An Interview, Part I

October 22, 2033

This  10^th Anniversary Edition of Why Don’t I Just Get Started (WDIJGS) Magazine is special because we finally get to interview the man who started it all…Robert Farrell.  Anyone even remotely with Mr. Farrell knows that WDIJGS began just a little over 20 years ago as a blog.  Mr. Farrell then began using other media such as Internet radio and You Tube.  Eventually, he got his own on-air radio show.  Audiences at his seminars number in the thousands.  In addition, he has written over 20 books, eleven of which were NY Times best sellers.  According to testimonials, Mr. Farrell’s work has motivated over 75,000 people to pursue and find their purpose.

Although he still writes blogs and is working on his latest book Get Older and Bolder, he rarely grants interviews.  We are hoping that this interview will be special not only because it is such a rare occurrence, but also because Mr. Farrell will teach us how to move forward in our Purpose.

WDIJGS:              First, I’d like to say thank you for your time.  You don’t often grant

      interviews.

RF:                       (Laughing) That’s true.  I don’t.

WDIJGS:             Is there a reason for that?

RF:                       Everything I have to say is in my books, my blogs, my videos, and my on-air and           

                             Internet radio shows.  Plus my time is short.  I’m usually working on something and I      

                             don’t have much time to do things that aren’t directly aligned with my purpose.    

                             Time is short and it gets shorter every year.

WDIJGS:             Then why grant this interview?

RF:                       Because it’s good to be reminded.  It’s good to remind others and it’s good

     to remind myself of my purpose.

WDIJGS:             After all your work, do you still need to be reminded?  That seems

    amazing.  You’re the father of the motivated start.

RF:                      I need to eat every day, too. (Laughs)  Most of us need to be reminded and inspired        

                            pretty regularly.  Most of us never get tired of it, either.  Motivation, like a good meal,      

                            can be pretty powerful.  But even a good meal only lasts a few hours at best.      

                            Motivation can last a little longer, but usually not much.  We need to be reminded    

                           constantly.  At least I do.

WDIJGS:             For those who are not familiar with your work, how did you get started as an author,  

                            a speaker and a motivational coach?

RF:                   Well, like a lot of good things, it came out of something bad.  I’ll never forget it though.

                          It was Sunday morning, December 30, 2012.

WDIJGS:             Twenty years ago.

RF:            Yes!   Amazing how time flies.  Anyway, I was sitting on the couch and I was crying.  I was very distressed.  I felt stuck!  Professionally.  Personally.  Spiritually.  I felt like I had been in the same place for five years.  And, in many ways, it wasn’t a good place.  It wasn’t that my life was bad, and that’s an important thing to know; it’s just that I knew I wasn’t realizing my potential.  Maybe that’s okay for some people, but it was breaking my heart.

WDIJGS:             So what did you do?

RF:              Well, one thing I had been doing right in those five years was I had been reading a lot.  One book leads to another and I had heard about a book by Dorothea Brande called Wake Up and Live.  The basic premise was, “Act as if it were impossible to fail.”  I’m not sure if I were able to feel that way, but what I read was inspiring enough and I wrote my first blog that morning.  Within minutes, I felt like a completely different person.

WDIJGS:            Wow!

RF:             Yeah, all my pain and sadness were gone.  They came back a few hours later, but not they weren’t as intense.  The experience amazed and fascinated me.  What had happened?  What had I done to change from miserable to confident in only a few minutes?  I wasn’t sure, so I wrote another blog the next day.  And the same thing happened.  So then I wrote the next day.

WDIJGS:            Did you write every day?

RF:            Not at first.  But soon it was almost every day.  Then twice a day.  In addition, I started doing an Internet radio show and a You Tube video series with the same title.  Within ten months my life had changed completely and I was becoming unstuck.  More importantly, I was freeing myself.  I thank God for all of it, though, because it all felt like a miracle.

WDIJGS:            What was the first big change?

RF:            The first big change was internal.  And it was, in some ways, the most powerful.  Within a few days of writing my blogs, I realized that it didn’t matter if people read them or not.  I wanted the whole world to read them, because I thought they would help the whole world.

WDIJGS:            The whole world?  Really?

RF:            Yes.  The whole world.  Because people are either in their purpose and need encouragement and reminders or they aren’t and they need encouragement and reminders.

WDIJGS:            And you could provide that?  You work was that good?

RF:              My work was amazing.

WDIJGS:            What?

RF:            The writing I do is not my work.  It comes from God.  I just provide the fingers (which He created) and the computer (which He enabled me to get).  I know why I need God, but I’m not sure why He needs me.  But I feel so privileged to be part of it.  That’s why I can say that it’s amazing.

WDIJGS:            We need to finish this part of the interview.  Is there anything you want to say until our next interview.

RF:            Yes.  Get Started.  Keep Going.