Dr John A. King Live

Sending data, sending data, sending data. Okay, streaming, streaming, streaming. Instagram is create live video. Finally. So maybe we start with this. Public. Next. Which one? This one.

Thank you.

So Go live. Getting streaming software to go live.

Go live.

Oh, it's doing that thing that it does, but whatever.

Over on Restream, if you— yeah, can you change just that one to— oh, okay. Look, it's on. It says it's on portrait.

There it is. Hey, how you doing? Maybe have a look at your phone.

Hello, Instagram.

Hello, world. Welcome to Finally Friday. The wife and I thought we'd have a little chat, tell you about our week, tell you about what we've got coming up, and hopefully hear from you. Because we would love to hear from you. And yeah, that's all right. So then we get this link here and we go to a chat thing here. Oh, well, that didn't work. We're still working this out, folks. Just give us a minute. Chat, Restream, copy. We'd love to have a chat with you.

It says copy this link into your streaming software.

Oh, there it is. Boom. So finally Friday. Well, we're here. You're here. We're all here. Cheers. So I don't know how your week's been. We've had a good week.

We have. Very productive, a little bit stressful.

Yeah. Well, that's, yeah. Because you've got a big project on one of our clients, a large client. We're doing, we do it right over there. It's a Fortune 5 company, run all the infra, intranet thing and the infrastructure. So we're doing a total rebuild there, which has gone really well for us.

It has gone well. Yes.

So that's which we appreciate that. It's a great, great client, just really great friends. They've become. And so that's really good. So what do we got coming up? If you got any questions, please just drop them in there. If you wanna talk about mental health, anything you got coming up, any questions about us. We did a great thing last night on emotional, the connection between emotion and weight loss. That was with Wisdom OS. And so that went very well.

We did. We did a recording of the, it was a live call and then we recorded it. So that will be available on there app for all of their subscribers and talked a little bit about how you have to be vulnerable enough to ask for help when you're starting on any journey, whether it's weight loss, mental health, um, and sort of the, um, sort of self-awareness checks that you can have, uh, regarding asking for help. And yeah, we talked about what sort of coping mechanisms that we have developed over the course of our lives and how to recognize those and how to sort of take that armor off. So it was great.

Yeah, it was good. It was really good. We thoroughly enjoyed it. We always love working with Matthew and Michelle Einsohn. They're just tremendous people. So, yeah, great people. If you, if that sort of stuff interests you, if you like naturopathic, um, answers and, and asking questions. They're a tremendous couple. They do a bunch of, uh, they're, they're trained naturopaths, um, bunch of, uh, like holistic medical approaches, iridology, frequency.

You can check them out on Instagram. Hi, Instagram.

Hi, Instagram.

They're Wisdom OS.

Yeah.

And, or their website is wisdomos.app.

Hey, Olivia. Yes. Asking for help is the hardest thing to do.

It is.

Um, and so putting your hand up, and what we talked about last night was the connection between emotions and weight loss. And asking for help was one of the things that we really touched on, is that you've got to be prepared to have those. And the term safe space has really been abused. Well, I think it has anyway, but that's probably because I'm Gen X. And, but the concept of having a community or a group or a cadre of people that you can share openly with I think is very important with anything, be it the connection with emotions and weight, or be it just emotionally in life when overcoming and dealing with trauma. I think it's very important.

A huge revelation for me was the fact that we make over 200 food decisions every day. Um, and most of which we sort of—

Most of them are snacks.

Yeah, we make on autopilot. You know, we make those decisions.

We don't think about them, do we?

It's interesting.

We get a feeling and our response is often to run to food on it. So it was a great talk last night, and they're, you know, they're worth having a look at. We're starting up the Phoenix Collective talks again once a month on a Thursday night.

So our next one will be in August for that. So you could check out our website.

And we invite you to come along to those because we talk about mental health stuff. This whole next season, we're going to spend a lot of time talking about biohacking trauma. I don't use any pharmaceuticals. I don't use THC, any weed, because I find that's actually really bad for my nightmares. and my PTSD. And so really, I, I'm not a pharmaceutical guy because opioids do the same thing for me. And, uh, I don't like walking around like a zombie. So I, I spent 16 years trying to work out how to biohack trauma. And we're gonna spend the next probably 10 to 12 months, once a month, just touching on that. So you're welcome to come along, have a look at drjohnaking.com. There's a whole bunch of stuff on there about how you can get connected. Um, so, you know, we'd love to have you on that and get you along to that. So what about the art world? Tell us what's happened in the art world this week for you.

This week I did not do a ton of art because like I had this big project on and, you know, when you're feeling a bit pressured or stressed.

Well, tell us about the week before because that was awesome. She sold a whole bunch of products.

Yeah, that was last week. Monday I did do some preliminary sketches for a commission that I'm working on. And then I think it was Wednesday night. I did some drawings in my big book to relax from my day. I—

She did vegetables.

Did some veggies from a new book that I got. The author is Zena Kaye, and it's— the book is about learning to use oil pastels 15 minutes a day. So really fun drawing instruction in that little book. And that was just a great way for me to wind down. After a hard day at work. So that's pretty much it on the art front this week.

And I, I submitted my, my latest novel manuscript to my agent, Gina at Talcott Notch. And so really excited about that. We worked out I've been writing for 6 and a half years straight. So literally 10,000 hours because I wanted to learn how to be a novelist. And in that time, I've written 5 books. These, these latest 2, I feel like they're good enough to be, I'm gonna go back and rewrite the other 3. But these last 2, I feel like are good enough and Gina feels enough to start to be shopped. So I'll have the manuscript, my memoir being shopped and these 2 fictional novels being shopped. So that's pretty exciting for us because we really decided we wanted a life change full-time, spending the next 20, 30 years of our life full-time creative doing writing and stuff like that. So it's a big shift.

Big shift. If anybody else out there is in the middle of a career transition, let us know, like hit us up. We'll have coffee together on Zoom. Um, and then also too, like, we are in the middle of a, like, a creative transition. I guess we're, we're moving to be full-time creatives. So if anybody has any wisdom for us, um, anyone to get a Zoom, get a beverage.

Yes. Iced tea if it needs to be, whiskey if it doesn't need to be.

You could even join us for a Finally Friday. We just Someone join us.

We could do a live Zoom. Yeah, Final Friday, talk about art and life and stuff. If you're interested, drop a note in the comments or, um, drop a connect with Melissa, Mel Ryan underscore King on Instagram, or Dr. John A. King on Instagram, or I'm on a bunch of other channels and tell us, hey, listen, I'd love to come on a Zoom and talk about midlife changes on a Finally Friday. That'd be fun.

That would be fun.

I've gotta finish off Half a Stogie so we could do that as well.

Yes.

But probably not with the windows shut.

No. It's very hot in Texas, you guys.

Yeah.

Right now. Very hot.

Quite sweatingly hot.

So anybody have any questions for us?

Any questions? You wanna talk about any trauma stuff or anything at all?

Fun things, art and life things.

Um, anything at all, really.

Coffee is a great passion.

Coffee is a great passion and a great talk. I don't think there's anybody there for that on YouTube. We can't quite get the questions thing working on all the other channels. We're on X at the moment and YouTube and LinkedIn. We're supposed to be able to see a chat through it all.

But should I check X?

Check X if you want, see if there's any questions there. So if you don't have any questions, we'll probably just jump off and look, if you wanna hop on and have a chat Friday, Friday, like, we'll just set up a meeting room. We can all get on and talk about our weeks and Particularly if you're looking at this art thing and midlife change. What content creation are you guys getting into? Olivia's asking.

Oh, content creation. Well, okay. So I paint in acrylics, mostly on board, sometimes on canvas, lots of times on paper. So I'm painting. John is normally writing.

But as I said, I've worked out it's been 6 years since I haven't been writing. I've been writing 6 years continuously. It's like an extra 20 or 30 hours a week now learning how to be a novelist. So I really went off hard after this 10,000-hour thing. But for the next 6 weeks, I'm gonna paint.

Yes, I'm hoping to get him to, um, actually carve some little figurines for me to paint too. Like, because he—

I don't know if I'm doing a lot of creative stuff here.

I think I'm doing it with wood carving. He is. So that, that is sort of our, um, our transition into art making. Um, as far as our digital content that we're creating over the next period, we are going to be doing the biohacking trauma stuff. We have— we last year we spent building or putting all of our trauma help into a course, uh, online.

Called the Phoenix Collective.

Yeah, it's called the Phoenix Collective.

phoenixcollective.app. Yeah.

Yes. So, um, that's sort of on the, in the digital side of things, I guess. Um, hopefully that answers your question, Olivia. Thank you for coming.

She's awesome. I did a great podcast with her.

Oh, cool.

Olivia's got a great podcast channel. She's really a nice person. Great story. They're just a nice person, really. And a great story. But anyway, So, yeah. So is that us?

I think that's us. So finally Friday, check back.

We're gonna be doing this totally random.

Like, yeah, we didn't have it last week because we have no idea, like, what time or anything like that. It's pretty relaxed. So, but finally Friday.

Yes, she does put her art on, um, on her Instagram.

I do put my art on my Instagram. I am, I'm terrible about posting.

She's getting better. She's not terrible. She's getting better.

I am. I need improvement on, because it's a lot more fun to paint them than it is to post about them.

But it's good if she sells one every now and again because it pays for paint.

I did, in fact, Olivia, I posted a reel Monday before last of 8 paintings and I sold 7 of the 8. That was really awesome.

There's, there's a lesson, folks.

I, if I would post a little more often, I would probably move some of the paintings that are stacking up.

So anyway, behind the scenes thought process as well makes great content.

Yeah. Oh, yes. Thank you.

Yeah, I've been talking to her about that.

This is some great coaching, Olivia. You are—

We've been talking about doing a livestream for Melissa to show her process. And I was going to do something for a while called Chat with the Author on how to write. So I've written 37 books. And I, you know, so I think in terms of talking about that process, there might be people that are interested in that. It's like, how do you write? I've written 32 nonfiction and now 5 fiction books. And it's a totally different process. So maybe we could do a Finally Friday and Talk about how to paint or how to chat with the author or something.

Yeah, we could do a whole series.

Yeah. Well, I don't know if I could be bothered.

Yes, says yes.

Yeah. I don't know if I need another thing. I just wanna, I just sit like sitting around having an Irish whiskey and a cigar. If someone sponsors me a cigar, what I'll do is I'll do a chat with the author for the length of one smoke.

Oh, that's a good idea.

I think so. I think bribing our audience is a good way to do it. And, um, so sit down. I had a guy reach out how to get into the writing space, man. Um, so there's 2 types of space. There is a self-publishing space and there is the traditional publishing space. So you gotta make it, you gotta make your mind up about that. Um, I would always, I would encourage everybody to start with the self-published space first. David Balchowicz was talking about— was it Balchowicz or was it the other guy? Harlan Coben was talking about get the first 4 books out of the way because first 3 books out of the way because the 4th one will be good. And I've actually found that to be true. So I think what we often think is we've got a message to say. But if you're really passionate about writing, then you have a series of messages to say. Because writing is a medium that's, that's really important to you. And I think that's one thing that short-form videos, even long-form podcasts have robbed us from is we sit down for the length of a somewhat staged conversation and we say some things and we repeat those things. We actually don't unpack those things. And that's why I think writing is very important. And I think in the era of AI, authentic writing is going to become more important. Because AI is only ever a mirror or a mimic. It's got no ability to be able to dive in in any sort of, you know, real, real sense. So the starting of the process and how to get writing, I think it's important to get a book out there. Now, once upon a time, if you were self-published, then traditional publishers wouldn't pick you up. That's actually not the case now. There are, there are hybrid publishers that actually love the fact that you've self-published. Because you've already done the editing, the artwork and everything. And what they've got is a promotional side of things. So if I was gonna start knowing what I know now, and I, I've been blessed to be able to have done this already and be prepared for it, is start developing a social platform presence around an audience that you're going to write to and then start to write and start to learn the publishing process through being a self-publisher. And then when it comes to traditional publishing, there's a, there's a whole way I worked out an entire system on how to get an agent, how to get out there and get there. And so that, that's, that can be done. It's not as difficult or impossible as people make out, but it's very thin air. You know, it's like 1 in, I don't know, 3 million chance or 5 million chance or something that, but it's, it's doable. In fact, the way I worked out to do it, I ended up getting a 4, and I'm waiting for the 5th one to come through, 5 agents offering me a book deal. So, so if I can do that, then you can do that. And it's a system I can show you how to do that. But so if I was going to get ready to get into the writing space, I would start to make sure my material is right. And whatever you write first, it's going to be crap. I know that some people think it's not, but it really is. And, you know, as I said, I've published 32 books and I look back and they are predominantly crap. Because they don't have, they don't have what I've got now after 40 years of writing. And that's depth and experience. There's some things you can do. I would join local writers groups and have people critique the crap out of what you write. I mean, destroy it. Hemingway wrote a line when it comes to editing saying, you know, kill your darlings. You have to be prepared to just scour this thing because no matter how precious and great you think your work is, it needs improvement. And I think what I've learned over this whole process is to be a really good self-editor. And I write, you know, I'm a writer, so I love writing and I love reading back my own voice and I cry and I laugh at my own jokes. I think I'm bloody awesome. But the fact is not everybody else is gonna agree. And I don't want, I wanna write for my audience. I wanna, I've got a message I wanna communicate and I need to get out of my own way. So I think one of the first things with with starting to write is getting out of your own way. Would you say that's the same with art?

I think so. I think for me, one of the biggest learning curves to actually making art was understanding some things about myself. Like your art, like reveals things to you about yourself. And so like being the less self-aware one of this particular bubble. I had—

I can help.

I had a lot to learn about vulnerability, about, um, you know, really just sitting down and trying something and not be afraid to fail. Um, you know, all the things.

All the things.

So yeah, it's been a, it's been a process. But I would say to get started in art, you do have to get comfortable with being vulnerable. And that whether that's writing or painting or And, and it's like writing.

Like, I write neo-noir. I write a very specific genre of fiction. So I write for my audience. I want to have thriller, gritty crime novels. I've written 2 just recently. One, Till It's Done, about military sexual trauma, which is where Olivia and I connected. And I'm going to talk to her soon about going back and doing another podcast around the book when it comes out. And the second one is called What Doesn't Kill You Makes You Thirsty, which is about human trafficking. And so, so both of those are neo-noir thrillers, really cut down, gritty, dirty. It's not, it's not a rom-com. So I'm not trying to write a rom-com or a fantasy vampire, wolfy, werewolfy, whatever that crap was.

Robots in space.

No, I know that's not me. So I'm not— I can appreciate it and read it. Not yet. Not werewolves and vet— well, maybe a good werewolf movie is good. I can appreciate that, but I don't write for that. And I think it's the same with art, is Melissa's a folk artist. That's what she loves. She loves—

I like to paint my chickens.

Yeah, she likes weird birds and her interpret— it's really impressionistic in some ways of how she sees life and how life is represented to her on paper. And I think you've got to get really comfortable with the fact that there you will find your tribe. But not everybody's your tribe.

Yeah. Not everybody's gonna like what you make or, you know, or write or whatever.

So, yeah. And that is important. I think, I think that's very important. So, yeah. Any other questions before we go? Coming up to 5 o'clock. Olivia, you're wonderful. Thank you. Don't forget to check out Olivia's podcast. She does a great job. She's a good friend, got a great story. If you're looking for some coaching, On you know life and overcoming and just being generally awesome.

Awesome.

Talk to Olivia. Finding your cup of tea exactly, love.

Yes, exactly.

Exactly. All right. Well, finally Friday. Bye. You're welcome, sister. Peace and much grace to all of you. And yeah. Hug someone, kiss them. You don't know how long they're here for.

Weekend. Finally Friday.

Finally Friday. All right, cheerio. And hey, listen, one other thing, fellas. Man Church tomorrow. Um, and ladies, it'll be broadcast on, on, uh, Instagram.

BJ joined.

Hey, BJ. We're just talking about writing. BJ Sloan has got a couple of great books.

Um, Forgotten Son and Unfavored Children's Club.

Unfavored Children's Club. So check out BJ's— BJ Sloan Writes on Instagram and around the world, and her website, I think, is the same thing. So if you're looking at books that are different, and particularly if you're starting to write, have a look at what BJ's doing. She's, she's doing an incredible Texas lady, Texas stories, really interesting. In how she— and her ability to describe things. The other thing you need to do is wait, make sure you, you get on a mailing list for this next book that's coming up. Um, because I've heard— I've had the privilege of listening to her at the DFW Writers Club. And, um, I have to listen to a lot of people. I have to. But I want to listen to what BJ says.

I know you enjoy BJ's.

I know. I enjoy BJ. Some of the other stuff's really Anyway, thank you. Thank you for tapping me out. But yeah, have a look at BJ. Get a copy of a book and get on Amazon. Go to her website and all that. She does a great job. And so we'll probably see you next Friday. We'll try and make it like 4 o'clock-ish, but we know you're not doing anything on Friday afternoon anyway. So don't bitch to us or complain to us about the time. Sorry, I said that out loud.

Everyone have a great weekend.

Oh, Man Church. That's what I was talking about. Man Church. Man Church. Fellas, um, we're going to be talking about Bed's Too Short and Blankets Are Too Thin, about what happens when you've got bad doctrine and how it actually makes a really shaky foundation for your life. And unfortunately, most of the church has bad doctrine today. They have like zero doctrine today. So go there. That's for fellas only. It's a Zoom meeting. I will be streaming it, um, uh, for everybody else. And what we do is we get to a point in the— in the— what's it called— the stream where we shut it off and it's question answers, fellas. So you can get together and have a chat.

Now, the question answers are private, but I and all of my friends, so the ladies, we all watch on the livestream part. And then, yeah, when it cuts off, the guys have their—

And why we do that is because, you know, I wanna help men be better men, husbands, and fathers. And if I can help you be the better man that you are, then you can go home and disciple your family and your children, because that's your responsibility for God. It's not my responsibility to disciple your family. And I don't think it's right for a man to be discipling another man's woman, to be honest. So, you know, outside of a church setting, but I am X-gen and old school on that stuff. Right. That'll do. We're done.

Alright.

Cheerio.

So great to see you guys. Bye.

See you next Friday. More than likely, possibly. If it is, we'll— and let us know if you wanna talk about something particular. Drop Melissa a message or myself a message. And I'm thinking the art, we might talk about art and writing again because that was, that was cool. Alright. Cheerio.