From Challenges to Chapters: Writing Real-Life Heroism with Brownell Landrum

Author Brownell Landrum joins Nikki to talk about her creative guide The Hero’s Playbook, a tool that blends storytelling with self-reflection. They discuss what makes someone a hero, how flawed characters reflect real growth, and the power of writing through trauma. This episode touches on mental health, trust, personal evolution, and even metaphysical guidance—all with humor, honesty, and heart.

https://brownelllandrum.com/ https://www.facebook.com/brownell.landrum.author https://www.instagram.com/brownelllandrum/ https://www.tiktok.com/@brownell.landrum https://www.youtube.com/@brownell.landrum The Hero’s Playbook on Amazon https://www.amazon.com/dp/1947102303 Brownell’s We Meet Again trilogy on Amazon https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DCL2NR6W/ Link to download “The End: A Love Story to the Universe” by Brownell Landrum for FREE https://dl.bookfunnel.com/a4s6x8lwk5

nikkis-lounge-2025-06-211957 Brwnell
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Speaker: [00:00:00] Hi, thanks for having me on the show. My name is Brownell Landrum. I'm an author. I have written over a dozen books and probably that many screenplays.

I kind of describe myself as an explorer of metaphysical mysteries. I like getting into topics that kind of, challenge to open the mind and the heart and look at new things. So I've written a lot of different kinds of stories. I know one of the things we're gonna talk about today is my new book called The Hero's Playbook for the Hero on All of Us.

So that's some exciting, and I've got other stories that I wanna share. And wherever we go, we're just gonna talk about being healthy and happy and self-development and exploration, and it's all gonna be good. 

Speaker 2: Okay, so you sent me. The hero's playbook. See, this is what it looks like. And I think this is awesome.

It's got pages that help you with like every part of a story, whether the story is your own or, you're writing, a fictional fictionals write one, right? [00:01:00] Yeah. Unless you're writing or you're writing a fictional tale, you can do the same thing with the same book. And I think that's great. 'cause most people, when they're, when they do something like this, you can only do one or the other.

You can either write about yourself and get yourself through something. Or on the other hand, hey, this is a book for authors of fiction books. And if you follow every direction, you'll have a book published in nine months.

Speaker: What made you write it? That's a great question.

It's funny because it's sometimes you work on something, and I'm sure you probably know what this is like you look, back at your life and you think, why did I do this? And then this, and then this, and then this. And then all of a sudden you create something and it's like all of the things you've done in your life kind of come together.

And so when I started working on it, it was just so much fun because I have a background, I have a background in marketing, so I understand marketing. I also used to own a training company, so I had all kinds of ideas for training, working with coaches, consultants, that kind of [00:02:00] thing. And then I've also been a writer.

And, like I said, I've written fiction, nonfiction, screenplays, songs, all kinds of different things. And so what I wanted to do is I thought, well, I love the Hero's Journey, the Joseph Campbell. And there's also Christopher Voer who wrote The Writer's Journey, which took Campbell and made it simpler for the rest of us.

And so I thought would be really fun to take people through those steps of the hero's journey and kind of integrate what I know about training, which is all kinds of activities and ideas. You know, I've seen a lot of, and I'm sure you have to, what they call low content books or journal books where they ask a question and you fill in the blanks.

And I thought, well, I wanna create one of those and then you'll probably love this because I submitted it, to publish. And they're like, this is not low content. This is high content. This is the highest content you can get. And so I was like, okay, well then I better change that category. And as you were showing, it's got all kinds of, if they can see, I don't know, you can [00:03:00] see on the camera, but all kinds of activities.

Mm-hmm. So it takes you through in a fun way because I think, learning not only should be fun, but it can be fun, but must be fun. That's the only way people are going engage in something. If you looked at this and go, oh, Lauren, I don't wanna do that today. Or, that's too heavy, you're probably not gonna pick it up again.

But if you've got an activity that makes you laugh or make comes up with something funny or gives you some sort of, like, even a word game, but then all of a sudden you realize there's more depth to it. So I, of all the things I've ever worked on, I think I had more fun creating this than anything.

So anyway, I'm just looking forward to hearing what you think about it and wherever we wanna take it. 'cause we got some activities we could talk about or, whatever you wanna do with it. 

Speaker 2: I think my most favorite part is, where is it? So you start off where it says, you are my hero, right?

Yeah. And right there it says what Valant is, and it says, who are the story, the stories of your heroes? [00:04:00] Who are the heroes of your story? You know, who are your favorite heroes and favorite quotes by them? So me. I love that you have that in there. But I have this thing, it's weird. It's me. I'm weird.

Okay. Let's just get that out of the way. But, when I was younger, I don't remember elementary school, middle school, they were like, write a three page paper about somebody who, a hero, somebody you look up to. I don't look up to anybody. I think some people are doing a great job and like those I could put in as heroes maybe in yours, but I don't look up to people because the minute you start looking up to meet people is the minute you find their kryptonite.

And once you find their kryptonite, you are super upset. That thing ever happened, and how could I ever follow [00:05:00] somebody who believes that, the sun is gonna go black in 150 billion years? You know, I have no idea. My, for instance are wild too. But for me, because in my life, those pillars of the community have been absolute garbage.

I didn't get the, oh yay, let's look up to somebody and do that thing. What I have gotten is a healthy respect for when people are doing things right, even if they have some of it wrong. So I can believe, and I understand, that people are human and that they can, and are human and will make mistakes, which allows for more movement, I think.

Speaker: I love that. Okay. That's actually what this is all about. Okay. Because if you go through the playbook and you start realizing, okay, this is [00:06:00] looking at flawed people that didn't necessarily want, sometimes they were pushed off the cliff before they could find out they could fly, right?

There's a whole section in there about flaws and quirks and, things that people have. So you see complex, flawed people who might be even afraid of taking that next step. And to me, and that's what we delve into the playbook, but to me it's like the people you admire, the people who had to go through the most change, I think.

And that they had to face those obstacles. They had to face their flaws. They had to look at the difference between what they wanted versus what they needed. You may say, oh, I want a million dollars, but what do you really need? Do you need security? Do you need healthcare for your kid?

What? What is it that you really need? So it is looking at fictional or factual heroes. Mm-hmm. Right? So it's not like you have to be expected to go, oh, well, everybody says this is their hero because they're a leader in this area, or sports, or whatever. It's more like, I think that it makes it more human to your point, is that you go, okay, wait [00:07:00] a minute.

We've got somebody who has issues, and has flaws and has challenges. And what we really admire about them and about ourselves when we do it, is when we face those obstacles and we go through that journey and we learn from it and we're changed by it. So that's what, and even on that page I talk about what's the difference between a hero, and, that there's a difference between a protagonist who has a goal and they go for their goal and they got their goal and everybody goes, yay, they got their goal.

But there's a big difference between somebody who has to face that face obstacles to get there. And whether, and I know we talk and you talk a lot about mental health and you know, all kinds of other things. It's like those are the people we really admire who had some sort of, maybe even huge overwhelming issue.

And it could be a mental health issue, could be other issues. Generally, there is some sort of emotional component, right? There's a want and that's you want, and or versus [00:08:00] need. And so there's a whole discussion about wants versus needs, but it's like what we want to see people go through is challenges and get the other side, because that's who we can role model, right?

We don't wanna see an athlete who's born eight feet tall, who could just slam dunk a basketball and without blinking an eye. That's not a hero. They may score for your team, but is that heroic? I mean, no, that's genetics. Mm-hmm. But if you see somebody who worked hard for that and they had to offer overcome either this, lifestyle obstacle or like you said, mental health or some other huge thing, big failure.

Those are the ones we like. So that's my opinion anyway. 

Speaker 2: I also think that there's real growth, when you're a teenager. Like look at all the swifties, right? You've got 13 year olds that would probably do some harm to somebody to get a Taylor Swift concert ticket, right? [00:09:00] Where, because that's their hero.

That's the person they look up to. That's the person who is awesome in so many ways. Did she get there without work? No. Should they be squealing just because her name got said no? But I think there's a lot of growth between being that 13-year-old. And being an adult and saying, yeah, I like Taylor Swift.

I'm not gonna do anybody any harm to go get a ticket, but I would still love to go to her concert and maybe yell while you're at the concert. That's fine. You do. But there's a big difference in that and the growth to get from 13 to 23 or however old, to where you are still a fan, but not going nuts just because somebody breathed the name

there's something there, right? They went through stuff. They went through things, and while they still believe that this person is a great person to look up to, they also know that they're a [00:10:00] person now instead of the God on a pedestal that they did at 13. 

Speaker: That encourages girls. I think there's a few things going on there too.

It's like, what is it about whatever the idol is that is makes them squeal or excited or wanna get tickets, right? And I'm just gonna, I don't wanna slam 13 year olds 'cause there's some very astute 13 year olds, but there are 13. A lot of times it's like, what are their friends like? And therefore they get on that bandwagon just because it's cool to be in this category.

And I think part of that growth you're talking about is when you get older, you're like, I like the fact that she got her label back. She fought against her other people. She writes her own songs. She also collaborates, she's a credible business person. She's generous with, you know, those are the things to put, make her heroic.

Not just because she has a name and sold a bunch of albums.

Speaker 2: Obviously picked the right star. 

Speaker: Well, I just know Yeah. As far as her, she's, so that's some very [00:11:00] heroic things. That were not easy for an average person to do, especially a woman, especially in that industry. Especially all the things, she's reinvented herself a bunch.

Yeah, you picked one that I do know. If you'd done somebody really obscure, I'm not sure I would've known, too much. But I like to stay abreast on, on what's happening. But that's an example, right? Then if you go, okay, I like her because she did this, and if you hear a 13-year-old saying, I like her 'cause she got her label back, or she fought against the guy that tried to steal this stuff from her, or whatever, then you're like, okay, I wanna hang with that 13-year-old.

Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, yeah. So when you were writing this, what was your favorite part? 

Speaker: Oh, favorite part? That's a good question. There's a part in there that I think is, there's two kind of, two ways to answer that. One is, what do I think is like, just do this. If only you do this, it's worth the book price of the book.

You know what I mean? Like, there's one or two activities, if you do that, please do it. And so that would be favorite in terms of what [00:12:00] I think is the most impactful. And then there's also favorite in terms of just, I just think it's just fun. And I think it gets you to think and gets you to learn in a way that's, that is not something you would've done that day that can engage you.

That's fun. Which do you wanna hear the answer to? 

Speaker 2: Let's go with the last one. 'cause if it's fun, I am, I'm probably more engaged than anything else. 

Speaker: Okay. Well there's one that's super simple and you'd go, you'd look at that probably and go, why is this in there? That doesn't look like it's that important.

Right. And it was, roll a dice when you're making a decision. And then it gives you six answers for which side of the dice. You know, I didn't pick a ACOs Cedron, like from d and d where you have 20, but I picked six. I guess I figure everybody's got, can get a six sided dice. But, and then it gives you what the answer is to your question.

Kinda like an magic eight ball, but using a dice and or die. And so you're like, okay, what's that? That's like so simple. What's the basic? [00:13:00] But psychologically, if you want, if you're looking at doing something, buying Taylor Swift tickets, no, I don't know, whatever it's being on your podcast. But if you look at something and you're trying to decide and then you roll a dice and it says, no, do not do it.

If you fight against that's gonna help you make the decision to do it. So it is a mental thing where you don't have to do what the dice says to do, but it's gonna make you second guess what the answer is and therefore easier to make the decision. 

Speaker 2: Does that make sense? 

Yes. I actually have a quote that I don't know where it came from, 'cause that's not how my brain works, but the person said to flip a coin, it doesn't matter which side of the coin that it lands on, because the second that coin goes into the air, you know exactly what you want to do.

Speaker: Yeah, that's great. And it's very similar to that. Yes, exactly. But until then [00:14:00] you think, I don't know the, you know, you think I don't know what to do. I'm not sure what the answer is. And this isn't, just as an clarify, this isn't prophecy. Like, oh, will this happen? Right. It's not trying to ask the stars, you know, oh, will this guy call me back or will I get this job?

Or, it's more like just for decision making. But yeah, you're exactly right. It's the same kind of mental process and you just realize something about yourself just by passing the, coin in the air 

Speaker 2: and sometimes the coin or the dye. So depending on how many choices you have, right?

You know, does that mean you're having cereal for breakfast or eggs for breakfast? Because some people fight all day long to know what they're supposed to eat today. Yeah. And so the dice can help do that. The flipping the coin, if it's only two, but you don't always have to have an answer.

Another thing I do for the words, so another thing that I do for when, I [00:15:00] can't make a decision about what to eat because it's one of the ones that gets me and so I won't eat and that, that's not the way to go, number one. But number two is you can write different meals on popsicle sticks.

Have a breakfast jar and a lunch slash dinner jar. Or split it up into easy meal, bigger meal and however you wanna do it. And then you randomly, you pick a thing out and you say, oh, lasagna. Okay, well I did wanna make a big meal today, so yeah, lasagna is good, let's go. And you make it, you have dinner.

Lasagna is a really good dinner, at least for me. I'm partially Italian, so yummy, yummy. But otherwise you would've been standing there for however long until you finally gave up saying, I just dunno what to eat. So those are the ki that's how your book does it with the dice.

It just gives you a way [00:16:00] to make it easy, because when you make things easier on yourself, or if you're writing a book and you make things. Not easy for the people in your book, because nobody wants it where they start to end, they're always the hero, right? But maybe they start off as a hero. Something happens and they lose that hero title, and so they have to fight back through to get it back by the end.

And then they learn by the end. They didn't need the title. They just kept doing what they were going to do anyway. That's right. So there's all different ways to end something like that. That I don't know. You don't have, yeah. 

Speaker: Yeah. I mean, that is an important aspect of the hero's journey, right? The steps, start with ordinary world.

What's their day-to-day life like? Or what is your, if you're doing it for yourself, what's your ordinary life like? What do you think about, what do you dream about? What do you Luke Skywalker looking at the two sons, or figure wanting to leave and hang out [00:17:00] with his friends in the university or whatever it is.

And then there is, what would call in fiction, an inciting incident, something that's going to spur you to change, in the hero's journey, it's called the call to adventure. Right? All of a sudden, 

yeah. I've got an opportunity to make this change. And so this is, and then usually there's a refusal of the call like, wait a minute, may, it was easy to dream.

Yeah. It's harder to act, right? Mm-hmm. And so it, but when you start seeing all those things and you're exactly right, and this is where it's, I think it's so important and so interesting, is if you look at your life and versus, like you said, fictional or movies or whatever, characters, if they just go through and life is easy for them, we don't like 'em.

Okay. That's a boring character. 

Speaker 2: They're usually the villain and not the hero. Yes, exactly. 'cause they're the one that we hate because they're just unapologetically them and they're not gonna change. And while that can be a good thing, they usually also do something horrifically stupid [00:18:00] because they never have to deal with consequences.

So why would they have any fear of doing something like that, 

Speaker: right? If life is so easy for them. And so that's not, so it's what's I think is so interesting is that we look at them and we look at our characters, right? And so go, okay, that's who I like, because I love the fact that they had to go through this transformation and they had to go against their things and they had to change, right?

It's all about change. And then all of a sudden, let's kind of flip the perspective of that and realize, okay, if, and this is where I get into my metaphysical stuff, right? But if you look at your life and how maybe you were part of planning your life when you decided to be born, are you gonna choose an easy life?

Or are you gonna choose one that has challenges? 

Speaker 2: No, I would pick one that had challenges, just not as many as we have. Thank you very much. Yeah, we might go, crap, what was [00:19:00] that guarantee? If I had a choice, I said maybe two and I've got 50. So that, that, that may have been a miscalculation on somebody's part.

Speaker: And that's right. We all do that going, what was I thinking? Because I think there's an amnesia there. We're like, I don't, oh, that looks, that'll be great challenge. I'll do that. And so whatever it is though, it makes our life, we're gonna grow the most from those challenges. We're going to learn the most from those challenges.

And yes, you talk about a villain and we might also become resentful, or we might become negative, or we might become evil, we might become competitive. We might become the stuff. And that's also part of the challenge. And like you said, in some care, in some stories, the hero becomes the villain or vice versa or whatever.

And they go, okay, everything's easy. And then they're like, or that maybe everything's difficult, and then they become the villain thinking, well then I'll be strong because I'm the villain. And then hopefully in a good story they'll learn and go that, no, I mean, there are negative, what they call [00:20:00] negative character arcs like the Godfather where he becomes evil, he starts out trying to be good and becomes evil.

And so there are things like that happen, that, personally that's not my favorite kind of story, but, I like the fact that they exist just, dimension to different kinds of storytelling. But you're exactly right. So that's where we can look at our life. And so if you're going through the playbook.

And you may have more than one version of it. You may have one that's for writing a story, and you may have one that's for yourself. But yeah, you look at that and you start saying, okay, what are the obstacles I've been through in the past and what did I learn from them? Or what are these fears trying to teach me?

So there's all kinds of things like that in that, or activities in the book. 

Speaker 2: If you're completely honest with yourself, you'll be able to find some of the stuff you have to. Okay. So if you pick yourself to be the thing that you are walking through this workbook, you have to be honest with yourself or you're cheating yourself.

Because if you're not honest about what you've been through [00:21:00] and where you've come. Right. And that's hard sometimes because we're always like, I haven't come far enough. I haven't done enough. I'm still not good enough. Or, I can never do anything. Those stupid little thoughts that get in your head because parents suck.

If you don't put that kind of thing into the story, if you don't show that part of yourself, then you're lying and the person you're writing about isn't really you. 

Speaker: Well, and that's a really good point, and also if as you go through the book, you'll realize I, I mess with you a little bit, okay? Because I mix in what's a favorite hero from your favorite stories, so that you can't skip answering those questions.

You should be able to answer why you like Ironman or why you like, whichever hero, it could be a sports hero, whatever it is. 

Speaker 2: I like the song more than the dude when it comes to Ironman 

Speaker: You go. In that regard.

And if you don't wanna answer [00:22:00] about yourself, then go ahead and answer about another person and kind of put yourself in third person. This is the hero. I'm not gonna say myself, but I'm gonna say if I was creating a hero, these are the things. So it allows you to do that. I think, of course, I'm just totally tooting my horn, but does it allows you to do that in a really good way.

So that it's not like super heavy. Oh my God, I gotta look at this. And all my issues and what happened to me as a 3-year-old. It's still affecting me to not about that. 

Speaker 2: You don't have to necessarily write every detail about those things. That's not what I meant. Yeah. But if you're not honest with yourself that you did come through a lot, that you have been through therapy, or you have been on the darker side, maybe you have attempts or whatever.

If you're writing with yourself as the person and you're like, I've never been through anything hard, your story's not gonna exactly. Be a good one. 

Speaker: That's right. That's right. And it's not gonna be authentic to your point. And it's not gonna be very [00:23:00] interesting either. No. And so it's just like anything in life though, the more you put into it and the more honest you are, the more you're gonna get out of it.

But even at that, and this is true with a lot of what I write and my stories too. Like even my, I came up with a new, a novel series I launched last year, a trilogy. And, some people just read it straight through, like they can't put it down. They read it straight through, they read the adventure.

It's a kind of, this epic, kind of Da Vinci code meets Outlander with a reincarnation theme, right? So you can read it right through. Or some people are like, okay, I have to sit with these three pages for three days because there's so much here. It's getting there. And so that's kind of what I like to do.

It's like you can take it really, really light, or you can go deeper, or you can go deeper, deeper, deeper. Whatever feels right at the time, you know? Mm-hmm. And the more you, the deeper you go, the more it's gonna last 

Speaker 2: to my point. I feel like if you are more honest with yourself, you're going to see where you've been Yes.

[00:24:00] And how far you've come, where you don't see it yourself now, because Yes, you're still thinking, my brain is still thinking about that thing. I haven't come any far at all. But if you're honest and you do the work involved, you'll come out the other side going,

I didn't see that before. 

Speaker: Yeah. Yeah. In fact, I call it, my first book that I wrote is nonfiction. It's called Five Reasons Why Bad Things Happen. Mm-hmm. So when people say Everything happens for a reason, I'm like, yes. I literally wrote the book on it. And afterward and it was really only the last year or so that I came up with a concept and I wa wove weave this into the hero's playbook is kind of what you're talking about.

I call it reverse optimism. 

When you're able to look back and go, oh, that wasn't so fun. And that was really difficult. But if I hadn't gone through that, I wouldn't be here. I wouldn't be as strong as I am. I wouldn't be able to help this other person through their thing. I wouldn't reach this [00:25:00] level, whatever it is that you need to get through, you can look back and go, ah, yeah.

And you're right. The more honest you are with that, the more you can really look at it. And it doesn't mean it wasn't painful, and it doesn't mean it doesn't still hurt and it doesn't mean you're completely over it. But that's a really fun place to get to. 

Speaker 2: Yeah. I've had people ask me, how far I think I've come since my lowest and there are days.

When I'm like, not very far at all. I've come like two steps. Yeah. But the most amazing thing is that during my darkest, I wouldn't have been able to do this podcast. I wouldn't have been able to work the way I work. I wasn't able to work the way I work. Yeah. Right. So coming out of, you know, that deep dark pit that I was in, fighting free of that because it wasn't, oh yay, I'm fine.

I'm great today. Right? So I'm just [00:26:00] gonna all of a sudden be better. That's not ever how it works, at least not in my experience and the people I've talked to. But I crawled out of that and you know, one step in front of the other, you keep going. And then one day somebody asked me how far I had come and I kind of went far.

I'm still in the. I'm still in the hole. I don't know what you're talking about, but my world, my world is so different from what it was. While I couldn't think that, like it's undeniable that I have come a very long way. Yeah. And I have to be honest about that with myself because there are days when, you know, my brain is like, no, we're not doing nothing.

We're just gonna sit here. And I'm like, yeah. Right. I'm not going into that hole again. Let's 

Speaker: keep 

Speaker 2: going. 

Speaker: And I think that's really beautiful and it is really important, right? Mm-hmm. Is that you can have days where you slide back and, and , so I mean, I think that happens to [00:27:00] all of us.

Like I went through, the LA last year and I had, I wrote about it in a story that everybody can get a link to, but, and that's fun and silly and it's also really deep. But it's called the End if anybody looks it up. I love story to the universe, but. I realized that I had, there was so much processing that I had to do from that.

And we can run into friends that say, no, just move on. Quit thinking about that. And I'm like, I had to process this 'cause I'm gonna squeeze every ounce of learning from this that I can. And it took a year to go through that processing. It took a year to really drain dry every aspect of that.

And yeah, and there's still days I'm like, oh wow, that was really hard. And there's some days they're like, oh, I'm so glad that's over. I'm so glad I learned what I needed to learn. In the end, of course in the end, but, now you've got 

Speaker 2: song lyrics like totally taking over my head.

I know, I know. I'm sorry. 

Speaker: [00:28:00] Actually in one of my children's books or children's book, and I have, a, I'm stealing from the Beatles, and it says, as Wise Men once said, what matters in the end? Does the love you receive match the love you spent? Good. Crazy. So I gotta, I kind of gave a little tribute to The Beatles on that.

But anyway, yeah, so that's, that's part of humanity. And that, and you're sharing that story right now is heroic, and that's what I call heroism, right? Is that your willingness to be vulnerable? The willingness to go eat, if you said, oh, this podcast is so easy every day, I can just do it then it's not really heroic, is it?

It's only heroic if it's hard, right? If it's, if it comes naturally. And like even with my book, I'm like, this came really easy for me because it had, it took. But it took all of this sludge from the past to come together. All the things I learned that were hard to make it easy, if that makes sense.

Speaker 2: Yeah. I [00:29:00] had, one of my newest therapist was like, the way you connect things, you should write a book. And I said, no, I don't wanna write a book. I'm gonna do a podcast. Instead. I would've ha I would have a lot more time to be me and be myself if, I'd have just written a book because like the, these podcasts, it's not easy to do these for me.

It's not easy to say some of the things that I say. It's not easy to talk to some of the people I talk to, I have. Deep rooted triggers. And I sit, that person is on the other side of a camera, but I have to look like nothing's wrong while I'm talking to somebody who is older and is part of my trigger.

And I've talked about it in the past. I don't, old men are not my thing. Soon as a guy gets gray hair, which is unfortunate 'cause some guys do look good with salt and [00:30:00] pepper, I can't do full on gray. It leads to panic attacks if they put hands anywhere near me. So being on the other side of a camera from one, I can be okay.

'cause I know they can't touch me. But at the same time, that's not an easy thing to just talk to your worst fear. Yeah. 

Speaker: Yeah. And again, that's heroic to me. That's heroic. If you said, oh, I, it comes so easily and I number one podcast in the world and I can just blink my eyes and it happens. That's not very heroic.

It's maybe something people admire on some other level. But, and we all think, oh, that'd be nice if life was easy. But that's not what I call heroic. 

Speaker 2: Mm-hmm. But I also have a good moral code. So some of those things that some people fall into, not saying I'm better than anyone, that might have come across wrong, but some of the pitfalls, somebody, some people fall into because of things that have happened in my [00:31:00] past.

I don't fall for those anymore. 

Speaker: Like Right. And that's the reverse optimism going, I learned that lesson. I'm not gonna have to learn that lesson again. And you know, like for me, for example, earlier today I was talking with a friend and she's dealing with some financial issues and I was vulnerable to her and said, I got to the point where I was on food stamps.

And I had so little money in my bank account that I couldn't use the toll road because if I had, if you get down to zero, they'll charge you $40. And I didn't have $40 in my account to pay for the toll road. And the fact that I was able, that I went through that and shared that with her, right.

Because it was hard. It was awful. All those dark things that you're talking about, I experienced, and now I know she's going through something similar and now I, we can relate. And then I took it to kind of the next one. I said, if you want somebody to brainstorm ideas with about how to just make some extra money, some things to make some extra [00:32:00] money, because nobody sat with me and did that.

Nobody offered me that discussion. And then we did, and I gave her some ideas and she's like, oh my God, this is like, this may be exactly so I can still do my passion, but also maybe, weave these things together and make, take me out of this financial issue.

'cause she had a car accident and all kinds of other things. So, if I hadn't been through that, I could have just come off like a little, oh, well I know how to do this because I'm so great and like, no, I know how to do it because I'm not so great. Right? Yeah. And so anyway, I think, you know, however you believe from a metaphysical, spiritual, whatever point of view and certainly don't have to believe what I believe.

I like when people don't, 'cause I like opening their mind and open them opening mind. But, I like the idea of looking back and going, this might've been part of my plan so that I could be. Able to help somebody else in that same situation. 

Speaker 2: Yeah. My whole thing, the whole reason behind the podcast is [00:33:00] because of me having gone through the things I've gone through both in business and in mental health, and saying, here, let me help the next person by having conversations with other people and letting them see some of the answers before they run smack dab into a wall that they didn't know was coming.

Yeah, yeah, exactly. 

Speaker: And hopefully they're, listening and watching and, just, you never know, like I said, and, in my playbook, if there's just one activity that changes their life, it's worth the work that I put into it and hopefully it's worth to them, but they, paid to get it.

And that's kind of what we're here for. 

Speaker 2: I am going to have fun with this book. For sure. Definitely like that one. Thank you.

Speaker: I'll tell you a little bit about my story if you wanna hear, about what I went through, because it was pretty interesting. And this is where you go, okay, she's weird. But you said you liked weird, so you know, I'll risk it.

But I went through a very interesting [00:34:00] experience, about a year and a half ago, and I was writing a story and I thought, I'm gonna write it from the point of view of what I call the upstairs, okay? Mm-hmm. And so I'm writing this story from this point of view of like guides and I call 'em traffic angels.

Like if, how do they get certain people together and what are all the logistics that they have to go through? And, all of a sudden I realize they're telling me who they are. They are real. And that has been such an interesting experience. It led to a story called The End. I Love Story of the Universe.

And then, I wrote a part two and I wrote a part three. And it's my most autobiographical, that I've ever done. And as somebody who's lived, into spiritual stuff, and I've gone all the way from, I don't wanna say one extreme to the other, 'cause I don't know it's necessarily continuum, the, oh, you can manifest and visualize and dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, and this is what you want.

And you just so say what you want and it's gonna happen. And I've been in that world that didn't work, [00:35:00] right? And I've been in like all these different kind of dimensions, like, okay, if there's little pockets of what might work or not work, and then all of a sudden I'm taught, I'm writing and they're telling me who they are.

And they're funny. By the way, these, this team is hilarious. I mean, they are. They're teasing with each other. They're joking with each other. They have jokes with, I mean like we think, oh, spiritual stuff is all heavy and lightened up. Yeah. But they're having a hell of a time. Right. They're having, and can you imagine from their point of view and they see us going, oh my God, I'm trying to get her go.

Right. And she just keeps wanting to go left. And they have to be like, border Collies whacking us on the side to get us to jump down the path they want us to go, you know? 'cause they're trying to help us. But especially when you're dealing with a relationship and you've got two people and you've got, all the issues that two people have and I'm obviously not a young person, so I've had, I lifetime's worth of issues that I have to navigate.

And what it turned into and Nikki is that I have learned to surrender to them [00:36:00] and let them guide me. And that it's, and it, and trusting is not easy for me. So it wasn't easy for me to go, okay, I trust that you're gonna take me, no, I'm not. Take the wheel kind of thing is not my, you know, blind trust.

Right. Especially with the things I've been through. But, so it's been a long time coming of this and there's been a lot of dialogue back and forth and I just wanna say to anybody, you said writing a book, I'm gonna say this to you, but I'm also gonna say it to anybody listening is just write it.

Even what, you don't have to have an agenda with it or anything, but if you write, you never know what kind of portal you can open. And whether it's for yourself just to that, for them to talk to you or for you to process whatever. 'Cause this is more like activities than a writing thing.

It's not like, here, write the first chapter. Now what's evaluate? It's gonna tell you, teach you more about yourself and storytelling. But it's been, in fact, I'm just going to be super vulnerable here because this is a weird thing that I've [00:37:00] only been doing for like a week and a half.

And I don't know what the outcome's gonna be, but it's very trippy for me. 'Cause this is, I'm, like I said, I'm more of the person who makes it happen and I'll get the things done and I'll work so hard and then nothing will happen as a result, right? So I'll do all the stuff I have to do, but, you know how some people that see the number 1111 and think it's time to make a wish, right?

That's happened to me a few times in the last couple of weeks. And instead of even attempting to make a wish, I just turn it up to them and say, you take the wish, you decide what the wish should be. And even like, it happened today and I said, if you wanna give the wish to somebody else, that's up to you.

So this is pretty weird stuff, but it's an interesting way to look at life and navigate life. And I know that this last year I've been in and out of the country, I've been different countries. I've been trying to figure out where I'm gonna live. When we originally talked, I was in Tunisia when we [00:38:00] talked before.

Oh and so I'm very much like, I mean, as fluid, of where should we go or not this, I'm in a hotel room, now, but I'm back in the us. But I'm more like you tell, you, show me, you guide me, and we'll build that trust, as we take these steps together.

And I say that as. Yes. Very much a spiritual person, but not a doctrine person, not a religion person. More of a, you know, I, I don't know these, this, these folks were telling me who they are and they've been very, they've manifested some things and they've shown me some things and told me some things and guided me to do some things that have been really cool.

So anyway, that's that story. The first part of that story is available to anybody to read if they want, and there's more to it. But I don't know if you have any interest in that, but that's something very strange for me. 

Speaker 2: Yeah. I am more on the religious side of things. There's people who are like, kumbaya, if you sit and [00:39:00] meditate for an hour a day, things will come to you.

I'm like, yeah, so we're kicking you in the face. Not gonna happen. Obviously, I'm not saying I would actually touch anybody, but like. The same reaction could happen. I'm still gonna get arrested, but it's fine. So I don't do, I don't do that, but I don't stop them from doing, you know, you want to believe what you want to believe and I have no place to say that what you believe in is any more wrong than what I believe in or any more.

Right, right, 

Speaker: right. As long as somebody's turning someone else, right. Yeah. Then you do you. 

Speaker 2: Yeah. I don't get to make that decision. Just do it over there. 'cause if you do it too close to me and agitate me, I may or may not be able to help myself from turning on the hose. Just saying. There was a girl in my church group once when I was 14 or 15, I don't know.

I was young, right? [00:40:00] Yeah. And she had just moved into the area and she sat cross-legged on the chair. And started doing the,

I don't know what you're doing, but if you don't stop making noise like that, we're gonna have him as a problem. They finally got her to stop. But like a sound for me is a problem. I have very sensitive hearing and it ratchets up my annoyance into anger. I don't do anything. I have never done anything to anybody except for gotten away or put on my headphones if I can't get away.

So let's just make that clear. 'cause sometimes I think people think I'm violent and I'm really not. I say the violent thing, I don't do any violent things. Two totally different sides of a coin. But she was a weird one to be sure. But, as long as you are not mad at [00:41:00] me and screaming in my face because I have a religion.

I don't care what you do, as long as it hurts nobody like leave, you know, leave people who don't want to listen to you alone. I'm good. Because my religion is one of those religions that gets made fun of. I can't really say anything bad. 

Speaker: Yeah. Well, I mean, like I said, whatever works and that's also part of the process and what

People can go through. I mean, for me, the thing that, that when I wanna be around people who have an open mind that's the most important thing as far as people I wanna associate with. If somebody's mind is super closed, there's not much room to grow and not much room for me.

Like I said, I write about reincarnation. A lot of people may or may not believe in it, but it's fiction. I mean, you can, the 

Speaker 2: reason, the only reason why I don't believe in reincarnation is because how many people out there today believe they used to be Cleopatra? 

Speaker: Actually, statistically, very few.

You hear that as a reason, but I've never met anybody. I've 

Speaker 2: actually met three [00:42:00] different people who said that they went to some healer or whatever, and they were told that they used to be Cleopatra, and I'm like. 

Speaker: Yeah, you wanna pick one? Then I'm saying that the psychic, whoever told them that is the one who's the scam artist, right?

But in terms of a, as a concept, but again, it doesn't matter to me. They can read. You can go watch back to the future and not believe in time travel. Right. It's still good storytelling and it still makes you think about what are these possibilities and how might this work? So I'm not proselytizing, I don't care, right.

But I do want people with an open mind, right? Yes. Because if you're reading it going, I don't want, oh, I don't believe that. 'cause I was told not to believe that there's nowhere to go from there. And I don't 

Speaker 2: believe anybody has the right to tell me what to believe and not to believe even in my religion.

Yeah. And I just, I like open, 

Speaker: It's oh, I never, somebody posted something, recently and I was like, oh, don't say it that way at all. Like, that's not my jam. But thanks for [00:43:00] making me think if it opens into me and goes, okay. Because I don't know, I don't know where somebody is on their level.

I don't know whether they, what their possibility is. But, again, that's a whole nother discussion about whether, or not to believe reincarnation. I'm just saying I don't care. But I like writing those stories because they add, they have so much dimension to those stories.

You can kind of imagine. 

Speaker 2: I read them all the time. Yeah, you've got a modern day couple and then 

Speaker: who were they before and how are they different and what are the different scenarios? And this is a mystery that goes back, thousands of years. And, it's just fun.

I mean, to me it's like time travel, movies are fun. They open up those possibilities, or parallel world type of stories or any of that stuff. So anyway, was just really interesting to me to go through this experience with this upstairs crowd. And I don't, you know, you talk to me a year from now and be like, well, yeah, that was true and I've taken it to this other level because this is where it's going.

One of the most profound things somebody ever told me, and this was quite a many, quite a few years ago, but [00:44:00] it was this guy said to me, he said, 'cause I was so sure I had this answer to whatever this mystery was. And he said, brown Alley, he said, you're an explorer and you'll always be an explorer.

And I love that because that did tell me that is who I am, and I'm always looking for answers and I'm always looking for the next step. Whenever somebody says this is the answer and I'm at the highest level, that's to me a sign that they are not anywhere near the highest level because they stopped learning.

And as soon as you stop learning, then you have stopped evolving. 

And so that's kind of, there's my little judgment, of that. But I love being an explorer, and as far as, other things to share with your audiences, I like to look at myself as an explorer of metaphysical mysteries.

I like looking in a, into all these kinds of things. I love discussions. I love stories that are fictional or factual, it doesn't, and that's, to me, that's what makes life interesting is just to discuss it and consider it and open the mind. 

Speaker 2: Yeah. There's, Shakespeare quote, I think it is, where it says, there are more things in heaven and hell, [00:45:00] Horatio, I think, Hmm.

Don't quote me on that being the full quote. Yeah. Because I'm not really sure. But I can't tell what is in heaven. Because I'm not there. IDI know half of what's happened on Earth because of history books and history books are written by the winner. So what did the loser think? Right? So I love history.

I love diving into that kind of thing. But at the same time, I know my limits. Like I said, every time I've tried to quote something, I don't remember where it's from. Like if people ask me about scripture verses and I'm like, look, there's this verse that says this. I don't know where the crap it is in the Bible.

I know I've read it before. Just go with that. Right? Yeah. I don't know where it is. Good luck finding it. But I think that having those nuggets to be able to share with people whether or not you [00:46:00] know exactly where they came from or if you know exactly the right quote, they're gonna go look if they're that interested, right?

Yeah. And so you've given them a nugget that they get to turn into something more. 

Speaker: That's right. And that's what I think that the purpose of what you're doing with your podcast, what I do with my writing, that's what we're here for, is to get to open up those questions. And that's what this is for, right?

Is open up questions to get people to start exploring, themselves, their ideas, their options, and their story.