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Speaker 2: All right, welcome back everyone. We are here for another
Speaker 2: episode of Comeback Stories, and I'm here always with my
Speaker 2: main man, Darren Waller.
Speaker 1: How are you, brother, I'm fantastic, bro. Anytime I get
Speaker 1: taught to you, man, I'm doing great.
Speaker 2: And this guest today, I mean, we'll just get right
Speaker 2: into it. So our next guest you'll be hearing from today.
Speaker 2: Wrote for twenty seven years before he got his first
Speaker 2: novel published, and during that time he worked twenty one
Speaker 2: different jobs in eleven different states. Today he's written over
Speaker 2: like twenty books, yet his first one did not come
Speaker 2: until he was fifty five years old, and since then
Speaker 2: he's written bestsellers such as the Legend of bager Vance,
Speaker 2: which later turned into an epic movie, The War of Art,
Speaker 2: which changed my life forever, a book called Do the Work,
Speaker 2: which is like the best title ever, and so many more.
Speaker 2: And so Stephen Pressfield, welcome to the show Man.
Speaker 3: Thanks for having me, Donnie and Darren's great to be
Speaker 3: here with you guys.
Speaker 2: I guess I should also mention the book Government Cheese,
Speaker 2: which just came out, what in December, and thank you
Speaker 2: for the gift spending this yeah, newly released. So you
Speaker 2: just I'm coming.
Speaker 3: Man, Yeah, that's that one is my comeback story. We just.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I hope we get to uh well, I know
Speaker 2: we're going to get to hear about that today, so
Speaker 2: we like to dive right in. Can you tell us
Speaker 2: what it was like for you growing up.
Speaker 3: I had a real Ozzy and Harriet upbringing. You know,
Speaker 3: I grew up in the suburbs of New York if anything,
Speaker 3: you know, I went to a really good high school.
Speaker 3: My mom and dad didn't get divorced. I didn't grow
Speaker 3: up in the projects or anything like that, didn't have anything,
Speaker 3: you know, If anything, my upbringing in terms of a
Speaker 3: challenge was that it was too sheltered. That I was
Speaker 3: never really exposed to a lot of the challenges that
Speaker 3: you run into when you get to be an adult.
Speaker 3: So you know what you were saying, Donnie, about how
Speaker 3: it from the time I quitted my first job to
Speaker 3: try to write. It was like twenty seven years before
Speaker 3: I got a novel published, and that sort of I
Speaker 3: don't know if I would call that a comeback, but
Speaker 3: it was more of a kind of a journey through
Speaker 3: the wilderness, you know, like twenty seven whatever. It was
Speaker 3: twenty nine years of just kind of struggling to find
Speaker 3: who I was and what my vocation was.
Speaker 2: How would you say that?
Speaker 1: It's interesting.
Speaker 2: We just had another football player on we interviewed prior
Speaker 2: to you, Austin Eckler, who talked about his childhood and
Speaker 2: just how challenging it was and how hard he had
Speaker 2: to work for certain things and it wasn't very sheltered
Speaker 2: and it's actually shaped him into the machine that he
Speaker 2: is today. And defining the odds being so small yet
Speaker 2: you know, being able to be so successful. But how
Speaker 2: do you feel like being too sheltered impacted you in
Speaker 2: your i don't know, teenage years, your twenties. What did
Speaker 2: that look like?
Speaker 3: Well, it just sort of compelled me. Once I became
Speaker 3: an adult, my life sort of fell apart because because
Speaker 3: of not really being ready for the stuff that you
Speaker 3: were going to get. And then I kind of, uh
Speaker 3: embarked upon a sort of a journey of real life,
Speaker 3: you know, of hard knocks to uh to sort of
Speaker 3: get back to a place where I felt like I
Speaker 3: had my feet one. By the way, I'm a big
Speaker 3: fan of Austin Ekeler. I wish the Raiders would drab
Speaker 3: onto him as fast as they can. Uh. Yeah, he's
Speaker 3: an amazing guy. You know. I got to watch that
Speaker 3: episode for sure.
Speaker 2: Well, and just for some context to our listeners, Steven
Speaker 2: and his wife are massive Raiders fans. Steven's wife was
Speaker 2: on here talking with us earlier, and she's the She
Speaker 2: the president of the what was the fan club called again.
Speaker 3: Women of Raider Nation. She founded Women of Raider.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so they're they're currently grieving the loss of one
Speaker 2: of their players shot.
Speaker 3: Heartbroken shot.
Speaker 2: But yeah, so I guess just getting back on track
Speaker 2: to to your story. You talked about it, uh just
Speaker 2: being sheltered. Can you talk about just going back, uh
Speaker 2: into your childhood is as an early memory of pain
Speaker 2: or struggle that you can remember.
Speaker 3: You know, I'm probably going to disappoint you guys, and
Speaker 3: I don't my childhood I don't really have. It wasn't
Speaker 3: really that kind of upbringing, you know. If anything, I
Speaker 3: think of it as kind of an idyllic upbringing that
Speaker 3: I lived in a great little town. I had a
Speaker 3: great high school, you know, friends, every everything. If you
Speaker 3: on the surface, everything seemed seemed great. What what? What
Speaker 3: was really going on with me at the deepest level
Speaker 3: is that I was a writer. I'm born to be
Speaker 3: a writer, but I never knew it and I never
Speaker 3: could believe in it. I come from a family of
Speaker 3: business people like you know, my uncles, my dad, everybody
Speaker 3: sort of commuted to New York City or business people
Speaker 3: like that were There were no artists in my family.
Speaker 3: There was nobody that was in a creative field. I
Speaker 3: was never exposed to that as any kind of I
Speaker 3: had no role models in that area at all. Yet
Speaker 3: that was kind of what I was. I was that
Speaker 3: kind of you know, with all the things to go
Speaker 3: with that, insecurities, the ego that goes with that, and
Speaker 3: so that was really sort of part of my struggles
Speaker 3: just to believe in what I already was, but I
Speaker 3: didn't know and couldn't really grab a hold on with
Speaker 3: any real faith. I'm sorry if I'm disappointed on a
Speaker 3: come backstory. That's what it was.
Speaker 2: Well and but you but you have one. I obviously
Speaker 2: when we get into the the to the later years
Speaker 2: of that gap of when you were writing for so long,
Speaker 2: But I think it's interesting how you had this gift,
Speaker 2: this gift of writing, but you were not able to
Speaker 2: use the gift or you weren't using the gift, which ultimately,
Speaker 2: I think is like when we talk about purpose, like
Speaker 2: our purpose in life, our purpose isn't static, it's it's dynamic,
Speaker 2: it's fluid. But what is consistent are our natural gifts
Speaker 2: and talents. And if we're not using our natural gifts
Speaker 2: and talents, ultimately we're not very happy, no matter how
Speaker 2: much money we're making or how much success we're having
Speaker 2: on the outside. So I think it's it's great to
Speaker 2: bring that up and highlight the fact that you weren't
Speaker 2: able to actually express or tap into your gift yet.
Speaker 3: Yeah. The other thing is, you know, if you're you're
Speaker 3: a natural athlete as a young person, you tap into
Speaker 3: that right away. Right, it's very clear by the time
Speaker 3: you're in fourth grade, fifty grade, or sixth grade. You know, Darren,
Speaker 3: I'm sure that was true for you, that people scouts
Speaker 3: were looking at you and everybody in the family a
Speaker 3: lot of times. You when you're a natural athlete, brothers,
Speaker 3: big brothers, big sisters, whatever, your dad or whatever, who
Speaker 3: are also so early on you sort of know that.
Speaker 3: But if you're in the arts or particularly a writer,
Speaker 3: you don't really come into your own. You've got like
Speaker 3: a twenty year apprenticeship ahead of you, right, You got
Speaker 3: to learn a lot of stuff, and not just the
Speaker 3: skill of the craft, but what I would call the
Speaker 3: soft skills, like how do you handle rejection, how do
Speaker 3: you handle loneliness, how do you handle the indifference with people?
Speaker 3: How do you handle the hospitility of people? How do
Speaker 3: you believe in yourself, particularly when you start out and
Speaker 3: you're no good, you know, you're a bum. You produce
Speaker 3: that stuff and it sucks, you know, it's it's mediocre,
Speaker 3: it's no good, and people tell you that, and so
Speaker 3: you ask yourself, what am I doing? Am I crazy?
Speaker 3: I mean, for years that was the real question I
Speaker 3: was asking myself, and my family was asking because I was,
Speaker 3: you know, a streamed from my family for years. You know,
Speaker 3: I didn't talk to my parents, didn't talk to my brother,
Speaker 3: and people sort of thought of me in my family
Speaker 3: and people who knew me growing up, like, what's wrong
Speaker 3: with this guy? What happened to him?
Speaker 1: You know?
Speaker 3: You know we you know, is he crazy? And of
Speaker 3: course I'm asking that same question. Why do I keep
Speaker 3: doing this dream? I keep writing screenplays, I keep writing books.
Speaker 3: Nobody wants them. I can't get them published. You know.
Speaker 3: I work a job. I save money for you know,
Speaker 3: two or three years. I quit the job. I go,
Speaker 3: I write a book. Nobody wants it. I work other jobs.
Speaker 3: I saved more money. I write another guy, I write
Speaker 3: another book after nobody wants it, you know, And so
Speaker 3: you're asking yourself, like I say, am I crazy? What's
Speaker 3: wrong with me? So I I it's different from being
Speaker 3: an athlete, and it's just it's a long apprenticeship It's
Speaker 3: like being a brain surgeon, except you're not in school.
Speaker 3: At least be a brain surgeon, you can say, Okay,
Speaker 3: I'm in my first medical school, I'm going somewhere. But
Speaker 3: when you're trying to be a writer and everything you
Speaker 3: do is getting rejected, you don't have anything to hang
Speaker 3: on to at all. But that again, I think I'm
Speaker 3: probably blathering on here, but I think in a way
Speaker 3: that was great training for me and a great grounding
Speaker 3: for me, because when you when you living with failure
Speaker 3: so long, for me, you know, twenty plus years, twenty
Speaker 3: seven years, you have to kind of ask yourself, why
Speaker 3: am I doing it? You know, am I doing it
Speaker 3: for money? Because if if that's the reason, I'm really wrong?
Speaker 3: Am I doing it? You know? For women? Am I
Speaker 3: doing it because you know what? Am I doing it?
Speaker 3: And I eventually you have to answer the only answer
Speaker 3: to me is that you can't. You're doing it for
Speaker 3: the work it's done, you know. For me, the way
Speaker 3: it translated was if I had another job. Let's say
Speaker 3: I worked at an ad agency, which I did. You know,
Speaker 3: it's a writer for an ant age. At the end
Speaker 3: of the day I would come home, I'd be so
Speaker 3: depressed that I just thought, I can't keep going like this.
Speaker 3: The only thing that would save me was to try
Speaker 3: to write a story, write a novel, write something like that,
Speaker 3: even though nobody wanted so. The answer for me was,
Speaker 3: I'm I'm a writer and I'm talking with it. I'm
Speaker 3: going to do it no matter come hell or high water,
Speaker 3: even though nobody is going to be any positive feed
Speaker 3: And that, in a kind of a strange way, is
Speaker 3: a really great ground for you, because at least your
Speaker 3: feet are on the ground. You say, I don't give
Speaker 3: a shit, I'm doing this, I'm in it all the way.
Speaker 3: But it took a lot of years to get to
Speaker 3: that place.
Speaker 2: It sounds like you eventually had to detach from the
Speaker 2: outcome of definitely where those where those books were going
Speaker 2: to go, and just fall in love with the process,
Speaker 2: knowing that it was the process that was actually giving
Speaker 2: you the healing and the fulfillment where you were actually
Speaker 2: using it. Maybe early on, I think that's any time.
Speaker 2: I think the most important time of setting a goal,
Speaker 2: or the most important part of setting a goal, is
Speaker 2: detaching from the outcome because we don't have control over that,
Speaker 2: and sometimes we get so attached and then we forget
Speaker 2: as to why we're even doing it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's really true, and I think it must be true, Daron.
Speaker 3: It must be doing sports too. I mean, at some
Speaker 3: point you have to ask yourself it's love of the game, right,
Speaker 3: you know, because you're not going to be in the
Speaker 3: super Bowl every year you're not, you know, you're going
Speaker 3: to get hurt all kinds of you know, I would
Speaker 3: imagine that you come back to just love of the game, right,
Speaker 3: and love of your brothers that you're that you're fighting alongside.
Speaker 3: But if I can throw something else in here, I'm
Speaker 3: thinking of people who are listening here. The other aspect
Speaker 3: of being in the creative arts, of being a writer,
Speaker 3: being any kind of an artist, is that you have
Speaker 3: to ask yourself where do ideas come from? And you
Speaker 3: realize very soon you're a songwriter for you whatever it is,
Speaker 3: that the stuff that you're producing is coming from someplace else.
Speaker 3: You know, there's a whole other dimension of reality that
Speaker 3: you have to sort of tap into and I have
Speaker 3: found and so that makes you kind of humble in
Speaker 3: a way. You know, it makes you, It makes it
Speaker 3: This is like the spiritual side of it. You know
Speaker 3: that you can't have an ego, because if you're really honest,
Speaker 3: you know that the stuff that's coming out of you
Speaker 3: is coming from some other place. And I've found that
Speaker 3: that the books that I wrote that had the most success,
Speaker 3: like The Legend of Bag or Each the Fire. I
Speaker 3: don't know if you know that book about the three
Speaker 3: hundred spart Mornopoly, but those were two books that when first,
Speaker 3: first of all, I had no idea where they were
Speaker 3: coming from. It wasn't that I planned them or I thought, oh,
Speaker 3: this is a great idea, you know, not at all.
Speaker 3: They sort of rupped me completely by surprise. They sort
Speaker 3: of seized me so that I had no choice except
Speaker 3: to write them. And while I was writing them, if
Speaker 3: I thought to myself, I asked myself, are these commercial?
Speaker 3: Are they going to sell? I would say to myself,
Speaker 3: absolutely not. These are the dumbest idea is commercial wise?
Speaker 3: That I can imagine a golf story that's sort of mystical,
Speaker 3: or then a story about a battle that took place,
Speaker 3: you know, twenty five hundred years ago that nobody can
Speaker 3: spell or pronounce, and no Americans are involved with them.
Speaker 3: And those turned out to be the best and coming
Speaker 3: out of nowhere and asking myself what do I know
Speaker 3: about it? I don't know anything about this sort of stuff.
Speaker 3: I'm just just, you know, opening up the can and
Speaker 3: waging it. So that's another aspect that doesn't come to
Speaker 3: fruition until many years in the process. You know, Like
Speaker 3: I say, I was in my fifties before I felt
Speaker 3: like my feet were really on the ground.
Speaker 1: I can really speak to that as well. I'm a creator.
Speaker 1: I make music, I produce, I record myself. So I'm
Speaker 1: on that journey and I think the same way.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 1: I heard if you know who Pharrell is, but I
Speaker 1: heard him in an interview. He's talking about how ideas
Speaker 1: are He's like, the universe is like a library and
Speaker 1: that if you're tapped in to a particular mode, particular
Speaker 1: space spiritually, like you can check out certain ideas from
Speaker 1: that library. And I feel like I'm the same way anytime,
Speaker 1: anytime I've ever tried to make a song happen or
Speaker 1: you know, force lyrics onto a page like it doesn't work.
Speaker 1: But I, like you said, where these ideas come from?
Speaker 1: I ask myself the same thing, because they'll hit me
Speaker 1: out of nowhere, they'll hit me in a car, they'll
Speaker 1: hit me in three in the morning. They'll hit me
Speaker 1: in times and then they'll just start to flow out,
Speaker 1: and it's like, this isn't all me. I'm almost just
Speaker 1: like a channel here. So it's like I definitely relate
Speaker 1: to that, and I'm sure a lot of artists do
Speaker 1: as well. And I'm interested to dive more into your
Speaker 1: journey because me talk about not having your first novel
Speaker 1: published to your fifty five and not only does I
Speaker 1: take an extreme amount of endurance, I feel like, but
Speaker 1: also can you talk to us about what the battles
Speaker 1: were like with self doubt, with potentially like different forms
Speaker 1: of self sabotage. I know, I'm I've been a master
Speaker 1: of self sabotage myself. Like, what are some of the
Speaker 1: battles that you were facing internally along this journey.
Speaker 3: Ah, that's a great question. You know. In my book
Speaker 3: The War of Art that you mentioned, Donnie, which is
Speaker 3: really about the creative process, I give a name to
Speaker 3: to this force that I call resistance with a capital R.
Speaker 3: And resistance to me is you're a writer and you
Speaker 3: sit down in front of one of these things, you
Speaker 3: can feel this force radiating off of the screen or
Speaker 3: the keyboard and it's trying to stop you from doing
Speaker 3: your thing right. And and the form it takes is
Speaker 3: a voice in your head, and you think it's yourself
Speaker 3: thinking these thoughts, but it's really not. It's really this
Speaker 3: negative thing. And the thoughts that it puts in your
Speaker 3: head are you're no good, you have no tenants. The
Speaker 3: idea that you have right now is worthless. It's been
Speaker 3: done one hundred times before, better than you'll ever do it.
Speaker 3: Who do you think you are? You have too much education,
Speaker 3: not enough education, You're too old, you're too young, you're
Speaker 3: too fat, you're too thin, you're the wrong race, you're
Speaker 3: the wrong sex. Whatever. It'll tell you all that. The
Speaker 3: other thing it'll do is it will try to distract you.
Speaker 3: And this is where addictions and stuff come in. Right,
Speaker 3: It'll say, let's have a drink, you know, let's light
Speaker 3: up a dobe, let's go hang out at the beach, whatever, right,
Speaker 3: trying to get you off off the track. So and
Speaker 3: one of the big things it'll do is it'll inflict
Speaker 3: you with self doubt. And I have I have a
Speaker 3: theory I believe this absolutely after all the many books
Speaker 3: I've written. Is that if you start on a project,
Speaker 3: and you don't have self doubt, something's wrong. You should
Speaker 3: have massive self doubt or something's from something's wrong, you know,
Speaker 3: because again, one of the laws of resistance for the
Speaker 3: capital R is that the bigger your idea a book,
Speaker 3: let's say, or a song or whatever, the more resistance
Speaker 3: you will feel, the more self doubt you will feel.
Speaker 3: So if you don't feel self doubt, that's a very
Speaker 3: bad sign. It shows you a little tiny idea. But
Speaker 3: if you have a big idea in a sense when
Speaker 3: I say big, I mean in the sense of it's
Speaker 3: important to the evolution of your soul, a big idea
Speaker 3: equals big resistance, big self doubt. So so there, And
Speaker 3: to answer your question, self doubt is like wakes up
Speaker 3: with me every morning to this day. It's a it's
Speaker 3: our constant battle with that and I've sort of made
Speaker 3: friends with it away. Like I say, if I don't
Speaker 3: feel it, then I worry. But yeah, so yeah, anyway,
Speaker 3: that's that's my short answer to that one.
Speaker 1: No, I'm actually very encouraged by the answer, as somebody
Speaker 1: that you know, I've been very successful in my football
Speaker 1: career and you know, I feel like i'm really you know,
Speaker 1: I'm six years into making music, five years into making beats,
Speaker 1: so I'm like really starting to find starting to find
Speaker 1: my sound. I feel like in that and uh, but
Speaker 1: the self doubt doesn't really go anywhere for long periods
Speaker 1: of time. There's times where I feel peace, times where
Speaker 1: I feel confidence, but that self doubt always finds a
Speaker 1: way to loop back around. But this, what you just
Speaker 1: said is so encouraging because it's almost like I feel
Speaker 1: a lot of opposition. I feel I feel the resistance
Speaker 1: with a lot of the ideas that I have pretty
Speaker 1: much every single one, whether it be music, whether it
Speaker 1: be where I want to take my career, where I
Speaker 1: want to be as far as service and my foundation work.
Speaker 1: So it's like, honestly, if I'm facing that opposition, I'm
Speaker 1: on the right track.
Speaker 3: Like if you are that.
Speaker 1: Resistance, I'm really doing something that's meaningful or that's going
Speaker 1: to be able to have an impact in the in
Speaker 1: its right timing. So the way that you said that
Speaker 1: in place that it's like that's very encouraging for me
Speaker 1: because I want to run from resistance usually I want
Speaker 1: to go the opposite way. I want the path of
Speaker 1: least resistance. That's just yeah, yeah, that's our default character
Speaker 1: as human beings. I feel like, have you.
Speaker 3: Guys interviewed Rick Rubin on the shil.
Speaker 1: I would love to interview Rick Rubin. That would be
Speaker 1: that would be an amazing guess.
Speaker 3: Well, you probably would be able to get him because
Speaker 3: he's got his new book. But the one thing I
Speaker 3: would you know, we all know like Rick Rubin is
Speaker 3: sort of like the godfather of hip hop, right. He's
Speaker 3: He's worked with so many bands and groups, and if
Speaker 3: you think about it, I think what he does or
Speaker 3: groups that he brings into his studios and training re
Speaker 3: law is he eases their self down. Right. He's sort
Speaker 3: of the guru. He's walking around his bare feet, with
Speaker 3: his beard and everything, and he kind of creates this
Speaker 3: sort of really safe space for them. And he says,
Speaker 3: basically I think what he said. I've never been there
Speaker 3: to watch him. I'm sure what he basically communicates to
Speaker 3: them is let it rip, baby, you know you're safe here.
Speaker 3: I don't care if you fail. Go big, go do
Speaker 3: something you think is never going to work. And it's
Speaker 3: constantly encouraging them to do that. So I think, like
Speaker 3: any of us, Darren, you and me, whatever, Donnie, we
Speaker 3: sort of have to do that for ourselves. We got
Speaker 3: to be our own Rick Ruben, you know, and tell ourselves,
Speaker 3: you know, really really go for it, you know, go
Speaker 3: for the ideas that seem like dum much ideas.
Speaker 2: Yeah, in your book The War of Art, which you know,
Speaker 2: I've had sitting in plain sight. I can't tell you
Speaker 2: for how many years it's sitting right in front of
Speaker 2: me right now. But there's so many things with the
Speaker 2: idea of resistance, And one of the things I've heard
Speaker 2: you speak on is just also the closer you are
Speaker 2: to that breakthrough, the more resistance you're going to feel,
Speaker 2: which I think was so important for me to hear,
Speaker 2: because we think we're feeling all this resistance that we're
Speaker 2: actually farther away, but it's actually that we're that much
Speaker 2: closer to the breakthrough or changing. And for me, I
Speaker 2: think it showed up as like wanting to break maybe
Speaker 2: it's generational dysfunction or you know, family dysfunction in certain ways,
Speaker 2: and like being the change and then just having opportunities,
Speaker 2: but just still feeling that resistance. But your words have
Speaker 2: really helped me understand that I'm not further away. I'm
Speaker 2: actually very close to it. So to keep leaning in.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think it's it's really true that I think
Speaker 3: of resistances. It's kind of like the devil, you know.
Speaker 3: It's like it's like the most negative force you can
Speaker 3: possibly think is as like you say, Donnie, as you
Speaker 3: get closer and closer to a break two point, resistance
Speaker 3: gets higher and higher and stronger and stronger. And it's
Speaker 3: very intelligent force. It's not just a dumb force to
Speaker 3: stop you. It'll the arguments that it will put into
Speaker 3: your head you have the voice in your head that
Speaker 3: you think is your own voice, are very subtle, very sneaky,
Speaker 3: you know. So I always tell myself that when resistance
Speaker 3: is really high is when I'm about to make a breakthrough.
Speaker 3: It sometimes because I think we get we don't get
Speaker 3: better on a path like that. It's not a smooth
Speaker 3: we get better kind of like scare steps. Right, you
Speaker 3: run into a wall and then you make a breakthrough,
Speaker 3: and you run into another wall and you know in
Speaker 3: another breakthrough. And resistance is always strongest when you're right
Speaker 3: at that stare strap where you're about to go to
Speaker 3: the next level. But it's hard to believe that you
Speaker 3: got to. You have to have that inner Rick Rubin
Speaker 3: telling you, but keep going.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Well, I wanted to ask next, were there any mantras?
Speaker 1: Were there any habits or rituals that you had that
Speaker 1: would help you, you know, each in every wall that
Speaker 1: you would hit to keep going? Like, were there anything
Speaker 1: practical that somebody that's listening could take away?
Speaker 3: The only thing? Really? You know, Actually I heard Anthony
Speaker 3: Hopkins talk about this. He's another guy he could get
Speaker 3: on this show. You know, the actor that played had
Speaker 3: an elector and a million other great things, and he's
Speaker 3: kind of a really interesting guy. You know, he's not
Speaker 3: stuffed on himself at all for all of his kind
Speaker 3: of things, and he but he appears on shows every
Speaker 3: now and then. There somebody asked him that, you know,
Speaker 3: like what and what he said? I completely believe he said,
Speaker 3: just keep going, Just keep put one foot in front
Speaker 3: of the other. You know. It's like the rock when
Speaker 3: he talks about working out, you know, no matter how
Speaker 3: bad it is, he say, get into the gym, do it,
Speaker 3: do it, and then do it the next day. That's
Speaker 3: sort of the only the only thing that's ever stood
Speaker 3: by me. Like for me, I kind of I originally
Speaker 3: totally screwed up my first book that I tried to
Speaker 3: write and blew up my marriage, really hurt, my wife,
Speaker 3: ruined her life. So I was coming for years and
Speaker 3: years out of tremendous guilt and shame. So when I
Speaker 3: sort of was, I could never finish anything. I could
Speaker 3: never finish a book and sort of chicken out at
Speaker 3: the very end. So this sort of shame would all
Speaker 3: would drive me to finish something, you know, it would
Speaker 3: make me keep going. Like if I quit now, I
Speaker 3: just can't face myself. You know, I have lived myself,
Speaker 3: you know, so so I would be cracking a whip
Speaker 3: over my own, you know, back. Just keep going, keep going,
Speaker 3: keep going.
Speaker 2: Darren and I both come from the world of recovery,
Speaker 2: and we've been blessed with so many great mantras and sayings,
Speaker 2: and one of the main ones in those rooms is
Speaker 2: one day at a time, and one a similar saying
Speaker 2: is keep going. And I think that's what's allowed us
Speaker 2: to kind of be in in the process. And you know,
Speaker 2: with one or two days sober saying how am I gonna?
Speaker 2: How am I going to keep doing this? And then
Speaker 2: for that to be pounded into our heads just one
Speaker 2: day at a time, and eventually those days stack and
Speaker 2: become a really a solid foundation for the rest of
Speaker 2: our lives. So I love how you say that. I
Speaker 2: wanted to ask you, maybe backtracking a little bit, you
Speaker 2: had mentioned earlier that for a while you were estranged
Speaker 2: from your family, Like what what what caused that? Where
Speaker 2: you just on your own path? Were you resisting certain
Speaker 2: things or what was behind that.
Speaker 3: I'll give you a little bit of the long for.
Speaker 3: My first job was at an ad agency in New
Speaker 3: York City, and I was like a young kid, a
Speaker 3: junior copywriter, and I had a boss named Ed Hannibal
Speaker 3: and he wrote a novel and it was a hit. Yeah,
Speaker 3: they quit and to write to a writer. So I'm
Speaker 3: like twenty two years old, twenty three years old. I
Speaker 3: said to him, I said, well shit, I'll do that too.
Speaker 3: So I tried and it just totally flamed out, choked
Speaker 3: da da dada, and I sort of dropped out of
Speaker 3: the bottom of the middle class. I could no longer
Speaker 3: get a white college job. If I walked into a place,
Speaker 3: you know, I was a college graduate, You'm a smart guy,
Speaker 3: they could just smell defeat on me. And so I
Speaker 3: sort of fell out of the bottom and I began
Speaker 3: working the kind of jobs that your only thing you
Speaker 3: need is a pulse to get the job. Like I
Speaker 3: worked in the oil fields in Louisiana. I worked as
Speaker 3: a as a in a mental hospital, as an attendent
Speaker 3: in a mental hospital. Later I went to truck driving
Speaker 3: school and I became a truck driver, and I did
Speaker 3: all those kind of you know, dumb jobs. You know,
Speaker 3: I don't say dumb, but the jobs that And I
Speaker 3: was in other parts of the country away from my home.
Speaker 3: I was just I was ashamed of myself for screwing
Speaker 3: up my marriage, for hurrying my wife, failing to be
Speaker 3: anything to provide anything like that, and I just was
Speaker 3: ashamed before my own family. It wasn't like I could
Speaker 3: come home for Thanksgiving and say everything is cool. I thought,
Speaker 3: I can't show my face again until I I've done
Speaker 3: something you know that I can I can point to
Speaker 3: and be proud of you. On the subject of recovery,
Speaker 3: do you guys know seeing McFarland by any chance, he
Speaker 3: works with Mike Tyson. He works a lot, he's he's
Speaker 3: got a place here in ben and he's a real
Speaker 3: uh kind of uh guru to people who are who
Speaker 3: are having real struggles with addiction, even as a place
Speaker 3: where they can stay. And anyway, when I go to
Speaker 3: the same gym as he, and we said to each other,
Speaker 3: let's go have breakfast one day. So we did go
Speaker 3: to and the first thing he said to me he
Speaker 3: didn't know really anything about me, You kind of and
Speaker 3: I've I've never had any trouble with alcohol, never anything
Speaker 3: like that. He looked across the table to me and
Speaker 3: he said, are you sober? And I said, why do you?
Speaker 3: Why do you say that? And so another is the
Speaker 3: point I'm trying to make is my struggles with resistance
Speaker 3: I think are the exact same thing as struggles with addictions.
Speaker 3: Now it's self sabotaged, it's self destruction. It's the wall
Speaker 3: that's trying to stop you from being who you were
Speaker 3: born To me, so I can absolutely relate to one
Speaker 3: day at a time. That's my month for two, and
Speaker 3: the whole idea of a higher power, that's my montra two.
Speaker 2: I've also heard you talking about well another form, and
Speaker 2: I think I want to get to some of the
Speaker 2: Hopefully we can squeeze all this in on one episode.
Speaker 2: We might have to bring you back for a round
Speaker 2: two because this is there's so much to cover. But
Speaker 2: you have talked about the unknown and stepping into the unknown,
Speaker 2: and I've heard you speak on this and it's fascinating.
Speaker 2: I have a coaching exercise I do with my clients
Speaker 2: called stepping into the unknown, and I think why so
Speaker 2: many people struggle with truly stepping into the unknown is
Speaker 2: because they haven't died to the old, their old life.
Speaker 2: They're still resisting, they're wishing their life. They had this
Speaker 2: vision of their life and they're still holding on to
Speaker 2: this vision. But our our life is never what we
Speaker 2: think it's going to be. So I'm just curious, like,
Speaker 2: can you touch more on that about why people struggle
Speaker 2: to step on step into the unknown and does it
Speaker 2: have to do with so much of holding on to
Speaker 2: the life that they're living right now or wish they
Speaker 2: would have lived.
Speaker 3: Well, it's it's certainly true. I mean, I think it's
Speaker 3: probably comes from our evolutionary pasting cavement and stuff like that,
Speaker 3: where if you say to yourself, try a different way
Speaker 3: of driving, leaves some masterdons over the cliff and then
Speaker 3: we all die. So it becomes evolutionary want to say, hey,
Speaker 3: let's stick with what we know let's not go into
Speaker 3: the unknown. But certainly as as a as a songwriter,
Speaker 3: as a as an artist, as a writer or whatever,
Speaker 3: that's your stock and trade is going into the young.
Speaker 3: That's kind of the skill that you have to develop, right,
Speaker 3: what's new, and the the more unusual it is or
Speaker 3: or unexpected, it is scarier. It's scary going into the unknown, right,
Speaker 3: That's you know, all the great myths and legends are
Speaker 3: really about you know, a theseust or Odysseus or whatever
Speaker 3: going into the dark cave, right, you know, Indiana Jones.
Speaker 3: So I think it's very very natural to be afraid
Speaker 3: of the unknown. But there's a skill if you can
Speaker 3: teach it to yourself, one increment at a time, to
Speaker 3: be able to go into the unknown. That's that's that's
Speaker 3: where the good stuff is.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think it's about arriving to a place where
Speaker 1: there's a person respective shift of as opposed to I
Speaker 1: don't know what's in there. It might be scary, it
Speaker 1: might be hard to hmm, Like, I don't know what's
Speaker 1: in there, but I feel like there could be something
Speaker 1: amazing in there. There could be and I never even
Speaker 1: imagined happening on the other side of of what I
Speaker 1: may be fearing and what I may be thinking. And
Speaker 1: you know, for me, especially like with the life that
Speaker 1: I'm living now, I never thought it was possible. But
Speaker 1: the only way that I was able to do that
Speaker 1: was to go into the unknown and to wrestle with
Speaker 1: the discomfort of the unknown, wrestle with looking myself in
Speaker 1: the mirror in the unknown, because you know, I feel like, really,
Speaker 1: what's what's in the what's in the unknown, what's really
Speaker 1: out there is really just a mirror that's reflecting back
Speaker 1: into what I fear, what I'm afraid of, what I doubt.
Speaker 1: It just just revealing the lack of trust that I
Speaker 1: have in God and the lack of trust that I
Speaker 1: have in myself to be able to navigate, adapt to
Speaker 1: anything that I may face and still come out victorious,
Speaker 1: still come out with a story to tell and better
Speaker 1: because of going through it. But a lot of times
Speaker 1: we just see things as threats so easily because all
Speaker 1: we've ever done in our lives is run the opposite direction.
Speaker 1: I know that's true for me. I see opportunities as
Speaker 1: as fear, as as threats first before I see them
Speaker 1: as great opportunities. But like you said, through training through
Speaker 1: consistently seeking that discomfort, seeking to run towards as opposed
Speaker 1: to run away from. That's the only way to get there.
Speaker 1: It's the only way to develop the mental toughness like
Speaker 1: we were just talking about with Austin Eckler. It's like,
Speaker 1: there's no way to develop that toughness or that skill
Speaker 1: without going head on into what you're deathly afraid of
Speaker 1: and just to find out that that fear probably isn't
Speaker 1: even real.
Speaker 3: Yeah, let me ask you, Darren, what, like, what specifically
Speaker 3: is the thing that you're afraid of any in the music?
Speaker 3: Is it footballs? And what what specifically have you like struggled.
Speaker 1: With Yeah, I mean football wise, it was always been
Speaker 1: like being or really in anything in life is just
Speaker 1: like being a failure or being exposed as a fraud,
Speaker 1: not worthy of the life that I'm living. Like they're
Speaker 1: gonna kind of like a Scooby Doo where they pulled
Speaker 1: the mask off the villain at the end and it's
Speaker 1: just like they got him tied up and it's like
Speaker 1: there he is, Like I feel like that's what my
Speaker 1: fear tells me. Is like, you know even though that
Speaker 1: I've I've put in the work, and devoted myself in
Speaker 1: all these different crafts, all these different things. There's a
Speaker 1: fear that somebody's gonna look at me because of all
Speaker 1: the mistakes that I did, because of the way that
Speaker 1: I viewed myself when I was a kid, that I'm
Speaker 1: not worthy of this, and that the whole world will
Speaker 1: just be like pointing.
Speaker 3: At me, laughing like ha ha haha.
Speaker 1: Like that's literally a look at what the fear looks
Speaker 1: like for me. So it's you know, not wanting to
Speaker 1: fail as a football player because I know I have
Speaker 1: the these gifts and I don't want to be somebody
Speaker 1: that never saw their full potential. And then music wise,
Speaker 1: it's like, you know, I don't have the pedigree of
Speaker 1: other people, but you know, I know it's in my
Speaker 1: bloodline with my family and just the passion that I
Speaker 1: have for listening to good music and making good music,
Speaker 1: Like I don't I don't want to just fall on
Speaker 1: my face in front of the crowd. You know. That's
Speaker 1: that's still something I wrestled.
Speaker 3: Russell's getting any easier as you go along.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I feel like it gets easier. I'm not crippled
Speaker 1: by it. It's just like little little flashes little hints
Speaker 1: of it, like little suggestions of like you know, you
Speaker 1: sure you want to go do that? You don't know,
Speaker 1: like you might it might not work. It used to
Speaker 1: just be like you can't do shit and you can't
Speaker 1: do anything. Now it's more so just like little hints
Speaker 1: that flow by. And if it's just like in my mind,
Speaker 1: like if I want to if I latch onto it,
Speaker 1: I can ruminate and have that thing snowball. But if
Speaker 1: I can just see it, acknowledge it and let it
Speaker 1: flow by in my mind, it's that I can get
Speaker 1: back to what I'm doing. So it's definitely quieted down.
Speaker 1: It's it's it's gotten a little bit easier, but it's
Speaker 1: still something that I gotta wrestle with from ton of time.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's it's actually the same for me. I'm a
Speaker 3: lot older than you are, but I know that I
Speaker 3: have succeeded in the past, so I can tell myself, Okay,
Speaker 3: you can do it. But each project is still really scary,
Speaker 3: and it's still really the the unknown. It's still scary.
Speaker 3: I'm gonna show you. I'm I'm working on a new
Speaker 3: book right now. This is these are something like the
Speaker 3: bards that you work with you know, and you know
Speaker 3: I'm just doing that too, uh to uh uh tell
Speaker 3: myself everything this is okay. You know, you got to
Speaker 3: handle on it. But the only reason I'm doing it
Speaker 3: is is I have so much self doubt about it.
Speaker 3: Even at this state.
Speaker 2: Just listening to Darren talk when you asked him that
Speaker 2: question about it hasn't gotten any easier. Darren is very humbled,
Speaker 2: humbled to a fault sometimes. But I think it's gotten
Speaker 2: easier because he's done the work. Just like like your book,
Speaker 2: he's done a lot of work, a lot of I mean,
Speaker 2: he's more dedicated than most anybody I know or worked
Speaker 2: with as far as consistencies with daily habits and rituals
Speaker 2: and turning this not enough story into acts of self
Speaker 2: love every single day. So I don't think it was
Speaker 2: just something that eventually came to him. It's been It's
Speaker 2: been a direct result of him diving in and being
Speaker 2: like super super consistent on his habits, routines, and rituals.
Speaker 3: I think that's really true. Like for years I would
Speaker 3: try to say it myself, I'm a writer. I'm a
Speaker 3: really a writer. I believe it. I'm a writer, but
Speaker 3: I never believe it and it's only after you've done it,
Speaker 3: You've actually really done the work, you know, for years
Speaker 3: and years, and I'm saying to myself, God, damn it,
Speaker 3: I've got, you know, thirty five strange plays over here,
Speaker 3: I've got I am or I have done, and even
Speaker 3: then you still have self doubt. So anyway, but that's
Speaker 3: absolutely right. You got to put in the work, like
Speaker 3: Austin Eckler. That's you. Sorry, I'm out of focus here.
Speaker 3: I'm not mentally out of said drums.
Speaker 2: No, we we we hear you loud and clear, and
Speaker 2: I'm just wondering, Stephen, so we don't lose the quality
Speaker 2: of the video. Would you be open to maybe jumping
Speaker 2: on with us for for a round two? Because I
Speaker 2: feel like we might be a little short on time,
Speaker 2: and there's just so much that I.
Speaker 3: Know I want to ask you.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, maybe we can make this a two part
Speaker 2: series because I would we be doing our listeners a
Speaker 2: disservice and selfishly for Darren and I and I know,
Speaker 2: you know Darren being so creative in his music and
Speaker 2: everything else. He's I know, he's he's hyped about this conversation.
Speaker 2: So maybe we can we can, uh say to be
Speaker 2: continued on this one and have everybody jumping back for
Speaker 2: the following week.
Speaker 3: Okay, that's fine with me, And I apologize. I don't
Speaker 3: know what happened with the camera. I'm a low check.
Speaker 2: We are too, man, but but honestly, it's it's an
Speaker 2: honor and I'm I'm excited to jump back in more
Speaker 2: with you and I again, I can't tell you. I'll
Speaker 2: probably give you more acknowledgment on the end of round two,
Speaker 2: but as I look at this War of Art book
Speaker 2: and well, we'll read some some of the pages from
Speaker 2: it on the next episode and you can elaborate more
Speaker 2: on them, because it's just straight fire. If you don't
Speaker 2: have the book, go out and get it. It'll it'll
Speaker 2: change the game for you.
Speaker 3: All Right, thanks a lot, you guys. Just we'll communicate
Speaker 3: it and make a plan.
Speaker 1: Sounds good.
Speaker 3: Thank you Roman, great, Thank you
Speaker 1: Dit Dott