, Jason, wewould watch Japanese cartoons because
they had, like, Gundam, if youknow what that is. And, like. And
we couldn't obviouslyunderstand the language, but the
art, the cartooning wasawesome. So coming home after school,

(09:17):
we had the opportunity toeither watch General Hospital, and
we did. I know all about Lukeand Laura and the Quartermains and
that whole universe, or myfriend Jason had the Star wars on
Betamax, this is before vhs,and beat out Betamax. And so one

(09:40):
summer, we watched Star Wars45 times until we knew the entire
script. And so we would actout different parts. So I was Darth
Vader and Han Solo, and Jasonwas Luke and Obi Wan. And I don't
know what that says about mypersonality that he chose the light

(10:02):
guys and I chose the scoundreland the Sith Lord, but that's just
kind of the way it was. And sowe would just sit and watch the movie
and then we'd act the wholething out. We tried to get his sister,
who I think was six, to bePrincess Leia. She wasn't really
having it, but. But yeah. SoStar Wars, Darth Vader all the way.
Excellent. Excellent. Whythat. That's. That's five stars in.

(10:26):
In my book right there. Imean, I'm a huge, huge Darth Vader
fan. Huge Darth Vader fan.Something else I wanted to bring
up with you is this. Thiswhole mindfulness type thing. How
do you. Or how has mindfulnesschanged the way that you approach
creativity? Because, you know,when we're. When we're meditating,

(10:49):
or at least when I'mmeditating, it gets me into a zone,
but not always into a creativezone, but it gets my mind right.
And that's how I approach it.But how do you approach it?
So for me, mindfulness becamea really interesting journey in that.

(11:10):
So I told you, I got out in2006, and I started to realize I
could write. So I first needto get my legs under me in terms
of corporate situate houserelationship. And. But around 2009,
2010, I started realizing,well, let me try to really write.
Let me, like, let me write my.I wanted to be Stephen King, like

(11:32):
his work always. I just wasenthralled by his creativity and
the depth and texture of hischaracters, and I just couldn't make
it work. I'd write like 110.I'd have a great idea, and part of
it was born around. Okay, nowthat I'm in a place for an extended
period of time. I can get toknow the place and I can get to develop

(11:53):
a sense of a place withouthaving this clock inside my head
that says, I've got two yearsleft at this duty station and then
I'm going somewhere else. SoI'd get a good idea based on, you
know, I'd see a tree at apark. I'm like, oh, I could make
a story about this tree withan evil spirit in it. And I read
about 100 pages every time.And then the. It would just. The

(12:14):
story would kind of peter out,the characters would get flimsy.
The inspiration and motivationI had was lost. And I didn't have
a writing practice outside ofthis. I was just, I was working.
And then in my spare time Istarted trying to write. And I feel
like, because writing is sucha foundational thing that we learn
at a very early age and anyonecan pick up a pen and write sentences

(12:39):
on a piece of paper, youthink, well, it's just, it's natural.
Like I could just do this. Andthat was kind of the frame that I
tried to write from. So Ididn't have. I wasn't writing every
day, I wasn't journaling, Iwasn't building out that architecture.
Even though in college one ofmy professors said, writers write
at the same time. As I kind ofdeepened into yoga. And that was

(13:01):
a transition too, becausecoming out of the military, I'd been
in combat arms. The Marinesare nothing if not full of bravado
and intense in terms of theiresprit de corps. And in yoga, I'd
go to weekend retreats and,you know, men would be coming up
to hug me and I was just like,this is what civilians do. This is

(13:21):
so weird. Like, it was justthis weird thing. And after a while
I started hearing the samething from different instructors.
And they would say, you're notyour mind, you're not your body,
you're the awareness behindthose things. And those are just
vessels and vehicles toexperience the three dimensional
world. And that was curious tome because it wasn't like, again,

(13:46):
that's just not a westernidea. It certainly wasn't at that
time. So I tried to kind ofbring those things into my writing.
And it really was born out ofyoga. I'd go into yoga classes and
I'd say, your life is a movieand you're the director and where
you put your attention is thecamera and the meaning you give something

(14:08):
becomes the genre. So youcould be filming a comedy, you could
be Filming a romance, youcould be filming a tragedy, but it's
completely up to you. Or I'dsay your life is, you know, your
awareness is a lighthouse, andyour life is an ocean. And where
you place that lighthouse iswhat you get out of life. And I got

(14:33):
into quantum physics becauseof yoga, because this idea of impermanence
or intransience or thissomething other than physical reality
as a basis for orientation ofidentity was just phenomenal to me.
And I didn't understand it atfirst, and I just kept reading it.

(14:53):
And then after 11 years oftrying to write horror stories, I
read Napoleon Hill's Think andGrow Rich over the holidays, December
2016 and into January 2017.And in the first part of that book,
he says, what is the purposeof your life? And Tim, I was blown
away. That question justknocked me over. Like, my life has

(15:14):
a purpose. There's a compassthat I can orient to internally.
And in that moment, someonehad given me. For Christmas that
year, someone had given me awhiskey and yoga T shirt because
I liked scotch at the time.And I was a yoga instructor. And
I said, I'm going to write abook called Whiskey and Yoga about
helping people find theirpurpose in life. And this ties into

(15:37):
the mindfulness piece, becauseafter 11 years of trying to write
horror stories and realizing,okay, that's not it, now I'm going
to write a book about helpingpeople. The first kind of revelation
that came from that was, oh,my gosh, I have to share my life
with people. And I hadn't hadwhat I consider married and divorced
twice. Just a lot of kind ofpunts into the bleachers, if you

(16:01):
will. And I'm like, oh, mygosh, now that's what I'm going to
do. I'm going to share my messand try to turn it into a message.
And the first kind ofchallenge that I had, the conviction
that this is it. This is thebook that I'm going to actually finish.
And the first kind of piece ofmindfulness that really came into
being for me was, how do I tiewhiskey and yoga together? Because

(16:23):
besides just an ironic Tshirt, if I'm going to call the book
that, there has to besomething there. And I thought, well,
you know, they both tell thestory of spirits. For whiskey, it's
the spirit, it ages in a cask.And for yoga, it's the spirit inside
of us. I said, that's prettygood. And that kind of then led into

(16:45):
writing the book andrealizing, okay, let me turn my mess
into a message. Let me shareMy story in a meaningful way. And
from that, my second book wasborn, which was called the Lighthouse
Keeper, which was about mindmastery. It was really a deeper dive
into. Now that I got themonkey off my back and finally finished
publishing and published abook. Now let me really step into

(17:07):
what it means to be a writer.And that changed. My approach to
writing changed dramatically.I wasn't still journaling at the
time, but what happened when Istarted writing the Lighthouse Keeper
was I did tons of research onlighthouses. I got really immersed
in the subject so that I couldwrite from a place of authenticity.
That's awesome. That is.You're. You're already two books

(17:28):
ahead of me. I haven'tfinished my first. I've got five
novels just waiting to getfinished. So anytime I talk to somebody
that's got a novel already outor has a book already out there,
I'm just like, oh, I'm goingto cross that finish line. I'm going
to do it.
Well, absolutely you will.
Absolutely. Something I wantto ask you about is that being in

(17:51):
the Marines, were there anylessons that you learned in the Marines
that influence your writingpractice or your artistic practice?
Anything? Because I thinkwe've all heard, you know, writing
is. Is disciplined. And when Ithink of Marine, I think of somebody
that's very disciplined. WhenI think Air Force guy, I think of

(18:12):
me. So it's not disciplined.
Yeah, I think it was just. Sowhen I started writing poetry again,
I had just become a companycommander at Quantico, and I. I was.
The psychology class I wastaking was a master's level program,
and there just been the womanin this class who told a really beautiful

(18:32):
story, and it inspired me towrite, start writing poetry. And
it was awesome because I wasjust like. And I mean, I was. It
was just effusive. Like, Iwould be at Jiffy Lube getting the
oil changed in my car and havean idea for a poem and grab the newspaper
and just start writing in themargins, like, oh, my God. And it
was cool because it was thisspark that I had denied for, at that

(18:55):
point, 12 years or so, becauseI felt like, well, that's not what
Marines do. What changed orwhat I incorporated. I think the
lessons I incorporated wasit's about resourcefulness. And after
11 years of trying and failingto finish a horror manuscript, suddenly
switching GE and writing apersonal development book was a huge

(19:19):
shift, and it got the jobdone. So I feel like one of the.
I was blessed to take twomaster's programs while I was in
the Marines. And one of thosewas actually focused on becoming
a master at planningcampaigns, like a master in the art
of war. So we spent anunbelievable year going to battlefields
in different countries,learning from Supreme Court justices,

(19:42):
PhDs. We studied Clausewitz,we studied all these things. And
I feel like I didn't really doit for. I mean, whiskey and yoga
was just such a. Can I getthis monkey off my back? Instead
of focusing on, can I write abook that's going to help people?
It was more about, can Ifinish a manuscript? When I did,

(20:02):
and the monkey got off myback, and the book did really reasonably
well, I know it helped people.Then it was kind of like, wow. But
also at the same time,someone's like, well, how are you
going to help people? And Ithought, well, that's a good question.
I don't really know. I haven'tthought about that. So I started
writing the Lighthouse Keeper.And in that, I feel like that's where
my discipline kicked in,because it was like, to make this

(20:22):
authentic, even though Ididn't spend time in lighthouses,
I researched how they werebuilt. I researched kind of just
what it. I got a sense of whatit would feel like to live in one,
because that's what the maincharacter is going to do. And I would
say that the disciplinedapproach to writing really didn't
come into being until thepandemic. So the Lighthouse Keeper

(20:44):
came out in March of 2020, atthe end of the month, a few weeks
after the world had shut down.I'd already had an idea for my third
book, and then I spent twoyears journaling, trying to figure
out what that book was goingto be about during the pandemic.
And that was, for me, wherethe discipline came in. I say discipline

(21:07):
in terms of I was committed tothe writing process through journaling
because there's somethingvisceral about writing pen on paper
that you don't get when youwrite on a computer. It's just. It's
organic. And I realizedthrough that process that part of
why I had stopped writing ordiscouraged myself from writing was
because I'm a lefty, and Ialways smudge when I write, and my

(21:30):
penmanship has always lookedlike chicken scratch. And so I kind
of told myself, well, I'm notgoing to do that. I realize that
is the core of what it meansto be a writer is to be able to put
your thoughts down coherentlyand have what's up here come down
in a reasonable form onto thepage. So at the same time, there

(21:51):
was the discipline of. Ijournaled daily 2020 and 2021. But
there was also the freedom,the creativity in that. I had journals,
you know, especially becausewe're all working from home at that
point. I had journals in myoffice, I had journal. I had a journal

(22:11):
on the kitchen counter, I hada journal in the bedroom. And anytime
I had an idea while I wasworking on this next book, I would
sit, I write it down and itwas just like. And it was. There's,
you know, I think there's ascience, there's a structure to writing,
obviously, but there's alsothe artistic piece. And that's. Can

(22:32):
be chaotic. And so it's. Howdo you bridge those two? And that's
really the journey of being awriter, is how do you take the chaos
of an idea and bring structureinto it so you can bring it to life
and share it with otherpeople? And that to me is the blending.
So I think that probably thediscipline was just persistency and

(22:54):
persistent and learning whatit means to become a writer. And
I mean, I journaled between2020 and the end of 2021. I probably
journaled a thousand pages ofcontent just trying to figure out
how I was going to tell thisnext story and trying to figure out
what the title was. Becausefor me, the title is the first outline,

(23:14):
the book's first outline. Soonce I have the title, then I have
an idea of what it's going to be.
Oh, absolutely. I'm there withyou 100%. Because anytime I'm writing
a poem or even the threenovels that I have that I haven't
completed, or the five I haveso many I haven't completed, I have
to start with the title. And Ialways go back to the title and is
it. Is the story relating tothe title somehow? And that's kind

(23:42):
of my North Star with mywriting. So that is awesome.
Absolutely. And I wentthrough, I mean, in writing my third
book, I probably went through200 titles. And it was sometimes
one would. I get it. Oh myGod, this is it. Yes. And then like
six hours later, like, no,that's not it. And. But it's wild

(24:03):
too, because you realizethat's the process. That is part
of the process. And I'm a hugefan of Dr. Jordan Peterson, if you
know his work. And he wasactually here in Durham, North Carolina
last week. So I went with afriend of mine and in his latest
book, which came out lastNovember, he talks about you kind

(24:25):
of have to let some ideas die.And that's what the Journey of a
Good title is. Like you haveto. It's Edison inventing the light
bulb. He went through 7,000different substances trying to figure
out what was going to be thesubstance before he settled on bamboo
that created the first lightbulb. But you have to go down that

(24:45):
process. There's thediscipline to that too, is let me
honor this title and see if itsticks. And if it only lasts a couple
hours, okay, no loss. If itlasts a couple weeks, that's painful
because it's like, I've gonedown, I've invested in this, I'm
taking my journey down thispath. And you realize it's a rabbit

(25:07):
hole. This isn't the rabblehole. I gotta go all the way back
to the start and start overagain. And there can be a frustration
from that. But that's also, Imean, that's the process, that's
the growth of it. And that inand of itself is part of the journey
to discovering and reallymaking anything worthwhile. If it
were easy, the journey isn'tas rewarding as when you have to.
Like, if you told me I wasgoing to spend two years just trying

(25:28):
to come up with a title for abook, I wouldn't have written the
book. No way. But that's howit happens.
Awesome. I'd like to shift alittle bit here and talk about leadership
and creativity because youspecialize in both of those here.
Now, for the outside person,they may think, you know, what do

(25:54):
they have to do with eachother, but how do you bring leadership
and creativity together and,you know, and in the coaching that
you do, how do you, how do youmerge those two together to, you
know, produce an even better leader?
What a great question. It's.It's a combination of science and

(26:14):
art. Right. And it's, I thinkoftentimes the science piece is often
very mechanical. Right. It'smanagement and the Marine Corps.
We used to say you manageprocesses and you lead people. And
especially whether it's firsttime managers, I've got some clients
that are first time managersor it's vice presidents or senior
directors looking to becomevice presidents. They all kind of

(26:38):
are challenged by the sameinherent reality, and that is that
the mechanics of managementare easy to figure out. You know,
I have performance metricsthat I am bound to and I have to
make sure our team meetsthose. I have performance reviews,
I do. I have just these weeklygates or monthly gates or quarterly

(27:00):
gates that I have to gothrough. And that's a very easy process
because it's structured.
Right.
The leadership piece is alittle more ambiguous because, and
I'll give you a great example.I have a first time manager who I've
been working with for a fewweeks and we did our first call and

(27:21):
she said, you know, I'm tryingto figure things out and I've want
to work with a team and I'vegot some people who I really feel
like aren't doing great. And Isaid, well, that's an opportunity
you can give them, you know,talk with them repeatedly. And if
it persists, then you get to apoint where you say, you know, I'm

(27:42):
working with you and if itdoesn't work out, we're going to
have to start documenting yourperformance. And we met for our second
call and she said, well, Itold that documenting the performance
thing to your, to the wholeteam. I was like, okay, that's not
necessarily what we talkedabout. But now you've set up this
confrontational, adversarialrelationship between the team and

(28:02):
so now you get to figure outhow to diffuse that. The creative
part of leadership is it'spsychology, right? It's reading your
team, it's having a feel. It'snot the mechanics of management.
It is how do I inspire people,how do I connect with someone who
doesn't believe in themselves,or how do I connect with someone

(28:23):
who feels like the world'sagainst them or whatever the case
may be, but how do Iauthentically communicate with someone
to lift them up to appreciatetheir distinct strengths and values
and perspective of the worldand then channel that energy towards
the team's ultimate outcome orvision of what we're trying to accomplish?

(28:45):
And that is much more acreative element and creative aspect
than the structure of management.
Absolutely. And I've alwaysfelt that there's a difference between
being a leader and being amanager. You know, like you were
saying, you're managingprocess, you're leading people. And
in order to lead people, thosepeople have to be, for lack of a

(29:08):
better word, because I hatethe word inspiration or inspired.
But they have to be inspiredto follow where you're going to lead
them to read a book a longtime ago. I've got a master's in
theater education. So when yousaid theater, I'm like, oh my gosh,
I, I owe this guy some childsupport or something. We're like
brothers from a differentmother or something. But back, back

(29:31):
when I was getting my master'sdegree, I read a book called the
Art of Direction and oh, Iforget the guy's name that wrote
it. But the big thing that Igot out of it Was in order to direct
actors, you know, you're,you're going to think that you're
going to help them, think thatthey're directing themselves, that

(29:55):
this is coming from them.They'll, they'll be better buy in
from and outward like that. Sowhenever you say leadership, I'm
like, okay, this guy gets it.This guy gets well.
And that's such a, and that'sa, that is such a critical point
to hit on, right? It's onething. That's what I tell my clients.
I said, I'm not going to giveyou the answer. I'm going to ask

(30:16):
you the question. So you comeup with the answer. Because if I
empower you, and I think Iunderstand what you're saying, with
inspire, it's more influence.But if I empower you or I show you,
well, how do you think youcould have done this better and you
come up with a solution, thenyou own that. And it's not ownership,
just from accountabilitystandpoint that if you get it wrong,

(30:36):
I get to hold you accountableand punish you in some punitive way.
It's you, you figured it out.You have this perspective of something
that either didn't work out oryou need to improve on. And if I
can make you own the solutionfor that, you're seeing it from your
perspective. If I tell youthis is what I need you to do, you

(30:58):
might do it because of the. Imean, and that's what I think you
hit on another great point.And that's in the military. That's
very easy to do. I got thisstuff on my collar. You get this
done, end of story. Doesn'twork in civilian life, doesn't work
in corporate America, and youdon't want it to. You really want

(31:18):
to say, well, how do you thinkyou could have done this differently?
What do you see that didn't gothe way it was supposed to? And when
they figure it out, they getthe solution, and that's leadership.
So I love how you said that.
Well, yeah, and it turns thelight bulb on form too, you know,
because there's going to be atime that, you know, that, you know,

(31:40):
your, your, your client orwhatever is going to be off in the
real world or, you know,whatever. And, you know, it just
the minutes that we've beentalking, I get this feeling that,
you know, you're the type ofperson that you want that light bulb
to turn on for them so thatway they can go out and do it themselves

(32:01):
instead of holding theirhands. That's something in the soon
to be veteran population thatI noticed when I worked at Fort Belvoir
as a transition coordinator.Is that, is that learned helplessness?
You know, if I write yourresume for you, okay, great, I'll
get you a federal job. Butwhat about what happens five years

(32:22):
from now when you're lookingto get another job? You don't know
how to write a resume and youcan't call up, you know, you can't
call up Tim because Tim's offdoing something else.
Right?
So, yeah, awesome.
Love that.
Awesome, man. I need, I needto write a book.
Got them. You're just therewaiting for you.
They are. Well, I've got fourself published books of poetry out

(32:47):
there, so I do have thatunderneath my belt. So I just got
to get the novels done now.You know, we, we've talked, you know,
some leadership here, we'vetalked your mindfulness and all that.
But let's talk about, intoday's fast paced world, why do
we need art? Why do we needcreativity? And can that, you know,

(33:08):
can that art, can thatcreativity help us and help us grow
ourselves and heal ourselves?
Art is so vital in today'sworld and in some ways it's really
beautiful. I remember beforethe pandemic, I was guilty of doom
scrolling. In fact, my thirdbook was going to kind of be about

(33:29):
who we are is more importantthan what we do. And yet what we
do is always shaping who weare. And part of it was born. I would
go to like Starbucks or I'd goto Chipotle and stand in line and
everybody in line had theirphone and was looking down at their
phone and I was just like,this is so amazing. And in some ways
it is amazing because you see,you know, we, since we both were

(33:53):
in Somalia at the same time,I'm guessing we might be close to
similar in age. And we grew upwhen there were three or four television
channels and that was theworld. That was your snapshot into
the world. That or thenewspaper. And so you had a very
distinct view of what theworld was because you only had abc,
CBS or NBC or PBS if you wantto watch Bob Ross paint trees or

(34:17):
the newspaper. But it wasvery, I mean those were very limited
prisms of information and thatwas your view into a greater world.
And now I think I heard acouple years ago there are 3,000
news outlets. And I mean thereare, you know, millions of YouTube
stations. There are, you know,Taylor Swift has 220 million people

(34:39):
following her on Instagram,the Rock. Dwayne Johnson has a billion
people and the world is somuch bigger. So you see the diversity.
I mean, and you see great art.I mean, you see great artistry on
Instagram. I see it all thetime. And yet the challenge is we
live in an attention economywhere everyone wants your attention.

(35:02):
Everyone is trying to. And howdoes that happen? Outrage. We get
the. You must Five things. Youmust see breaking news or this tweet.
It's all outrage becausethat's how people. Because people
realize you only have alimited amount of attention. And
now there are literallypotentially billions of resources

(35:25):
trying and vying for thatattention. When you pull back from
that and you realize why thebeauty of where we are is, there
is greater individuation. Theability to harness the individual
talent and individual identityof human being is greater, I think,

(35:45):
now than it's ever beenbecause of our shared connectivity
across the planet. The trickis you don't want to get sucked into
that. Like, you don't want tobe pulled into it. You want to contribute
to it and do so in ameaningful way. And I think that
there are. I mean, I talkedabout this earlier today with one

(36:06):
of my clients that you can goon and see videos of people doing
things that have 100,000followers or likes, and you realize
they shot this video just forthe purpose of getting likes, not
because it adds value tosomeone's life. So in some ways,
when you extract, it's likepulling yourself out of the Matrix,

(36:27):
like you're Keanu Reeves neoin the 1999 movie. And you realize
it is so beautiful how diverselife is. How do I create from that
place what is unique about methat I can share and do so in a way
that contributes to otherpeople? And the challenge in today's
society that really fosters adeeper sense of calling on the inner

(36:50):
creativity. You know, theinner artist within each of us is.
I think I saw something nowthat, you know, there are more books
than there are readers in somecases. Like, everybody. Like, I've
written books. Oh, yeah. Notin the New York Times yet. Not yet,
but that's. That's theambition. But it calls. It calls
on you to really dig insideyourself and say, what is the core

(37:15):
of my creative being and howdo I harness that? Not just for the
purpose of getting likes orfollowers, but to create my lifestyle,
to create my economy. Andbecause that's. There's a great book
that came out in, I want tosay, 1999 or maybe 2000, it was called
the Sovereign Individual. Andit was the idea that as the Internet

(37:39):
proliferates the nation stateis going to decline. And the authors.
This started happening withthe fall of the Soviet Union and
all this other stuff. But itwas the idea that you're going to
have sovereign individuals.Well, Taylor Swift, 200 trillion
million followers, the Rock, 1billion people on the planet following
a single human being. And theability to do that, to consciously

(38:00):
say we're going to follow thisindividual, that is a power. And
it's in some sense a powerthat we all have. Dwayne Johnson
created the rock. I mean, hebecame this identity through wrestling,
through all this other. TaylorSwift created this Persona. We all

(38:20):
have that ability inside ofus. The act of writing a book is
an act of creation. And it'snot just an act of creation of the
book. It's the journey of whoyou get to become to write that book.
Because that in and of itselfis a journey. Every self help book
is designed, the first personhelps is the person writing it. When

(38:42):
Stephen King published PetSematary, he was so afraid to publish
it because it was terrifying.And he wasn't going to until his
wife and the publicist said,you have to do this. And it's probably
one of his best books. Sotoday it's so incumbent upon us to
appreciate the incrediblediversity and the access we have
to the world's diversity. Andseeing all the different talents

(39:04):
out there we need to reflectback on that is really a calling
for us to dig deep within us.Not just so we're doing something
for the significance or thevisibility of it, but for creating
something of meaning and avalue. And the deeper we dig inside
of us to produce that, thegreater the products can become.

(39:25):
Absolutely. And we're giving agift to the world. Anytime we create
something like that, that's agift that did not exist in the world
before you gave, gave birth toit, created and brought it into the
world. That's.
And I'll give you a greatexample. One of my favorite bands
is the progressive metal bandTool. Yeah, and their last. So they

(39:49):
produced an album in 2019, butbefore that it was 2006, I think
was their last album. And Iremember it was like one of the things
I would check on, at least Ifelt like a weekly, certainly a monthly
basis. When is the next Toolalbum coming out?
For sure.
When's the next Tool albumcoming out? Oh my God, so frustrating.
And then finally in 2019, theice started to break and you're like,

(40:10):
oh my gosh, they're actuallygonna release new music. And it was
wild because their music isbased On Sacred Geometry. It's very
structured and the album wasawesome. But it was 13 years of building
that and working on it. And soyou realize, you know, there are
people who produce albumsevery year and get those out. And
if it's quality, that's great.The 13 years that it took for them

(40:33):
to write that album is part ofthe album. Like, to me, that. And
that's what I mean. It's stillmy favorite music to listen to them
from.
For sure. For sure. I just. Onmy nightstand right now, I'm reading
a. A book. It's like a 350page essay on John Coltrane and Miles

(40:54):
Davis in the beginning of, offree jazz. And I'm just, I'm a huge
John Coltrane fan, one of thebiggest on the east coast here. And
I was reading through it andthe last couple of years of his life,
he was cranking out albumsleft and right. And at the time,

(41:15):
people, you know, didn't quiteunderstand it.
They.
They didn't quite get it.Still today, some people don't get
it. They just think of him asthe Love supreme guy. And I'm like,
right, all this other stuffthough, last two or three years of
his life, that'll blow your mind.
Yeah.
And just to have that kind ofcreativity. But it took him 40 years

(41:37):
to get to where he could crankit out that fast. And he had to be
around the right people to doit too.
Sometimes the story of whatmakes the finished product is so
much. It adds so much to theresult. Right? It's, I mean, and
to me, that is, that's like, Iprobably could have published something

(41:59):
earlier if I hadn't been like,if I hadn't had the life I had. Oh,
I could have been a writer. Icould have been in Hollywood. Like,
that was my dream to write inHollywood. For me, like, whiskey
and yoga was appropriate interms of a breakthrough to fulfilling
a dream that I'd had my entirelife. I mean, it was certainly indicative

(42:19):
of where I was in my life. Thefact that I was practicing a spiritual
art and enjoyed a nice glassof Scotch. And yet each book since
then has been a progression.And that's, I mean, that to me is
the juice, like, taking on,you know, what's my next Moby Dick?
Like, what's the next greatthing that's going to challenge me?

(42:40):
And that in and of itselfmakes it worthwhile. And as an artist,
as any creative resource, youwant to grow and expand. Like, I
mean, another great example,and I love their music, but Motley
Crue I grew up on MotleyCruelty, and every Motley Crue album

(43:00):
sounds like Motley Crue,except one. They had one point. They
got rid of their. They got ridof Vince Neil's, the singer, and
they brought someone else in.And the album was completely different.
Like, it was. I mean, it was.There was texture and substance to
it because it was a completedeparture from girls, drugs and rock
and roll. It was. But no oneliked it because it didn't sound
like Motley Crue. And so theygot rid of that guy and they brought

(43:22):
Vince Neil back and they didanother Motley Crue album. And that's
all well and good, and yetthere's not necessarily growth in
it. It's just like, let's kindof. There is some, but it's not the
same as let's take 13 years towrite an album and every song is
in, like, seven time. Andthere's. You can hear the structure

(43:45):
and organism that goes intoit. And that's part of the. I mean,
that's part of the growth,too. So. Yeah, I appreciate that.
Now you've got me off to startlooking at jazz.
Well, I've got all the vinylright here, so, you know, I'll drive
down to Durham. I'll bring itwith me. I'll bring my, you know,
my turntable. We'll get youall hooked up.
I love it. I love it.

(44:07):
Well, you said something herethat, you know, is making me scratch
my beard and go, okay, so whatis the next Moby Dick for you? Or
is there something that youhaven't tried yet that you're, like,
you know, chomping at the bitto try this, you know, new technique,

(44:27):
this new thing of yoga. Ormaybe I'm going to try a new genre
in writing. Or maybe you'rejust going to start, you know, blowing
a saxophone and knocking usall off.
About two weeks ago, actually,about six weeks ago, someone reached
out to me and said, hey, Irepresent this gentleman. I won't

(44:48):
name his name, but he's aHollywood screenwriter, and he came
across your book, theLighthouse Keeper. And this isn't
an offer for work or anything,but he wanted to talk to you about
your book. So we met two weeksago, and this guy's been in Hollywood
for 35 or 40 years, and he's,you know, he just started. He said,

(45:10):
have you ever thought aboutturning this into a screenplay? And
I said, yeah, I did. Iactually envisioned it as a trilogy,
like I kind of had, becausethe book ends not with a cliffhanger,
but it ends with unfinishedbusiness. And then the pandemic happened
and I went in a completelydifferent life path. And so I said,

(45:33):
yeah, I mean, I can see that.He says, well, you know, you've already
got a great log line. I thinkI saw it on the sample that you provided
on Amazon, said something tothe effect that a truth once spoken,
can't be unheard. And he said,I can see that on a movie poster.
That's pretty cool. I'm like,okay, this is cool. And I'd done
prior to the pandemic, I think16, 17 and 2018, I entered the New

(45:55):
York City Screenplay WritersContest. So they had a contest every
year and they'd give you. Youwent through, I think, three or four
rounds. And the first roundwould be, you have a week to write
a 15 page screenplay. Here'sthe genre, here's the scene, here's
your main character. Go. And Ithink every year I advanced through
the first round. I think twoyears I advanced through the second

(46:20):
round once I made it to thefinals. And I think the final is
you have 24 hours to writethree pages, same thing genre, and
it's got to be a completescene kind of thing. So I was kind
of like, okay, I could seethis. So I'm still working on. So
I've got another book comingout here in May and I've committed

(46:42):
to. I want to write ascreenplay. I want to turn the Lighthouse
Keeper into a screenplaybecause I'm familiar with the structure
of a screenplay and the ideaof taking this book in particular
because it kind of was myshift into. I mean, it's a fiction
book, but it's still got amessage and theme to it. And it was

(47:04):
cool to write reallycreatively as opposed to Whiskey
and Yoga, which was me justtrying to make stories out of my
life to help people. So myplan is to write at least a preliminary
draft of a screenplay withinthe next three weeks.
Oh, nice.
Yeah, yeah, I'm excited. I'mexcited. And this, I mean, this and

(47:24):
this, this gentleman wasreally nice. He said, I can help
you with it. You know, if youwant to get to the point where you
want me to promote it toproducers, that's, you know, that's
a monetary. You're going tohire to do that. I said, okay, well,
let's let me write somethingfirst and see if I'm thinking it'll
be worthy in Hollywood andthen we'll go from there.
That's all, folks. You heardit from, from, From David's Lips

(47:47):
to God's Ear. We're gonna geta movie gone. You know, There it
is.
The Lighthouse Keeper, comingsoon to a streaming service near
you.
Absolutely. Absolutely. Well,my last question for you here, because
this has been an absolute joy.Like I said, I. I think brothers
from a different mother here,it sounds like it.

(48:07):
Think we've got some common ground.
For sure, dude, I'm tellingyou. But how do you want to have
your work remembered in thecreative community? Because, you
know, there's. There's goingto be a day where Tim's not here,
where David's not hereanymore. How do you want to be. How
do you want your work to be remembered?
You want to pour yourself.
You want.

(48:27):
You want to breathe life intoyour work. And I think that's my
own journey as a writer was areflection of that. Right. Like whiskey
and yoga was helpful. Itwasn't to me. It's not a great. It's
not a great book. Althoughthat's the book most people want

(48:48):
to pick up because it'swhiskey and Jorgen. Yeah, Whiskey.
Who doesn't like whiskey andyogurt? But it's an easy read, and
the takeaways are very simple.The Lighthouse Keeper, you have to
dig a little bit. And then mythird book, you know, I put. Without
going into too much detail onit, I put Thor into the Bible story.

(49:08):
Post, kind of post, you know,modern society. But I found a cool
connection with one of theThor movies where there's a reference
to King David. I'm like, oh,okay, let me do this. But you realize
to become. To become an artistis to devote yourself to your work
in any. In any capacity,whether it's musician, whether it's

(49:31):
singer, whether it's painter,whatever. And. And you realize when
you do that, that ideally it'sgoing to have value and meaning,
you know, that that lasts orstands the test of time.
Yeah.
You know, and that's likeNietzsche, the. The philosopher.

(49:53):
Nietzsche wasn't reallyregarded well in his time, and now
he's recognized as one of theprofound European philosophers of
the 18th or 19th century.Excuse me. So really, when. To answer
that question, I really thinkit's about when people read my work
and they can realize, my gosh,this came from someone's mind. Like,

(50:14):
this product is something thatsomeone created. And really, when
you look at all the stories,whether it's. I'm wearing an Avengers
T shirt because I'm a huge fanof Marvel, but those movies are products
from someone's mind. Those.Moby Dick is a product from Herman
Melville, Pet Sematary, is aproduct from Stephen King. That is

(50:36):
something. And that's thebeauty of writing or music or anything
is it perpetuates like itperpetuates. It just, it persists.
Once it's out there, it's outthere. I've come to realize that
the more you put yourself intoyour passion, the more people are

(50:57):
going to see that, even ifit's not immediately, you know, even
if I'm not like a New YorkTimes bestseller overnight or anything,
whatever. But when you realizethat's what the calling is, it's
not about feeding peoplepopcorn entertainment. I mean, there's
certainly genres and peoplethat do that and write book after
book after book, and they'reall bestsellers. And that's great

(51:18):
for me. It's about how, howdeep can I go within myself to produce
something that is valuable andmeaningful to the world. And that's,
and that's really. You seethat through the progression of my
books.
That's awesome to hear. That'sawesome. Here. David, it's been a
pleasure having you on here.Thank you so very much for joining

(51:39):
me here on Creator podcast.I'm going to do my usual get out
of jail free card here. Isthere a question that you wanted
me to ask or something thatyou wanted me to talk about that
we didn't talk about?
No. Tim, first, thank you somuch for having me on. It's been
a real pleasure and honor tospeak with you. I will be looking
for the first child supportpayment check since we both have

(52:04):
a history at Fort Belvoir andSomalia and Darth Vader.
And Darth Vader. And theaterand poetry.
Yeah. Oh, my gosh. Yeah.There's so much. No, I don't think
there is. I loved the range ofyour questions and like I said, it's
just been honor to speak withyou and share my message with your
audience.
Awesome. Thank you so much.

(52:25):
Thank you.
All right, that's theinterview with David Richards. He's
got a couple of books that areout there. He's got one that's on
its way that should hit us bythe time. Well, a little bit after
this episode airs. Butdefinitely check out his website
and check out what he can dofor you in leadership strategies

(52:50):
that are going to work foryourself. And definitely check out
his book, Whiskey and Yoga.That one is next on my Amazon buy
list for sure. Now, you'reprobably wondering, hey, Tim, how
do you get these wonderfulguests? Well, I use a service called
Pod Match and I have myaffiliate link in the show Note there

(53:11):
for you. But PodMatch connectspodcasters and guests together and
it's a great service. So ifyou are, you know, needing to be
on podcasts to spread yourmessage out, definitely check it
out for yourself. If you're apodcaster and you need great guests,

(53:32):
definitely check it out. I doreceive a small Commission for using
PodMatch, but I want to tellyou I always have the option of airing
these episodes or not. And I'monly going to bring you the best
of these interviews. Sodefinitely check out PodMatch for

(53:53):
yourself. If you need to haveyour what you're doing spread across
the world. If you havesomething to share with other people,
definitely check out PodMatch.Now, this is messages just for my
podcast list. My podcast folksthat the hosts that listen to this
show, I use a service calledPodcast Beacon. What that is, it's

(54:18):
a little wearable and theyhave a ton of other devices that
they're starting up likelittle key fobs and whatnot and even
business cards where you don'thave to have a regular business card
and, you know, hope it doesn'tget lost. You can pull out your wearable,
your little key fob, yourbusiness card and have people put

(54:42):
their phone over it and it'lltake them right to your website,
give them. Check them out overat Podcast Beacon. And again, my
affiliate link is in the shownotes there for you. It's the best
way to share your podcast.Now, on the personal side here, I
run another podcast calledFind a Podcast about. And that's

(55:05):
great if you want to find newand different podcasts because there's
millions of them out there. Sowhy not get a recommendation from
somebody you trust? You can goto findapodcastabout XYZ and see
all the episodes that I'vedone there, all the podcasts that
I recommend there. I'm helpingyou outsmart the algorithm and find

(55:27):
your next binge worthypodcast. And that podcast find a
podcast about. And this one isall part of the TKB Podcast Studio.
That's my personal businesswhere I help folks lead through the
noise with quietprofessionalism by helping them start
up their own podcast. Check itout@tkbpodcaststudio.com and let

(55:53):
me help you get your messageout. All right, that's all I have
for you here today. I know Ihad a great time talking with David
on this episode and all hislinks are in the show notes. So go
take a look and see what he'sdoing over in his neck of the woods.
He's doing some wonderfulthings and he's just a great guy

(56:15):
to sit and talk with. I reallyenjoyed my time with him. So thank
you David for sharing yourgenerosity with us, your knowledge
and just thank you for beingan all around awesome guy to talk
to. So if you want to be onthis show you can email me timothyreateartpodcast.com

(56:35):
love to spread the word aboutwhat's happening in your neck of
the woods. And you know, thatway you can help out everybody else
that listens to this show.That's what I'm looking to do here.
All right, I'm looking at thatclock on the wall. It's time for
me to get on with my day. Iknow you need to get on with your
day. So go out there and tamethat inner critic. Create more than

(56:57):
you consume. Go buy a book onwhiskey and yoga for the love of
God and go out there andcreate art for somebody you love.
Yourself. I'll talk with younext time.

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Whiskey, Yoga, and Creativity: David Richards on Finding Purpose

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