Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:16):
I toyed for a long time with what the final
episode of the Motivation Report would be. This title has
always been at the forefront of my mind, even long
before the pandemic in March. When I thought about the
timing of it, it didn't feel appropriate. No one, least
of all me, wanted to think about the end, and
there was a whole lot of great motivation it felt
that could come from the acknowledgment that, yes, the end
(00:38):
is just another beginning. But this has been the end
of a lot of things for a lot of people.
It has been over one hundred years since the entire
planet has been tested together so greatly. If I was
going to keep this title and make it meaningful, I
was going to have to take my time in getting there.
I had to understand myself in relation to the world
around me, and what began as a test of patience
(00:58):
has turned into an acknowledgment of truth, one that I
only could have learned by making this podcast, and one
that I am eternally grateful for. When I had initially
thought about it, me sitting down to write and record
and release the last episode of my podcast in its
current iteration, don't worry myself have plans for the future.
It had to possess finality, not the kind we think
of when death scares us or love is lost, but
(01:20):
the kind that is resolute, the kind of last words
that stick to the ribs. I've had a lot of
chapters closed in my life, some by choice and some forced.
Because of this, I've become someone who is obsessed with endings.
They needn't always be happy, but they have to pack
a punch. If I was going to end the Motivation Report,
it had to be on my terms, and it had
(01:43):
to be with words I let ferment so that like
a good cocktail, they would be potent enough to go
straight to your blood. My audience and the reach of
this podcast has always been intimate, which is a glamorous
way of saying it has been small. But over the
years I've received messages from so many of you that
always remind me why I did it, and early on
it was done with fire and passion. For over two years,
(02:05):
I never once missed my bi weekly deadline every other Monday,
the Motivation Report could be counted on to show up
in your feed. That was and still is a great
source of pride. I thought I started this podcast because
I felt there was a certain kind of absence in
the motivational speaking world. I'd become exhausted with and buy
people whose core messages could be boiled down to the
accusation that you simply don't want something enough and therefore
(02:29):
are not grinding hard enough, or that you need to
spend hundreds or thousands of dollars on tickets to a
seminar where you'd be told if you followed these steps,
you'd get well and maybe get rich quick. But I've
learned so much more about myself in producing the show
than I ever hoped to impart those lessons to others.
I've acknowledged for a very long time that all I
(02:49):
know is nothing, not literally, but that my mind, body,
and spirit must be kept eternally open in order to
receive messages from the universe and remain in a constant
state of growth and chain. What I thought I was
starting as a means of trying to help others became
something I realized now that I started as a means
of helping myself. The majority of my life has been
(03:10):
built and modeled around serving others. I believed for a
very long time that in order to be a good servant.
I always had to put others first and put myself second.
It would be interesting to listen back to these episodes
in order and hear my evolution, but that would take
too much time, and I'm too lazy. Although I feel
it in my bones and I know it's there, and
(03:31):
I know you've heard it too. This podcast has stretched
from me being what I always thought was a happily
married man to realizing how unhappy my heart was getting divorced,
going through another relationship, remaining single for a long period
of time in order to sort out the matters of
that heart, and now it finds me happy again with
a woman I very much love. When it began, I
(03:51):
had a newly adopted dog, Dave. Now Dave is gone too,
but the joyous prospect of another dog gets a little
brighter every day. Needless to say, in only a few
short years, this has been quite an adventure. I never
could quite figure out just who I was when hosting
this show. Maybe that part you never heard, but it
(04:12):
is something I've always felt. In creating something called the
Motivation Report, the theme is built into the name. If
in some capacity it is not motivating, then it fails
and betrays its premise that spells death with a capital D.
So I had to find ways to ensure, even with
the holiday extravaganzas or Superman relative dimensions, that there would
be a feel good angle to everything. I wanted you
(04:35):
to reach the end of every episode feeling inspired or
at the very least happy as a creative person. However,
it has now become something that feels like it limits me.
I am, by nature a very positive person, but I
am also interested in sharing my darkness just as much
as I am in sharing my light. Like you, I
am also complicated, and the idea that my creativity in
(04:58):
my own podcast has to be limited to to motivation
began to make me feel stifled and a little resentful.
I stopped producing the show regularly because I felt I
had nothing motivating to say. If I could not find
inspiration for myself or dig myself out of my own
individual ditches, how could I do the same for you.
As a performer and a writer, I'm always wanting to
(05:19):
share myself with an audience, but I want that self
to be unbound, not to be typecast, so to speak.
But still, the core of the show has been this
me talking at nauseum about whatever it is that moves
me to speak. When I began, I thought I was
plucking my own wisdom from the universe and giving it
to those in need. I assumed it was all an
(05:40):
act of service. What I realized is that I never
truly had a grasp on many of those things until
I spoke them into existence. Recording and imagining I was
sharing it with you is what helped me understand what
I was going through in my own life. It is
how I continue to process my emotions and feelings and
how I deal with problems by talking about In the
(06:01):
very beginning, everything was scripted. I wanted a chance to
stretch my writer's brain and fingers. Then it was asked
that I try things off the cuff. Then when I
had a deadline, I took seriously. It became very easy
to never script and always to improv because I knew
I could do it. And that's where the real therapy happened,
in connecting the dots, crossing the t's, and dotting the
eyes in real time. I also set out initially to
(06:24):
be a family friendly podcast. Then I remembered how much
I liked to drink and swear, and thought I'd be
breaking some boundaries as the motivational speaker who has a
martini in his hand and says fuck a lot. Turns
out that wheel had already been reinvented, or perhaps I
was just a small part of its larger reinvention process,
but the end result was that it was nothing new.
(06:44):
It was part of the entire machine I initially thought
I was setting out to change. None of this means
I question any of my previous messages, statements, or life
lessons learned and communicated. I don't doubt for a single
second my authenticity and my truth, and I'm glad it
is saved here as a strange audible journal episodes I
(07:04):
can go back to and listen and learn from the
trials and tribulations of my former self. Because we are
never truly going to have it all figured out, and sometimes,
despite making leaps and bounds of progress, we can often
end up right back where we started. And that's okay,
because life is not always about sticking the landing. It's
about sticking to your principles and never giving up. As
(07:27):
I've often said and will always be true, world peace
is impossible, but never surrendering in the fight for world
peace is where we find victory. Never giving up in
my process to discovering myself, my authenticity and my voice
is my victory. It may be a job that in
the end is well done, but it is work that,
(07:47):
so long as I am still alive, is never over.
When we consider the end, we tend to think about
it in terms of darkness more often than we think
about it being associated with light. And when you're in
the dark, it's hard to find your way around. But
imagine a pitch black room. Now imagine one single candle
(08:08):
in that darkness. Still there is proportionately far more darkness
than there is light. But the light, once it is lit,
cannot be denied. It cannot be unseen, and it cannot
be ignored, and it illuminates so much more than you
thought a single flame could. Now you can get your bearings. Now,
despite not having a crystal clear picture, You can start
(08:30):
to move around and put the pieces of the world
back together in your mind. When life feels impossible, if
you are merely willing to look for a little light,
I promise you will find it, and when you do,
there will be no turning back. A little light really
does go a long way. I have been in many
(08:51):
dark rooms in my almost thirty three years on this planet.
I've lost a lot of people. I've cared about and
wondered many times how I would find my way around
and out of that darkness. And even when it has
seemed impossible, something always sparks inside me and reminds me
that despite that disproportionate amount of pitch blackness, the light
has been living in me the entire time. I merely
(09:11):
had to let it out. In my time creating and
producing this show, I have been searching for light. As
it turns out, I have been that very light all along.
It is up to me to light up dark rooms,
but those rooms must be my own. I endeavor to
help and love and encourage as many as best I can.
(09:32):
But I have learned, truly and finally, that I cannot
effectively help others if I cannot help myself. I have
learned to be selfish, and it feels great. I believe
for so long that selfishness was categorized as only one thing,
that its very negative implications mean if I allowed myself
to succumb to it, I would become just like the
(09:54):
very people I opposed. But it isn't true. Just like
the ego, selfishness can be overinflated, sometimes too big and burst.
But a healthy amount of ego is what picks me
up when I fall, and healthy amount of selfishness is
what reminds me that I am allowed to live my
life for me, not for anyone else as an audience.
(10:16):
For a very long time, I wanted to make my
life about you, and for you. I stood to become
a distant caretaker and problem SOLVERR. But the weight of
solving the world's problems before I could solve my own
became one I could not nor could anyone on the
planet bear. And even here I see the change in
my word choice as I write, I can hear the
(10:38):
change in those words when I speak. The majority of
all my episodes of this show has been about you,
and I put that word in heavy quotes because when
I'd get a fire lit under me and feel worked
up and raise my voice and try to be mister motivation,
I would always say you, you want to consider things
this way, or you need to make the change. And now,
(10:58):
upon a lot of reflection, in the end, it turns
out I had meant to say I or me all
this time, and the irony is that I record alone
in my apartment. I've been talking to myself. I thought
I was starting a motivational podcast to help you, but
I've realized that I started it to help me and
(11:20):
the lessons I have learned along the way. I wouldn't
trade for anything in the world, not ever. I see
now that years ago I was at a place in
my life where I needed some one like me. Now
I channeled the me I could be, the me I
was becoming, and gave myself the tools to bring him
to life, much as an artist and visions of painting
(11:40):
before they set to bring it to life. I knew
who I wanted to be. Paradoxically, I had to help
myself get there. It's weirdly back to the future in
a way, but remember human beings are the most wonderful contradictions, because,
as you will also come to learn, if you are
dedicated to the work of growth and change, no one
can help you but yourself. You need you more than
(12:04):
anyone else on earth. I was looking for the light,
but I was looking outside myself. When I looked inward,
I found it Where we often find our keys, in
the most obvious place, it is easy to fall into
should as a way of advising people. You should do
this or you should do that. But as my therapist
(12:26):
likes to say and remind me, don't should on me.
The journey of the self can only be taken by
that individual, and the path to progress an understanding can
only be paved with life lessons many others referred to
as mistakes. But remember, you are not perfect, and you
never will be perfect. You will never be completely fulfilled,
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you will never be as productive as you'd like to be,
you will never be as happy as you imagine. Because
if you were even one of those things, what would
be the purpose to living life? Without the ability to
strive towards something greater, you would cease to be interesting.
And now that you know you don't have to be perfect,
you can be good. The first John Steinbeck novel I
(13:08):
ever read was East to Be Eaten. My friend Jackie
recommended it to me my junior year of college. I
was immediately intimidated by its length. I'm a slow reader
because I try to digest as much as possible. I
never understood the idea of speed reading because retention always
seemed important to me. What's the point of reading a
book or watching a show, or living a life just
to speed along to the end. If a book cannot
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be properly read, a life cannot be properly lived. At
least that's always been my train of thought. But I
was immediately enamored of the book and could not put
it down, and it raised a very important question as
I sought to understand my religion more fully, and myself
at the time, especially my place in that belief system
and in the world. When Cain kills Abel and God
casts him out, he tells him thou shalt triumph over sin,
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But in the original Hebrew meaning, the verb is less resolute.
The word timshell is more accurately translated to thou mayest
triumph over sin, which means if thou mayest, thou also
mayest not. God is not commanding us. God is not
telling us what to do. God is giving us the
gift of choice free will. Despite my beliefs changing over
(14:18):
the years, I have never forgotten that life changing lesson
and never will. Not only did Steinbeck for ever change
my life in that moment, the pressure I put on
myself finally cracked a little bit, and it has taken
twelve years and will likely take the rest of my
life to shed the shell that my influences have enclosed
me in. But each day I become a little more free.
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Each time I make a choice, I become a bit
more unbound, and I will spend the rest of my
time on this earth making choices, reveling in the freedom
of my will to understand who I am, truly down
to the bedrock of my soul. These days, when it
seems everything has gone to hell and nothing is certain
but misery, I started to think a lot more about
life as a collection, mostly a collection of books. For
(15:02):
a long time, I used to collect a lot of things, comics, movies,
action figures, cards, books, But when my mother died in
a little time past, I began to realize that the
unthinkable can often make something like a collection seem inconsequential.
We store terabytes of data on drives, assuming everything on
them is precious. We hoard and refuse to give up
(15:23):
things because we believe one day, every little bit of
our collection will finally serve its purpose, every minute decision
we make will finally pay off. But the truth is
life is unexpected. We are living currently to the nth
degree of just how true that is. Life cannot and
will not wait for you to catch up, and it
(15:44):
does not make space for you. Rather, you must find
your space in it. As too many continue to suffer,
as debts begin to mount and lives are lost, it
becomes apparent of what is truly valuable in life. And
it is not the collections. If you went out to
buy groceries and your house burned down, what would you
(16:04):
truly realize was missing? What would you honestly feel lost without?
I guarantee it isn't the prizes, or the collections or
the things. It is the people and the places, the
seasons and the faces, the memories you hold inside that
cannot be taken from you. Many times we collect in
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order to impress others. If others are impressed, then we
will feel we have value. But you must have value
first in order to impress someone else. My collection of books,
for instance, is small. It is books I've read and loved,
and it might not be big or impressive, but I've
read each book intently and with purpose, and from them
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I have extracted the lessons I needed to learn, taken
from them the tools I needed to continue to construct
myself in the truest fashion. That collection is perhaps not
as odd inspiring as others. I may not have as
many cars, or houses or things. I have less money
than most, but what I do have, I know with
absolute certainty is my own. I have fought and paid
(17:08):
for it all with my own blood, sweat, and tears,
and not even death can part me from my accomplishments.
But things I cannot take with me, and all I
am interested in leaving behind are the lessons that I've learned.
I am healthy in that I am already a man
of incredible fortune. To have the individual blessings I do
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can easily be argued that I possess more than most
in this world. I am grateful for what I do
have each day, and want only for the things that
will bring me greater learning, independence from the influence of others,
and by that extension, authenticity. As my life continues, I
want only to become more of myself, fully realized, because
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I also live in tomorrow. I have managed to see
the self I know I can be, and give myself
the wisdom to guide me there. I sought light in
the darkness and found it within. And although I set
out to help others along the way, I learned to
help myself. For that and for you as listeners, I
(18:12):
will be eternally grateful. You may not have known it,
but because of you, because of the very process of
doing this podcast thinking it was for you, you helped
me find myself. I'm not dying, even though I structured
this a bit like a creative obituary. But this podcast
(18:33):
has been important to me. I hope in some small
way it has been the same for you. That being said,
I do love a good ending, and it is time
to say goodbye. But the pressure for that ending to
be perfect is too great. So all I can do
is what I've always done, be myself and speak from
(18:54):
the heart. I'm not interested in this episode being about
the pandemic. For once, I have made it about me,
but I do so as a reminder to encourage you
to do the same. There's nothing for me, no words
or lessons or tools that you can take to fight
the insurmountable odds we all face now. So rather than
(19:15):
try to find some emotional silver lining to this seemingly
everlasting dark cloud, I'd rather leave you and leave the
motivation report with only a few small words of encouragement,
water them, and tend to them as you will. Just
as we have witnessed in the world around us. Life
will continue, we will endure, but that road to understanding
(19:39):
must inherently be paved with our hardships. So remember, do
not be afraid. Most of all, do not be afraid
of yourself. Do not fear your potential. Look to who
you can be with patience and gratitude. Go easy on yourself,
(20:01):
Love yourself and love others. Do not hate, do not quit,
and do not go gentle into that good mouth. Fight
for you now and forever. Whoever you are determined to
become will decide how that battle is won. Because life
is not a having and a wanting, rather a being
(20:24):
and a becoming. Do not give up on that future,
on your future, on our future, and do not surrender
in the pursuit of your own happiness, because so long
as you're still breathing, each end is just another beginning.
Today is another chance, and tomorrow you never know, you
(20:51):
just might be someone great. This has been the motivation
report from the bottom of my heart. Thank you for listening.
Where this new beginning takes me. I'm not yet sure,
but I can promise you one thing you haven't heard,
the last of me. With love will