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, friends. So glad that you could be with us today. This is Dr. Rick. I am always tickled when I have my dear friend, one of the best motivational speakers, one of the greatest communicators I've ever heard, and bestselling author, Dwight Edwards with me. Dwight, welcome, brother.
Dwight: Thanks, Rick. Love being with you, man.
Dr. Rigsby: Man, I enjoy being with you, Dwight. On a previous episode, we were talking about some of the traits of extraordinary people and we were talking about passion. And so, what I want to do today is sort of pick up where we left off on Extraordinary People, Part 1, and let's just make this Extraordinary People, Part 2.
And you had mentioned that one of the great traits of extraordinary people is you’ve got to have passion and, Dwight, you gave a quote. You shared a story about a dog that was on its last leg until something happened. Reset that for our discussion today. [01:18.5]
Dwight: I have a friend who has a dog that's just absolutely riddled with arthritis and I'm not sure why they haven't put him down, but when you go over the house, he's just lying by the water bowl, and my friend takes out his shotgun and the dog hears the click of the shotgun, something magical happens.
Dr. Rigsby: Wow.
Dwight: Eyes get brighter. Ears go up, starts moving around. My friend takes him out hunting. While he's out there hunting, he's full stretch. You'd never know there's an ounce of arthritis anywhere in that dog. Brings him back home, puts away the shotgun and the poor dog returns to its normal state. So, the great question—I think that it's true for all of us—have you heard the click of the shotgun for you? [02:00.3]
Dr. Rigsby: Wow.
Dwight: Out of all the traits, I think this is the most important. I think this is what undergirds and sustains the other traits more than any other things.
Dr. Rigsby: Let me stop you right there. I've heard you say this many times, but I've never caught the emphasis on the words for you. Have you heard of the click of the shotgun for you? In between the cracks I'm hearing sometimes we're doing somebody else's purpose or a purpose that wasn’t designed for us.
Dwight: Absolutely. We end up being puppets unwittingly. We don't realize that other people are pulling our strings and are dancing across the stage of life. That's why I asked the question—what is the click of a shotgun for your father for you? What is the click of the shotgun for your spouse for you? What is the click of the shotgun of …? And just fill in the blank.
I think it takes tremendous courage to go down deep enough and be able to answer the question, What do I most want to do? Or maybe even better, What am I most meant to do?
Dr. Rigsby: Yeah, that's a really good point. [03:02.3]
Dwight: What is it that brings a greater light to my eyes, brings a greater spring to my step, will launch me out of bed in the morning like nothing else?
Dr. Rigsby: My goodness.
Dwight: That is the man, the woman who has found what that is.
Dr. Rigsby: Dwight, you were telling me in an earlier conversation that, at our best guess, the 80/20 rule prevails here in the sense that only 20% are literally hearing the click of a shotgun for them. And so, let's just assume that's true with our viewers and listeners today and they're asking themselves, I have all these goals. I have all these dreams. I know what I was placed on this earth to do, but for some reason I'm not doing it. Can we explore that for a moment in this question that I want you to answer? Why is it that the majority don't hear the click of a shotgun?
Dwight: That's a great question and I think that there's a number of answers to that, so I'm not saying this is the only answer. But I have seen this again and again, and that is when we begin to address the question of “What am I most hardwired to do? What is it that I desire the most?” the issue of practicality comes into quickly. [04:08.7]
Now, what I mean by that is it almost assassinates our ability to go down deep enough within to say, Yes, I have to admit it. I really want to teach math in high school. God, it feels good to know that.
So, in my book, I've got a couple of questions people could ask themselves to see where they are in this. Number one is what would you most like to do if money was not an issue? Now, money is an issue, but let's for the time being stiff arm it and say, Let's pretend like you have all the money available. What would you like to do? What would you most like to do with family responsibilities were not an issue? They are, but for the time being, let it go.
What would you most like to do if geographical location was not the issue? Again, yeah, it matters, but let it go.
And I'm just going to quickly fly through some of the others.
What work, though still tiring, leaves you more energized today? [05:01.3]
What quietly nags at you from within during times of reflection on your life?
If you had to get a graduate degree, what would you most enjoy studying?
What would the people who know you best say you most enjoy doing that you're best at?
But this is the last one. What are you most afraid to admit that you would most enjoy accomplishing?
Dr. Rigsby: Oh my goodness. Say that last one one more time.
Dwight: What are you most afraid to admit to yourself that you would most enjoy accomplishing?
Dr. Rigsby: You know what I hear you saying, Dwight? Practicality robs us of giving ourselves permission to live an extraordinary life.
Dwight: Exactly. Exactly. And again, this is not to dismiss practicality, but it is simply to say that I think oftentimes we settle for second string dreams that haven't yet gotten to the first string roll.
Dr. Rigsby: Oh, come on brother.
Dwight: Yeah, exactly. So, people, they're getting close. But, again, practicality comes in and it robs us, really, of the ability to go down deepest within our souls. Harvey MacKay put it well. He said, “Find something you love to do, and you'll never work a day in your life.” [06:14.1]
Dr. Rigsby: Yeah, that's true.
Dwight: I think you find that with people. I love, I love to come across people who have heard the click of the shotgun.
Dr. Rigsby: Yes.
Dwight: I love the vibrancy I pick up from them, the light in their eyes, the excitement that they're attacking life, but that's the birthright of all human beings, that one.
Dr. Rigsby: You're one of those people. For those of you that don't know, Dwight Edwards was a professional tennis player in the ’70s. I met Dwight in the early ’90s, and so we were together someplace, T BaR M Sports Ranch in New Braunfels, Texas. And so., Dwight is just volleying with someone and I'm going, Good grief. I mean, for a novice like me, it blew me away, just how powerful and how strong you really were. [07:01.6]
But you know what blew me away even more? The joy and the pleasure that was on your face. You were literally attacking the game of tennis, not out of the sense of vengeance or spite or anger, but out of a sense of passion.
Dwight: That’s right.
Dr. Rigsby: Not only had intense feelings, and you still do, intense feelings about tennis. You said something interesting. You said it is rare when you find somebody like that, and how you love finding people and encountering people like that. Tell me why.
Dwight: It's infectious. Passion breeds passion and they're a rare commodity for one, but I find that they're energized. I find that they are compelling. They're walking through life with stride that so many other people did not have.
Conversely, so many times I'll come across a person and I can tell you're not made to do this, and sometimes I want to say, You know what? Get another job. This is not working. I don’t think I’ll do that. But it's like when you get treated so poorly and that you can tell the person just hates being there, it's like find something else. [08:09.4]
Dr. Rigsby: Yeah, that’s so great. You know what I love is what you're really saying in a nutshell is his passion is all about discovering what you are literally meant to do.
Dwight, before we go on, I need to ask you this question. There are people that are driving right now. There are people that are on exercise bicycles right now or folks that are doing a variety of things and they can't jot this down or jot that down. You talked about some of the reasons, along with practicality, why people don't hear the click of the shotgun. Remind folks again where they can find those answers.
Dwight: I would say in my book, Say No to Vanilla, we have an entire chapter really devoted to that. As I said last time, actions are never random. They're always rooted in belief and people do not change unless they believe they're trading up. What I mean by that is people are not going to let go of a secondary dream until they see the allure of the primary dream. That's the only time they're going to let go and go for the higher. [09:15.0]
So many people in life have taken an unrecognized downgrade. They don't even realize that they're flying in economy when they're supposed to be in first class. People who have found their extraordinary dream are flying first class. Great thing is that's available for everybody.
Dr. Rigsby: For everybody, yeah. There's this great man named Bishop Joseph Garlington who said on one occasion, leaders are cornered, and I think what the cornering process does is it forces you to realize a different alternative than the one that you're currently existing in, and that’s what you're really getting at.
Dwight: Absolutely.
Dr. Rigsby: I know for me it was do I exist or do I figure out a way after the death of a wife to literally put one foot in front of the other? And you were with me on it.
Dwight: Absolutely.
Dr. Rigsby: Many of you may not know that Dwight preached the funeral of my first wife, Trina, and a few years later married me and my current wife, Janet, and so he's very intimate with a person ministering to a person at rock bottom and that person having to make a choice to “Do I go to that next level?” [10:17.4]
That’s why, Dwight, I am so intrigued by this notion of practicality because practicality for all of its good can literally lie to you.
Dwight: Absolutely.
Dr. Rigsby: It can literally rob you of a truthful reality, even in our case, as men of faith, of a biblical reality. I can quote you scriptures that talk about the hope of the future, but as Les Brown said on one occasion, many of us would rather live in our memory than explore our imagination.
And so, I have to think that practicality really is a profound robber of any kind of forward momentum. And I'm just thinking about myself during those times when you were with me, when we would just sit for hours, and I would cry and you would listen. The practicality was don't do anything. Don’t move. [11:06.5]
Dwight: Exactly.
Dr. Rigsby: Don't upset yourself anymore. Just sit there.
Dwight: Absolutely. And that's where I think we said earlier, sometimes epic living is getting out of bed.
Dr. Rigsby: Come on.
Dwight: Sometimes extraordinary living is taking the dare to put one faltering foot in front of the next, and that's living your dream. So, this is where “Do I want to be practical?” in the sense of life's not always on the mountaintop. A lot of times life's in the valleys and I think most of the time it's on the planes, just ordinary mundane living. But all of life is meant to be attacked.
Dr. Rigsby: Yes.
Dwight: Sad statement in Somerset Maugham’s book Of Human Bondage. He makes the statement. He's speaking of some old people who had died and they said this. These old folk had done nothing, and when they died, it would be as if they hadn't ever lived, and that is tragic beyond words.
Dr. Rigsby: Boy, that just tears me up. Friend, I want to share something with all of you that are tuning in and listening. Maybe you're tuning in and you can really relate to some of the things that Dwight has shared that, in fact, they may even characterize your life. [12:08.0]
First I want to encourage you that there is still hope. If you are breathing, there is still hope. And I want you to really listen carefully to what Dwight has said today. Sometimes an epic life is just getting out of bed. Sometimes an epic life is just making a choice to get up and brush your teeth and take the kids to school.
Dwight: That’s right.
Dr. Rigsby: And so, I want to share with you this. If you are doing anything to move forward, anything whatsoever, yes, you are taking that first step toward living an extraordinary life.
Dwight: Absolutely.
Dr. Rigsby: And don't let your feelings or people tell you otherwise. And so, you just be encouraged. As a way of encouraging you, take a look at my book, Afraid to Hope. Take a look at Dwight's book, Vanilla Busters, and start surrounding yourself with the kind of truths that will lift you up. [13:00.9]
Dwight, I was struggling with a recurring sin in my life several months ago. It dealt with pride. I remember 20 some years ago you told me that all sin is sin, but pride may be the most besetting of sin because pride will challenge you that you have no needs. You have no need for redemption. Right?
And so, for a period of time, I started asking myself, What is the root? What is the root of sin? And I stumbled across this sermon by John Piper, and basically, in a nutshell, this was his argument that sin will exist in our lives when we have literally squelched the truths and the promises of God in such a way that we default to our flesh.
Dwight: Yes.
Dr. Rigsby: You know what? You can make a very similar parallel argument and comparison with regard to this notion of epic living that when we make a choice to default to practicality, it will literally neuter any potential to get up, to get out of bed, to say, Well, I'll try, and we'll spend the rest of our lives saying, You know, years ago I knew that I was called to do something, but the reality is I didn't have the money and I didn't know the right people, and my back hurt and I didn't feel well. And you know I went through the divorce and they could never ever like me if they really knew what I was all about. [14:24.8]
Friends, if that's you, if you have seen yourself in any of these podcasts, realize that the first step to an epic life is doing something, and it doesn't matter how big that first step is. Right, Dwight?
Dwight: Absolutely. And I would just add, wherever you are, whatever you're facing, just remember this. Your best days are still ahead. No matter what's happened in the past, no matter what the struggle in the present is, you're not done yet. You still have an assignment and your best days are still ahead, and just move towards them. I totally agree with everything you've said, Rick. [15:01.1]
Dr. Rigsby: Thank you, my friend.
Dwight: Absolutely.
Dr. Rigsby: You always make this podcast better, Dwight.
Dwight: This is nothing but fun.
Dr. Rigsby: Thank you.
Dwight: Thanks, Rick.
Dr. Rigsby: And thanks to all of you for joining us, and until we meet again, this is Dr. Rick asking you the most important question I can ask you today—how you livin’? I'll see you soon.
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 audio book right now.
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