Episode 481: Mindblown with Rich Kirkpatrick

Welcome to Voices in My Head, the official podcast of me, Rick Lee James. I'm a recording artist, a singer, a songwriter, an author, a worship leader, and an ordained minister in the Church of the Nazarene. The Voices in My Head podcast is where I discuss music, movies, books, pop culture, theology, and more with friends, colleagues, and sometimes just by myself. Now make sure to let me know what you think of today's episode by leaving me a review on iTunes or by tweeting at me @RickLeeJames on Twitter. And please join my mailing list at RickLeeJames.com where you can receive an email every time a new episode is released. By the way, in case you're interested in a daily dose of kindness and encouragement beyond this podcast, I also run the Twitter account @MrRogersSay where I post daily quotes from Fred Rogers, one of the voices in my head. Well, I guess that's it for the intro, so sit back, relax, and listen to the latest episode of Voices in My Head.

Welcome back to Voices in My Head. As always, I'm your host Rick Lee James, and I want to Thank you all for listening today for what I know is going to be another great conversation. Today's guest is Rich Kirkpatrick. Rich writes, consults, and speaks about the intersection of creativity, faith, and leadership. His first book, The Six Hats of the Worship Leader, has helped thousands of church musicians and is on the reading list at several universities. His new book is called Mind Blown. Mind Blown shows you how to transform ideas from imagination to creation. Simply put, creativity is what makes us human. What if creativity isn't voodoo but a definable process to learn and to follow? We're going to talk more about the new book today, but I'm so glad to have Rich Kirkpatrick with us to talk about his new book, Mind Blown: Unlock Your Creative Genius by Bridging Science and Magic. Rich Kirkpatrick, welcome to Voices in My Head.

Thanks, Rick. I'm glad to be here. Or here virtually.

Here virtually. That's right. And I don't think I told you before we started, but even though we can see each other now, it's just going to be audio for the audience. So they won't get to see our beautiful faces, unfortunately.

Well, that's not a bonus they'll get then.

That's right. That's right. They'll have to buy the book to see your face. So that's how it goes.

Okay.

Well, first, as we begin, I first, I want to say congratulations on another well-done book. I know this must have taken quite some time because you put so much thought into it. The way that you help us think through with even different exercises for creativity in the book, it's wonderful. And I think I told you this in an email a while back, I've been so busy with my studies this summer, I had to read it quickly, but I'm finding that now as I have time to go back, it's just, it's a great reference. Like it's a great thing to go back to and kind of pick out different parts and read again. So first of all, just well done and congratulations on this accomplishment.

Yeah, thank you. I mean, I think it's about 10 years ago where I actually had some ideas down about this book because some of us, you know, 20% of us are what they call divergent thinkers or creative types. Our brains are wired in a way that we have what they call cognitive disinhibition. I can't even say it. Where we're just naturally— ideas will come. We don't have the filter that says I'm focused all the time. And 80% of the people are what they call convergent thinkers where you know, they kind of just look at things in steps and have period, you know, things are more structured. And, you know, the— and these two ways of thinking, you know, if you're in the minority and you're in an institution of any kind, you know, whether it was like a church musician like myself or business or whatever you're doing, sometimes you feel like you're the only one in the room who either can't stay focused or you come up with these ideas and everyone keeps saying, "Rich, Don't reinvent the wheel. But I think sometimes we need to— it's not a wheel we're looking for. Maybe we're making an airplane, and, and sometimes it's hard to express that. So I thought, why not, um, kind of discover what is this creative process that it's so hard to describe to people?

Well, and this is a, a great attempt to do just that, I think. And so it's, it's fun to be able to talk about the creative process with you tonight. I know a lot of people are listening and they're thinking Am I a diverger? Am I a converger? You know, as you're talking about that, um, and, and it's something that it is telling about us for sure and who we are. You have a lot of great stories throughout the book, and, and not too far into the book you actually talk about Bruce Springsteen a little bit, which, which I was glad because I'm a Springsteen fan. I have been for a long time, and a good songwriter too. Yeah, great songwriter. And, uh, so yeah, But, but let's, let's just talk a little bit because I always struggle when I have an author on because there's so much great things in the book and I don't want to spend too much time on just one area and I want to give an overview. And yet there are parts that I feel like we could really dig into and get a lot out of. So I've got my book in front of me, uh, with my different bookmarks, which are actually the little stickers that you sent me too, which are pretty great.

I like stickers.

Sorry, I do too. Um, so maybe we could, could start by you You tell a story about Bruce Springsteen, and I think that's maybe a good place for us to start, just because he talks about the surroundings that inspire. And I really like that part in the book. And you say that the Boss, he talked about his songwriting process in this way. He said, when I went to write, I just wrote about what was around me, which is kind of something I've done for most of my life. Springsteen, not a working man himself, became a voice for the working man, people like his dad. He wore blue-collar work clothes on stage. But as you talk about it, I mean, it's interesting because like he's never really been a blue-collar guy himself, but he kind of became that voice for them, which is an interesting thing. I think sometimes as pastors, as worship leaders, as songwriters, we kind of do that, don't we? We tend to, in the creative process, we use it to put words in the mouths of other people that they need in that moment. Um, but anyway, that was just something that stood out to me, um, as I was thinking through, like, about somebody like Springsteen and his process and all that. Um, and so he starts— maybe we'll go into these three things I wanted to talk to you about as we think about that as our jump-off point. In the book, you write about the dream, the sandbox, and the story, these, these three kind of realms that, that we get into. Um, so maybe Bruce Springsteen was starting with the dream. I don't know, maybe that's the, the first place he kind of looks at his surroundings. But, but talk to us a little bit, if you would, about sort of this, this dream area where we begin. And you said there's some things that are controversial about the creative process too, so I'm going to kind of let you take the steering wheel and guide us there in this process. But, but I'd love to know more about this whole dream process where we begin.

Well, I think it's controversial because it's a process, but it's not a process in the same way we think of just a straight line. There's no straight line in creativity. Sometimes we got to go back and forth, kind of like sanding. You know, you start with the coarser sand— grit sandpaper, and then you work your way down until you refine it at some point. But, you know, first you start with a chisel on the wood and Before that, you might be— it might be really rough. And that's kind of like the creative process. You may have to go back to a chisel when you find out that the grit on the sandpaper isn't enough to take some off. And so basically, creativity is a lot like that, where this process of 3 steps really isn't like walking forward in 3 steps. It's really a matter of sanding back and forth, because you could Dream, which is the first step, which is about discovering what it is that you're trying to create or the problem you're trying to address. Or if you're an artist, you're trying to dream up how do you address this emotion or pain or feeling that you're trying to express. And then you walk into the next one, which is the sandbox, which is where you develop the idea, where you find out, okay, this is how it's going to look. And then in the third step that I talk about in the book is the story where you deliver it. And I use the analogy of this castle where you start in your head, look, dreaming up what this castle looks like, and then you're in a sandbox trying to work it up in the sand like you would at the beach or something. And then the other parts of the book, how you present it to the world, how you describe it, how it— what it means and what it does and those kinds of things. So I think it's all about taking back and forth. So all that to say, by the way, the controversial really is more about some folks, you know, they either look at it as it's just something, you know, for instance, you just write a song, right? And you can write a song in 1 hour one time and then 5 years the next time.

Yeah.

And they have similar processes. Like in one instance, you're writing a song, but you have a reservoir of things that you've just been preparing, whether you're aware of it or not, that led up to that one hour that you actually put it on paper. So in that regard, this creative process, when you're dreaming, that phase sometimes is invisible. And so I think there's a guy named Graham Wallas who in 1926, psychologist, he kind of developed these four stages of how you develop an idea and how it comes and then how you create. And so the dream is where you basically form in your head what that is. So I don't know if that all makes sense or not, but yeah.

Yeah.

But the exciting thing is, is that it's something we can learn. You may not be aware. So like Bruce Springsteen, he walks around, he sees the Catholic church, he walks by every day, he hears his dad's stories, he's playing in these dive bars in New Jersey. These are people he knows, the smells, the songs, and everything. And then it's his reservoir that he creates from. There's a saying in the Bible that's, I believe, very true, that Solomon says that there's nothing new under the sun. But there is something new, and that's your interpretation. We use the stuff of dirt to create, you know, we don't create the dirt, but we take whatever substance it is that we have, whether it's the Jersey Shore, or, you know, whether it's my hometown or whatever it is. And sometimes we're aware of this, but what these things do is they incubate, you know, in our mind at some point. We have a eureka moment where we say, wow, that's it, that's the song, and we start to write down ideas that are— and then we sort those ideas and work them out. And then we finally say, how do we get this out? We got to record it, the song. We got to put it out to the world. We got to then tell people, hey, show up, and hey, have you heard my song? Have you heard my— or read my book, Rick? You know, and all of that's creativity. All of that is in what I call the creative process. It Some of us are great at the dreaming. We just come up with these ideas. Some of us are great at the sorting, and we're good at saying, hmm, that one, that's a great idea, and that's not a great idea. This is workable. Um, well then on the third step, some of us are good at saying, you know, this is going to really get out to the world. This is easy to describe. This is who you are, so it's authentic. And so a lot of that is why I think I wanted to organize this, to describe to people who are in charge of us creative people, that, you know, we have this process that requires time and energy and skill. And just because you can write a song in an hour one day doesn't mean it took one day.

Yeah.

So what did it take?

Yeah, well, and, you know, the more I think about it too, just even that process you described, um, these dynamics in some ways like make up the different parts of the band sometimes. Or, you know, when you think about it, because there's there's like, um, you know, one person has just got these dreams just for days, you know. They're always got these ideas that are coming here and there and everywhere. And then there's oftentimes there's somebody who's like the real practical thinker, like kind of like what you're talking about. They're in the sandbox and they're like, here's the idea, this is how it goes. And then there's got to be somebody on, on the other side that knows how to get the story out, you know, and how to get it out. Um, so what I love about what you're kind of describing in this process is it doesn't necessarily have to take multiple people to do this, that with some discipline, it seems like we all have this inside of us, you know.

Yes. Yeah, that's, that's the growth. So you have to basically what I call embrace the awkward. We have to be willing to look at the bridge. And so bridging science and magic, and those are metaphors, you know, um, magic is, is, is the metaphor for the imagination, and, and science is the metaphor for how does it work in the real world. Then we have these two ways of thinking Both are creative though. They're like two sides of a coin. And so to succeed, the creative genius, the secret really is in finding a way to either partner with those who fit you and collaborate with you, you know, with what you need in the creative process, or for you to yourself grow in those other areas. So if you're like me, I took way back in the day, um, time management, um, webinars— well, they weren't webinars back in those days, that's how old I am— but, um, on cassette tape or something like that, or CD, and to learn how to keep a schedule and kind of discipline like that. And it helped me so much. I had to learn that habit. I had to learn something that didn't come natural. Well, you know, spreadsheets, I learned how to do that. I work in as an accountant. I worked— I'm an artist now, right? I worked in a legal office, the district attorney in Palo Alto for the Santa Clara County, um, and the DA, as a file clerk. So I had to figure out how to organize and use a typewriter because it was that old. But what this did for me though, as an artist, is it helped me learn to sort and categorize and look at timing and spreadsheets and schedules and things I hated. I would never naturally do. Put me at the piano, give me my guitar, let's play some music. Let me draw, doodle, whatever, but not this. But what it— and so now you're the other person. You're completely organized, you know how to do budgets, you're a business person who's— who can execute things, but dreaming up what the next step should be, being able to see the process from two sides There's this thing in leadership where these leadership researchers talk about an idea of a balcony and a dance floor. You have to be a leader, you have to be able to jump from being on top and seeing the scene, what's going on in the big picture, and then go back down to the floor so you're there on the deck like the captain walking the ship, seeing how the midshipman's doing, seeing how all the things are working. And traveling back and forth from those two things is a mental exercise. That takes discipline. And the most creative people are the ones who can bridge between these two things, or they got good collaborators. And that's kind of how it works. So what you're saying about that is the myth is this, that everybody thinks creative geniuses work alone. The secret is this, that creative work requires a team and leadership of people. Because if you're a solo artist, and you know this, I'm a musician here, You have to have at some point a producer. At some point you have to have a person who helps you at the venue you're going to play at and organizes things. And at some point you're going to have a person tell you the song has an error in something and you got to rework it and go take it back to the drawing table. And that— so all these pieces, it's never one thing on the chain. We all have that, including the audience, the listener, the people we serve. Um, so even if we are all by ourselves, this one-man show, which we have to do sometimes because it's all about budget too, we have to be willing to collaborate with the people that we create for.

Yeah.

And listen to them.

Oh yeah. And you know, as easy as, as I hear you talk, um, I'm thinking about people who I know who do this so well. We have a mutual friend, Paul Balazs, um, you know, who, who I think he really encapsulates this in a lot of ways because he, he can be very much this dreamer that would just, you know, you can't find his keys, you know, because he's, he's been off, you know, writing down an idea or grabbed his guitar or something. But what I find beautiful about Paul, in the same way, um, he has taken time to intentionally, like, uh, teach others this process too. Like, it's, it's part creativity and part dreaming it up, but like, I think of like the instructional— what used to be DVDs, but now he's, you know, offers them as online things now. Um, the ways that he goes in doing something that, that I— that you write about in the book about learning the rules before you break them type thing. Um, you know, because he's very much about like being the instructor too, like whether it be his guitar DVDs or things like that. Like, let's first learn how to play it, know what we're doing, let's learn all of the technique behind this, and then we can kind of, you know, start to figure out how to explore and go beyond all that. So for some reason, Paul just came to mind whenever I was, was thinking.

Well, you have someone as creative as, as Mr. Paul Balázs. Is you— he's disciplined in going from, okay, now we have a period of time where we're brainstorming in a business setting, now we have to sort those ideas and execute them and make a plan. So what often happens, and I talk about this in the book, is we want to at the same time in the same meeting, especially in business situations, Have a brainstorm meeting, and by the time you're 5 minutes in, you're already sorting ideas. So the idea here is you separate those, perhaps in 2 meetings or 2 groups of people. And one meeting is you— all your job is to do is come up with ideas. Go back to divergent and convergent thinking as these 2 things we bridge between. And divergent thinking, it's, it's basically you start with one point and you go to many points. So you have one idea and you then bridge to another idea. Another association brings you out to this, and it's kind of like, you know, Whose Line Is It Anyway? You're filling in all the blanks and you're just asking and being curious and going all over. Well, at some point, okay, gosh, we have generated all these ideas, which is a wonderful thing because a lot of people can't generate ideas. And then now you have to sort them. You have to then— what convergent thinking does is take many points and brings it down to one. The danger is, is if you do too quickly, you have 3 ideas or 2 ideas and it's just, oh, here's the next best thing we had came up with. And you know, as a songwriter, that's not really how it works. Yeah, you have to have way more. They say you have to write like a lot of ugly songs before you have a beauty come out. And, and that's true of anything. The first pancake's always out, right? No matter how good you are as a chef, you gotta just see if you're testing the pan being warmed up, unless it's your oven or whatever, or stove you've known that you worked on forever. You have to kind of have this rhythm. And so that's kind of exciting because you, you can learn these things. And that's the thing, that is because the premise of the book is that everybody's creative, innately wired to be this way. The brain scientists tell us this. So you think I'm just a business guy out here and I love those creative folks, but you know what? You are capable of dreaming up things. You're capable of telling a story. And in fact, stories are about structure. I talk about stories are the container for dreams.

Yeah.

And they have a structure. Songs have a structure and they contain— it's a good example, a song, you know, with a chorus and, you know, American pop song where you have a verse and a build or a lift and then a bridge. And then you might have another verse and then a lift and a bridge or a chorus. I'm sorry. Course and then a bridge and then ending, whatever the structure, those similar structures we're used to. But in that structure, by having that structure, we're able to then put in things that talk about life and death and love and pain and redemption. And, and that's what creativity is. It's really the things that we fight against in our brain are the things that bring us together. And, you know, Rick, we live in a divided society, and I think if people learn to be more creative we can actually talk to each other. Yeah, because we can not be satisfied to judge everything and turn the lizard brain on, which just knows ones and zeros, and then start to look at color, to start to look at shades, to start to look at that. And faith, you know, I put on my Twitter this idea I had that, you know, imagination without it— um, I forgot exactly what I said, I had to write it down really quickly because my attention span. We don't have faith without our imagination. We don't have hope We don't have goals. We don't have dreams. We don't have math. We don't have myth. We don't have magic. We don't have, you know, the things that make us do all the things that we do. And so imagination— here's a cool thing. One of the scientists that I was learning from in writing the book mentions that logic is involved, that the centers of the brain that are judgment are involved in the act of imagination. And so I was brought up in a situation where, no, you can't trust feelings, you can't trust your emotions and your dreams and all that. No, you know, you don't get too excited, young man. When I now I learned, well, that's a place to start, though, or at least end up. You don't live there forever. And that's another problem of people. That's all they do. And they never get to a point of now I need to judge and see out of all the things that I've experienced, what is the truth in those? But I, at some point, need to have an open mind in order to create, in order to listen, in order to be empathetic, in order to write a song.

Yeah. Now, that's so good. It's, it's interesting to find your book at the time where I am personally right now, because as I've been pursuing this new work in ministry and chaplaincy in hospitals and things, as I'm going through my clinical pastoral education, one thing that they very much are teaching me about is what you've just talked about here, listening to yourself and, and trying to, to actually hear what's there. I love how you were just talking a minute ago, you were taught maybe to, to avoid some of those like emotional things in the beginning. And what I'm finding now is the best way to actually listen to who I am and what God may be speaking to me through, even through this chaplaincy process, is exactly that, to stop and listen to understand who you are, because sometimes those emotions and those feelings are actually where our spirituality is pouring out from and where we're starting to learn those things. So I loved how you wrote in the book. I even wrote it down. You said creativity comes from listening to your internal voice, you know?

And oh yeah. And what is that? And that really takes some bravery. Yeah. Now the thing about writing that And maybe that's why it took so long for me to say I need to be a writer. I've been blogging since 2005. It's a long time. Um, but you know, it, it reveals you when you have a blank canvas and you put words down. It's kind of like looking in the mirror, your hair's not combed or anything going on, and you're just like, I don't like what I see here necessarily. But then the more you do it, the more you discover, and There's one study about healing where, um, journaling— they asked patients to journal who had cancer, and also they repeated the same study with people when they journaled their traumas. And they found that they started saying, you know, here's what I'm experiencing, and they ended up being talking about we instead of I. It became we. You start seeing things in a broader scope. When they're able to see themselves, they were able then to see the context of their lives and find hope. And then literally the studies are saying they found healing. And so creativity has power to do this thing, these things, because we are designed to do that. Now, you know, as a person of faith, I believe that just out of faith and what I've learned in that. But I've also seen without that, science proves there's no other creature on the planet that can create, that can think the way that we think, that can has a brain where from your eyes to the back of the head is designed the way it is, where you have the input and you're able to creatively mash things together, um, like we do. And so the, the, the beauty of that is not just the brain, it's our entire bodies, it's all that we see and feel, um, and that's very much also our spirituality, how we hear God and how we pray. And so The more creative I can become, the more open-minded I am about listening to myself. And I don't know who I am. I don't know who God sees. And then I don't know who I see. And you know the good song that someone wrote, "How did they know I was feeling that?" Exactly. And they never thought of it. They were thinking of just something else maybe. But that's the beauty of the act of this mystery, but also science of creation.

Yeah, well, and when we put sort of the Christian aspect onto it as well, you know, I've come to start thinking of it in this way that I believe so much in how present Jesus is with us in these moments, even when the person we're interacting with, as I do often in a hospital setting, they may not know the name Jesus in their own life. They may not understand that that's what's being connected with in that moment. But I believe, uh, part of this creative process, to me, just as a Christian, what I believe is we are being spoken to in these moments, and God is providing these places of healing. I'm glad you mentioned journaling a few minutes ago, because, um, that is actually something that sometimes we'll do with our patients. And because we've discovered that each of us are holding on to these griefs in our life, you can think of them almost like a stone that we're carrying around. They start from childhood and we put them in our backpack and it just gets heavier and heavier. We so often don't take them out to examine them. And so partly what we do with patients sometimes is we will help them to examine those hurts and those griefs by writing about it. And you're exactly right, this doesn't have to be like somebody that's a hit songwriter to do this and unlock creativity. I'm finding it that in, in hospital settings where people are very sick they are beginning to find some healing through that process that you're talking about. You know, the scientists have found that we just start writing and start creating, and then the world gets a little bigger and opens up a little more. And it's amazing to see some of those things unlock. So again, I've— I'm finding your book at such a helpful time, and, and other things that I personally am going through in these moments. Um, and I love the way that you're helping us to, to think in these ways of growing our brain's creative genius, so to speak, as you say.

Well, if we're If we're wired to be this way, the idea is we actually could become more of what we're intended to be.

Yes.

You know, in a world— this is why war is such an evil thing, because what it does is it stops a person, creation from happening. It's the opposite. It destroys.

Yeah.

And then it has the idea of death. It ends the process of creativity from actual people. We lose so much from things like that. And this is why, you know, despots will collect all the artists first. So you're a business person sitting out there, you're someone who's a clinician, or you're someone who's a chaplain, and are you someone who's, you know, an engineer behind a computer? You can think like an artist in this way, that, that you can find meaning in what you create through your work and through your hobbies and through the things you do that you love. Redemption and giving people a healing voice through your life. And, and I hope that's what people— at least this book will have some little dent in helping some people out there experience that.

Definitely. Well, I, I think it will if people will take the time to stop and read it. And, and it really has so many good insights in it, and you've done a beautiful job just in the way that you lay it out. Um, and a lot of it does come back even here. I'm looking at page 176, which is, which is almost the end of the book, and you're asking that question, who are you? You know, and that's such an important— that's such an important question. And you talk about it in, in the terms of branding, but you say like, if you're not part of the product you produce, you are selling someone else's product. And I think that's so important for anybody who's creating to realize, you know, you're not putting out somebody else's work. You're, you're trying to express who you are in the middle of this too, who God has made you to be.

Because you're unique. You might be, you might be doing— say you're a dentist and you're doing what another dentist does, the dental work, but it's you doing it that makes it unique. It's not about— and so that's the thing that people need to, to hold, to understand. Creativity is not this— you are the person presenting it, and that's what makes it unique.

Well, and the dentist is a perfect illustration because I had In my own personal life, I went to one dentist one time that really messed up my tooth. I had to, I had to go to another dentist to repair it, and they were both doing the same job, but one of them did it much differently, and it made all the difference when the, when the other one did that. So, um, yeah. Well, Rich, this has been a joy to get to, to visit with you some. I wanted to, to make sure before we ended our conversation, I wanted to point out all the wonderful illustrations that, that your daughter has put in. Oh yes, as well, because some of the concepts that you're talking about, Emily has really done a great job with her drawings. The, just the illustrations and, and the COVID of the book even was, was her.

Uh, the robot and the wizard, yeah, are very important in the book because those— some of us create, we start like the robot, we're very methodical, we're still creative, or like the wizard like me. We're kind of frumpy and we just— eccentricities. But I think that's great. Yeah, the illustration she did was fantastic in the books. It's great to collaborate, you know. And as you know, like, I had editors and, and beta readers, and, you know, it's a process of years of discovery, um, curiosity. And I'm now— I'm even more curious just to see, you know, what people what they're going to make.

Yeah, well, it's, it's exciting. Well, again, I want to congratulate you on it, and we didn't really talk about it much, but I want to also make sure if people haven't checked out, uh, the music of A Beautiful Liturgy, uh, which is the music that, that you make, and, and Emily, just such a wonderful singer too. I mean, just powerful voice, and the, the way that you collaborate on those projects together is amazing. So, uh, I also just wanted to put a quick plug in there, uh, for, for the music that, that is being created as well, because it's beautiful. Uh, well, is— what have we not covered? We've got about, uh, 3 minutes here real quick before we hit— we have to hang up. And Sky, or Zoom, tells us to hang up. Uh, any closing thought that you want to leave listeners with?

Um, I just think keep creating, you know. Listen to the joy, what brings you joy, and don't be afraid of it, because that the thing that brings you joy and it's very scary, take a moment to ponder that.

Yeah, excellent. Good advice. Well, all listeners, I want you to know that hopefully, uh, by the time that you're hearing this, all of the links will be in the show notes. So wherever you listen to podcasts through, you should be able to just click on where it says notes and you should be able to find links to where you can get Mind Blown. Um, the book is called Mind Blown: Unlock Your Creative Genius. By Bridging Science and Magic. It's by my guest today, Rich Kirkpatrick, and it's a great book. I can't recommend it highly enough. And so buy it and unlock your creative genius. Rich Kirkpatrick, thank you for being one of the Voices in My Head this week.

My honor.

You're welcome.

Thank you for joining me here this week on Voices in My Head. I hope you'll visit me on my website at Rick Lee James. RickLeeJames.com, where you can find out more about me, get my music on vinyl and CD, follow my blog, and even schedule me for a concert or a speaking engagement. Better yet, even a book signing in your neighborhood. You can find all that and more at RickLeeJames.com. Also, it would mean a great deal to me if you could write a review of this podcast on iTunes. The more positive reviews that we receive, the more visible this podcast will be online. And now for the benediction: May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope. God bless you, and thank you for listening to Voices in My Head.