Welcome to “How You Living?” a transformative podcast featuring best-selling author, inspirational speaker and minister, Dr. Rick Rigsby—and, now, Dr. Rick.
Dr. Rigsby: Hello, everyone. Thank you so much for joining us today, and if you are joining us, you picked the best day. I am in the studio with one of my closest friends in all the world, Dwight Edwards. Dwight, it's so great to see you, brother.
Dwight: Great, great being with you.
Dr. Rigsby: Close your ears up, Dwight, because I know you hate praise, but I have to introduce you. Dwight is a former tennis pro, played in the 1970s on the circuit. He's a best-selling author. He's a highly sought-after motivational speaker, former pastor of the Waters Edge Community Church in the Woodlands, Tex., married to his beautiful wife, Lauri. [01:00.4]
He's a direct descendant of renowned theologian and pastor, Jonathan Edwards. You may recall Jonathan Edwards' famous sermon Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God. Dwight has written six books. A few of them are best-sellers. My favorite is Say “No” to Vanilla.
More on the personal side. For 30 years now, Dwight has been one of my closest friends. He is one of my mentors. He can tell you the good, the bad, the ugly. The bad was probably with him by my side when my first wife Trina went home. It was Dwight who I write about in my book who told me, “I don't know why Trina died, but I know God is sovereign,” and I held onto that line for years. Then a couple of years later, as we celebrated marriage, Janet and I, who was it that married us? My dear friend, Dwight.
Dwight, it's such an honor to have you here. You know how much I love you, brother. [01:59.6]
Dwight: It goes here the same way. I mean, what a relationship God has given us over the years, and just a thrill to be here, Rick. Love you, brother.
Dr. Rigsby: I love you, too, and I was listening over the weekend to the last time we were together when we had a podcast, where we were talking about Say “No” to Vanilla, and I realized we didn't get far.
Dwight: No, we didn't. We did not.
Dr. Rigsby: Here's the bottom line, Dwight. You have devoted a lot of time into encouraging people all over the world from every walk of life to live their best life. What's the big deal about vanilla? What's so wrong with vanilla?
Dwight: To all the vanilla lovers out there, let me just say, this is not a dis on vanilla per se. But the idea is that vanilla is completely predictable. You're never in danger of an extreme. You're going to know exactly what you're going to get and it’s kind of a safe middle, if you will, just like way too people's lives, and that was the idea behind it: let's say no to vanilla, so we can say yes to living life at full throttle and just flat going for it, brother. [03:10.3]
You only get one shot at this thing called life. I mean, why in the world would we fritter it away on just mundane, run-of-the-mill ordinary stuff? And I realize that a large part of life is those things. I'm not taking that away. But have you found something that will get you out of bed in the morning like nothing else? Have you found something that will bring a greater light to your eyes, a greater vibrancy to your voice, a greater spring to your step? Because if you haven't, it's there. It's just waiting for me to discover it.
Dr. Rigsby: That's so good. Dwight. I'm going to put you on the spot, okay?
Dwight: What’s new?
Dr Rigsby: Just to make that point, I want you to give the illustration of the man with the hunting dog that was really surprised by what his dog did.
Dwight: Yeah, I have a good friend that has a dog—I don't know why they haven't put that poor dog down. He's so, so old—and you go over to his house and you see this dog is just riddled with arthritis and can barely make it to its water bowl and back, and it’s sad almost to watch. [04:12.0]
But when my friend goes hunting and he takes out his shotgun and the dog hears the click of the shotgun—I wish I had a video of it—eyes get bright, ears go up, starts kind of moving around in ways that he doesn't otherwise, and when my friend takes him out hunting, the dog is full stretch nonstop. You would not know there's an ounce of arthritis anywhere in that dog. You just wouldn't. Come back home, put away the shotgun, and the dog returns to the poor pitiful creature it is most of the time.
The question is, what makes the difference? It's very simple. That dog is a hunting dog. Its parents didn't teach it to hunt. It didn't go to school to learn how to hunt. It's its DNA. It's what it’s made to do.
By the way, our website has a video on this. It's about three minutes long. It’s a great read. It’s VanillaBusters.com and you can just go on and watch the video. [05:01.5]
I like to ask the question, have you heard the click of the shotgun for you?
Dr. Rigsby: Yes.
Dwight: For you because that's going to vary dramatically from person to person. I've got another friend who has a dog, and that dog, the only time it can relax is when everybody in the family is together at the table. If different members of the family are off in another room, it's kind of walking around. It's a bit antsy. But get everybody together, it goes off the side, lays down and is fine. Why? Because it's a herding dog.
Dr. Rigsby: Wow.
Dwight: It didn't go to school to learn how to herd. Its parents didn't teach it how to herd. It's its DNA. The click of the shotgun means nothing to this dog and family reunions mean nothing to the dog that is the “click of the shotgun” dog.
I just think that's how life is. It’s that all of us have something that will light our fire, if you will, that we will do better than anything else in our gift, talent, passion mix. Blessed is the man or blessed is the woman who has found what that is. [05:58.0]
Dr. Rigsby: That’s so good, Dwight. It is really incumbent upon those of us who want to go to that next level to find and hear and respond to the click of the shotgun in our lives. That's your point.
Dwight: Exactly, and I'm not saying that you find it overnight. Solzhenitsyn at age 14 said, “I knew I was born to write.” That's young to have found that, but he did and he wrote that for all that it's worth.
But everybody has something and I think maybe the hardest part of kind of landing on what that is is having enough courage to admit that's what I really want to do, because normally practicality assassinates that dream, and what I mean by that is we begin to think, Okay, what would I most want? No, I could never do that. Where we live, we could never do that. I could never make enough money, and on and on. [06:52.2]
Practicality matters, so I'm not taking that away, but what I'd like to tell people is temporarily stiff on practicality. Temporarily say, Okay, no practicality here. What would get me out of bed like nothing else? What would keep me awake like nothing else? When I have spare time to read, where do I tend to go? What would people who know me best say, You would be really good at this? On and on it goes. Life is very practical and sometimes you can't do what you'd love to do full time, but you can do it incrementally.
Dr. Rigsby: Yeah.
Dwight: A great story, I love this. There was a young man who went through law school. He was a lawyer in Mississippi and he discovered not too long into it, he really loved to write, but he's a lawyer and he can't walk away from his job. What he did is he went down to his office about six o'clock each morning and he wrote until about 9:00 when he went to the court, and he did this for a number of years and just kept slowly pushing his dream along and John Grisham is now pursuing his dream. He's doing what he has always loved to do, but that's how it started.
Dr. Rigsby: Sure. [08:00.0]
Dwight: It’s just slowly pushing the dream along.
Dr. Rigsby: I can relate to that.
Dwight: Yeah.
Dr. Rigsby: I can relate to that. You said so many things that are so good. You’re really outlining the epic life, and what I love about it is it's a life that is not exclusive to rich people, to famous people. You’ve got to have some courage. We talked earlier a couple of months ago, you have to have passion, but we never talked about courage or creativity, or diligence or perseverance. Pick it up from there.
Dwight: My idea in writing Say “No” to Vanilla, it came first off the book.
Dr. Rigsby: Good to Great.
Dwight: Good to Great, yeah, and where he takes a thousand companies and says, Okay, this is what these 10 do better than anybody else. I thought let's do that with individual human lives out of history. What I did was just over the years of examining lives and so forth, came up with five, what I think are the five common threads of an uncommon life.
The first one was passion that we talked about. It’s that you’ve found an extraordinary dream. You’ve found what you're made to do. Nothing great is ever accomplished without passion.
Dr. Rigsby: Come on. [09:00.5]
Dwight: You can be good, but you cannot be great without passion.
Dr. Rigsby: Come on, brother.
Dwight: Secondly, there was creativity. It's a willingness to think outside the box, although it also means respecting the box, so there's an important balance there. Sometimes when something's in the box, there's a good reason for it. But it's saying I'm not going to be controlled by that. It's just a willingness to think outside the box. We call it creativity.
The third is basically risk-taking. It's what I call courage and it's the willingness to take the risk, and then that's followed up by the key issues of diligence, just the sweat equity that it's going to cost. Anything of significance is going to cost and it's going to cost over a long period, and that's where perseverance, number five, comes in.
Basically, it's just showing life after life after life after life that were extraordinary, those tend to be the common five that you find.
Dr. Rigsby: Dwight, those all sound awesome, but why do people shy away from living an epic life? Is it because they are… I think you mentioned you have to have the courage to make the choice to do it. Would that be the single reason right there? [10:06.8]
Dwight: Yeah, I think that's a huge part of. It is having the courage to go down deep enough and say, You know what? This is what I love. Now, this is what I was meant to do. Let me just add, there's a difference between saying “This is what I'd like to do” and “This is what I was meant to do.”
Dr. Rigsby: Wow.
Dwight: So, that's very, very important. I would like to sing like Andrea Bocelli. I would love that. What a high that would be. It's never going to happen. It's never going to happen in this lifetime. Ask anybody who's ever heard me sing.
Dr. Rigsby: Yeah, I know.
Dwight: It’s done. It's over.
Dr. Rigsby: I think you're right.
Dwight: The battle is lost. But finding what it is that [lights your fire]. For whatever reason, communication just lights my fire, whether it's teaching or writing, for whatever reason, but I didn't go looking for that. It found me. I’d just say your extraordinary dream will find you more than you will find it.
Dr. Rigsby: I have often said much to your consternation that you're the best communicator that I know. [11:01.5]
Dwight: Now, brother, God help us.
Dr. Rigsby: And I mean that. Your use of adjectives, your use of the English language, your ability to paint a picture. It has been my honor and education to be mentored by you. I have to agree with you. I think your purpose will find you.
Dwight: Yes.
Dr. Rigsby: I want to really encourage people that are listening, especially if you find yourself at a job that you think is a dead end job or you don't seem to be getting far enough down the line as fast as you would like to go, think about the words that Dwight is saying. Your purpose really will find you.
For 40 years of my life, I made life about me, and then you were there during the worst day of my life. I literally discovered my purpose at the casket of a wife and it was when I remember I heard, I sensed in my heart, God said, “Do you trust me?” and I remember my profound spiritual lesson or answer, “I don't like you right now” - [11:59.8]
Dwight: I love it.
Dr. Rigsby: - “but I trust you.” I can remember this as clear as I had sensed it in my heart 25 years ago. “If you trust me, I will use your pain to display my glory, to encourage, help and uplift people with hope all over the world.” My purpose found me, despite me. That's not an excuse to stop working. It's not an excuse to stop going. That's really motivation to stay at it. Dwight, would you encourage people to stay at it?
Dwight: Right, absolutely. Stay at it. I promise you this, wherever you are, your best days are still ahead. You've never taken more hits. You've never gained more wisdom. You’ve never had a better overall view of life than you have right now. There's no reason that your next days should not be your best days. I think to the day we die, we should be thinking in those kinds of terms.
Dr. Rigsby: It’s so good. We just have a few more moments here, but I love listening to you. I follow you. Once again, will you give the VanillaBusters.com? You could have picked an easier title. [13:07.3]
Dwight: This is true.
Dr. Rigsby: VanillaBusters.com website again?
Dwight: Yeah, it's www.VanillaBusters.com. All one word, VanillaBusters.com.
Dr. Rigsby: There's lots in store for you when you go to that web page, friends. I love listening to Dwight. I listen to him regularly. You tell the story of this young man that has an opportunity to have a career in law, but the point is so profound because it really does build the house on the foundation, I think, of your best life and it's really critical that people really do, I have this purpose in mind. Would you tell the story?
Dwight: Sure. William Gladstone was the prime minister of England five times and also a very committed Christian. At one point, a family friend said, “My son is about to graduate from college. He's trying to figure out kind of what he wants to do in life. Would you be willing to spend some time talking with him?” Gladstone said, “Certainly. I'd be glad to.” [14:09.0]
They set up a time and the young man comes in the office and sits down, and they begin to start talking. Gladstone asked him a question. He said, “Tell me what you're doing.”
He said, “I'm in college. I'm just about to graduate.”
He said, “Great. What are you going to do after that?”
He said, “I'm going to try to go to law school. I like to go and get my degree in law.”
Gladstone said, “I think that's fantastic. What do you want to do after that?”
“I guess after I get my law degree, then I’ll go out and practice law and being the best lawyer I can possibly be.”
Gladstone said, “That's fantastic. Then what are you going to do after that?”
He says, “I really haven't told anybody this, but I was thinking about maybe when my law career is over going into politics, and maybe one day somehow doing as much good for England as you have done, sir.”
Gladstone said, “That is I think a fantastic idea. I think that's a great plan. Tell me, and then what do you want to do after that?” [15:04.3]
He said, “I guess then at some point I’ll retire. I’ll probably get a chance of that.”
He said, “And what do you wanted to do after that?”
He said, “Maybe get a nice cottage by the sea, maybe do some writing, write my memoirs. I really hadn't thought too much about this.”
He said, “I think that's a wonderful idea. And what do you want to do after that?”
The young man said, “I don't know, sir. I've never really thought that far down the line. I guess the time will come for me as it does for all men that I’ll die.”
Gladstone says, “You're right. The statistics of death are impressive, one out of one. And what do you want to do after that?”
He said sir, “I have to say, I’ve never thought that far down the line.”
And Gladstone stood and his massive right-hand he extended to the young man. He said, “Young man, my advice to you is this. Go home. Get down on your knees. Open up your Bible, and when you see what God has to say about life from his point of view, start making your plan,” and I don't know if there’s any better advice that I could give anybody out there. [16:08.4]
Dr. Rigsby: That story always gives me chills, Dwight, and if you want to read stories and listen to Dwight tell stories with keen insight like that, make sure you go to his website, www.VanillaBusters.com. Brother, always an honor.
Dwight: It’s so much fun to be with you, Rick. I love you, brother.
Dr. Rigsby: I love you more, Dwight.
Friends. I hope that you've been encouraged. I hope you've been inspired. I hope you've been uplifted. You know what I really hope? I hope that you've been freed from the chains and shackles of thinking that only the rich and the famous can live a life worth living or can live an epic life. You heard Dwight at the beginning of the broadcast say it's what we're meant to be. It's in our DNA. The key is discovering it for ourselves and then having the courage to do it once we hear the click of the shotgun. [17:02.8]
Dwight: Amen.
Dr. Rigsby: Until we meet again, this is Dr. Rick asking you the most important question I can ask you today, how you livin’?
Are you ready to make an impact in your world right now? Do you want to stop existing and start living your best life right now? Dr. Rick wants to give you the first chapter of his bestselling book, “Lessons from a Third Grade Dropout”, absolutely free. Just go to www.RickRigsby.com/FreeGift to get the print or audiobook right now.
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