Episode 139 – The Debt Inside You

This is Rebecca Clark Episode 139. The debt inside you with David McBee. Mm hmm. This podcast is for anyone that knows they haven’t yet found and offered up their best work but are compelled to seek it out and do it. Are you ready to move your desk? It’s great to have David McBee back on the show. Um his claim to fame is, he’s the first person I interviewed on the move your desk podcast where I was not comfortable yet interviewing. So maybe that came across, but now I feel a little bit better about it. Doesn’t mean I’m better. I feel better about it. That’s all that matters right. And so, but at that point you had been on a journey. I think when we first talked, you were doing the everyday lessons every day. You’d written the book because you’ve discovered some things about yourself and then you hinted in that interview that you had another book coming out which is out and I see you have a shirt which is awesome. After that. I think we talked again, you interviewed me or something and then I’ve seen your journey on instagram. So I thought it’d be fun to bring you back on to say, okay, where are you on this journey? I know you have a day job and you have a side gig of riding around in a jeep. Yeah, Well, um the day job’s going great. I am, I’m the director of training for a tech company. So I, I work with business owners and sales people all day all the time. And that’s always fun. But these passion projects are what I am excited to talk to you about everyday lessons every day was a journey that I had to go through in order to kind of right the ship if you will. You know, I was telling someone earlier today, I said it was kind of like when an obese person finally discovers exercise and eating healthy and they transformed their body, I transformed my heart and soul through that journey of reading self help or self improvement books every day. So that’s what everyday lessons every day is all about. It’s, it’s less of a priority for me because I feel like I’m just on the good path now. I do occasionally still um lose my temper. In fact, episode a couple of weeks ago was the monster came out and I made my daughter cry, I don’t know if you caught that one or not, but it’s like, it’s like the thin person binging on a whole pizza, you know, it’s like we still have our moments and I love doing the podcast for everyday lessons every day. But truly my passion right now is the DJ book series. So it’s, it’s all about a little jeep that goes off to um, to moab has a panic attack on the mountain, you know, because it’s just the sheer drop and his friends are kind to him and patient with him and help him overcome his his fears and he becomes like this avid off Roader, right? And it’s based on a true story, as you know, because I had that experience and never had an intention of writing a Children’s book ever. I don’t know where that ever came from, but when it came out and people embraced it and I got to read it to Children and I heard about Children’s responses to it. It just, it I don’t I don’t think I had the Grinch’s heart, but if I had like my heart exploded. It grew 10 sizes because of something I didn’t even know was important to me. Does that make sense? Yeah, that’s great. You know, to hear, especially fun to hear when people weren’t intending it. I have a friend who tells me that I’m sorry, I have a friend who tells me that creative ideas are divinely inspired and that you you have to take action on them, right? And I think you probably subscribe to that same concept. So when the idea came to me, I just like, I have to do this. I didn’t know anything about writing a Children’s book or finding an artist or any of that stuff. But now I’ve published a second book, it’s also based on real experiences we went out on the trail and somebody fell in a hole and we helped them out of the hole. And like just all these ideas of things that really could happen on a trail and it’s about friendship and kindness and now I’m so excited. I’m so excited to talk to you about the third book Rebecca Oh, you already started it. I didn’t even mean to, I’m not even in the black on the first books, like I’m still way in the whole IO, the artist hundreds of dollars. But I’m like, let’s do a third book because my wife got a pink jeep and there are these instagram influencers that I, that I talked to online that the whole jeep community is big on instagram, right? And some of the women, they get bullied for being in a man’s sport or for being too flamboyant. You know, they have these big pink jeeps or whatever and the, the Karens of the world look down their noses that I’m like, oh, honey, just get a normal car, what’s up with that thing? Right? And they get picked on. And so this third book is all about that experience. Uh, and how women can play in a man’s sport. It’s not even a man’s sport, it’s behind a steering wheel, anybody could do this, right? Right. And, and so that’s, that’s where I’m at now. I got straight to the, to the end, way faster than you probably wanted me to. And I didn’t even let you ask any questions. I’m so sorry, no, this is perfect going through the experience of creating a DJ book and then being even more excited about your jeep than creating another DJ book, is this kind of feeding upon itself? Like we’re all of a sudden the whole family is like, well maybe we like jeeps to, maybe we want to try it like, or was she already all into your same thing when you were, did she kind of grow as you stepped into this? Not at all. In fact, she was like, you go with your boys have fun, right? Because she would get really, really anxious in the jeep as well. Just like I did, she um is getting more comfortable with going off road for my birthday last year. I said, hey, I really want to go to hot springs off road park. It’s, you know, come with me. And because it was my birthday, I think she felt like she can say yes. So she came and we actually had fun and she overcame a lot of her fears. And then when jeep announced that they were selling a pink jeep this year, she was like, oh, I’d like to have that. And I was like, oh, shut up, you’re kidding. She’s like, no, for real. I was like, okay, let’s buy another jeep. We traded, we traded in the Cherokee and got this pink jeep. And now Rebecca, we have a pink jeep and a blue jeep. So if you know anyone who’s pregnant and wants us to do a gender reveal party. Hey, that’s actually a great side gig. I was wondering if jeep had become your sponsor or something, you know, because you you’re doing these add ons and things that I thought I’m like, wow, he’s, he’s becoming kind of a spokesperson for this vehicle and the experiences you can have around it. I’m not gonna life jeep ever called and said, hey, you wanna get involved. I’d, I’d be all about it. But but really technically DJ is not a jeep, he’s just an off road vehicle, right? Because there’s, there’s lots of different versions of off road trucks and cars in there. So yeah, I look at this and it’s like, I can see how you try to make it kind of jeep ish, but kind of not um, your artist, but it has been fun to see through social media, kind of how this has grown and you’re able to perhaps express more of your talents or passions or whatever through this project. And then to find out that you are also sharing the book with Children and then you won some kind of award for that for one of the books, didn’t you? Mother’s Choice or something. Yeah, it’s a it’s a recipient of the Mom’s Choice Award. So it got recognized as being not just listen, anybody can publish a book on, on, on amazon, right? And tell people that all the time where they’re like, you wrote a book about your self help book. I’m like, listen, nobody checked my work. Okay. It’s literally it could be total garbage and look really good on amazon’s home page. Right, Right. But to have that recognition from the Mom’s Choice award said, OK, David, this isn’t just, you know, a coloring book that you threw up there. It has a decent storyline, I’m embarrassed to say, but also proud to say that some people have told me that they get to the end of the book and they have goose bumps about DJs experience. And I’m like, what? It’s like 20 page book for Children, it gave you goosebumps, but it, you know, it is based on a true story. So that’s exciting to hear. Well, you know, it’s interesting and probably, I don’t know how many, probably every 10th episode or something I find myself quoting from a Children’s book because sometimes they just say it’s super simple, right? And you go, oh, that’s I mean, that’s an important life value or principle or whatever. And I like reading the complex books too. But sometimes when you’re reading to your child all of a sudden you’re like, whoa, that was deep. I don’t think they recognize how deep that was, but maybe I needed to hear it a deep concept. And so, well if you’ll allow me to backtrack just for a second. My last episode of everyday lessons every day was a lesson I learned from toy Story about the relationship between buzz and woody, Right? So I think that media art, movies, books aimed at Children always kind of have that subtle um influence on parents as well. Right? And so I like to think that my books do that as well. Well it I’m so glad that you acted on the I don’t remember what you called it, the divine inspiration, I call it spiritual nudges sometimes, right? You know it’s not something that came from you, it was like inserted into your brain and then it’s your job to act upon it and then to see what happens right now you’re involved in this other stuff that you never intended on being involved with in life. I’m interested in how this impacts like who you’re trying to become going forward. Do you just you feel like you’re doing great at your job and this is just another thing you do on the side. Is this something that combines with your work in the future or are you just kind of letting it b I think I think most people have a job And a hobby right? Like go to work 9-5 and then you go bowling or you go to work 9-5 and you go hunting or camping or whatever for me, I have this just creativity inside me that I use all the time at my job. But then my part time gig is something that’s I don’t know D. J. Is not making me any money Rebecca not not yet, maybe one day Reese Witherspoon will pick it up and tweet about it and then all of a sudden the floodgates cool, but I don’t know, but for now it’s more of a hobby, it’s just something I feel like I have to do in my spare time my son who’s 21 he lives with me still um he teases me all the time because we’ll be sitting on the couch or whatever and I’ll get a notification like and he’ll go, what is it did Floyd send you a new page and I’m like, yes, excuse me, I run to my office and I looked at the new page and um but it just it’s it’s really fun for me whether or not I ever sell enough to break even or make any money, I don’t honestly care, it would be great, but but I, I just, I’m doing it because I have two and the third book is actually evidence of that because I am not even on book two yet, But when the storyline for book three came to me, I was like I just have to pursue this, I have to, I have to write this story about um girls standing up for girls, women empowering women, women, showing men that they can do the same things as as men and for my daughter and for my wife, I wanted to tell that story. Uh so now literally I’m like telling Floyd, you gotta draw faster dude, we gotta get this thing done because it is I love this storyline that’s so neat to hear you know and when you brought up briefly Reese Witherspoon um for some reason it reminds me I think it was a book I read a while ago called The Long tail. I don’t have you heard about it about how now you don’t have to be appealed to the masses that you can make money in the niches kind of thing. And one of the stories he told was about someone who had one of these mount Everest experiences, you know like there’s all these people that have stories about their Mount Everest you know and then they get to base camp or whatever they do. Um I don’t have a goal to climb Mount Everest but the the point that he was making in the story is that someone just a stray person had their mount Everest experience. They wrote a book about it and they put it up on amazon and there was no special marketing for it or anything but because it was a similar topic to a famous book, it came up in recommendations and it started to become popular because of that. And then you have the flip story example that Reese Witherspoon cannot re share or like your post if you hadn’t created it before right in the past right? So the fact that you just keep creating and you never know when someone’s going to suddenly notice and then all of a sudden all the stuff that was created before becomes even more valuable, but it wouldn’t have been there unless you followed that instinct an impression to move forward. So I think you’re building the foundation of something. We all don’t know where that leads, but you’ve created evidence. Um, that’s fun to watch, right? Because soon you’re gonna have a whole bookshelf full of these Little stories. It’ll be a whole like uh, curious George and all of those. It was like one book and then it became 50 or who knows right or DJ becomes a look, I’m having all these ideas for you and I don’t even know a DJ jeep. Well, um, last, last friday on black friday, we went off roading here in Kansas and I snapped my antenna off and I got my jeep all scratched up and I drove over a log and it popped up and put a dent in my door and then my winch didn’t work. And it was like, I was having a rough day. My wife and daughter and her boyfriend were with me and I was doing everything I could to keep my temper in check right? And I did, I was like, don’t sweat the small stuff, it’s a dent, you can get the dent fixed. It’s a winch, you can replace the winch or fix it. And I just took some deep breaths, I got back in the car and said, we’re having a ball and they were like, dad, we’re really proud of you. They, I mean they three years ago I would have lost my mind, right. And I remember thinking, well this is a book right here. DJ has a rough day and DJ doesn’t sweat the small stuff and okay, there’s a story right there or um, I don’t know. And then you can go see the silly side. My mother really wants me to DJ meet santa. Okay. Santa’s a dump truck full of toys, you know. Right? Yeah. I don’t, I don’t know if any of that will come to fruition, but there’s a world of possibilities. Yeah. The little, the little angel on my shoulder just keeps whispering in my ear, I think, well, I was going to just ask you like, what would you encourage other people to do that? Are they kind of have this little whisper, but they’re afraid to do it or they think they’ll fail or no one will like it. I mean, nobody says it better than Nike just do it. Right. The, the process of writing the book everyday lessons every day was long and over months and months and months and I did pay editors and book designers to help me out with that. So there was a financial expense DJ takes a lot less of my time, but more money because I have to pay the artist, but I don’t regret any of it. I, I, I think that when you are inspired to do something and you don’t do it, you’re going to have more of a more of a debt inside of you than the debt would have cost you to complete the journey. Right, Right. How many times have you had one of your ideas appear Someone else did it. Right. And you’re like, Oh, I had that idea 10 years ago. Why didn’t I like that’s the worst. I know my wife, my wife 100 years ago came up with the idea of puppy playgrounds and puppy daycares right. Long before they were a thing. And then when they started popping up, she was like, ah, I don’t have that moment. You know, if you’ve got an idea, run with it, go for it. Right. Yeah. And that, you know, there’s so many things we look back on and yet at the same time I have to remember, okay, I need to take action now on the promptings I’m getting right now because I don’t want to look back two years from now and still be having the same reaction I’m having about the things from two years before. Uh, I’m going live with the course this week that I actually created two years ago. Oh, awesome. Tell me about that. Well, it’s just never perfect. In fact, I’m going to give you free things for it. It’s um, it’s improving relationships with your boss and so I’ll have to give you some free coupons to it for people in your life, even if you don’t want it, you know, you can share it with someone, but that perfection stuff and the funny thing is none of my stuff is perfect. So I don’t think like, I don’t understand why I’m waiting for certain things, right? Because none of it’s been perfect to date and I’ve still shipped to some things. But some of these things, I was just talking to someone else about this that if it was some kind of widget or something, you could buy off the shelf, it wouldn’t be so highly personal. But because in it it’s offering what I know and what I do and understand, it’s so personal that I feel like it has to be better than if there was some plastic thing, right? You know, like a cellphone part or a toy, right? It has your imprint on it and your products have you in them. And so, you know, I think it matters when people see a reflection of you through your product, you might make it mean more and it actually, It’s a mindset game really, you have to work through, but you make a really good point, it’s never going to be perfect. Some of these pages I go back and forth with my artists 2025 times and I am really nitpicky, but at some point I’m like, I have to stop, we have to go to the next page and it’s on me to decide stop being so perfect, right? In fact, today, if I try to read everyday lessons every day, I’m like, oh, I could have been that so much better. Oh, that story didn’t come out the way, but nobody else knows that. And well, my friend Stephen was pretty critical of my writing and he suggested, hey, it’s an e book, you can just fix it. I’m like, no, I’m not fixing it. It is what it is in all its imperfect imperfection. It’s, it is what it is. Um and I’m moving on to these other projects instead. You know, it’s funny. Last time we talked, you had mentioned, hey, write a book someday and I’m like, oh wait, I already have and I haven’t marketed them because of that. You know, I read them and like, uh but um I had this other course that I hadn’t gone live with or I hadn’t marketed and I was having the same cringe effect that you’re just explaining. And this week, actually, earlier this week I said, you know what, this is a chance to show the people you’re selling this to, that you understand your giving an imperfect product. And so I created two videos that started off that say, hey, I made this two years ago and I’m going to share it with you with all the imperfections because I feel like the bulk of it’s good stuff. It’s just that my video is a little creepy. I recorded it at night, right? You know, these little things that I’ve since improved upon, but at the time that was the best I could do. And uh, so I’m gonna put it out there and see what happens. But I added that little Disclaimer up front. No one needed it except me. I needed a disclaimer. So it’s an interesting process to, to put this work out in the world. I, I wanted to find out if there are any last words that you wanted to share about APL reveling yourself. The challenge is in the process. Any inspiration, any last thoughts that you would want to leave with someone. How about this? I imagine your audience being the kind of people who are embracing self improvement. Would that be fair to say they take the time to listen to your podcasts or or take your courses because they want to be better at something. So I think the best thing that I can tell those people is to be comfortable with your imperfections, There are people who are constantly striving to grow and be better and be better and be better and Rebecca I remember the first time I gotta be in school, I mean I flipped out, I was that guy, right? I was an a student. I don’t get bees right? And I, and if I could go back in time and talk to that young man, I would say, dude, no one is ever gonna care or know about this be except you let it go, right. And that’s a really um uh measurable, tangible example of what I’m trying to say. But we all have our be moments. And so I would like to just say to your listeners, it’s okay to have those be moments. Don’t be so hard on yourself. Just move forward. Learn from those moments move forward and have more a moments because of the B moment, right? It almost helps you appreciate the A moments more when you’ve had the opposites. Of course A B is good, B is great, right? Like, but but the same story could be told of an F moment, right? You can, you can totally fail at something and still learn from it and be better in the long run. So the big last words I would like to share our just stop being so hard on yourself, accept your imperfections because that’s how you were made and that’s who you are. So accept it, embrace it. Love yourself now. That’s such a good reminder. I think we can’t say that enough. I think we have to hear it from different people and different voices and everything so well, thank you so much for coming on the show. I have a feeling we’ll talk again and there will probably be another DJ book some more shirts, some stickers for jeeps. I don’t know, it’s just good to talk with someone who’s acting upon those inspirations and and seeing the joy that comes from it and helping other people. So thank you again for joining. Thank you for having me. I always love talking to you and I really appreciate you sharing my creations with the world. Thanks for listening to the show today. If you enjoyed it, I’d love if you’d write a review and share the show with your friends, sign up for a weekly nudge at move your desk dot com. Mm hmm.