Speaker A
I'm in the beginning stages of heart and liver failure and integrating that into my life this year has been challenging.
L.S. Author discusses the challenges of living with terminal illness and the importance of delusional self-belief for writers and creatives.
Key Takeaways
- Living like you're dying can be harmful if it leads to giving up on the future.
- A strong purpose ('why') helps endure hardships and stay disciplined.
- Delusional self-belief is necessary to pursue challenging creative careers.
- Maintaining a clear, passionate vision is key to overcoming fear and stagnation.
- Even with grim realities, hope and belief fuel meaningful action and productivity.
Summary
- L.S. Author shares his experience with heart and liver failure and the emotional challenges it brings.
- He reflects on the philosophy of 'living like you're dying' and how it can lead to stagnation if misunderstood.
- The video emphasizes the importance of having a strong 'why' to endure difficult circumstances.
- Author discusses the need for a clear, passionate vision to maintain discipline and productivity.
- He highlights the value of delusional self-belief, especially for writers pursuing a difficult career.
- Despite grim odds, holding onto hope and vision is crucial for motivation and progress.
- Author relates his personal struggle with resignation and how he overcame it through self-reflection.
- He encourages viewers to reject cynicism and embrace passionate belief in their goals.
- Mentions his adventure novel 'Fire in the Tall Grass' and thanks supporters.
- The video blends personal vulnerability with motivational advice tailored to writers and creatives.
Full Transcript — Download SRT & Markdown
Speaker A
I'd be lying to you if I said that it wasn't very difficult.
Speaker A
But in the experience of that itself and the amount of self-reflection, the amount of counseling and and work I've done with integrating it has come with a very valuable lesson for me that I hope to impart onto you, something I hope can be helpful and serving to you.
Speaker A
So, um, I guess I'll get right in with it by saying back in the most successful times of my life, like the most fruitful experiences for me came when I finally got an understanding of the quote, he who has a strong why can withstand any how.
Speaker A
That was my anchor, man, that was my favorite.
Speaker A
And a lot of success for me came from my ability to do so many undesirable, difficult things that I had to do.
Speaker A
Um, in order to get to the goal out there, you know what I mean?
Speaker A
Um, setting a goal post, a vision for the future that was so alluring that it kept me, it kept me striving and disciplined on the path towards it.
Speaker A
But this, you know, going to the doctors this year with my stress test, with my heart condition and then kind of showing you the, oh, we're going down.
Speaker A
Uh, our trajectory is showing.
Speaker A
This is, this is going where we know it's going to go.
Speaker A
It kind of, it wasn't, you know, it's super subtle and you don't notice these things and it takes a lot of the self-reflection and the counseling and and um, self-awareness to really look at myself.
Speaker A
A couple months later when I realized, man, something's not right.
Speaker A
Something is not good.
Speaker A
I am stagnating in a lot of ways, I realized I was less productive in subtle ways.
Speaker A
And I won't really, I guess I won't divulge too much because that's too idiosyncratic, too personal, you'd be like, shut up, I don't care.
Speaker A
But essentially I learned that I was living out the philosophy of live every day like it was your last, right?
Speaker A
Or live like you were dying.
Speaker A
To a version of it that was kind of corrupted or polluted and and wasn't necessarily um, helpful the way it wants to come across.
Speaker A
I was truly living every day like it was my last in that it didn't matter.
Speaker A
There was no future to build towards.
Speaker A
I don't want to look at the future.
Speaker A
Uh, I want to stay stagnated right here where I feel safe.
Speaker A
And and don't don't talk to me about the future because that's scary.
Speaker A
Um, so then my vision, everything I was holding onto became fuzzy, it became null and void.
Speaker A
I put my hands up, you know, and and took like a cosmic, a cosmic loss here saying, what does it matter?
Speaker A
I'm just on my way to heart failure and liver failure.
Speaker A
I don't really care about anything.
Speaker A
And that sounds way more harsh than, you know, it it truly showed itself.
Speaker A
I really obviously had great strong relationships with my friends and my wife and my kids and I was doing a lot productivity-wise.
Speaker A
Um, to the outside world, but internally I had resigned.
Speaker A
I had given up a lot of ways.
Speaker A
Um, thinking, what does it matter?
Speaker A
And not that all of that questioning and all of that wasn't uh, for nothing.
Speaker A
I I did learn some valuable things in that too.
Speaker A
Um, like letting go of a lot of my ego and and attachment to like a need for success.
Speaker A
A lot of that was positive.
Speaker A
But the negative aspect, the lesson for you guys is that we do need to hold onto a little bit of delusional self-belief.
Speaker A
I really believe that.
Speaker A
I'm a writer and I'm often talking to writers here in these videos, so take this with that uh, analogy and that kind of way of thinking about it.
Speaker A
For you to be a writer, to truly be like a successful career writer who makes it their living.
Speaker A
That's a million to one shot.
Speaker A
I mean, that's the same odds as me outliving uh, my diagnosis.
Speaker A
Or, you know, having a a longer healthy life.
Speaker A
Like it is a big, big ask.
Speaker A
Um, but if you're going to make it happen, I think it's important to have that that delusional self-belief of like, yeah, I'm going to make it happen.
Speaker A
That vision is going to stay clear for me out there so I can stay disciplined.
Speaker A
Just like for me, I realized I needed to have that that thing inside me that just forgot the odds.
Speaker A
That didn't care too much about um.
Speaker A
About what the doctors said, you know, forget all of that.
Speaker A
They haven't met me, right?
Speaker A
I I'm going to do more cardio.
Speaker A
I'm going to eat right.
Speaker A
They're not going to see it coming.
Speaker A
I'm going to outlive what they're going to say.
Speaker A
I'm going to live.
Speaker A
I needed a little bit of that to allow for me to get up every morning as it's winter.
Speaker A
And go outside with the below freezing weather and go on a run.
Speaker A
I don't want to do that.
Speaker A
And if I really didn't believe in a future at all, I wouldn't.
Speaker A
I would just sit here and be miserable.
Speaker A
And that's not how I want to live.
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Just like you, you should want to be a writer.
Speaker A
And we don't know what is going to happen on the other end.
Speaker A
We don't know what the future is going to be.
Speaker A
Of course, never.
Speaker A
We won't.
Speaker A
We won't know what it is.
Speaker A
But we need to, I think, hold onto a vision whether everybody around us says that's silly, that's dumb.
Speaker A
Um, get a little more realistic.
Speaker A
I say don't get more realistic.
Speaker A
I say get more passionate about your vision.
Speaker A
Get more uh, sure that you're going to make it happen.
Speaker A
So that you can continue to take the right steps.
Speaker A
Um, so look, I think that's all I've got.
Speaker A
I don't want to keep rambling.
Speaker A
That's essentially the point is that we can't be too afraid to look at the future.
Speaker A
Even if it doesn't look so bright, even if there are grim statistics, even if everybody says, look, there's no point.
Speaker A
You've got to find the point, man.
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And you've got to believe even delusionally, I think I, you know, you got to be delusional to think I'm going to make a career in writing.
Speaker A
And I'm going to make it happen.
Speaker A
I'm I've got to be delusional to think that Veritas Entertainment is going to be able to make movies that actually compete.
Speaker A
Well, who cares, I'm delusional then.
Speaker A
And I want, I want to do that.
Speaker A
Because ultimately, how do I want my days spent?
Speaker A
Right, if this is going to end, which it is.
Speaker A
How do I want to spend my time?
Speaker A
I want to spend it writing, I want to spend it taking wild swings, I want to spend it believing I was chipping away at something.
Speaker A
Not moping around about how there is no point.
Speaker A
All right, that's all guys.
Speaker A
Thank you and also thank you to everybody who's been buying Fire in the Tall Grass lately.
Speaker A
It's been um, getting a huge surge in sales.
Speaker A
I think partially because of the Yukon Cornelius post I did that that kind of blew up.
Speaker A
Um, because Yukon Cornelius is just the man.
Speaker A
And I think we all agreed.
Speaker A
I didn't know how much we all agreed.
Speaker A
Got like 12,000 likes.
Speaker A
So I guess there are a lot of Yukon Cornelius fans out there.
Speaker A
Um, 12,000 likes for me is is absurd.
Speaker A
I if I broke 100 ever, I was like, let's go.
Speaker A
You know what I mean?
Speaker A
So that's awesome and thank you guys just to those who supported Fire in the Tall Grass.
Speaker A
If you haven't yet read it, go ahead, read it.
Speaker A
It's my adventure novel in the vein of like the uh, movie The Mummy or 1923 Indiana Jones.
Speaker A
High adventure, very cool uh, World War I pilot um, in the Congo.
Speaker A
Check it out.
Speaker A
All right.
Topics:L.S. Authorliving like you're dyingdelusional self-beliefwriter motivationheart failureliver failurecreative careerself-reflectiondisciplinehope and vision
