The Chris Voss Show Podcast – Dissension: A Disagreement that Leads to Discord by Rodney Phillips
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00:23 Strap yourself in. Keep your hands, arms, and legs inside the vehicle at all times. Because you're about to go on a monster education role. rollercoaster with your brain. Now, here's your host, Chris Voss. Folks of Voss here from the Chris Voss Show.com. So there you go, Lee. The only are the least things that makes official.
00:44 Welcome to 17 years of the Chris Voss show. The oldest podcast in existence that still produces one to two new shows a day. There's not even new podcasts that do the amount of 45 podcasts we try and publish every month. You know, if there's not any schedules. So be sure to support the show. We're down to a handful of the original. podcast left and it's last man standing. Whoever lives the longest
01:06 gets to claim the oldest podcast in existence. So go to Goodrease.com, fortune as Chris Foss, LinkedIn.com, YouTube.com, Facebook.com, 4.6chrisch, one word on all of those. Today, a amazing young man on the show.
01:20 We're going to be talking about his novel called Descension, a disagreement that leads to Discord by Rodney Phillips. We're going to get in it with him and all the details of what he's been out to and what he's about. Rodney's been working on these books. He's a lifelong residence of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He has built a successful career in the pharmaceutical industry backed by a master's degree in
01:45 human resource leadership management. His professional journey reflects a strong commitment to leadership, strategy, and personal development. Outside of the workplace, Rodney has spent two decades coaching youth sports, including football, and boys and girls lacrosse sharing his passion for teamwork, discipline, and personal growth with young athletes. Rodney lives in Pittsburgh with his family and the three dogs. He remains actively involved in his community, cheers on his favorite local sports team, and continues to explore new ways to tell meaningful stories. Welcome to the show.
02:17 How are you, sir? I'm doing terrific, Chris. Thank you for having me on. Thanks for coming. We're just wonderful to have you. Give us dot com's websites where we want people to get to know you on the interwebs. Yeah, so they could reach me on my author website, which is rodney Phillipsauthor.com, and they will be able to interact a little bit with me there and then also sign up for my newsletter. There you go.
02:46 So please give us a 30,000 overview. What's inside your new book? Yeah, so dissension is set in Pittsburgh and Miami, and it is about a young lady. Kylie that's going to the University of Miami studying criminal law, she gets caught between a dispute that breaks out between two rival drug cartels. One is Mexican, one is Cuban. And then you find out through all these deep twists and turns why she's specifically being targeted. And then I have another strong female character that I'm proud of that's my FBI agent that stepped in to try and help her navigate the situation. So you have two strong females
03:24 that are caught in like a male-dominated situation that's happening. There you go. Descension. You know, that title kind of reminds me of a, what's that one word of a show where the people are, I guess the guy that has a big stock company or billionaire company. Oh, yeah. It was on HBO. Yeah, the word reminds me of the same, I think, is the title of that one.
03:48 Maybe it was a censure or something. I don't know. So this, your plan for this book is. is to become a three trilogy series. Is that correct? Correct. Yeah. So I'm currently deep in work on the sequel.
04:02 My wife calls me the weekend writer because I only write on the weekends because I work full time. Well, yeah. I'm deep in the sequel. And then that's going to be called Descension the Co-op. And then we're going to have a trilogy, which is going to be a prequel called Descent in the beginning. That will take you back to when Kyle. as a teenager, what was happening with these cartels around her that she's oblivious to, which then drives her into dissension.
04:34 Ah, there you go. So what was the proponent that made you want to write this book? This is your first book? Do I have that, right? You do, and it's funny. I started writing this book when I was 19 years old, out of boredom. I worked in a furniture store, and I played sports my whole life. I was a big football, baseball, basketball, basketball guy.
04:55 But I was phenomenally because I also loved the right. And I was working in the furniture store when I came home from college, and there was a lot of downtime because all I was doing was loading people's furniture. And you'll know this, you know, you're from my time. Back in the day, they had lay away, you know. So people would come to pick up furniture and we had these little cards. So I literally started writing notes on the back of these cards. And then that graduated to be bringing in notes.
05:22 books. My dad was a pharmacist, so I brought in some of his legal pads that he had. So I had this mixed match of stuff that I started writing. Yeah, legal pads. That makes both of us feel old, doesn't it? Right now, Jens, he's going, what the hell are you talking about? And it sat in my foul cabinet for 37 years. As you said to the beginning. Seven years. Yeah, yeah. So you said, the best story to take the longest to cook, maybe. I don't know. Yeah. Well, that's the thing. thing is it sat there and just marinated, right? Yeah. As I was coaching, raising my two kids, I have a male and a female, a son and daughter,
06:02 and then I coached for over, you know, two decades at youth sports, football, boys and girls lacrosse, like you mentioned. And I'm no longer coaching. Both kids go to college. So I got to credit my wife for the book because she's like, you're driving me nuts on the weekends. Can you find something to do? She's like, find a hobby.
06:22 I'm like, well, maybe I'm pulling my book out. And she goes, you mean all those notebooks that we've been carrying around? So they literally went to three houses because we moved, you know, over the, you know, 30-some years, we moved the three houses. And I pulled it out. I typed in word for word what I'd written at 19, which I'm really proud of because of the fact that obviously everything was handwritten. So when I first started, you know, looking at the book, I typed everything in to word
06:52 document before I even started revisiting it. You know, so it's a really cool story of how it worked because what author, you know, can see what you wrote at 19 years old, you know, word for word. And, you know, mostly they put it away maybe for a year or two, not 37 years. There you go. Maybe you should have put the title of the book, you know, 37 years in the making. Yeah, exactly. that's really interesting. We had a gal on, I think, yesterday or earlier this morning,
07:26 we do three shows a weekday, so I can't feel my legs today. But she had written a book nine years before she published, and she put it away and went, I know what I'm not a writer. I'm not good. And then finally, she pulled it out one day for some friends, and they're like, you need to publish this. What were some of your early influences of writing, what was influencing you write. What books did you like to read? And how did you kind of know you had a nag for it? Yeah. So that's a great question. So like I said, even growing up, I love to read and I love the right even though I was a sports guy. And my two big influences, I'd say, growing up,
08:09 were Patricia Cornwell, who now they just started a Kay Scarpetta on Netflix, you know, show about her main character. And then also, James Patterson. So the book, Descension, has a little bit of that, of both of them in there, because it's been compared a little bit to James Patterson, just from the fact of that I have a lot of short chapters, you know, and he's known for writing short chapters. I kind of keep that story going, and you figure I have a lot going on in dissension because of the fact that there's two cartels, there's my main character, and then the FBI. So I kind of like alternate chapters, and it's not in any specific sequence, but it keeps the reader interested in, and they're like smaller chapters
08:54 that then you can kind of like move through quickly. So, and then as far as the character development, you know, I think Patricia Cornwall is probably one of the, you know, my opinion, best authors as far as writing deep characters that you could close your eyes and you could almost picture them, right? You know, so I think that she influenced me on my my character development. But I got to tell you, by putting that book aside for that long period of time, I don't think it would be getting as much positive publicity if I would have finished it at 19. Because I would say, well, then, to go back and infuse my life experience, back into the characters,
09:36 back into the story, pursue deeper themes, you know, like disloyalty, blind loyalty, how important to any relationship communication is. you know, if it's a teammate, colleague, your wife, you have to communicate well, right? And then dissension, the cartels lose communication, which is then what causes the dissension, which then causes the chaos, you know. So you feel that, you know, putting your life experience into it helps you add to a lot more flavor, texture, three dimensions to the story and character. Yeah, absolutely.
10:12 Because you figure then, you know, at 19, I didn't have that depth, right? I didn't have that thought process to really pursue these deeper themes. And as far as the character development, I created these sheets where it's your hair, eye color, you know, height, weight, things of that nature. But I really wanted to go deeper because I wanted real world characters. So all my characters had bad habits, flaws, even the good characters. Like my main character has a little bit of my sarcasm, which could be, you know, considered a flaw.
10:48 But yeah, so I think that deeper character development came with age, right? And being around different leaders that you, you know, follow or what have you. We always tell aspiring writers that listen to the show and follow what authors do and how they get to be published and do the work, you know, write what you know. I mean, some people, you know, they kind of, you know, like we have the Tom Clancy folks on. I think we had everybody but Tom Clancy on the show from those series and something with the other Jack Rines or I forget there's so many of them. And so, you know, they're like, well, I want to write like that. And it's like, well, you know, if you're if you're been in the military or if you've been to CIA, FBI or you have that background, it's really easy to write in that format.
11:37 But if you're not, like I could never write about that. You know, everyone, everyone to write me on my book and say, you're stupid. He's holding the gun the wrong way. you know, because I have no, I was never in the military, but you write what you know, you know, a gal was on yesterday. I think for the nine years she left her, her thing, her manuscript put away. She just wrote about the place she lived, North Dakota. Yeah. And, you know, it was a great book. I mean, so, you know, write what you know.
12:09 I mean, some people I think they kind of screw up because they try and, well, I want to write what's popular. No, right, but you know. But that's interesting. You're not going to wait 37 years to publish the second book in this series, aren't? No, kind of targeting, you know, early to mid next year, hopefully. I think what's hold me up as I've been doing a lot of signings at Barnes & Noble's and things in Landgatory. Well, obviously, they're on the weekends. So I'm normally writing on the weekends.
12:39 So it's kind of like I'm trying to juggle both. I'm starting to wonder if your wife likes it. you're turning. Yeah, it's such a problem. I'm starting to wonder if your wife likes you. You come home on the weekends and she's like, get the hell out of my hair. How long you guys been married for a while? Maybe 30. Yeah, we've been married for 30 years. Actually, March was our 30th. You probably could tell that by my slumped overbeat down appearance when I came on. Yeah, yeah. You look like you've been hit over by the head by a few cans and stuff. I don't know, I've been yelled out a few times too many times. But just to make sure you put the I never got married. I couldn't afford the divorces. I'm still saving up for my first divorce. So let's see, but I believe in love. Now with these characters, why, you know, I don't, I'm not putting it on the spot here, but why was your choice to put female characters in the lead as opposed to males? I mean, was that a specific choice? And what, what drew you to that? Did you find that they're more interesting characters or maybe emotional depth or just, just, curious. So that's a great question. I have a podcast, Rodney. Yes. I think why I put them is because, like I said, I have a daughter. Oh, that's right. You did say that. Yeah. So we tried to raise her that she could be a strong, independent young lady without having to rely on a male, you know, so I'm very proud of the two female characters because I tried to, you know, make them.
14:14 kind of in that frame, you know, so I have two strong female characters are kind of caught in like a male situation, right? There you go. Um, you know, so that's kind of, so that was extremely, uh, thought provoking for me. And, and I got to tell you, very difficult to write, right? You know, so I tried to write from the point of view of each character, you know, whether that was one of my, cartel guys or my FBI agent or whatever, you know, right from that situation. And it is, it is kind of difficult because of the fact that you're trying to put yourself in the mindset of that, that character, you know. Yeah.
14:54 Were you hoping your daughter would read the book? I was hoping. I'm still hoping. She read about a chapter and a half. I think of my son, it's funny, my son read probably the most out of both of us. And he only read three chapters, but he did make a big change to the book. And it's kind of an ironic change is I had told you I started writing this book at 19, right? But when I went back to revisit it of 56, I, you know, was starting to rewrite it.
15:29 And I showed my son a couple of chapters. And he's like, Dad, why do you have the cartels in Vegas and not in Miami? And I said, well, in the 80s, Vegas was considered Sin City. So when I started writing a book, Sin City. So I put my cartels there. And he goes, Dad, the cartel should be down in Miami. I don't know why you have them in Vegas. So I went and did some research.
15:53 And sure enough, he was right. And it was funny because he was 19 at the time as well. But that's all that he read was like the first time. So I literally changed every chapter that I had in Vegas to Miami. And luckily, I've been to Miami several times for work, and my wife and I've been there, you know, several times. So I'm very familiar with the city and stuff. So that's why it changed from Vegas to Miami was my 19-year-old son. That makes sense.
16:21 I mean, the mob was still in Vegas until like 95, 99, 98. Yeah. I think that's when they finally closed El Rancho or I can't remember one. It's completely gone now. It's like a fountain water park or something. But, yeah. And so, you know, I guess, you know, I hear this a lot from authors of their kids to read their book. We had one famous comedian on, and he wrote this, father to son, I care about you.
16:47 Here's my instruction manual for life as a young man based upon my experience. And we were talking, he was kind of laughing. He's like, yeah, my son hasn't read it, and I'm not even sure he's going to read it. So it's probably good that I'm helping other sons out there. And I'm like, well, here's what you do. In your will, you make it. So the only way they can get their inheritance is to read the book. That's a great idea.
17:08 That is a great idea. This is why they pay me $5 a day for these great ideas right here. I get a whole check, too. You're the idea, man. You didn't tell you. Yeah. It's $250 after taxes, but still, I mean, come on, it's $250. You know what?
17:21 That buys like half a tank of gas right now. I could drive them home. So anyway, so this is great. And do you have an anticipated release date for the second book? Is it editing or are you still developing? Still working on it. I'm hoping, so don't quote me on this, but we're hoping maybe like end of March, early April, is. You know, so that's one thing is it takes a long time for the books to be edited.
17:53 You know, do your graphics design, which the graphics designer, you know, all of that. you know so it it literally is you know i think it took the first book about six months before you know um we got to the point where it was ready to be released oh well there you go and uh yeah the editing and yeah that's whole nightmarish i mean it used to be books would take about a year and a year and a half before we'd finally get another one but uh for one of them being told lately by authors from sydn uh singa pangler random houses and uh you know, the big, the big ones, and then all the honor wins underneath them is, Simon Schuster is, they're learning they need to speed at the process.
18:37 Because a lot of times we have people on the show that are, we had one guy who had a book who was promoting NFTs, and NFTs had died by the time they got to the show and his book published. And then, you know, sometimes we have political people on, you know, people from Washington Post or CNN or, you know, in New York Times, one of these places. And they've written a book and they're prophetic. And it just so happens that within the month that their book drops after a year of being in editing and waiting that they called the ball. And you're just like, wow, dude, you're going to Chris the ball when you wrote this book.
19:12 So I guess they're figuring out they need to move a little bit faster. So that's good. Let me ask you this because this can help maybe other authors. I see on your website, you've got some events at some local bookstores. Some of these are Barnes and No. Do you have your books in all the Barnes and Noble or do you have to do some kind of special deal to set up a book signing with them? Yeah, so basically the Barnes and Nobles are all like a one-off. There is no special deal. Obviously, you know, my book is available for Ingram Sparks. It's available anywhere that you can buy books.
19:46 You know, Barnes and Noble, Amazon, Google Play, Apple Books, wherever. But with the specific Barnes and Nobles, typically you work with the local manager, you know, They'll order your book in, or some of them will do what they call consignment where I have to order books from my publisher and then take them there. And then they'll pay you, you know, a percentage for the book that you sell. And they check it out into Barnes & Noble. But my book is available that they could order it into Barnes & Noble. So like, for example, I just did one a couple weeks ago. They ordered in 24 books.
20:26 I brought 10 extra with me and I think we ended up at like I think it was like 26 books sold or something like there you go I've always wondered that about Barnes & Noble because a lot of independents can't get into there I mean you can sell it through the Barnes & Noble system you know and
20:44 like online system and I guess if Barnes and Noble's want to I don't know what their policy is but I don't know if they have the individual ability to just go yeah we want that guy's books but yeah I've always wondered I think someone asked you about that. Like, can I just call local Barnes & Noble and see if I can set up a deal?
21:00 And I'm like, I don't know. You have to be with Ingram Sparks. So a lot of the indie authors only published through Amazon through like KDP. So they don't have the right ISBN number to use at a Barnes & Noble. There you go. You know, so that's probably what's holding them up. So my book has a ISPN number through Ingram Sparks that they could order at any bookstore or any library in the country. It doesn't just have to be. And you really want that tracking number,
21:30 too, not only for their purposes, but trackers. Yes. But, yeah, Ingram Sparks, most people don't know. I mean, Amazon handles pretty much Amazon. I think if you set it up a certain way in KDP, it will distribute it out to different places that aren't Amazon, but really Ingram Sparks is going to get you into, you know, all the publishers that are out there and everything. And, you know, I'm in, like, I think like six different libraries right now as well, too. because they can work through there. Yeah. So I've done speaking engagements of libraries.
22:02 And then also I was able to go back to my high school, you know, where, you know, I just graduated from that high school when I started writing a book. And I talked to 33 creative writing students at my old high school, which was really cool. That was a fun experience. That's going to be nice. You can kind of wave in their face like, hey, you told me I was it going to be doing anything. school counselor here's your book
22:28 the gal I was talking about earlier and just keep calling her back because it's a great story but she had been bullied as a child and through school and you know just the typical mean stuff you're fat you're ugly you know mean shit they stayed everybody right I mean that was what they said
22:44 to me all the time and that was my mother so so her thing was is I said to her, I said, well, now you got this book. She's in North Dakota, a small town. And I'm like, well, now you get to waving around and be like, hey, guys, bullied me, but I wrote a book, and I'm now better than you. I said, run with it.
23:08 Yeah. So there you go. Well, that's good to know. And so how much did you, when you signed to get back on this horse and you're driving your wife crazy, so she's like, go find something to do. How long did it take you to, you know, finesse the book back up? do whatever you want to take and do and get it published. Yes, so it took me probably about two months or so.
23:33 Now, granted, it's only Saturday and Sunday. So when I say two months, it's really, you know, let's call it eight weekends of typing everything that I had handwritten into the computer first. And then when I started revisiting it and looking at it, my son making a suggestion to change, you know, one of the locations, you know, it probably took me about a year to write it from there. So maybe about, you know, two months, two and a half months to actually get it, everything into the computer, and then for me to rewrite it and edit and, you know, do everything from there another year. And submitted it to the publisher.
24:17 And then it took them, like I said, about six months or so for their editing. and, you know, the whole process. That whole fun of editing. So the story deals with a single disagreement that spirals, spirals out of control. It sounds like me at Taco Bell last night this morning. Why do you think people are trying to stories about power and downfall? Yeah, so I think all of our news, unfortunately, that's all it focuses on. It's the negative, right?
24:47 If it bleeds, it leads. Yeah, exactly. Everybody wants to see somebody fall, right? You know, so like car crashes. Yeah. So I think, unfortunately, you know, that's the society that we live in. Everybody wants to see somebody fall, you know. And indecension, like you mentioned, you know, it's a disagreement that happens between these two cartels.
25:10 But I think the underlying theme there is how important communication is to any relationship, right? Like marriage or colleagues or teammates or whatever. Once you lose that communication, then that's when things can spiral. And in the book, The Sension, they lose communication. They're assuming that the other cartel is doing something that they're not. And, you know, that's really what drives the chaos and then, you know, it ensues all the craziness. The Cuban Missile Crisis, man. Yes.
25:44 Yeah. Yeah. Well, that's the fun of misunderstandings. That's why I never communicate because there's more drama and it's fun or just. to see what happens sometimes. That's true. I'm troubled, man. They shouldn't let me out of the house.
25:59 This is basically that. So you're working on this segment. Now, why are you capping this at three? What if it turns out, you know, we have authors. They've got like, I don't know, 60 stacks in their row. And sometimes they have multiple lanes of the book characters and things they're doing. I don't know how they do without losing their minds, but they're good at it. do you I mean do you see that it might not cap a three or is that just going to be played out?
26:26 Yeah, I think the dissension series is going to be capped at three. But I am working on another idea that I have at one of the Barnes and Nobles, actually in Morgantown, West Virginia, I'd run into a retired police officer there. And him and I grabbed coffee and he had an interesting story that he wanted to tell me that I'm going to do fiction. but it was based on a situation that happened in West Virginia. So I'm going to pursue that as a different, you know, a different book that's off the dissension pathway. But I would love to do this in retirement.
27:05 Now, I probably still have like seven or eight years with the two kids in college before I can retire. But I would love to do it in retirement. And, you know, this book, look on what is doing really well. And hopefully, you know, it will continue, you know, to grow so then I could do those other books. Yeah. You know what you can do, though.
27:24 You can just fake your death and then move someplace and then restart your life and then, just make sure those kids can't find you or fill you. Yeah. That's what I did with my teenagers. I'm just kidding. Folks, don't do that. Or do that. I mean, teenagers are tough, man, especially those college things.
27:42 I mean. Yes, yes. Yeah. And girls are tough, right? You know, it's funny, like when my kids were teenagers. You know, Dylan, my son would get into an argument with one of his bodies or whatever. And then they shit cans and they forget about it, right? Yeah.
27:57 Kaylee gets into our argument with one of her teammates from lacrosse or whatever. And six months later, they're still talking about it. It's crazy, but different. Let it go. Yeah, we're two different sexes when it comes to better people's. But, yeah, it was hard to write from women's perceptions. perspective and in their head, maybe having a daughter helped. I don't know that I could write like a woman and get into their head because I'm not one.
28:29 So I don't know. How did that work for you? Yeah, I would say that's probably the most difficult thing. I think having a daughter kind of helped me with that because you never know what there is going on. Right. So I think we're all still trying to figure that out. I think they get pulled aside in kindergarten. How do you, you know, drive the males crazy?
28:55 I just drive the wheels crazy. I would just, have I had right? That was probably the toughest characters is the female character. There you go. I would just write and she cried again. Anyway, jokes people don't write me. We can all laugh. So, yeah.
29:11 And let's see, there was another question I had for you that I wanted to take and ask. When you write crime and conflict, do you start? with the ending in mind, or do you let the story take you there? So another good question, obviously, with your part. You wrote that question for me. Yeah, yeah. So, but at 19, I was writing to the end that I had in mind, you know, and that's what I felt like I knew, right?
29:39 Is I had the ending already in mind, and I was writing the chapters to get to that ending. When I went back and I revisited it, I was writing with the characters taking me to the ending. So I let the story flow. So the ending that actually happens in dissension is totally different than the ending that I had in my mind at 19. And I feel like if I had to go back and tell my 19-year-old self, that is the way that I would write. Because of the fact that as you're writing a chapter, you have a character and as characters start to live in your head you wake up at 3 a.m. and you have dialogue in your head that you're trying to think about.
30:24 You know, you allow that story, in my opinion, to go where it wants to go as opposed to forcing it to go to an end, right? Yeah. That makes sense. But I feel like I learned that on the journey. Do you have your characters haunt you and bug you and tell you to write stuff down or do you have to sit and work them over? Yeah.
30:47 Yeah. No, they bugged me all the time. So I started, so I will tell you two things that will probably help some of your aspiring authors out there. Okay. One is, since I only write on the weekends, during the week, if I have an idea of pop into my head, I use my cell phone and I put them into my notes. So I have a notes on the book. And I put it into the notes. And that could be dialogue or whatever.
31:14 And then when I go back on Saturdays and Sundays, I revisit what I put in during the week and then where it goes, you know, because some of the dialogue might pop up and I know, hey, I want to put it in this specific chapter, right? You know, the other thing that has worked for me, because as you mentioned, I've worked a long time in pharmaceutical sales and specifically oncology, is we go from appointment to appointment, right? you know so so i call it making an appointment with my book and i think this would help some of your listeners that are aspiring to write is i literally set an appointment in my phone for say saturday at 9 a m if my wife and i don't have plans that's my specific bulk appointment so whether that's writing new stuff or editing chapters that i've already written i know that that's my appointment and i'm ready to go like today you and i have an appointment i'm ready to roll you and i'm ready to right? You know, so that is kind of like how I approach the writing journey, and I'm still doing that with the sequel.
32:20 But why I say that is I've come across so many people through this journey that have said, oh, you wrote a book, I want to write a book, or I have this idea, and all they do is talk about it. But I feel like unless you make it a priority, then you just continue to talk about it. And I call it making an appointment because then I'm taking that priority and I'm making it important, right? You know, so it keeps me on pace. There you go. That's a really good pattern work there and ability to get it done. Yeah. If you got a good system, roll with it.
32:58 In decision, you explore blind loyalty with one cartel and betrayal with the other cartel. What made you want to dive into the human flaws of that? Yeah, so, you know, as we've mentioned, you know, I have a work career, you know, over the years. Plus, I've been a coach, leader. So I feel like those two different sides of that coin, you've all been with leaders, right, that you follow, that you know, respect. And then you've had leaders that you're like, man, how did this person get in that position, right? you know so by looking at one cartel and having what i call blind loyalty where they're just following their leader even though they don't all agree with what the leader is is doing right
33:49 but they're just blindly following and then the other cartel is where i pursue the disloyalty you know and that's kind of like what is that the backbone of what causes the dissension between the two cartel is ambition, right, gets in the way with the human nature and then it causes some type of disloyalty. But, you know, we've all been with leaders that, you know, you question, like, what they're doing, right? You know, so I think those two sides of the coin are really cool because ambition really plays a part in that, right? You know, because somebody that could be a subordinate wants to be the leader, right? You know, so I think that's why I, you know, just from experience,
34:38 coaching, leadership, work experience, I'm just fascinated by those, you know, loyalty, disloyalties. Yeah, yeah. And so life experience there plays in. You know, I was a photographer about 10 years, 20 years ago, I guess, when I started. And after about 10 years of muck and about with it, I was too lazy to learn the camera. I was too lazy to learn the science of the camera.
35:06 I love photography. I hated editing. It was a nightmare editing. And I quit, you know, taking professional photographs with a professional camera for nine years up until a year ago. And it's funny. I came back and AI brought me back, actually. I hated editing. It was destroying.
35:27 I love shooting, but I hate editing. And so, The thing that brought me back was AI, the now AI integration, a lot of this software, like Photoshop and stuff. And I was dicking around some old photos that never got edited. Probably there's probably half a million of them. And I was like, well, this is my dog. I want to try and save this photo and make it look good. And wow, it blew my mind how easy it was to fix it and make it look great and edit it.
35:56 And it even had some ideas of its own that is suggested. And I was like, yeah, oh, wow, that color scheme is way better. I didn't think of that. And so I was like, I'm getting the camera again. This is, the world's changed. But something about those nine years of growing and maybe maturing a little bit.
36:14 Let's stop press it. People write me, you haven't matured in 17 years. And they're right. But I'm a Peter Pan all the way, baby. So, you know, now I love working with the camera.
36:30 I love learning. the science of it. I've been back a year. I'm making these amazing photos. The folks at Canon that I used to work with the executives there, they're all like looking at my work partially because it's a Sony now. And there's like,
36:45 let me get the straight. You quit photography for nine years. And then you come back and you do one photo shoot and you're blowing the doors off. And I was like, yeah, I don't know who that is, man. I don't know who's taking those pictures or who's editing those. But
37:00 somewhere I picked up some sort of life experience, maturity, growth. And now I'm more patient with the camera. I can go out and I go, okay, we're just going to only shoot and F whatever today. We're going to shoot in 200 ISO. And that's all we're going to shoot. We're going to do black and white and light. We're going to play with light and darkness and people passing through light. And so I challenge myself a lot.
37:22 And I have a lot of fun doing it. But if you would ask me 10 years ago, do that, I told you to take a flying fleet, flip, whatever, leap. So, you know, maturity and life experience, you know. This is why they always say youth is wasted on the young. Yeah. Yes, that's true. My grandfather used to say that all the time.
37:41 He was a steel worker and his favorite lines. Yeah, youth is wasting the young. It's sad, you know, if I tell my 24-year-old nephew, I remember the other stuff, I'm like, dude, if I could be your age with what I know and the girls at 24 or 20s, 1824, I'm like, dude, you. You should be like, you know, definitely have some fun. Let's put that way. And, but I would have, you know, I did start my first company at 22, but like I knew what the hell I was doing. Anyway, no, at 18, our first multimillionaire company was at 22,
38:15 the ones that went big and everything else up to that. So as we go on, anything more, we need to know about the book before we wrap. Yeah, I mean, the only thing to know about the book is the deeper themes, you know, because it's a suspense thriller, right? You know, it's basically a crime suspense thriller because of a cartel, you know, involvement. But the deeper themes that are woven throughout the book, like we touched on, you know, the disloyalty, loyalty, you know, communication, how important it is, you know,
38:49 disagreements, how they could spiral out of control, how ambition gets in the way of moral judgment. You know, those are all kind of like weave through the book. And it is a fast-paced thriller. So, you know, I think even, you know, folks that, you know, don't want to get into the crime aspect will enjoy the suspense thriller, you know. Nice. Yeah. I mean, even with novels, there's lessons you learn about life. And this is kind of the way we all learn, really.
39:16 We learn through life of all these lessons. Well, we'll look forward to the next two books or however many it turns out and whatever you do. People can follow you. I think you have probably have a list on your website. people can join. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. They can send an email and join the newsletter. And, you know, it also lists events there.
39:38 There's a really cool book trailer if you get a chance to check out the book trailer that talks about dissension. That is really neat. You know, so they can interact a little bit. And obviously with me being a, you know, single author, I'll reply to emails. you know, it's not like going to some team. But yeah, and I would love to come back on the show if you'd have me. Yeah, yeah.
40:07 Let's have you on. We've got to be able to follow up the thingy deal either. Yeah, maybe we could talk some football or something too. Yeah, football. My Raiders are pulling a fast one on me or something. I've been used to just watching the first few games and then going on suicide watch after that and never watching them again for the rest of the season.
40:26 But after 5,000 years, I guess they're going to figure out how to play the game. Yeah, and they got Kurt Cousins who made it, who's a really good quarterback, right? You know, so when did that start? Yeah. I mean, last number one pick, we gave him $100 million and he shook in right away. Yeah. Maybe don't pay him up from. But, you know, probably why, probably the reason we're doing well is because I think we're the only NFL team that has four or five coaches that are currently on the payroll.
40:56 like we're still paying people from 1974 or something right now for all the coaches we fired yeah yeah well you got churned through the coaches you know my team the Steelers have only had four coaches since 1969 you know so yeah
41:12 guys have turned through some coaches and that's probably part of our problem about the book it's a football thing is on the cover my graphics designer hid the Steelers diamonds as an Easterer yeah so Red diamond, you know on the Steelers logo, how they have the diamonds that make steel.
41:31 The red diamond is above the high mark building on the cover. I see that. The yellow diamond replaces one of the lights on the bridge, on the Pittsburgh bridge. And then the blue diamond is in the river behind the hipman in the blue of the steel. You should have made the hitman guy look like Ben Rossesberger. Yeah. He was such a great. Hall of Fame.
41:54 We'll soon to be Hall of Fame. Yeah. He was such a great player. I tripped out the other day. There was some ad or some crap that showed up on my feed and Facebook. And it showed Ben Rothesberger playing. It showed him like on these playing cards. I'm like, wait, he retired.
42:10 Am I crazy? Am I losing? I'm losing in the old age, right? And he's like, what the hell he doesn't play anymore? I'd ask Google if he did. But yeah, he was such a great player and stuff. That was quite a thing. One of my friends was the NFL.
42:23 I forget his name. He played with the, he won the Super Bowl with the well, I shouldn't say his name actually. Yeah, he told me the deep story of how Ben Rutherberg had to sit down with Goodell and tell him the true story
42:38 what happened at the bar. And it's one of those stories where you really don't want to talk to another guy about this sort of thing, you know, let alone Roger Goodell. But, you know, I guess they worked it out. Yeah, yeah, I guess so. Yeah, I mean, I would have been hurt to, you know, I was never, you know, I'd never been a Steelers fan.
42:59 I'm a Raiders fan. But, I mean, I love watching Ben, Ray Rice of, you know, and it seems like after Ray Rice, a lot of these big guys left, it's just, I don't know, it just doesn't feel the same, but maybe I'm just old and a broken old man who's spraying water and get off my lawn kids or something. It doesn't seem as hard hitting, and this is from a Raiders fan. Whoa, well, yeah. Well, they've taken a lot. lot of the hard defense hitting out of the game.
43:27 It's almost like flag football now. Yeah. Any hard hit that there is, there's a flag, and then, you know, they kind of talk through it. Yeah. I think isn't the, what's that thing they do at the end of every year with all the top players? The Pro Bowl. The Pro Bowl. Didn't they start doing flag football on that or something?
43:48 Yeah. Now they're not going to have the Pro Bowl. This coming year is going to be the first year without a Pro Bowl. just going to give them the award, you know, that they make the Pro Bowl, but they're not going to actually play. Maybe they should just get together and quilt or something nice that would know and get hurt until they stab each other with quilt things. Yeah, I miss the Raiders days, the 70s brawler football. Oh, that's the other thing about the Raiders. We finally quit being the penalty team that loses all their games by penalty, you know?
44:17 Yes. I asked another friend of mine who had been with the Raiders, I'm like, why do we lose games with 400, 300 yards of penalties and all we needed was a touchdown. Thereby we lose by penalties. And they're like, it's still, you know, it's a just win baby. We're still playing 70s football that you cheat, steal, bash, whatever. And that's how you win. I'm like, well, we're not winning.
44:45 And, you know, there's some of football teams where I just want to say the owners of the problem, they need to go. Cowboys. Raiders. Well, the Steelers just made a trade with the cowboys that we're all, like, taking our heads. Is the guy straight? No, I'm kidding. My Cowboys fans. I'm kidding.
45:05 I'm kidding. There's nothing wrong with people aren't straight. But even if they are Cowboys fans, I think we just lost the Cowboys. Come on, guys. I'm a Raiders fan. I'm in the shit with you guys for the last 30 years. We're all feeling the pain together. So there you go.
45:21 I can't throw. The only thing I can get a one-up on. now is the Browns fans. So that's, oh, the Bill's fans. I love you guys. All of you. Well, thank you very much for coming to show, Rodney. Thanks for coming by.
45:35 Give us your dot com as we go out so people can find you on the email. Yeah, so it's Rodney Phillipsauthor.com. And they can jump on there. And there's links to go to Amazon and Barnes & Noble. Google Play from there as well, too, if they're interested in checking the book out. There you go. I order up the book, folks. fine books are sold dissension a disagreement that leads to discord by rodney phillips and uh you know
46:01 another lesson here if your 30 years marriage wife uh is getting sick of you coming home uh go write a book somewhere there you know get that marriage get to keep that marriage together you know maybe you don't need therapy marriage therapy just one of you need to go write a book yeah go write a book yeah and then kill off the character you hate the most in your partnership and the book. Hey, don't be saying that because there's a lot of characters that die in dissension. Oh, really? Yeah.
46:32 Oh, yeah. I just, does your son feel rejected that you didn't put him in the book or is he in a book somewhere? I think those two have read so little of the book and they don't even. Cut them out of the will. Cut him out of the will. Give all the money to the dog. I love your idea of, you know, having to read the book in order to get a
46:53 in the will. Yeah. And then they have to take a test to make sure they read the book, you know, like a test day or something really interesting. Yeah, yeah. And then maybe, maybe, you know, they only get a portion of their inheritance for each book. So they have to read the whole series. That's a great idea. People wonder why I never had kids. I'm wrong. CPS would have shown up on the first day. We know where this is going to go with this game. He's out. All right. Well, thank you, Rodney, for coming the show. Thanks, John. It's for two. Go to Goodreads.com, Fortresschus Christchristch, Christfoss, LinkedIn.com, Fortresschusch,christ, YouTube.com, Forchess, Chrisvoss, one word, and all this crazy place. Be good at each other. Stay safe. We'll see you next time.
47:35 You've been listening to the most amazing, intelligent podcast ever made to improve your brain and your life. Warning, consuming too much of the Chris Walsh Show podcast can lead to people thinking you're smarter, younger, and irresistible sexy. Consume in regularly moderated amounts. Consult a doctor for any resulting brain bleed. Opinions expressed by guests on the podcast are solely their own and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the host or the Chris Faw show. Some guests to the show may be advertising on the podcast, but it is not an endorsement or review of any kind.
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