Passion Struck with John R. Miles - Steven Konkoly On The Lure Of Spy Thrillers, Action, And Intrigue EP 159

Episode Date: July 7, 2022

Nothing passes the time like a good spy thriller and Steven Konkoly is a master at creating books with action, and intrigue, and has an eye for plot intricacies. His books include Deep Sleep, The Jakarta Pandemic, Fractured State, and Hot Zone. Steven Konkoly is the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, and repeated #1 Amazon bestseller of over twenty thriller novels. Steven graduated from the United States Naval Academy and served the next eight years on active duty, traveling the world as a naval officer assigned to various Navy and Marine Corps units. His extensive journey spanned the globe, including a two-year tour of duty in Japan—and travel to more than twenty countries throughout Asia and the Middle East. Purchase a copy of Steven Konkoly's books: Deep Sleep - https://amzn.to/3Pa7uxy (Amazon Link) Vindicta - https://amzn.to/3yljoxM (Amazon Link) Coming Dawn - https://amzn.to/3ABIYkV (Amazon Link) --► Get the full show notes: https://passionstruck.com/steven-konkoly-on-the-lure-of-spy-thrillers/  --► Subscribe to My Channel Here: https://www.youtube.com/c/JohnRMiles --► Subscribe to the podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/passion-struck-with-john-r-miles/id1553279283 *Our Patreon Page: https://www.patreon.com/passionstruck. What I discuss with Steven Konkoly in this episode of the Passion Struck Podcast Steven Konkoly joins us to discuss his journey from Naval Officer to one of the top thriller authors in the world. Konkoly gives us some tips on his writing process which has helped him write so many bestsellers.  0:00 Announcements 2:47 Introducing Steven Konkoly 4:08 Naval Academy experience 9:09 Navy SEAL BUD/S training 12:47 Navy and Marine Corps experience 18:11 Becoming a spy thriller officer 22:21 The Jakarta Pandemic 26:00 How to write a thriller novel 34:44 Successful writing habits 40:50 Advice for aspiring authors 47:26 Art to self-publishing 53:53 Taking books to Hollywood 57:25 Upcoming books Coming Dawn and Wide Awake 59:46 Wrap up and synthesis Where you can find Steven Konkoly: * Website: https://stevenkonkoly.com/ * Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/steve.konkoly * Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/author_steven_konkoly/ * LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stevenkonkoly/ Links from the show * My interview with Admiral James Stavridis: https://passionstruck.com/admiral-james-stavridis-to-risk-it-all/  * My interview with Vice Admiral Ted Carter, President of the University of Nebraska: https://passionstruck.com/the-key-to-personal-growth-ted-carter/ * My interview with former NASA astronaut Captain Wendy Lawrence: https://passionstruck.com/how-to-dream-the-dream-you-want/ * My interview with Rear Admiral Tim Gallaudet, the former Undersecretary of Transportation: https://passionstruck.com/tim-gallaudet-leading-in-turbulent-times/ * My interview with former Navy Seal and NASA Astronaut Captain Chris Cassidy: https://passionstruck.com/vital-importance-in-life-of-being-present/ * My solo episode on why micro choices matter: https://passionstruck.com/why-your-micro-choices-determine-your-life/ * My solo episode on why you must feel to heal: https://passionstruck.com/why-you-must-feel-to-find-emotional-healing/   -- Welcome to Passion Struck podcast, a show where you get to join me in exploring the mindset and philosophy of the world's most inspiring everyday heroes to learn their lessons to living intentionally. Passion Struck aspires to speak to the humanity of people in a way that makes them want to live better, be better and impact. Learn more about me: https://johnrmiles.com. Stay tuned for my latest project, my upcoming book, which will be published in summer 2022. ===== FOLLOW JOHN ON THE SOCIALS ===== * Twitter: https://twitter.com/Milesjohnr * Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/johnrmiles.c0m * Medium: https://medium.com/@JohnRMiles​ * Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/john_r_miles * LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/milesjohn/ * Blog: https://johnrmiles.com/blog/ * Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/passion_struck_podcast * Gear: https://www.zazzle.com/store/passion_sruck_podcast  

Coming up next on the Passion Struck podcast. I take a lot of liberty with the stuff that's done in the books. I don't try to tonk, fancy it to death with research. I do most of the research just through reading articles and Google. At any given moment, I'll have a bookmark folder with a couple hundred articles that I've read on various topics. I voraciously devile anything that comes across my desk. Welcome to Passion Struck.

Hi, I'm your host, John Armiles. And on the show, we decipher the secrets, tips, and guidance of the world's most inspiring people and turn their wisdom into practical advice for you and those around you. Our mission is to help you unlock the power of intentionality so that you can become the best version of yourself. If you're new to the show, I offer advice and answer listener questions on Fridays. We have long form interviews,

the rest of the week with guest-ranging from astronauts to authors, CEOs, creators, innovators, scientists, military leaders, visionaries, and athletes. Now, let's go out there and become PassionStruck. Hello, everyone, and welcome back to episode 159 of Passion Struck, recently ranked by Feed Spot as one of the top 50 most inspirational podcasts in the world.

And thank you to each and every one of you who comes back weekly to listen and learn how to live better, be better, and impact the world. And if you're new to the show or he would just like to send this to a friend or family member, we now have episode starter packs. These are collections both on Spotify and the PassionStruck website of our fans' favorite episodes that we organized my topic to give any new listener a great way to get acquainted to everything we do here on the show. Just go to passionstruck.com

slash starter packs to get started. In case you missed our episode from earlier in the week, I had the honor and privilege of interviewing Vice Admiral Sandy Stowe's, who spent over 40 years in the Coast Guard, and eventually became the first female superintendent of the Coast Guard Academy, making her the first female to ever lead the United States Service Academy.

And she and I go through a master class on leadership all around her book, Breaking Ice and Breaking Glass. Last week, I interviewed Dr. Katie Milkman, who is a professor at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, co-director of the Behavioral Change for Good Initiative, and host of the popular Toysology podcast, and we talk all things behavioral science, and what you'd need to know to go from where you are to where you want to be in life. I also interviewed Elise Michaels who is a men's mental health coach, and we discuss all things mental health along with her four pillars of peak performance for men.

If you liked any of these episodes, we would so appreciate it if you gave us a five-star rating and review. They go such a long way in helping to promote this podcast and its popularity. Now, let's talk about today's guest. Stephen Conquley is a Wall Street Journal Washington Post and repeat Amazon number one bestseller of over 20 thriller novels. Stephen graduated with me actually from the US Naval Academy where he received a Bachelor's of Science degree in English literature. He served the next eight years on active duty as a naval officer assigned to various Navy and Marine Corps commands. His extensive journey spanned the globe, including a two-year tour in Japan, and traveled to more than 20 countries throughout Asia and the Middle East.

We discuss our time attending the Naval Academy together and some of his favorite experiences. His path after graduating, which took him to Navy SEAL Buds training, to then his time on ships, and eventually working with the Marine Corps. We discuss how he discovered his passion to become a writer, and the steps he took to make that dream become a reality. He goes over some of his tips for aspiring writers, especially some of his daily writing habits, and so much more. Thank you for choosing PassionStruck and choosing me to be your host and guide on your journey to creating an intentional life now.

Let the journey begin. So ecstatic to welcome my friend Steve Conchley to the Passion Struct podcast. Welcome, Steve. Hey, thank you very much. It's a pleasure to be here. Well, I know we've been talking about doing this for a while, so it's great to finally have you on the podcast, and I'm real excited for the audience to get to know you. And speaking of knowing you, I learned something listening to other podcast episodes that I didn't know about you. And that is, as a Naval Academy graduate, you first wanted to go to West Point.

How could you make such a terrible decision? Yeah, that is true. I'm not gonna deny that. I wish I didn't realize that a video evidence was still out there. But yeah, I was kind of more of that land warfare, Tom Clancy, big Tom Clancy reader, fell in love with the big

the concept of tank battles, all that kind of stuff. Yeah, I applied to West Point, we'll receive the nomination, this Klosski. I think he's still in office if he hasn't just left. He's been around a long time. He had an extra appointment to anapolis, which frankly I hadn't even considered the main reason being it was more competitive to be honest. I, you know, good grades and everything barely enough to get in, but I actually wasn't certain I would get in. So I just, I kind of focused all my effort toward West Point.

And ironically, I was never offered an appointment to West Point. I was offered the Annapolis appointment. So it really worked out kind of, it worked out well because I was on the cusp of saying, I hate to take an appointment, I hate to take a nomination. If I really don't have any intention of using it, but it was mine for the taking, so it worked out.

Well, here in the Tampa area, we have a very active alumni association and given we have both Sencom and Socom here, you get a lot of military participation, but we just had our annual picnic where rising juniors were actually younger than that come to this picnic to kind of learn more about the Naval Academy and the entrance process. And I always feel to realize that Congressman and Senator's only have five nominations at any given point. It is, as you're saying, a very competitive thing. Sure, very, very.

And yeah, I mean, like I said, I was balancing being polite and parents are like, you're out of your mind if you don't take both of these because you just never know. But yeah. Well, do you have a favorite memory from the time we were both at the Naval Academy? Ooh, you know how it is, it's such a complex place. I would say my overall experience there was fantastic. It was very difficult at times, frustrating.

There were in moments in the beginning and not any further past like plebe summer, you know, where you're thinking like, it didn't time make a serious mistake. I remember the first night we were all sworn in and we're heading back to our, uh, heading back to our halls or passageway where you lived in. All I could hear was screaming inside,

yelling and, and I knew that it's not like we didn't know it was coming, but I remember thinking, looking at a couple guys, we just start laughing. We're like, well, we just linger around to come to court a little longer. I rushed to go into what is going to be a very long journey. But in terms of like specific memories, I always enjoyed the summers because we got to do stuff in the fleet. I took one period, one summer period off the entire time. I constantly kept busy. I did Bulldog OCS early because I wanted to see if the Marine Corps was right. And then our final summer I had all three blocks booked straight.

So yeah, I always look forward to the summer just getting out and about. Yeah, so you're saying you don't like the Naval Academy? The Army Navy game is always a highlight, a commissioning week. There was always just something going on, even in the darkest of times there. You always had people around you and there was stuff. There was always something to do, keep you busy, keep you out of trouble or in trouble,

depending on how you approached it. Well, speaking of summers, during between our youngster and second class, so for those who didn't go to the Academy, sophomore and junior years, I decided to get ahead because junior year taking all these higher engineering courses. And so I decided to take summer school and to try to knock out two courses, one of which was electrical engineering. And I will tell you, trying to do electrical engineering over a month period.

I think I got a scene at it and I'm not sure while I was going through it, I was just going, oh my god, I'm out of my mind. I was hoping you weren't going to say electrical engineering because now be crazy. Did you do both semesters? Did you knock out the whole the whole? No, I knocked out the first semester and in hindsight, it was a terrible decision because by the time I got to the second semester, I'd pretty much forgotten everything I had learned in the first semester because I had taken it during the summer. Another thing I found out is that you and I both had the same service selection desire, which was to go into special warfare. And unfortunately for me, I got medically

disqualified because of some health issues. You actually got to go to Buds. What was that experience like? I'm talking about having medical issues. I didn't have a great one of it. I showed up early in the summer with a couple guys. We decided to forego the basket leave for most of it and get out there and just kind of jump right in. It was everything it was cracked up to be,

everything we expected. I developed like very persistent shinsplints and then stress fractures that I just couldn't shake. I mean, I classed up with three different classes over a period of time, then a lot of time in what they called fourth phase back then. It's a grind, not in a typical buds who ya'll way. It's honestly, you know,

it kind of builds you up from the beginning. I did that over and over again. After one particular time when this fracture, I mean, it was a hairline fracture and they just kept me out for quite a while. It was a pretty big letdown at the time. You know, looking back at it now,

I wouldn't do it any other way. I spent a year there trying to get into a class. It just never worked every time. But they gave me enough time and not enough time to fully heal up. You can't walk around in a cast with a stress fracture. It's probably the best way to heal, but it's not the way they're doing it.

They do it there. So about a year after that, I transferred to Frigate out of Japan. It was, my choice was a carrier in Norfolk or Frigate out of Japan. So there wasn't a lot of choice there. I've heard a lot of David Goggins interviews and I think he was on his last try at Buds

and they said either you get through your physical ailments or you're out and he basically disguised all this incredible pain he was going through, but given what they throw at you, it is a huge challenge. And from someone who had to stop running because of repeated stress fractures, I totally get it because they absolutely ache. Yeah. You look at guys, remember, so let's bring up another pretty well-known classmate, Chris

Cassidy, these guys. I was in the class with him briefly, and these guys are like, gazelles, and I've always been kind of like, I probably would have been far I was in the class with him briefly and these guys are like gazelles and I've always been kind of like I probably would have been far better off in the Marine Corps as a true kind of just grunt to ground pounding type because I just wasn't a very fast runner. So yeah, that to a lot of discomfort and just the knowledge that I'm not going to get cleared to go through Hell Week, I was not cleared the first time. It just wasn't and the instructors knew it too and they were cool about it. As cool as the instructors could be, they pull me aside and say, look, come Monday when First Face starts, there's not going to be any favorite. We're not weak, we can't play favorites, we can't help you along. You've been here,

you've been in the program and the training program a long time. They all, I mean, I knew them all, I saw them on town out in Pacific Beach at bars and hanging out. I'd kind of come to know a lot of them. But at the same time, they were very clear. Fourth phase is one thing. Once we hit first phase on one day, all bets are off. If you can't keep up, you can't keep up.

So. No, I get it. But then ironically, you and I both ended up spending time with special forces in very unusual ways. I mean, myself as a cryptologist, you would have never thought that that would happen, but I happened to be based in Spain. And awarders came down from the NSA that they were looking to start a cadre

and to partner with SEALs so that we could give them high oversight for their missions and also intelligence coverage. And so I was asked to form a team of eight to ten people, spent the rest of my tour with Naval Special War for Unit 10 and ended up going on short deployments with Team 10 and Team 8. I know in your case, you ended up spending a lot of time with the Marine Corps. It was very clear I had a great time at sea two years on a frigate. It's definitely everything the service worker, the service worker name lived up to. Pretty rough,

it's a hard light. It's definitely the opt-tempo a lot of Japan was really high. We're going most of the time. Things like four section watches were didn't exist. There were a lot of things that they were on the cusp of trying. Like when we pull in the port, they would have a couple ships tie up and share certain watch sections. You could dilute it, but it was mostly, you just live for watch and signing papers in between. Just constantly busy. It wasn't for me. I determined that I had a glass made some lifelong friends and experiences. I mean, really irreplaceable. I wanted to get back to the Marine. I did apply for position with first Anglico out of Camp Pendleton. Everyone on the ship, my from the exo to the CO thought it

was a mistake. So I got pulled in first the exo's office. I don't know if you've seen this, but we just got your orders and I think there's been a mistake. It's not a career killer, but it certainly wasn't a typical career progression to go to work for the Marines as a naval gunfire liaison. So I told them, that's not a mistake. This is what I want to do. And did effort two years and then instructed fire support, tactical air control, naval gunfire bombardment for two years after that, down in Cornado.

So I ended my last four years with the Marines and kind of scratched that edge, like let's say, I had a blast. I think another thing you and I both experienced was the electrical engineering exam that occurred when we were both seniors. Maybe you can tell the audience if they're not aware of this kind of what was going on. I think they did get to the bottom of it eventually to start the story. It was like we everyone was kind of in the dark at first in particular what happened essentially a copy of the electrical engineering exam. The second, well it would have been the first end of the first semester exam,

right, was somehow taken out of the electrical engineering office copies were made and were sold. And I can't remember the nexus exactly took it out of there, but it started making its way around the naval academy. In the end, maybe a couple hundred sets of eyes or more were put on that exam, to varying levels. Some people intimately involved in distributing it and selling it. And once this became apparent, the Brigade Honor Committee, and I was a battalion honor rep at the time, and you were higher up. But it was a major looking back, a major, major investigation into dozens at that time, but really hundreds of people had became apparent.

And I felt like almost powerless, like a police officer without any arrest powers or any ability to subpoena. I think the vast majority of us had cases assigned. There were enough at that time, but it's a very frustrating experience because it was completely stonewalled. The other boards, when they were conducted both at the top of their class. And I think one of the things that perhaps the new honor code that's in place today would have prevented is the first two people who came forward who were both at the top of their class, both had A's in the class, regardless of their exam, came forward and said, we got

a duplicate of the exam. And when the superintendent kicked both of them out, I thought it said a just horrible precedent because at that point, instead of people coming forward, everyone kind of entrenched in today's world when Admiral Carter was there, he changed it so that now there's more latitude in trying to teach people the correct lesson. Not that cheating is ever right, but two people who actively come and report it should have been the last ones to probably have gotten kicked out of this thing. Fortunately, what really made the boards extremely difficult was that the star witness was a football player. He had gotten the exam

from a petty officer and that petty officer went MIA shortly before all these went underway. And so what ended up happening was that football player changed his complete story that he had been telling NCIS. So when we got into all these boards, it was basically, I have no idea what NCIS is saying. I don't know how this exam originated. So it really created a lot of doubt if you were sitting there listening to this. When there shouldn't have been any at all. And the other thing was there were actually hundreds and hundreds towards the end thought it could be over half that class who had gotten access to this. So when you think about that many people who themselves were in the same position as the person that they're evaluating when they're on these boards, it's not surprising to me some of the impact that it had. But I think the most disturbing thing for me was that all the football players

who were found to be guilty let off and all the other people were terminated. So lots of lessons learned from that whole thing. Like I said, unless the culture was right, doing the right thing in that case, you know, was the right thing, but the act ended up being the having the worst consequences for people. It's complicated. Very complicated issue. Yes, so you graduated with an English literature degree, which I'm sure at the time you would never have thought that you would have put to use as much as you are today. When in your career, did you make this decision

that it was gonna be writing that you wanted to pursue? And that was really your passion. It was quite, I was quite by accident. It's sort of developed over time. I go to a lot of writing conferences, a lot of authors, and you know, you meet a lot of different types of authors. The one type I don't really meet

all very often is someone like myself. Really started this, not that people haven't started this later in life, but almost all of them had this long-term desire and quote stories like my mother gave me an essay I wrote in third grade saying I was going to be a famous author and those are like I say touchy-peel they warm your heart and people who want to do something forever get to do what they want to do for a living that there's nothing more amazing than that so I got out of the Navy I want to work for Pfizer as a sales rep basically, I kind of lucked into the job.

I say lucked into it because they're fantastic, fantastic jobs if you can get them, especially if you have a brand new family, which I did at the time. So I did that for 12 years and I would say about eight years into that, the company went through a number of layoffs. By the time I did leave, I had had five different managers in like six years and it was just getting tiresome

every year waiting around in the phone for the call. You know, we'll call you if you have a jibbithier fate basically. And they expect you to be out selling drugs while that call's coming in. When that started, I just kind of got this bug to start writing a story I had been thinking about. It didn't start out as a pandemic story

But it ended up being a pandemic story. You kind of see behind me the jacquard of pandemic was my first what took about I'd say from start to finish three years It did a lot of research into pandemics and I wanted to create a story just based in the neighborhood And there's no helicopter chases. There's no CDC scientists hanging off the skid of a helicopter and dropping into a hot zone or anything like that. It's really just about a pharmaceutical rep. So I didn't go straight too far from home in terms of what I knew who was former military and was kind of a little bit of an obsessed prepper. How would you survive a pandemic that's, let's say like what we saw in New York City in March of 2020. Imagine if that just kept going and that happened everywhere and there were just no let up.

You could imagine a break down a society and that's really what I want to imagine. Do you have a topic like today's that you would like to see us cover? You can reach us at Momentum Friday at passionstruck.com. Keep your emails concise. Use a descriptive subject line. That keeps things easy for us.

Reach out to us if there's a topic you're interested in learning about. There's something that maybe you're going through any big decision that you're wrestling with or perhaps you just want a new perspective on work, love, or life. Whatever's got you staying up at night, hit us up at Momentum Friday at passionstruck.com.

We're here to help and we keep every email anonymous now back to passionstruck. Yeah, and in that book, didn't you call it like I've read it like H1 6N1 or I think it was H16 and one. I mean, I was looking at, probably already out there. I was looking for a new one. I guess I didn't really answer your question. It's just developed and I enjoyed it so much. It's put into like publishing, do I get it in age? What do I try to do?

Self-publishing and kind of come into, it was kind of sort of the beginning of the golden age of self-publishing. With a lot of different platforms, Nuke, the one I'm exclusive about now, at Amazon, Kind one can see it. It takes a long time to find an agent. The agent may never be able to sell the book.

I published it and started selling. Once I got past the account of relatives and friends that would buy it. Actually, real people are buying this book. So that kind of just, that built for a year and then I started writing a second one, which was the Black flag series, which was kind of what I always wanted to write. If I were to write, it would be like kind of a Black ops espionage series.

Let's just talk about the Chicago pandemic just for a couple of minutes because I remember it was December leading up to COVID and you and I were having a conversation and I think several of our classmates were around this and at that point it was kind of right when COVID was being announced in China. And I remember you telling me, and this is three plus months before the lockdown occurred, that a lockdown is coming, start prepping, start getting your supplies together. And I remember as we got into end of January, February, starting to tell my friends this and my family members and

everyone looked at me like I was nuts. And I remember towards the end of February, I was out with my girlfriend and I said, Hey, Corey, we better suck this night in because it's going to be the last time we're going to be going out for a very long time. And she's like, you keep saying this, but it's never going to happen like two weeks later, it happened. I mean, what you had in the book was a worser case scenario, but it so much of what you wrote about years before has proven to be very accurate as well as how different nations have handled this. It was pretty creepy to see COVID unfold as compared to the virus I created for a suspense novel. I ratchet it up every angle and aspect, speed in which society collapses and the lethality of the virus. All the different, I basically created a designer virus.

I always call it, I'm like, what would be the worst characteristics? And as the data start coming out of China, when they locked down the entire Wuhan province, 70 to 100 million people, you don't do that for a flu. You really just don't do that for anything we've seen. I mean, maybe they would have in hindsight for SARS, but SARS burned out pretty quickly. They knew how to handle it. It was a nasty bug, but something about that really bothered me. I always kind of talk with a few people.

I wouldn't call them preppers. We keep in touch with this, you know, about this kind of stuff. And all at once we're like, here, are you seeing this? Now I'm hearing about an asymptomatic period. Thinking back, I'm like, that's exactly how I designed this virus and like spread

along asymptomatic period, highly contagious. The only thing I changed was obviously the leafality of the virus. But I felt like you did. You know, I felt like people looked at me like you're like not crying. I've never cried wolf before about these kinds of things. But it was just harder. Even for myself to conceive of at that point. I didn't do, I would have, yelling from the trees, top of the trees in early February or mid-feverry instead of really, I really started getting out on the public platform more toward the end of February and early March. And that by that time it was without a doubt here. So, everywhere. And it's so ironic how different the containment strategies are in the United States versus China.

You just locked down a city the size of Shanghai with no warning at all and keep people sequestered to their residences for weeks on end. But- With limited supplies, yeah. Yeah, with no supplies. Since then, you've written 19 books. I'm gonna hold up the most recent one here. So the audience who's watching can see this.

This is called Deep Sleep. It's a great read for any of you who want to pick it up. And it was the number one bestselling book on Amazon and has over 12,000 reviews. So nicely done. Thank you. Yeah, it's been a great, yeah, this one's done well. So how do you go about writing a thriller like this?

Because as I'm reading this, there's not only aspects of the storyline, but there's research that has to be done to go along with it, especially when you're writing about foreign nations or military operations. How do you go about writing a book like this? I just sat down and it just comes to me. No, not at all. Now this is an idea I've had for quite a while. The concept of not to give too much away. I think it's pretty obvious. It's

about a Russian sleeper network. Anytime I approach a novel in any of my series, I, you know, I don't want to do what's already been done. It's kind of hard not to do that because there's always elements. The charm school is one of my favorite novels. There are elements of that in there. The series, the American, I love that series. There are all these things fire off ideas, but I want this to be different. So I had to think of something bigger. I just kind of sometimes just go bigger.

I go with a more extensive conspiracy. It's not 10 sleepers or the eight sleepers. I don't even know if they would call them sleepers more like spies, that they uncovered, I remember like 15, 20 years ago, was a big FBI sting, but the traditional sleeper network, but something just extensive. The first idea of this, we ever heard of number stations, those mysterious, no, I haven't. Okay, so the beginning of this idea, number stations are long range frequency transmissions that some of them originate out of Russia. They pop up here and

there throughout the world and they're like super like they're like you know very low frequencies. So very long range and they're just numbers. They're just like repeated strings and numbers. Some of them broadcasts continuously others come on and off. No one has ever been able to figure out what these numbers are, the suspicion being that they're codes. And if the code changes or if there's a variation in the code, then you could activate a network somewhere.

So that's how it started and then I just kind of snowballed from there, but in terms of the research, I take a lot of liberty with the stuff that's done in the books. I don't try to tonk, fancy it to death with research. I do most of the research through reading articles and Google. I have at any given moment, I'll have a bookmark folder with a couple hundred articles that I've read on various topics. I voraciously devour anything that comes across my desk.

My wife always, she's always sending me stuff. It's amazing how things will fit in. The smallest details will be found by that. Once this idea kind of comes together, I just start very rough plotting, rough ideas and throwing them out. My wife is, I would say she's my original ideas editor and she does some developmental editing. I also belong to a group we call Mountain Side Route Treat. It's a group of authors that gets together once or twice a year and we workshop. We call salons. So we sit around and it's your turn and for a couple hours you can do multiple our ideas or one and we just really just tear these things apart. And I saloned, let's call it, this idea, geez before COVID, so it was October 2019.

And the idea was totally different then, completely different than what it is now. In terms of my idea of how the action was going to flow and how it proceeds. It's just this very long process that, in this case, I felt happy when it came together, because I knew it was an ambitious, the conspiracy in the book is ambitious and I kind of leave you hanging at the end. And that was another risk to this book.

They don't know and publishes Tom Clancy's novels anymore, unless you're in, unless you're writing for Tom Clancy, you know, writing for as a state. I do have limitations in terms of how long a book can be instead of just trying to wrap up something and have a book too. I just really kind of sort of cut it out of what I consider a logical point, but it's definitely there's gonna I got some angry emails. There's a lot of people waiting for October to get their hands on the second one, so that's a good thing in a way. Yeah and speaking of what you're writing right now, I saw on Facebook that you were offering up to your fans that they could actually read the book as you write it. Right, right. And I was hoping you could tell the audience about that because I thought that was a pretty cool concept.

Sure, it was, so it's not an original concept. A number of other authors have done it. I just haven't been in a position to do that because all my books through my Thomas and Mercer, my publisher, I don't have that kind of, I can't release material, I'm allowed to release a certain percentage for promotional use in marketing, but certainly not an entire book chapter by chapter, essentially as I write it. I say as I write, I have 24 or 26 chapters written, and I think I've released eight at this point. So I'm catching up. So it's a good motivator because I feel the fire coming up behind. It's getting hot behind me. I gotta keep working. But it's, yeah, it's been great. I thought, why not let people see kind of this raw input because it's

unedited really. And I write relatively clean. There's plenty of rawness in there and a number of the readers, they like to keep tracking that stuff and help me. But yeah, that's been a fun experiment. I switched to Substack from MailChimp as my newsletter provider, just because all I really do is send out newsletter emails and MailChimp's a real,

it's a heavy marketing platform. Tons of amazing data if you're linking it to stores and stuff which I don't. So when I looked into Substack, it was very easy to set this up to do kind of a read as I write and kind of separate it. The regular newsletter and then have a very nominally paid option. So basically $5 a month, you're going to get the free book in the end, proofed and fully edited. And I don't know if I'm going to get the free book in the end, proofed, and fully edited. And I don't know if I'm going to continue it after that because I won't really have books,

I won't have chapter material to give people. I can create other content which I've done in the past. And I really enjoy doing like the background of the books, background of the story. But it is time consuming. And a lot of times when I'm faced with everything going on in life and book deadlines, I think if you look at my blog, you'll see I haven't done a on writing post in quite a while. So yeah, well, the risk for me, and at least it was when I was writing my book was I, after I got done with it, I probably did 40 or 50 changes to it, including doing major movements of chapters from one place to another because I just didn't like the flow. So is that something that might happen here or once you start a logical progression, does it typically just

keep flowing for you? There have been times where I'm like, last matteratter jokingly. Did you have any input for the developmental editor? And she's like, you guys work together best. And I think I do write. I just have this sort of a process where there are changes. And we will add chapters, take-ship, cut chapters completely. But in terms of like story-waring, making these big moves, your book is very different in terms of how you're trying to

logically work a reader through to the end. I don't know, I feel like a plot, like a storyline plot, in my view would be easier to do than that. You can see your chapters and how it's arranged. You can see like, oh, wait, I could move this, if I move this here, I would have more of an impact and set the reader up to kind of keep building where the plot I gotta keep. There aren't too many major shifts or changes. Nothing ends up, nothing completely ends the same when I start out.

I mean, I've very rarely had, usually the ending will be what I had in mind, but how I get there is not. But it's not a drastic shift. Is that makes sense? It makes complete sense, but I think it's a really cool concept, and I'm sure your fans are loving the opportunity to get to see inside your mind as you're creating one of these. I like this book so much.

I can't wait to read about Devon Gray again in this second one. Right. There'll be a third. I'll be starting the third in about a month. So that's some newer news is my publisher did want a third book in that series. And yes, we'll be doing a third. And then I'll be starting something new. No one will see until 2024.

It kind of feels crazy, but publishing is like this. It could be a year or two before you sign on the dotted line. in 24th. It kind of feels crazy, but you know, publishing is like this, you know, where, you know, it could be a year or two before you sign on the dotted line. It's going to be a while before that book sees the light of day, you know, but I'm always working on, always working on something. So it's, there's never really a long break or, you know, time off, I would say. It doesn't seem to be given how many books you've produced. I couldn't believe it when I looked. They're well over 20. Right. I'm kind of a slow writer too.

And I think in the grand scheme of things, but I've been slowed down by, by my publisher, which has been great. So my first two series, oh geez, I would say the first, you know, 11, 12 books I wrote or self-published. These are just successful series that I kept adding books onto and then I got into talks with the publisher I've been with since from the beginning. And you know, they they have me under a good deadline, you know, but they allow me a lot more time than I was allowing myself before. That's a big difference.

So I think part of an answer going back to answer your question of like, how much changes or how much redo, I think by necessity, I've honed this process down fairly tightly out of sheer necessity because I, my deadlines before would be pretty, pretty harsh. I have some funny stories. I thought I had three more weeks on a, on book on the fifth black flag book. I'm sitting at a basketball game watching, um, watching our daughter. And um, I get a, just a quick text from her. She's like, so on track, on track to deliver tomorrow, right? Like tomorrow, no, I was thinking, I'm like three weeks from

all right. And she's like, no, you know, and she sent me the emails that we had exchanged them. I was somehow in my mind at three weeks later. So she gave me one week and I wrote more in that one week than I think I've ever written before. And I absolutely loved the way that book turned out. So I've kind of turned into a little bit of a like a crutch, like a end of deadline writer. My wife hates it because I just literally vanish. I'm out of out of that. I'm in the house, but I'm out of circulation for a good three to four weeks.

So I try to avoid that and I say that every book, but it has really just never happened. Okay. Yeah, so that line does make you have a end goal that you have to hit, which when yourself publishing doesn't exist necessarily, unless you give it to yourself. But I understand you and I both share a common habit.

I get up every single day at 5 a.m. You may actually beat me up to waking up earlier, but is that something not anymore? I get up, um, that is a habit. That's how I started. I started at 4 4 30, even when I went full time in 2013, when I finally quit Pfizer and just decided, this is what I was gonna focus on. I did keep getting up really early. It's gone away over time. It just hasn't been a necessity for me to do it.

But when I do get into that deadline crunch, like we talked about, or I sometimes I'll just do a power week or two to, if I feel like something's just not flowing right, I'm like, or I sometimes I'll just do a power week or two to, you know, if I feel like, you know, something's just not flowing right, I'm like, I'll tell caution, I'm like, I'm going to this next week, I'm just, I need to power through this and they get some words like some serious word count on. And that'll be, I'll get up at 4.30, I'm five and I'll be, you

know, you dinner and hang out and then I'll go back to it, you know, from dinner and hang out and then I'll go back to it, you know, from seven to nine. So I do that in like just a little like bursts, you know, to try to keep from having to do that for three to four weeks straight, which can be pretty brutal. Yes. Well, I just started doing it. My productivity wasn't where it needed to be and I could never get everything

that I needed to accomplish done. I still can't, but I am so much sharper at the beginning of the day than I am as the day goes on that I've just learned to put my most important tasks for the day and build those up early and stuff in the afternoon gets to do things like check emails or do social posts or more mindless things that you just have to do. So I think that honestly, that's the best way to go because I know some writers, they write at night, the honest and not not because they have to or that's just when they're more productive. I've never found, I've never found myself to be that person, even working for Pfizer, you know, trying to do stuff after the kids are in bed. And it just, I've always found myself to be that person. Even working for Pfizer, you know, I'm trying to do stuff

after the kids are in bed. And it just, I've always been the more you can get done earlier in the day, the better off you are. I don't always walk that, you know, I don't always follow what I'm saying when it comes to that at all. Because there are days when I'm like, it's 11 o'clock in the morning and I'm like, what am I doing? I've done exactly what you said.

Emails, this and that, posts, and it's not a good feeling. So I like to just knock out as much as I can early. Unfortunately, my creative time, I think I've determined is between one and five, which is like, well, it's kind of, it's kind of, it's, it's, it doesn't work out for me. I just, Kasha hates it. She's like, can't you just do it in the morning? And I'm like, I's, it's, it doesn't work out for me. I just, Kasha hates it. She's like, can't you just do it in the morning?

And I'm like, I can, but I do feel like I'm, I'm more forcing it through. So I look for like a good two hour period in the afternoon in that, in that creative time. When I, I'll get probably 60%, 70% of my writing done. I set it all up in the morning. So yeah, it works out. I'll have to think about, as I'm working on future books, how to best

organize it because you are right. Like when I'm in that writing mode, I kind of have to turn off and silence everything around me. So I'm not getting bothered and you just want hour and a half, two hours of time. Because when you get in that zone, you just want that flow to continue. Right. And I think that's common in workplaces. I know I've read a lot of different things about like there are certain productivity periods. I think I just watched a video on Fika, which is like the Swedish art of like relaxing like a coffee break, but it's based on some kind of actual science, I guess,

you know, where they, you know, they take breaks at strategic times during the morning. You really took an out of the box gamble when you started doing this. Yes, you had a job, but it was still something that you had to put your faith in and take a risk. What would be your advice to a listener who might be whether it's becoming a writer or just pursuing other purposes? What are some bits of advice that you would give them? I did take what I would call the safe route. I mean, I didn't just take off the suit one day and decide I'm going to start writing. I had done, you know, I think the advice I'd give on it, and I'm kind of conservative when it comes to this. As evidenced by my approach is to use your off time

kind of like, try to find a balance. I mean, it's near impossible when you have a full time job. If your passion is something that you can start and really delve into and research and sort of build while you're working, while you have this stability, you know, that was a big thing for me. I remember saying like, once I replaced my income for X amount of months, I think it was five, that point had been six months.

I essentially replaced my Pfizer income with the book income. Now that didn't exactly factoring health insurance, which is very generous there, and car allowance and extra thing, but Kasha was in attorney in Portland at the time. insurance, which is very generous there and car allowance and that kind of thing. But you know, Kasha was work, you know, she was an attorney in Portland at the time in Maine. So it wasn't a really, it wasn't a soup, it was risky, but it wasn't like as risky as someone like I can imagine just thinking I'm I have no idea if this restaurant's gonna work, we'll get the restaurant ready and

we're gonna launch it and I'm gonna clip my job. But I mean,. We'll get the restaurant ready, and we're going to launch it. And I'm going to clip my job. But I mean, doing your research and just knowing what you're getting into, I mean, is huge. Well, I did know that when I worked full-time. I mean, I was pretty hooked into the community. I felt very confident in certain that that income would continue, particularly if I had more time to write and get more books out, which I did. So I think that research into what you're getting into and the risks,

which were that maybe the books wouldn't make money. Maybe the money that we saw before would kind of trickle away. My next series wouldn't do that well. Yeah, my caution was not exactly the happiest camper. My quitting occurred over a lunch in Panera. You know, I could still remember to this day. And it was very obvious that my heart was not in that Pfizer job at all. You could probably just tell during field rides with my manager, and that's when this occurred, but also in

the numbers, my sales call numbers, things like that. It wasn't that I was,, I'm just a little bit more of a person who's been a little bit of a person who's been a little bit of a person who's been a little bit of a person who's been a little bit of a person who's been a little bit of a person who's been a little bit of a person who's been a little bit of a person who's been a little bit of a person who's been a little bit

of a person who's been a little bit of a person who's been a little bit of a person who's been a little bit of a person who's been a little bit or a lunch was like, you know, we need to have a talk about your, you know, you know, if you want to be here and this and that and I said, I literally just like, I'll save you the trouble of any speech, you know, and not being mean about it. I'm like, I'm like, I don't want to do this anymore, you know, essentially I quit.

You know, I just, I want to write and that's it. And kind of a little bit of a shock. I don't think she was expecting that answer. Then I called my wife and said, hey, I'm done with Pfizer. And I, you know, that's like a, you know, a term like, I'm done with these people. I'm done with, you know, I, I'm just a set of that a thousand times, you know, in the last four years with all the different changes. And she's like, oh, what do they do now? I'm like, no, actually, I'm done with them. And she's like, you, you, you just quit. I'm like,

yeah, she's like, can you undo that? And I'm like, I don't think so, but I don't want to. So I hadn't really consulted her, even though we had talked about it, a lot of enough. But there was no like, I am doing this tomorrow. So that was a little bit impulsive on my part. And looking back, I would probably maybe done it a little differently, but I just felt I had to pull the trigger. It was, you know, and then it was just the right emotional climate.

You know, everything just came together at that one time. And I'm like, I just, this is the excuse I've been looking for sort of for a while. And I didn't want to do both. I just wanted to write full time and explore that. Well, I think that's a good backdrop for people to understand the reality of the situation and for everyone it's going to be different. And also, your risk tolerance and family situations are going to be different. I did want to ask you were there any authors or books that have really inspired you to become the writer that you are today? That's a good question. I've read all the typical, I mean,

to sight like people like Stephen King. I read a lot of, you know, I read pretty voraciously in a lot of different genres growing up. Tom Clancy, Stephen King, I'm trying to think Jeffrey Deaver, Fredrick Forsyth is another one. You know, I read a lot, Jack Higgins, who recently passed away. I read it pretty very extensively in Nelson, D'Ameel.

A lot of Vespinoe stuff, but also like Michael Crite and I love the science fiction, kind of like that, not space or starware, I love that too, but in terms of reading, that kind of really realistic sort of gritty, Crite-Nesk science novel. Those were always some of my favorites. Stephen King has a head of book he wrote on what's called. It has a lot of old advice about finding an agent

and mentions things like looking at newspaper, like some old, but his real advice on writing and sticking with it. Those were pretty instrumental. He's like, you just have to show up every day. And he said the one lie he told was I think with a reporter asked him to be ticked time off on Christmas or on like the on on his kid's birthdays, writing. And he said, yes, he's like, was alive essentially. He um, he always did some writing and keeps it going. And that's that is

what I do today, you know, you know, Kyle, I'll tell caution. I just got to go up and even in between books, I got to work on something. The next synopsis, the next just write a chapter of what I think might be in the next book, just something to keep, just to keep it going. If you ever want to write an episode for me, one of my momentum Friday episodes, I'd welcome the input. I'd welcome the input. I don't think people understand how much work it takes to write a keynote speech every single week and then have to deliver it. Especially when you're talking having to do 20 minutes to 25 minutes. So it's a self-embelling. Right. I mean, you're actually, you're then you're delivering it's not, you're not writing it and just handing it off and yeah, go ahead and read it.

The last thing I wanted to really ask you about, because I'm sure there are listeners out there who maybe author some cells is, now you've got the self-publishing world, you've got this growing hybrid model where I've kind of found my lane and then the traditional publishing in it, at least for me, and I'm sure it's much easier for you now that you've had so many books written but having to write and respond to all the query process and then reach out to the agents is exhausting, especially when 100% of them turn you down and today's publishing world is different for fiction and nonfiction, but it has radically changed. I think over the past five, six years, and then with COVID. So what would be some of your advice

to an aspiring writer out there who's trying to get published one way or another? You're absolutely right. It's a number, it's a statistics game in terms of, you can imagine an agent who gets hundreds of queries a week, depending on what they wrap, maybe less for an onfiction. I have no idea, you know, I know fiction agents are inundated. They just have piles and piles of query letters with samples and stuff like that. And you're the likelihood

of your query letter even being seen. It is like I said, it's just, it's like the numbers get thinner and thinner as you go beyond like I said earlier, finding an agent one, then you even have, then people realize the agent has to sell the book, which is a whole other process. So I'm the only advice I could really give is networking is one. It's hard. I do get, I get a ton of emails and I try to help out as much as I can with a reason. I'm always open to helping out other indie publisher, indie authors who have a pretty proven track record. You can look at their catalog and see they've done reasonably well as Indies. But I've also helped people who just have not published books or

networking is tough. It's reaching out cold, just really cold emailing you know, an author with a pitch or proposal to get some kind of help or a blurb for the book or all right, whatever it is. It's hard. But I will say that. Might me taking the next step and finding a publisher was all about having a good self-published catalog, having built somewhat of a rep, he'd use a reputation. It sounds like I had a reputation.

But it did help because then when I did catch a few people's eyes, my current publisher had been looking at me and I didn't know that. And then when I started talking with some other authors and I'm very shy about asking for help to be quite honest, my wife hates it. And I've had other people like just ask. I really feel all we are doing it, but once you do, it's surprising. Having a have in that background, having some success, people have helped me get to the next level.

I mean, there's absolutely, I have names in my head right now. I'm not going to rattle them off, but without them taking that next step would have been very difficult. So networking constructively, and you know what I mean by that. I'm sure. There's people who send emails out, and then names misspelled, or like, hey, you know, I

get those a lot. Would you look at this book and give me a review? Like, I've never even heard, I don't even know who you are. So constructive networking, attending conferences is another thing. So I don't know if there's nonfiction conferences, but they're definitely our fiction conferences, authors attend readers, and there, a lot of them are broken up by John Rhodes. So I go to a couple of mystery brilliers of suspense, writers conferences, and there's, they exist for every genre out there, every type of book.

So just meeting people, like you said, in a constructive way, you know, and they remember you, I think that's getting some FaceTime is really important. I completely agree with that. I have just found, for me, the industry has just changed from really wanting a quality product to wanting someone who's got a social following. And I learned that the hard way, I went to one of the big four publishers, a classmate of ours, Jeff Aggers actually introduced me to his publisher and they said, your book is outstanding.

It's actually one of the better ones we've read. Unfortunately, we cannot publish it. I said, why? And they go, well, Jeff publishes book with General McRistle. And unfortunately, you're not General McRistle. In fact, you don't have any of the platform close to that it's going to take to sell this. So that really launched me into rethinking my how approach. And it's actually why I started the podcast and everything else. When you go into this, you don't really have a personal brand you've developed yours, you're writing all these books. But that's a whole

foundational part of whether you're writing all these books, but that's a whole foundational part of whether you're going to publish through a traditional one or not, because if you don't have a following, Amazon makes it easier to find books, but generally a lot of people want to hear from the author who's writing it and someone that they see out there. It's time consuming, but it's fun. It can be a lot of fun. I love doing this. This is great. Just having a chat and talking about things, book related and career related is awesome, but keeping up with it is,

and it is definitely, like you said, it's sort of expected in the fiction world as well, having some sort of a platform and how do you do that? I think you hit the right balance in terms of having something of a really good value do you do that? I think you hit the right balance in terms of having something of really good value for people other than just posting. Like there's a lot of different, you know, you can stop on Facebook and wherever, here's what I have to launch, here's my new vacation. And I've really pulled back over the years,

which is why I've really been enjoying the sub-stack idea, not to give like too much away, because I haven't really formulated an idea, but I'm really just thinking of just trying to kind of compact it into that more because it is like a newsletter, an online newsletter essentially for me, more I can interact instead of through eight different Facebook groups that I, you know, that I'm in, you know, I have a great readers group, we have fun, but it's just hard to keep up with it all. And it is, it's a part-time job. And that is just the life of a writer these days.

Until you get to the Stephen King level where you have an assistant sending the sorry, sorry letters out. That's one of my base challenges is answering emails and keeping up with what's going on in Facebook. I do a lot of apologizing. Sorry. I think of a template called sorry for my tardy reply. You may have seen one of those. That's a point. A week ago, as I was thinking about this interview, I was watching the new Kingsman movie, and I was wondering when are you going to take your books and put them on the silver screen. I'm sure it was that easy. Unfortunately, it's not. Yeah, I know. I, um, we've had some bites, but I think right now I do not have an agent. I am an agent. I just, the way my career is kind of

evolved. I developed this relationship with my publisher, which is kind of unusual without an agent, but just kind of worked out a confluence of events, people helping me, bringing my name to them. I was made an offer when I did not have an agent. I have a relationship with them that I can pitch them books anytime. It's hard to describe, but so from the book aspect, yeah, things are great. I can consistently pitch ideas and things to them. But without an agent, it's very difficult to break into the TV,

movie, any kind of deals like that. You really do need an agent. So I think those are next steps in terms of career. You know, I'm looking down the line at, if I want something like that to happen, I'm going to have to sign with an agent, which that may be the absolute right move for me at that point. I may have a more of a standalone book that I want to

try to sell or whatever it might be, but right now I'm just 100% happy with my publisher, so there just doesn't seem to be any reason to go that route. And you know how the movie stuff, I mean, if you know what I know talking to other authors It's there's always bites. There's nibbles very few people actually real fish up for many of those bites So it's it's definitely long shot world, but um, but it can be really cool. Yeah Well, then there's also the studios creative liberty to change up your book as well of liberty to change up your book as well. That would be a friend. What you do, I mean, sometimes you just, you do lose that creative control.

I have a good friend. He's brilliant. His books are brilliant and he's really made an amp for himself as a screen play writer. So he's just got this great fortune where projects that are optioned and then go into production. He's right in there. It's like when these come I've seen a couple of them already. One more so than the other was just so faithful to the

characters and the original book and I can only imagine the couple projects he has moving forward of his very successful novels are going to be the same way which is I love that more than anything. It's hard to read a book, get excited about a series or a concept, and then what you see on Netflix or Apple Plus is like, oh man, that's a, that's a bit of a let down. It's hard. I did want to give you the opportunity in case the audience wants to get access to you, subscribe to your newsletter, learn more about your books and announcements. What are some ways that they can do that?

You could definitely find me at stevenconcly.com. The last name is spelled K-O-N-K-L-L-Y. It's a very unusual one. But yeah, everything is there. You can sign up for my newsletter. You'll get hit with the pop- up by apologizing advance for that. Ask me if you want to do that. So if you want to keep up with what I'm doing,

when things are released, you can do that. But everything makes it that it's way there eventually. So I think that's the best one stop shop to find out what I'm doing. Okay, and then your next book will be publishing at the end of October. Correct. Yes. So, um, coming dawn, so we have a theme going deep sleep coming dawn and wide awake. We kind of settled on that for this Devon Gray series that comes out October 25th. And if we have time for a very quick story, I had to, this is one book I did have to rewrite a lot because of the war in Ukraine.

It became very obvious to me at a certain point that the ending of this book and the build-up and sort of the central plot would not be appropriate given what has transpired there. The war just, it would be distasteful, not give too much away, but the book ended with a soft coup invasion of the war just, it would be just tasteful. Not, you know, give too much away, but the book ended with a soft coup invasion of Ukraine. So we had to sleep. It was, I generated this. I was very concerned and early February and kind of reached out and I'm like,

maybe we could switch it to another country. I'm sorry, Estonia, you know, you're, you're in Estonia, you're in the crosshairs now. But yeah, so that's one of the few books where I had to make some major modifications. And they were great about it. They agreed, and we just scoured the book and just made a change that keeps it tackled. I mean, for a lack of a better word, I just I couldn't imagine that will coming out in October.

We have no idea what's going to happen there, what it's going to look like. And even with what's already happened there, I just didn't feel comfortable putting Ukraine in the crosshairs in my book. So, yeah, kind of an interesting be out. That's a behind the scenes story. I haven't really haven't really talked about much. I kind of hinted that we had a big change and thank my publisher for really being on board with it.

They were awesome throughout that whole process. But spent a whole week rewriting that I hadn't expected. Well, I can't wait to read it in October. Well, Steve, thank you so much for joining us today on the podcast. It was great to have you and I always love it when I have a friend and classmate on the show. Yeah, no, it's great to see you.

I mean, I think the last time we saw each other was at our last reunion in terms of like actually live talking and it's been an absolute pleasure. So thank you so much for having me on and, you know, anytime, but yeah, no problem talking about books and what's going on. So I hope you all enjoyed the show and a big thank you to Steven Conkley and all things Steven will be in the show notes at passionstruck.com. Videos are on YouTube at John Armiles. Please

go there and subscribe and our advertisers deals and discount codes are all in one convenient place at passionstruck.com slash deals. Please consider supporting those who support the show and make it free for our listeners. I am at John Armiles at both Twitter and Instagram and you can also find me on LinkedIn. If you want to know how I book all these amazing guests, it's because of my network. Build those relationships before you need them. Most of the guests that you hear on the show actually subscribe to the podcast and give us recommendations for both guests and topics. So please come join us. You'll be in some amazing company. You're about to hear a preview of the Passion Struck podcast with Professor Sarah C. Medneck, who is a cognitive neuroscientist at the University of California, Irvine, and the

author of the Hidden Power of the Downstate and take a nap, change your life. She is passionate about understanding how the brain works through her research into sleep and the autonomic nervous system. We emphasize the upstate and we don't emphasize the importance of the recovery. So how can we bring more of this kind of recovery time

during the day? Because I think our culture is designed to sort of start the hustle in the morning and didn't just ramp it up all day long. So at the end of the day, people are frazzled. They're not just exhausted, but I think they're frazzled. Remember, we rise by lifting others. So share the show with those you love. And if you found this episode useful, please share it with somebody who could use this daily dose of inspiration.

In the meantime, do your best to apply what you hear on the show, so that you can live what you listen. And we'll see you next time. Remember, live life, passion struck.