Speaker 1: Creativity is an addiction, unplugged because we will always say
yes to creativity, totally uncut because we all make mistakes.
So let's turn it into a tool. This is arrow unplugged.
Speaker 2: Hey zero, And this is vocal d frag. This is
where you ask the questions and you question the answers.
We do this while on a transition walk through this
beautiful forest in South Charlotte, North Carolina. So many times
we complain about the moods that we're in. We do
everything we can to get out of the bad moods
or depressed moods, but we don't understand why we even
got there. And I believe deep inside that the reason
why people don't study their transitions is because they feel uneducated.
Speaker 3: Well who am I to say? Well, you're right? Who
are you to say?
Speaker 2: But you're you, and that inner you needs to be
heard listening to it, taking notes, writing them down. I
know what a pain in the ass, right, but it works.
It gives you an opportunity to vent, to find a
place of freedom, to step through whatever is blocking you.
I said, Vocal defragging is all about I defrag in
a journal every day. Been doing this since November of
twenty seventeen. I've been a daily writer since July of
nineteen ninety four. They're two completely, one hundred percent different
forms of writing and journaling, but it works. It's just
an opportunity to be heard. This is vocal defraging something
very heavy on my heart. This has been going on
now for three days. A quote came to me in
a prayer and it says, we can only see what
is before. Everything else is assumption. We can only see
what's before everything else is assumption.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 2: I brought it up on a podcast episode yesterday. But
the angle that the writer and the performer took the
word before was before this moment. It wasn't before us,
in like, what is going on right now? You know
something that is visible to you right now? What is
before you? So the writer yesterday the angle of before
I got to this moment, there was already a story
in play. We can only see what is before us.
Everything else is assumption. That word before is what's haunting
me because I'm not somebody who lives in the past.
And I wonder if the quote came into the prayer
because the higher energy of the universe was trying to
say you're spending too much time in the present, forgetting
about where you are and how you came into being now.
I want to put that in your heart, in your ears,
in your sights. What is before you? Do you live
in the past? Do you openly admit that? Yeah, man,
I'll tell you what. I had some good times in
high school and I wish I was still there. See
thoughts like that don't come to me. But I want
to know how you feel when someone says we can
only see what is before us, what was the direct
expression that you felt was your word before meaning the
family before you, or what you see in your present
place of now. And that's where my.
Speaker 3: Struggle is because if we put focus.
Speaker 2: On how we got here, it's the same old story
over and over again. Bob Crawford from The Avid Brothers
said that history doesn't repeat itself. People don't change. Well,
I believe that we don't change. We bitch about change.
We will do everything we can to stop change. So
therefore that's why I chose to live a mindful life,
because in this moment of now, we can create change,
we can embrace it. We can be in a place
where we can find inner peace. And if there is
no peace, find it, look for new directions. But if
you're studying everything that came before you, the family traditions,
the recipes, the toys that are in your toy box,
all those different knick knacks that your grandparents had at
one time. If all you do is live in the
story before your present place of now, how does that
affect you? Is their peace? One thing that I don't
do is I don't go to funerals. I didn't go
to my father's funeral. I didn't go to my brother's
funeral or my sister's funeral, and I wasn't there for
my mother's funeral. The reason why because I live in
the present and I believe in the spirit of the universe.
They are more with me today than what they were
when we were living two thousand miles apart. I'm in Carolina,
they were in Montana. We didn't see each other that much.
But in this moment of now, mindfully, I feel them
more than any other time. So the word before, so
the word before to me is what am I visualizing
in my right now, not before I got to this
moment of now. I don't go back and read my journals.
There's no reason to it's already out. I've already lived it.
It's like people will say, what's the greatest thing about
talking with the performers that you do? Like I've got
a Jennifer Hudson interview coming up, and people go, are
you excited about the interview with Jennifer Hudson.
Speaker 3: Well, the child inside that was at.
Speaker 2: That betroom at the age of fourteen dreaming to be
a radio disc jockey is very excited. But the realist,
the mindful person, is thinking about what is before him.
What do I see right now? That interview isn't until
way later on, So therefore I can't think about it.
I can't get excited about it because if you knew
how many times I have been let down, Most creative
people are let down more than they find victory. We
are told the word no so often. We don't become
numb to it because we have so many feelings inside
of us. We just become grateful and mindful when there
is that one one split second in time where you
find yourself in a moment of victory and how long
do those moments last? But getting back to the interviews,
when I do get the opportunity to talk with creative
people who have found enormous amounts of success. The greatest
part of that journey isn't landing the conversation. It's show
prepping for the conversation. It's having the physical conversation, being
in that moment of now, and then you share it,
and once it's been shared, it doesn't belong to me anymore.
Trying to learn that lifestyle has been one heck of
a journey because I'm a radio guy. Look, man, I
was interrestrial radio when podcasting with radio people started to happen,
and radio people are going, no way, man, that's mine.
I've got ownership on that. There's no way that I
would want to put it out there because this is
where I need to be. I'm only loyal to one thing.
I get it, I get it. That's the way radio
people think. But in this day of streaming, song sharing,
movie watching, it's about being in that moment of now,
thinking about the receiver. How are you going to receive
what is before you in this moment before you, meaning,
what do you see in your right now, not the
story that you had to have before you got here.
Being transparent, I do get a little loose in the
heart when I see people with their parents and with
other family members who are having a great relationship, having
a closeness. I didn't have that with my family, and
I think this sometimes. I wish I would have had
those moments where we could have been, you know, like
the Brady Bunch, working together as one, creating solutions as
a happy family, having a music soundtrack like the Partridge Family.
Speaker 3: But I didn't have that.
Speaker 2: I learned how to be an individual by choice because
I came from a family of eight. I wasn't interested
in traditions. I wasn't interested in oh, well, your great
grandmother did this. It just wasn't me as a kid.
But being here in this present place of now, what
is before me? Is that struggle At sixty one years
in age, I sit here and I often wonder what
would life be like today if I had studied the
family path.
Speaker 3: I lived it, but I didn't study it. Let's talk
about you.
Speaker 2: What would happen if you would have spent less time
worried about other members of your family and more time
figuring out where your true piece really does work? Where
would you be today? We can only see what is
before us. Everything else is assumption. Now here's the twist
in the story. We did talk about what came before
your moment of right now.
Speaker 3: I get it.
Speaker 2: But when we say we can only see what's before us,
everything else is assumption.
Speaker 3: I think your past is the same exact.
Speaker 2: Way you have bent your past in a way of
personal acceptance.
Speaker 3: Was it really the way that you.
Speaker 2: Share the story or did you turn it and twist
it and let it fall to the side just a
little bit and then perk it back up on the
other side just so that it would fit perfectly into
the years of a passer by. We can only see
what's before us. Everything else is assumption. I do know
for a fact that people, when they share their family stories,
it really didn't go that way, which is the very
reason why I became a daily writer back in nineteen
ninety four, because my mother wouldn't share her stories with me.
She would just say, I don't remember. I never want
to plant my feet on that path. I don't remember
what happened back in July nineteen ninety four. But if
you go to my daily writing, it's right there. I'll
go back and basically go, whoa damn, yeah.
Speaker 3: That happened.
Speaker 2: I do remember it now, but I can't call it
up immediately.
Speaker 3: It's a place of personal growth.
Speaker 2: But in that personal growth, you've got to really figure
out where you are on your path of change. When
we say before, is it before you got here? Or
what is before you in this present place of now?
That's why I dfrag and I invite you to dfrag
as well. Ask yourself that question and then question the answers.
Build up a relationship with that inner self that you
are that's been hidden away for so long. Well because
everybody's been judging you, Oh, because your boss says you
have to do this. If you want to work here,
you've got to be this way. But yet you've got
so many creative thoughts that have been sitting there and
waiting for your inner artist to bring them forward. What's
before you a big decision? You got a big decision
on the way. What's before you? What are your plans
that term? What's your five year plan, what's your ten
year plan? I recently read an article that basically stated,
that's a bunch of it's worthless that most businesses today
want to know what's before you, what's in your right
now that you would like to work on. I recently
had somebody ask me they were trying to hire me
for a broadcast company. If they asked me, how do
you fit in? Well, you can't ask me that question
because I'm not that same guy that would say I'll
be whoever you want me to be at any given time.
Speaker 3: I just want the employment.
Speaker 2: I couldn't answer the question, so I put myself in
research mode.
Speaker 3: I went and researched the company.
Speaker 2: I did everything humanly possible to create my own questions,
and after seeing what they have to offer, my answer
was what I have been through over the past week
is an opportunity to view what is before me, and
what you are presenting before me isn't something that I
fit into. This is who I am. Boom boom boom
boom boom boom boom. How do you want me to
fit in? We can only see what is before us.
Everything else is assumption. Ask yourself that question, question the answers.
I think it's time that you begin a journey of
deep writing him.
Speaker 3: Eryl