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December 21, 2025 4 mins
Creatively I struggle with how we can write something one day and we revisit it 8 years later. It doesn't feel like that much time as moved through us! How are we supposed to live in the present if we locked in on the events of the past? Preparation is the answer. What?
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
As a podcast listener, Where do you go to get
those stories that you can tap into on your time?
You know, having that power of choice. That's the reason
why I created a r Roe dot net arow dot
net so that you do have a power of choice.
Maybe you don't want to talk to a foody expert today,
Maybe you want to talk with an ia author the

(00:20):
power of choice. Enjoy the exploration. My boy boy, Ernie.
He is a Blue Crown conyer and for over thirty
two years he and I have overlooked this beautiful forest
right here in South Charlotte, North Carolina. I mean every day,
Ernie and I sit here in this beautiful home, overlooking
the trees, the nearby lake, and every bit the wildlife

(00:41):
that is strolling so peacefully across the land. Ernie and
I share the same vision. It's this forest. We both
look at the trees, we study the earth below. There's
something very spiritual going on here. But do you think
we can identify it? We're here to pick up on it,
but I can't figure it out. To Ernie's forest, we

(01:01):
both receive an amazing amount of positive energy. I put
all of my trust and skills as a student into
what he is willing to share with me. Remember these
are my words. These are the lyrics from Ernie's Forest,
chapter number four hundred thirty one, June eleventh, twenty twenty four,
Andrew Jackson State Park. So many memories have been pinned

(01:24):
out here during our multiple visits to the park. Now,
this particular campsite. The last time that we were at
this location was in twenty seventeen. I wrote this in
twenty twenty four, and I'm reading about it in twenty
twenty five. See, it's this kind of stuff that stunts
me as a creative person. I mean, I invest so
much energy in trying to be in the presence of

(01:46):
all things right now, Yet it took me seven years
to get back to this campsite. The two experiences have
nothing in common. When we were here in twenty seventeen,
it was about performing live music at a wedding. It
wasn't about taking the time out to enjoy Carolina's beautiful,
beautiful story. This trip into the park has been a

(02:08):
total release of energy, putting our focus on our love
for culinary arts. We are supper heroes with food presentations
that you know many of these campers, Mmm, I'm not
going to be able to relate with it because we're
doing it like Gordon Ramsey. Oh yeah, cheffing in a
forest is a true blessing. And then we share dinner

(02:30):
in what is left in the sense of it being
prepared for this moment of all things right now, when
nature becomes your kitchen, we prep several days out and
then enjoy the walk and way through all weather conditions.
Oh yeah, we've been out there when it's raining. We
still prepare our dinners just like Gordon Ramsey because that's

(02:51):
exactly what he would do. Nothing gets in the way
of preparation. So now I got to turn that around.
I don't want to talk about food anymore. I want
to talk about the preparation of your daily life, not
to sound like your father, your grandfather or somebody who's
going to sit there and preach something to you. What
are you doing to prep for your next event? Did
you even prep or are we still locked in this

(03:14):
age of just winging it? Or in radio they called
it bang it out. But if you came into my
production studio and said, hey, man, I need you to
bang out this commercial, I would look at you with
fire in my soul. But I had to speak with
angelic tones. And the reason why is because people don't
understand my side of the process of the preparation. The

(03:37):
interviews that I do for my seventeen podcasts, they don't
just happen. I start prepping for those weeks and sometimes
months in advance. You gotta land the damn thing first,
and then you allow it to start growing. And the
closer and closer you get to the day that the
conversation is going to take place, or the dinner is
going to be prepared at this particular campsite and I

(04:00):
haven't been to since twenty seventeen, you gotta prepare for
it because when it's happening, if anything goes wrong, you
knew about it before the storm hit. See that's another
fault that I have to face with my wife, and
that is don't write the story before it happens. And

(04:21):
yet you're put face to face in a situation of
if we wouldn't have written the story before it happened,
then it would have gone to hell. So many sides
of the fence, so many personalities that we all begin
to walk between. But the question is, how are you
preparing for your next event? I believe Inside my heart,

(04:45):
I'm the crazy fool. I believe that we should prepare
for all things, especially the little things. These are not
my words, these are the lyrics from Ernie's Forest
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