Gathered Leaves

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It occurred to me.  I've been a daily writer of three pages or more for twenty five years.  Everyday!  4:30 am.  A lot of giving trees have been used to keep these pages locked in forward emotion.  Each page is a leaf.  I say that because during so many conversations with published authors we take the time to laugh about how the words we find on paper really aren't ours.  It came from the trees.  Writers are brought in to scratch the blizzard white off the canvas.  A great friend asked mentioned to me yesterday how much he liked listening to the beginning and end of The Choice podcast.  It's when I read from the daily writing he doesn't care for.   I get it.  Even I sit there trying to figure out what the man holding the writing instrument is trying to bring forward.  That's what makes it fun!  If we always knew what we were thinking and talking about life would be boring.  Daily writing isn't penning out a love letter or jotting down poetry.  It's about whatever!  It's how the universe is moving through you at that very second.  Stream thinking.  It doesn't have to make sense.  The best part is nobody has to understand it.  Being an artist and trusting your artist self means making yourself always available to participate with something you weren't a part of until you stepped outward and joined the amazing energy around you.  On this podcast the subject is storms.  We'll spend weeks watching hurricanes slowly pacing across the face of the ocean but never find reason to pay close attention to our own storms until they hit.  Learning how to identify the first breath of wind that creates your storm.  How to keep your storm off shore.  What did you learn from this storm that will keep you stronger the next storm?  Just a thought that fell from a giving tree.  Like a leaf.  Daily writing.

Progress And Process

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You do know that progress can't happen without process. Right? I hate Google. It's taught everybody to quit trying. We leap onto the search engine and let it work for us. Now there's Google Assistant. My neighbor is constantly telling the app to turn on the lights, lower the volume on the TV and play a different song. Progress and process. They're like an old married couple that bicker at each other and the world looks at it thinking there's gonna be a knock down battle for the heavy weight championship. But in the end they work it out. They see eye to eye. They realize how important a little friction is inside a continuation. I'm a Podcaster. Been doing it since 2012. I think it's destroying a lot of broadcasting careers. Fewer and fewer people are reaching for the TV and Radio towers. I hear it from them, "I don't need it. I'm gonna make it in podcasting." I don't fight them. Good! Go for it! Progress and process means you need direction. Leaders that have the courage to say, "You suck. Try it this way." That stuff shapes you. No matter what business you're in being a real leader can't be handed to you. I'm a 3rd degree black belt. People think those three stripes on that dark belt are my greatest achievement. Not even close. Progress and process. My biggest and most memorable part of the journey sits in the closest. My uniform worn on the day I dropped my block and an opponent planted his foot in my face. Blood everywhere. I've never washed the uniform. Progress and process. Passion doesn't kick into action until you have failed not once but a hundred times. Drive is mastered by the willingness to endlessly stick your neck out there and get your head chopped off. I've been blessed to talk with a lot of people of fame that were labeled overnight sensations. In our conversation they calmly said, "If people only knew the real story." Progress and process.

The Lyrics From Billy's Forest Chapter 173

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There are multiple things they don't prepare us for in high school or college.  One of them being the physical act of watching your parents fade.  Making it even more difficult is being two thousand miles from the soil that raised your ambitions and dreams.  Therefore you rely on family members to help bring peace to all that is changing.  I find it difficult to locate the right words to say.  I'm a writer.  It should could easy right?  Through several layers and painful failures I've learned the goal everyday is to do nothing more than make room for my sister the caretaker,  To listen.  Make no decisions to correct and or attempt to help lead.  Just listen.  She doesn't want to hear about God.  Wants nothing to do with the valley floors shaped everyday on my journey.  The mission is to just listen.  Having patience with those who are taking care of those fading.  On this podcast we talk about her side while attempting to explain this side.  Care Givers are angels.  They've answered the command and calling.  Then the higher source of energy says, "Your part in this process of fading is to be the structure that holds up those face first in the struggle.  You'll hear things and experience emotions that have never been laid out before.  Just be there.  Let them know they've got support.  No matter what time of day the phone rings or the text message chimes.  That's your part in the fade."  The circle of life and all it's chapters.  Don't fight the journey.  Listen...

Free Form Thinking

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I've stood on many live stages. Lectured in front of several thousand. Been in that place where being on your feet is the expectation. Especially when it comes to being on the radio. Free Form thinking has always been part of the adventure. Some call it adlib or improv. Even with those you go into a project or idea with something somewhat prepared. Free Form thinking is right now in the moment. Ten seconds ago you were sipping on coffee and now you're writing or talking about subjects that honestly have nothing to do with anything you do. It's a fun exercise done daily. Make up story lines on the spot. If there's a pause for thought? Ten point deduction. On this podcast I talk about how we all put ourselves on this thinking path and countless times we hit walls that paint a completely different image. From being put on the spot in business meetings to hanging out with friends and family. When the ball is handed to you or you leap into a conversation because the feeling seems right then boom biff pow you're down and out. A lot of podcaster's choose this route. It makes it more about the moment. Real, vibrating and unexpected. In the end the goal is to get a reaction and or just accepted. I Free Form my daily writing but never present it outside the book until I've allowed it to collect a lot of dust. 100% of all my radio shows are pre-recorded. Once you get used to being a Free Form artist doesn't guarantee the end result is going to be agreed upon by all parties involved. I totally devour the inside of my mouth while sitting in meetings. I hold myself back from participating until all involved have thrown in their patterns of the process. As a creative mind whose paint brushes are sitting in several colors at a time, Free Form is a huge strength. So is discipline. Great ideas hit us every hour. In our heads they sound so perfect! Then we speak. Oh Oh... Be aware of your Free Form thinking.

One Quarter Unconditional

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We've all filled out job applications.  Be it at the place of business or on Zip Recruiter or Indeed.  The part of the application that drives me totally insane is where it asks about your ethnic. I always want to check the box titled other.  I'm half hope and one quarter unconditional.  That describes my walk and way more than the color of my skin.  Hope is a halfway word.  The return of the investment doesn't guarantee a better pay off.  You'll never see me leaning on it.  With hope the universe will deliver.  Hope?  Maybe it's because in my world the glass is always half full never half empty.  Hope is the same way.  It places so many people in a position of well maybe next time.  I hoped and it didn't deliver.  Another word I can't stand is unconditional.  That thing is thrown around so much it reminds you of a football game on Sunday.  They say dogs are unconditional.  That I believe.  Humans?  The biggest test?  The next time you land on a television show or movie on Netflix or Hulu watch it unconditionally.  You can't tune out!  You're unconditional.  How about the friend or family member that promises their unconditional support?  Three in the morning comes all too fast and you need to hear their calming unconditional spirit, "Dude.  Call me after the day gets started.  Maybe tonight after work."  What's my ethnic?  Half hope and one quarter unconditional.  Right away that tells someone in your circle exactly who you are and how much they can take.  Opps you've used up the only love I have.  Gotta hit Walmart so I can stock up for tomorrow.  Not being a jerk!  It's honesty, awareness and willingness.  It's not that you aren't loving, forgiving and understanding.  It's being upfront with who you are.  When you hit empty those you're sharing your energy with will come up with horrid names for not being 125 percent.  Half hope and one quarter unconditional.

Building Your Now

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The title alone sounds like a lot of change is required.  Quick run!  Step free of the moment.  Building your NOW means what?  Facing your monsters?  Not really.  Those things are in a past you can't change.  Fearing the continued reconstruction of the corporate world?  Totally out of your hands so why waste the energy?  Awareness is a tough cookie to bite into.  Most of us openly admit that where we presently stand is ok but it's not the best.  We settle.  Only to somehow someway always get caught up in circles of other job haters and or family members endlessly pointing fingers.  My sister and I struggle with that.  She likes to compare.  She said he said.  I disconnect.  Whether it's on the phone of text.  I disconnect.  No goodbyes or see you laters.  Being someone who lives in the presence of NOW requires focus on what you're currently in control of.  Other people's opinions are not in your shape shifting abilities.  When negativity starts to unwrap it's mighty arms around your participation in the conversation.  Walk away.  You're going to lose a lot of friends!  Most personal relationships are based solely on your commitment to listen.  It's what neighbors do.  We listen and offer the ever so soft, "Well bless your heart."  Within two hours your heart has sunk to a new low and your communication buddy is off at the movie, shopping or having dinner with happy people.  Once a week I take a long walk with a very good friend.  Jazzie the wonder dog at my side and my friend hit the green way to talk about nothing but the present.  The NOW.  No past.  No future you can't predict or try to shape.  The NOW.  Making yourself available for what is right now clears your system of choice.  It brings a fresh field of rebirth to a creative mind.  I can't believe I just wrote that.  80% of anyone reading right now just said to themselves, "I'm out of here.  I'm not creative."  Your NOW.  Embrace it by being truthful to where you stand.  Let it grow into your moment.

Joker

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I attended the world premiere of the new film Joker.  First Joaquin Phoenix takes the term mind blowing to a new level of blowing up your mind.  This isn't a movie review but maybe a new step for viewers and listeners to be more aware of their personal reviews.  You can't help but see pieces of your self in this character.  We're all carrying luggage.  Where you set it aside is determined by a choice.  How it's picked back up can come incredibly unexpected and it feels like you've not gone anywhere.  Forget that Joaquin is playing a DC comic book villain.  This film is about mental abuse, sickness and distance caused by a society that continues to drop off its luggage in corners assumed gone forever.  I grew up in a world where my grandmother and aunt endlessly tried to put my brother in an institution.  That's what they did in the 60's!  Mom wanted nothing to do with that plan or purpose.  She stayed true to him faithfully, unconditionally and spiritually.  She didn't try to hide anything.  There are several shapes and shades of what mental illness is and there are experts that can help unlock the mountain standing in your way.  On this podcast I do something I rarely attempt.  I don't ever read from the current day we're standing in.  Time has taught me how to digest.  I write about the Joker experience by way of being a daily writer and how important it is to build on that platform.  Joaquin called it his joke book.  We all have one of those its called Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.  On the outside,  as a reader, a lot of stuff shows up on the face of my computer that may have come out of you as a way of releasing.  What are you truly trying to say.  We can't hear your inflection by way of written words.  Joker.  You're gonna be a different person when you leave the theater.  You're gonna look not only into your own heart but from that day forward the way you laugh in pubic or while alone.  It will put you in places you thought were hidden away in boxes forever.  Don't be afraid to reach for help.