Episode 203 with Jim Shockey
You Only Get One Life, So Don't Waste it
SHOW NOTES:
Join us as we delve into Jim's extraordinary experiences, from his early days exploring the wilderness to becoming a celebrated keynote speaker and advocate for the art of taxidermy. Along the way, Jim imparts valuable life lessons, encouraging us all to seize our one precious life and live it to the fullest.
Tune in to this episode, filled with anecdotes and wisdom, and discover how immersing oneself in the outdoors can lead to a fulfilling and authentic existence. Jim Shockey's stories will inspire you to embrace who you are and the wild wonders that surround us.
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SHOW TRANSCRIPT:
203 JIM SHOCKEY
Ginny Yurich Welcome to the 1000 Hours Outside podcast. My name is Ginny Yurich. I'm the founder of 1000 Hours Outside, and I could not be more thrilled and truly more honored to have Jim Shockey as a guest on today. Welcome.
Jim Shockey Oh, boy, that's sort of it's a quite an intro and it's a real pleasure to be here.
Ginny Yurich I want to tell you, I am I got your book. This is the coolest thing about doing podcast, is that people send you books and sometimes they let you know in advance and sometimes they just show up in your mailbox. So yours just showed up in my mailbox one day and it was back in the summer, maybe July ish. And I got your book. I got the advance copy. I actually have now got both. Oh, this is a fantastic book. Call Me Hunter, your first fiction book. And I got this book in the mail and it says right on the cover that it doesn't come out in October. And so it was a summer. And I thought, well, I probably should hold off on reading it until it's a little bit closer. We're going to get a chance to talk. But I picked it up anyway and I was like, I'll just, you know, I'll just give it a little go. I'll give it a start. What's this book about? And then Jim, I couldn't put it down, but my brain kept saying, Put it down and wait. Put it down and wait. And I could not. It is an absolute page turner. Call me Hunter, is how I read it in the summer. And I took notes and then I just then I ended up rereading it in the past couple of days to get ready for talking with you, but they just thoroughly enjoyed it. It's entertaining, it's deep. I love the lines of family and relationship that run through it. And so from one readers perspective, well done. Amazing work on your first fiction book.
Jim Shockey No, I'm I'm actually sitting here getting shivers because it's, you know, when you when you write a book like that, you're putting and for me, it was a lifetime. I mean, I waited and waited and waited and waited until I had an actual story to tell. So to hear it now means I didn't waste my entire life, You know, the accolades, you know, like I say. And I can also tell when I do podcast, who's read it is is very intelligent. I know you read it. I know you read it because that's a response for people that have and it I did want to ask, who are you holding the book? I would I know I hadn't read it so so this is nice. This is a real pleasure. And I'm really, really happy that you enjoyed the book.
Ginny Yurich Thoroughly enjoyed it. So I would love to talk about this podcast is the listener base is a lot of parents and their parents who have this goal of giving their kids really a full childhood that can lead to a full life. And you have a very full life. When I say full, I mean like a wonderfully full, not like full. It's too busy. Award winning Outdoor writer. Wildlife photographer. Videographer. Naturalist. Wilderness Guide. And outfitter. When you started a museum, you're an expert in folk and tribal art. So this full life that you have and you talk about the fairy tale that you you know, you're living with your wife and you start and end to the book with her. Just what a beautiful read from the beginning to the end. So I think that listeners will be really curious to know. I'm curious to know actually, really just for myself, where does this come from? Where do those roots come from? So I love to start on this topic that you did wait a long time to write this. So you're a very accomplished person, extremely accomplished. I mean, that was just give me the surface. You have the famed 12,000 square mile Rogue River outfitting in the Yukon Territory. You know, you're the Canadian Armed Forces honorary lieutenant colonel. I mean, all of these things, you're so accomplished and yet somehow you decided or knew that you should wait to write this book. I mean, of anyone who has a full life, I mean, that's a really full life. And I got the paper that goes along with it. It says 25 years in the making. But really, you started writing in elementary school?
Jim Shockey Yeah.
Ginny Yurich At the age of ten. So I just be curious to know, like we live in a culture where everyone wants everything now and we try and do it now and we want the fame now and we want the thing now. But you waited decades before you wrote this book. How did you know to do that?
Jim Shockey When I was ten. I mean, I started I grew up in a trailer park. My parents had no money. You know, my dad, if we didn't if he didn't get a moose every fall, we didn't eat meat in the wintertime. It was, you know, we ate macaroni. So, you know, so I wouldn't say we were poor, but we were certainly didn't have a lot of money. And the conversations around the dinner table was whether dad would get laid off and whether, you know, when we finally did were able to buy a house, whether we'd lose the mortgage, couldn't pay it. So this is what I grew up with. And my parents were wonderful, caring people. And I found for me, I found solace outside, you know, like looking for earthworms and beetle bugs and insects. And I was fascinated by anything natural. And, you know, maybe it was a little bit of escapism from the reality of my, you know, the life I was living. But I knew by the age of ten, by then I could read and I knew that I would write a novel someday. I wanted to be a novelist. I was already reading novels by the age of ten, couldn't read a Grade three, but like everybody else could. But by the age of two years later, I was reading, you know, advanced level books. So I knew I'd be a novelist. That fascinated me. And I also knew I'd start a museum. I'd have my own museum someday. So. So had my ten year old little brain. I said, okay, you know, how do you do that? Well, the museum was easy. You start collecting insects and pretty rocks and borrowing fishing lures from your dad's taco box. And my grandfather's especially. Those are the cool ones in seashells. And, you know, they didn't cost anything. And I could gather my poor, my little room, the novel. I started it down to, you know, I mean, I was reading and I got everybody ages ten pages in and I realized I don't have a story to tell. I literally don't have a story to tell. So I at that age, I showed the novel and said, okay, I have to live a life. But I started on the museum collecting and to do the museum I had envisioned, I mean, I was going to travel the world, gather this and see these people and and be part of that big whatever around the world. And so so that I could do and I oriented my life towards that. When you're saying people have their goals, we want instant gratification. Nowadays I had no problem whatsoever looking 50 years out half a century ahead and saying, you know, and nowadays I say if you if you drive in one direction for half a century, you end up somewhere. And this is where I've ended up. I never I've never made decisions that took me off that course. You know, they were my soulmate. I had to find someone that would tolerate that kind of a lifestyle wasn't, you know. So I didn't I didn't settle for anything other than what was part of this big goal and never compromise, never allow myself to be pulled away, never got golden handcuffs because I wanted to a better truck. But it took me away from my goal, having a job and getting paid and having a nice fancy truck. I'd rather hitchhike, you know? I don't know. I don't have to have the job. I can go do what I wanted. So so I focused on that. And, you know, as far as the novel, I pen the first words, Zhivago is dead. I had turned them down and I killed them. And actually, that first page, I, I wrote that about 93. So, you know, a long time ago was 30 years ago. And I and I sat there and I knew where the story and I knew the start of the story. But I realized again, you know, just like I had when I was ten, I hadn't lived enough. Now you can write a novel like Jack Carr, his his novels. He's been there, done that. He's walked the walk. You know, he's writing about an actual life that he lived, you know. Sure, he turns it fictional, but, you know, for me to. You'll come to university and become a writer. Novelist? I might have my degree in English lit, but. But you're making everything up, so you have to go research to school there. You'll see. I wanted to do all that first. And the story becomes. That's. That's what Hunter is. It's. It's a truly autobiographical, abstract, fictional thriller. Because I live life first before I wrote it down, so I didn't have to make a whole bunch of record with Hunter. It was a been there.
Ginny Yurich In so 30 years. You start it. I was 20, 23. It comes out and I'm sure that, you know, I wrote it last year and not just extremely recently, it's been at a bit, but how do you know when you're ready?
Jim Shockey I was running at a time that that's the bottom line is, you know, I'm a very pragmatic person. I look at life. I don't I realize I'm not immortal. I know life and death. I've seen it. I've seen it, you know, and. So, I mean, look, look at the time clock. I mean, how many more years to I hope. So I it was 2006. I decided that my last international expedition would be 2019, October, Mozambique. And, you know, that was the point where I said, look, if I don't stop this and I was you know, I had the it takes years to set up these expeditions to these countries in these remote parts of these countries. So I was three years booked out. So 2000, 16, 20, 19, October. Mozambique was the last international trip. On November 1st, 2019, I sat down and picked up. It was remarkable is that I hunted them down and I killed them. And I started writing. And to be fair, if I could could have written the first 200 pages in my sleep, I could watch TV and written because. Because I already own every mountain I'd ever been on and every customs office. I say that whenever I was trapped somewhere for days, you know, storms. And I was writing it in my head like a prisoner, you know, without a paper account. But I was working through it, working through it. And I would, you know, the guys I was with or ladies, whoever was in the camps, I would, you know, occasionally just to keep it straight, I would tell the story. And I mean I mean, literally the story. And so in 19 November, I sat down and I started writing it, covered the whole Hitler lock down. Anyway, right after that. So I couldn't have been traveling even if I wanted to, or serendipity. And I just kept writing. But. Yeah, writing it was one thing, you know, and anyone that's out there that's done a novel to try and get a published, holy smokes, that was, you know, I mean, I'm, you know, I'm pretty capable of dealing with bureaucracies around the world and governments and but the writing world is tough when you need an agent, and then you have to the agent has to be able to get it to a publisher. And I wasn't I could self-publish. I mean, you know, I could self-publish. It's not that would have been easy. And I've got a big enough following. It would have done well. And I made lots of money, but that's not what I wanted. Do you know before when we were all very much on I mean, you may not be my target market. In fact, you're absolutely 100% my target market readers that are that are not involved with my world, that where people know me and, you know, I want this is a story that I think reaches outside of, you know, the vertical outdoor naturalist field of table lifestyle, you know, that crowd. So so yeah, you're the target market and but it, it it took it took another four years and you know it's it finally I have a hard copy of it now like an actual printed. Yeah. So so it's you know four years from the point and sat down and started writing again.
Ginny Yurich Well when you talk about serendipity one and the timing and then your wife got a chance to hold the copy of it. Yeah, I saw that. You said they overnighted. She got to hold it and see it. Yeah. So just the timing of that is very beautiful. And I love that. I love that you're using a novel to expand. Who knows about you and who comes around the things that you're putting out into the world. And it really does do that. And by having it be published with a publisher, then it does it. The tentacles reach out further. I was really drawn to the characters. Hunter And then do you say Nyala Yeah.
Jim Shockey Well.
Ginny Yurich How do you pronounce it?
Jim Shockey Well, the actual pronunciation in Swahili is Nyala. NALA Yeah, but that's not in my mind. It was all in yellow. Know Nyala? You know, So. So and it's funny people that read it because there's some names and some places are, you know, it's like any book, if you don't know exactly how to pronounce it, you your brain does it automatically. And for me, it was always yellow. So when I was doing the audio books, I use Nyala, and then Scott is doing the he's doing the third person perspective. I did the second person perspective. So so he would then have to use mine yellow, whatever, you know, you got to use what I thought. Even though this minella yellows is the proper way to pronounce it. But that is not how we would do it over here. And in fact, it's an antelope in opera code and a very beautiful one, mostly over here in North America. We'd say Nyala, Diallo. But. But it's for me, Neal.
Ginny Yurich And I do love that beautiful tie in at the end about the antelope. But these characters, these two characters in particular, Hunter and Nyala, they have this deep connection to nature. And so that was something that really drew me in what's uncommon these days. And I think it's also something that we're yearning for, is to be that connected. So hearing a little bit of your story, would you say that you modeled those characters off of yourself, off of your childhood?
Jim Shockey Except for Zhivago, you know, the one villain and what an evil character that did not. I didn't model that or anything in my real experience. Every character there because I wrote it is me or people close to me. So what they feel, you know, the discovery of the old doors, you know, Hunter, the character, he he never discovered that that's what he had inside of them. And so many people have this innate desire to be out in the wild lands, you know? That's that's yeah, that's natural is, you know, the sun rising. It just is. No, not everybody. Not everybody has it. Historically, 10% of the people were hunters, you know, and the rest of the people in whatever tribal group they were, they were basically doing the other parts that those people didn't do. So and that, you know, we can say we're civilized and we've you know, we've bred it out of our souls, but we haven't. And that's why there's so many people that feel dissatisfied, you know, unfulfilled. Yes. They're doing their job. Yes. They have a nice apartment in downtown New York City. And and yes, they're getting paid well and they get to the fancy restaurants, but they don't feel whole. And it's because those people have that gene inside them and they'll be scientists going, that's not proven. Well, I'm not saying it as a scientist. I'm saying it as a a layman that's observing. And that's why I think we're getting so many people nowadays. And, you know, to be fair, accorded allowed people almost force people to go outside and breathe fresh or listen to the birds, go away from other people, you know, deer bunnies. Yeah, we saw that most prices, land prices, just because everybody was trying to get out to nature once they got out there, it's pretty nice. You know, they started. I can grow my own part of the night. Yeah. You know, And they get, you know, they start to realize to who realize who they are, who they want to be. They just don't know it in the city because it gets cluttered and muddled up. And you don't you just you can't see it literally for the buildings and the people. So. So yeah, but the characters were they were all, you know, I mean but, but they're there are people very close and that's what I say to anybody. Go, go ahead, research it. It's all true. I mean, as much of it is true that you can prove is true. Wow.
Ginny Yurich Yeah. I loved it was just very gripping. Like when we would talk about she hated all the cities she always had. She didn't know why, you know, the fresh air of the country, the freedom, the space, the wild animals, you know, the sensitivity, and then just these different parts that are just applicable even outside of a fiction book like we live apart from nature now. And that is considered acceptable. But living in nature, being part of nature is not living as our ancestors did, is somehow unacceptable. So lots of threads in there about how we really want to live and the things that draw us. And so I love that that was woven into several of the characters, especially with Hunter and Niala and, you know, even, you know, if you read it as a mom or if you read it as maybe an older child that really likes novels. And that's a reminder. You even talked in there about playing hide and seek and tag and Simon Scissors says and there was talk about just running free and and not having a care in the world. There were dogs all over. And so it was a reminder the good reminders of what gives us a really full life. And it makes you think like, oh, yeah, that's it's a reminder. Like, that's really how I want to live too. So and just really beautiful, that part of it. I loved it. And I also loved I was really intrigued by the art. It's sort of a world that I'm not all that familiar with, but you could tell after reading the book, This is your thing.
Jim Shockey You know, love it. And the the young character Hunter at the beginning, that's part of his in the world, you know, because it's his superpower that he feels art. And I truly believe it. Now, in this museum, it's the hand of man, Museum of Natural History, Cultural Arts and Conservation. So a large portion of this museum is big at 17,000 square feet, and it's not curated like the modern. Here's two pieces in a big gymnasium.
Ginny Yurich I saw a video of it. It is stacked for books. I looked at the video. It's a beautiful video, by the way. The music was beautiful in is like every room. It's all these different rooms and they're filled.
Jim Shockey You know. And that's the thread that runs through the whole museum is everything is either created by humans or, you know, like taxidermy that's in here. That's an art form. I was the keynote speaker at the World Taxidermy Championships, pre-COVID in. Feel Missouri at the best basketball headquarters of basketball, and 50% of the consumers were women. It's an art form. So even the taxidermy in this museum, the natural history side of it, it's it's art. And so all the mouse, you know, all the samplers, all the beadwork, these were created by people, you know, not so much for ceremonial sometimes, but love. Whether it's just an artistic expression that they needed to, you know, maybe it was an idiosyncratic piece of art or an ethnocentric piece that they had to follow for mind from ancestors. But the thread that runs through it was made by a human being in many of these most in this museum that made these pieces are gone. So all that is left of how many? There's no memories. There is no you know, even the next generations are gone. But they live on in that piece. And I sincerely believe and I know the heebie jeebies kind of person, but I believe the spirit of the people that created these works of art lives on. And we depending on how a tune we are to it, we pick it up. We pick up that sense of whatever it is of that person's soul. And it's interesting, there's a long we call it the grand reveal when you open up the door and there's it's a huge long hallway part and people walk. And as they walk down that hallway, I can tell people that are that are more switched on that maybe are or more in tune. You know, we you know, we get stuff. We got cell phones, We got this, you know? Yeah. But then you'll get people that come through and they just start to tear up because they're feeling they're feeling the works of art. And that's why art, to me, is, you know, represents people. Michelangelo's wonderful Sistine Chapel is beautiful, but that isn't better than the person that did a little bit of soul to give to their daughter for their wedding back in 1840. You know, it may be, you know, I mean, better. It's certainly more valuable, but it's not more worthy than the person that just did something out of their heart. Out of your heart. Out of your heart is your heart. Everybody's equal. We're all equal. It doesn't matter what color you are, what language, what food, where we live, what religion we adhere to, we're all equal. So when someone creates something from their heart that's just as valid as Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel, which he created from his heart. Art, for me has always been, you know, I mean, it's been a big, big, big part of my life, along with quite a few other interests. Mm hmm.
Ginny Yurich What I really loved about it was because this was a central theme of the book was the art. And being able to tell the fakes from which that's a whole other interesting thing that people imitate and they create these fakes and that the superpower was to be able to, I guess, like you're saying, like to be in tune and to know which ones came from the heart of the person and which ones are copied. And I think the message that I got that came through to me was really how powerful art is that This is the main currency, that this is like the biggest thing and it was eye opening.
Jim Shockey That's beautiful. I love it. Love it. You see that? And also the the organization, our world that abuses that beautiful ability. Yeah. You know, for their own financial ends. I mean, it's you know, there's there's many parallels you can draw to to our world today. Yeah. From that the fictional side of the book. But it's there's that's why I say it it's kind of the truth right.
Ginny Yurich Well even though there's a good twist and so I don't ever give it away in a podcast, but the soul catcher was a really good twist and it wasn't what I expected. And so people got to pick it up to read it, to find out what that was. Call me Hunter, but just yeah, beautiful parallels. And I love it when a work of fiction, when it's entertaining, is page turning. You can't put it down even though you know you should like I should read this in a couple of months and not now but I can't. And also it just you walk away with a lot of different type of topics to think about. One of the statements in here that I loved, I'm like, I could put this up on my wall. It said time did not stop for the powerful any more than it stopped for the most insignificant living thing. So. So a lot of really powerful undercurrents in the book and this is in there several times. Life will always beget death, and death will always beget life That was in there several times as well.
Jim Shockey It's a continuum and it has to be. And we have to accept it and and embrace it. You know, we shouldn't fear death because it has to happen in order for there to be new life. Life begets death because life against death, that this is a continuum. There's nothing. KING And that's going to be around that's alive in whatever amount of time. And it's we don't like to see that because who wants to have that reality? When you asked me, you know, why did I choose now at that point, it's because I know I don't have a lot of time. I mean, my hair's great deal from dealing with export import on one half around the world and from my daughter or daughter. On the other hand, you know, we just we love to live in our in our little bubble and not face reality and the truths that are in this book. I wanted to tell the truth. And it and in a way, the people, you learn it and you know it. But I would love for people to accept it and produce it. Eating meat and animals, I mean, people eat hamburgers and they they buy it in a celebration package. And they think that, you know, Hunter shouldn't go out and get his meat or her meat, you know, fastest growing segment of that world. This is females. And you're being in touch with your ancestral soul to stand out there and know that you're to everybody's antecedents, everybody listening to this right now, denied or not, your antecedents survived and were able to make you because their antecedents were good hunters, you know, And it's a reality. You know, we, you know, became agrarian maybe 9000 years ago. We started and that allowed our population to grow to where it is 8 billion people today. But we domesticated animals, cattle, chickens. There's 25 billion chickens in the world today. You know, they replaced wildlife. There's 7 billion head of cattle, They replaced wildlife. There's 4 billion horses, 5 billion goats, 5 billion sheep. Like the biomass is still there, but it's not wildlife anymore. And part of this is to recognize that there's there is good in embracing that past that we all came from. And I'm not saying everybody look at, say, 10% of the people there and it's not a book about hunting at all. It's a book about tolerance. Believe what you want, but also accept other people's point of view, because almost invariably it's a cultural perspective, right and wrong. We all know inherently what's right and wrong. Zhivago, didn't you know? So you get these aberrations, these mutations, but generally people are good and they know what's wrong. But you know, they believe this about this. Will somebody who's really smart believes this about this. And it's the same thing, but different, totally opposite points of view. So this novel was meant for people is create cognitive dissonance. You know, where they I believe this, but there's another alternative way to look at it and we need to start doing a tolerance, not a big world. And we are getting along.
Ginny Yurich Is it interesting how many truths you can we even do a fiction story? I just love that you come away with entertainment, but also so much food for thought. And I'm also curious. I'm really curious because, you know, you talk about at the front in the end that fairy tales are real. And I would say that most people would say fairy tales are not real. Just such a beautiful message to your wife about your wife. I mean, the front in the end to my dying day and my last free breath, every heartbeat is for you. Fairy tales are real. And then you end it with without you. I could have never lived this one my life we are granted. Without you there is no without you. We saw eternity to look forward to. Now it's very gripping because I don't think like in a lot of ways that people don't live the way that your book portrays. Like, a lot of people are not connected to nature and a lot of people are not connected to art. I think a lot of people are not connected to a love like that. And you saw I mean, you see it I mean, I saw your posts, you know, just so recently that that you used to hike over the mountains to the ocean and you would hold hands and then you're walking to the gate with the wheelchair and you're still holding hands and it's still beautiful. It's like, where does that come from?
Jim Shockey I think. It's by being open to it and being aware. I'm trying to imagine what my life with Soulmate Louise. 39 years, 113 days. 14 and a half hours. That's what I was gifted to. You know, this beautiful, beautiful person outside. What people saw. But inside is what the 100% of the time recognized. And I think it's just being good, being positive and accepting and being open to it and not getting. Not getting caught up in what we think. You know, what our friends like. I mean, I see people chasing after the bigger apartment, the bigger boat, bigger jet. And that's there's no no, there's just there's no soul in that. But if you're open to a relationship and not a facile because they look pretty or whatever, it's not that this is it's an inside feeling that you have to be willing to accept. But when you're willing to accept it, you're also willing to shoulder great, great hurt, you know, equal and opposite you. You want great, true, true, deep love. You're going to feel one of you is going to feel great, great deep pain. And if you're if you have children, if you both passed away at the same time, they're going to feel it. If you if you raise your children to feel that you. So. So. I mean, how do you. How do you. Do. So for me, it was it was a joy to be a low of life in and embrace. I mean, this what I'm going through right now, you know, I can kick and scream and throw a tantrum and. Yell and be depressed. Feel sorry for myself. But it's not going to change anything. And this deep feeling, I think it was Samuel Donaldson in Lord Paul's been of all books. But, you know, he said hope is only for those who also despair. And a paraphrase slightly, but pretends it's the truth. You want to know who you're going to you you have to know despair. So that means you've got to know up when you go to no down. And these you'll then you'll know the wonder of hope and you'll know, you know, the sadness of despair and the hopelessness of it. But if you just run flatline. Now, in the book, she says, you know, she she's going to go back to work the next day and the next day it'll be the same thing the next day. And then it's repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat. There's no you don't. Look, I think it's really important for people and I say this all the time, and when they walk through this museum and hopefully when they read this book, you get one life. You get one life. So why would you waste it? Why would you use up days doing something that that you're not that doesn't fulfill you because you think you're going to get those days back if you're not yesterday is gone. Whatever you did yesterday, if it wasn't, you weren't living your life and and feeling alive, you're not going to get that back. That's a day gone. And like I say, people don't like to look forward. They don't like to acknowledge that life begets death because life begets death. And we're just part of that continuum. We're not a cosmic event when we're sitting on this earth. So we're going to go away. And when that time comes, you ought to be sitting there, you know, on your deathbed or whatever it happens. Maybe not fleeting. Second, if it's an accident, they can. Oh, you know, I regret regret. You should never if right now a meteor hit me. Be careful if it did. There is not one single regret. There's not one thing, not one single thing that I would have done differently in my life. Well, not one choice. Not one decision I made. Because every decision I made, I made choose from my heart 100%. All in. Let's do this for you know, I try to do it live a moral, ethical life as well, you know, and a true flow for loving life, you know, honestly, all those things honorable. Sure. Also trying to do all that along the way. So every decision I make was based on all that. And with my ultimate goal in mind, which was the novel in the museum People, you get one life, everybody listening. You get one life if you're unfulfilled, dissatisfied with what you're doing, change. People say, Cat, Well, yeah, you can. Of course you can. Every single person listening to this now, that doesn't mean you're, you know, you're five foot two and want to become a center for the Los Angeles Lakers. I mean, be a little bit realistic in what your expectations are, too. But if that's what you want, go try it. How about it? What was his name? Spud Webb. Her Spud. Spud. Yeah, well, it was five foot six and he could dunk a basketball. Played in the NBA for a long time. So? So you can do it. Everybody can do it. And I'm not saying, you know, that it's not going to be work. You know, when I set a goal for myself, I have no problem with the start of my life setting a goal that's half a century away. All attain it in time. And you can't go back to what you were saying. People want instant gratification. It is you just keep working at it. You know? It's not look, it's it's it's not. It's it's. It's me. Just keep going that direction, you know? It's not like you ended up somewhere, you know? Yes. There's things that slow you down and obstacles in the way, difficulties you have to face, challenges that just seem insurmountable. But but you know okay, that's part of it. Right now what I'm going through is the only minutes of feeling. It's a feeling. So it's part of the human. What does they say? 90 billion people live here. It's a feeling. So why why we will it be?
Ginny Yurich Wow. So this fairy tale comes partially from acknowledgment that you get one shot. You get one shot. So love well and live well. That's really beautiful. I actually had had this call. It was one of my favorite quotes in the book, the one that you just said, We live each day the same as the previous day, the same as the next. We rid ourselves of responsibility for our actions. Self determination is determined by what others think. We simply redo, redo, redo, redo.
Jim Shockey I wrote that. No, you didn't even ask that. You know, when I.
Ginny Yurich Page 285.
Jim Shockey When I'm writing, I know because it's a truth. Someone told me a long time ago when I told them I wanted to be a writer. They said the best writing is honest writing. So when I write that, I sincerely believe that. And, you know, and I feel saddened when I see people that live in the circle, that they all there will be another quote in there somewhere that they they tell each other their same truth over and over in their same little circle. And, you know, to keep the real reality out and it's you sometimes you just have to look at it and say, I'm not doing this because the social winds are saying, do this. You know, I'm going to stand here. I must stand here and say I stand for this is what I believe in. And all of these are nice. It's kind of cool to hear somebody. I mean, like I say, I know you read it because there's like, that's I love it. I love it. The first honestly, this is the first podcast where someone really picked the novel apart and is bringing quotes because I think there's there's many lessons in this novel you teach, not by, you know, the academic way of teaching is just you listen, I'm going to I'm going to spout off on my podium. Yeah, but the way you teach, the way you educate is to entertain first. If you can catch somebody, entertain them, then. Then you've got their attention. Yeah. Education is a byproduct of entertainment. So the novel is meant to be entertaining so people can read it at that level. Just, I mean, it's not a big treat. You're going to have to, you know, someone that's expecting to go sit down in 2 hours, read it, throw it away, or read two pages a night as you're going to bed.
Ginny Yurich It'll be because you can't put it down. That was my goal. I was like, Yeah, I can't stop reading this.
Jim Shockey I tell you a quick, funny story about exactly that. I sent an advanced reader a copy to Willie Robertson of the Duck Commander. Guys.
Ginny Yurich Oh, we've been there to visit.
Jim Shockey Is that right? Yeah, I've known Bill. I mean, I've known Willie since he started all this, And so I sent him a copy, and the other day, my guys on my team were negotiating contracts with the outdoor channel down in the States and the Sportsman's Channel, the the Outdoor Sportsman's Group for air time. And they were talking to I mean, they said, you know, yesterday we had Willie Robertson in here. We were negotiating a contract and they said, you know, we had him for an hour. He's tough guy to get in there. So they cut the meeting short. So we were in the meeting still 15, 10 minutes left. And he said to us, he said, I got to go this way. And he said, because I'm reading Shark, You know what I mean? The last thing he says, I got to find out what happens. So I mean that I love that story because that's not coming from Willie. It's more about me. It's actually think that he.
Ginny Yurich Left the meeting early. I relate.
Jim Shockey Really.
Ginny Yurich There's a phenomenal story.
Jim Shockey You know you never you don't really know the ending until the ending. So when I wrote it, the first version, the manuscript, that's not how it ended. I left it for chapters earlier with Niala screaming, and that was why I ended it as a cliffhanger. And Emily Bessler, when she read it, she went, She loved it. You know, she's a little Rock, thought about it, and then she issue her first notes to me were one thing You're a first time novelist. You cannot leave the readers with a cliffhanger, she said. Stephen King or any of the big guys. But but, you know, they'll buy their second book to follow up to not you. So. So I had to write the first four chapters of the second book and tack them on to the end to give it a nice wrapped up package. So, so the Yeah. So those were your actually those last four chapters were in my intent to be the first four chapters of the sequel to that, which I've always envisioned or I think it's a three book story because it's too long, you know, it'd be 1200 pages. So I always envisioned three, and I believe we signed a two book deal with Simon Schuster. So I have to say, you know, due to the second book here pretty quickly that we're doing it all the way along, if I was disciplined. But but I've had a lot of things going on in my life Over what?
Ginny Yurich Yeah. I love the fact that Willie left the meeting. I've never heard of that. I want to start to do that, Jim. I want to be like, Sorry, I got to go. I'm reading a really good book and I have to finish it.
Jim Shockey If it's a good book, I mean, I'm exactly like you. I don't put it down. I just. I don't care. I'll read Bill three in the morning and just get to the end of the book. Yeah.
Ginny Yurich Well, the thing. Isn't it cool Like you love novels since you were ten, and now you've got a novel out there that's the same. Like, I mean, I took it with me everywhere was like, in my purse. I read in the car. Sometimes I get sick. I was like, I have to know what's gonna happen in the story. Okay, so here's a question. Here's a question. It's a big question. Do you think that you will outsell your daughter's book boy better?
Jim Shockey I've been trash talking to her for so long, and she. Or to be fair, she looks back at me and says that my advance was twice as big as yours. So that was I told her advance was identical to mine, actually, but mine's a two book deal. Hers was one book deal. So I tried to get the Simon and Schuster guys to. It was a nice, big, fat round number, and I tried to get them to add $1 to it so that I could always say, no, my, you know, mine. I mean, that's, you know, but I guess it'll be encounters don't like that extra, you know.
Ginny Yurich They didn't do it. They wouldn't do it.
Jim Shockey We would do it. But I literally tried because for me in life you got to have fun in life. And that's it's that's fun. You know, it's only my daughter's book, I mean, you know, is a great, great book taking aim you know, beautiful book that she put out. Believe it was probably six, seven, eight years ago. I'm not sure six years ago. But but yeah, it's a fabulous book, but I really, sincerely hope mine well, every day she'll tell me I have more social media followers than you do, so be nicer.
Ginny Yurich She does have a lot.
Jim Shockey To do with She's a lot popular. Young influencer, I guess. But yeah, this book is a good book. It was a nice story about her family.
Ginny Yurich Mm hmm. Okay. And then your son is writing a book, too?
Jim Shockey Yeah. He's got one of our family. You'll lose my. My wife. Hmm. She had more talent in her little fingernail than I have in my entire body. I have a pile of desire, you know, So that motivates me to. To overcome the lack of talent. Our daughter, I've. I don't wanna say she's got a lack of talent and lumped in with me, but we're kind of the same. Our son and our son feel for whatever, you know, combinations and permutations and combinations ended up with Louise's talent, both in singing, songwriting and raising, like, just such a magical artist. You know, not not saying, you know, carving and what not. But. But music creation and he works in the medium of video and what he's created is is astounding. But then he he does he does things like that. He's really I wrote an album. I said, you wrote a novel. He says, Yup, just did it. And he is with the songs he's got right now. If I played a song, I would guarantee everybody out there would go, That's great. Like, that's the best song I've heard since Let It Be a Guarantee. It is.
Ginny Yurich It comes out like that.
Jim Shockey He doesn't. He doesn't. He doesn't share it with anybody. He just keeps it and doesn't worry about it. So he wrote this book Dwellers, and then I read this thing. I go, You kidding me? Like his characterization, I've had more, you know, I've home the craft. I've written thousand articles for magazines over the years. And and you know, it's a craft and I really write is like a you know, it's not it's just not that good because it takes time to hone the craft. But that's a skill, the talent and the storytelling, the artistry of the novel. It just was shocking. His characterization. He's got a character in his book that unless I am unworthy, he is such a beautiful character. Like when I say I mean pretty looking, just the way he's molded it like a depth. Oh, yeah. And is is likability and is it? I know some I don't know what it is, some kind of essence that you just it just comes across. I mean, I you know, I think the closest I came was lubo in my book, you know? Yeah, but, you know, that's the closest roommate. The other roommate. You know, the sidekick. Yeah, but he just did it effortlessly. And with over 60 years of over living when he wrote it, he. So he he. Yeah, his book. Because really good. And you're not in the writing world, apparently you're not supposed to pass other novels around because if people don't like them, when it's your agent or the publisher, they go, Great, You've just wasted 8 hours of my life reading this thing. But but his book is really good. It's really, really good. And if mine does well enough, I'm happy to throw my career, put it on the edge of a risk, and say, read this other book because this is good.
Ginny Yurich So it's not out like it's not available.
Jim Shockey It's like our son's songs. He's got them all recorded there. Beautifully done videoed. Like, I swear, if I played him right now with him playing with a video, you just be shocked. And it's the same with his novel. He wrote it and just put it on a shelf and keeps living his life with raising his two little boys with his wife down in Kansas City. Yeah.
Ginny Yurich Wow. You know, it's interesting because Stephen Press Fields got that book, The War of Art. And one of the things he said in there about people who are really talented like that, who have this sort of natural ability at whatever the thing is, whether it's art or music or writing. And he said that it just comes from some place inside of them that I thought this was fascinating, that they may not even they don't really even know where it comes from because it's not like maybe a skill like you've spent 10000 hours trying to learn how to play the violin or whatever, that it comes from this innate part inside of you. And so he said that when you compliment people like that or when you make a big deal, that they just kind of brush it off. You're just kind of like, whatever. Like, I don't know where it came from and I just did it. And it's not that big of a deal. Whereas to everyone else it's a huge deal because they say, Look, I could never create a character like that, or I can never write a song like that. So those who have that innately, it just bubbles up.
Jim Shockey I mean, even if you're talking, there's quotes coming to my mind from the books I read was through Arthur CONAN Doyle. He said mediocrity is incapable of recognizing anything greater than itself, but talent instantly recognizes genius. And I truly believe that know, like I know I'm talented writer, you know, I've got a novel or has been vetted to this point, you know, So to to be I don't want to be your false humility and also don't want to be arrogant but but you know, talent, not genius. But when I read our son's daughters, you know, I'm saying genius. And that same with music. I mean, I wrote a song in 2018, Howl was Me, a blues song. And I'm not a good musician, but I can tell a story. And that that song, they recorded it and it went to number one on the iTunes blues charts. First, Etta James passed the Blues Brothers and the Canned Heat. So, you know, I got a little bit of talent there. There's the measurement.
Ginny Yurich For a lot of it. They pass up your daughter. If she ever wrote a blues song, you were at the top.
Jim Shockey You know? Exactly. That's one thing I have on her. But but that's. That's not genius. When I listen to her son. But as. As a talented talent, whatever level, I recognize genius. And that it's the same thing for the people who just have this this ability, you know, And they know it's not. You know, they're not. Another story I'm going to drag our culture will akaku from the professor's house. She said that motivation or no desire is the magical element in creation. And if you could invent an instrument that could measure desire, you could predict achievement. Right now, I have a tremendous amount of desire to do, you know, attain the school, do this. And and as if you had an instrument, you could measure, you know, what I've achieved in my life. But I think she was wrong a little bit about that, because I think that if desire may be the magical element in creation, but if you don't need to have desire, achievement isn't necessarily achievement. Like I think she was thinking, you know, money or acclaim, celebrity notoriety. I think sometimes achievement is just here. It is, and it's on a show and you achieved it. You created this magnificent work of art, but you didn't do it for any commercial reasons. You did it purely and no. So so you can't measure that. And it kind of puts it outside of that. And I don't get it. I mean, I if if I could do songs like Storybook, I would be oh, I would be Mick Jagger.
Ginny Yurich At every stage that there.
Jim Shockey Is. Oh, yeah. Cover of the Rolling Stone, baby. That's where I'm going with that. If for whatever reason, whoever the creator is that allows talent to be given you, he made sure that I got, you know, a fingernail was not not enough to to be insufferable to the whole world, although I'm sure I am to some people. But.
Ginny Yurich Oh, wow. Okay. Well, hopefully that book comes out because I'm super intrigued and I want to read that one, too. Can we get one more topic? Because that was such a big one in the book. And I think just for parents everywhere, you know, Hunter was this character that was, I think, vastly misunderstood. Like, you're talking about genius and kind of what's inside of you. He had so much inside of him that wasn't recognized. And I thought it was such a such a pivotal part in the book when it is recognized that, you know, they think he can't do this and he can't read. And when I think a lot of us have kids that maybe are not recognized for their potential, they're labeled this or they're labeled that, and they kind of get stuck in a box. And I was really intrigued by his character as well. And there was some fascinating things in here about reading, you know, just the fastest reader. Was this true?
Jim Shockey Google it. Okay. Yeah. I mean, like.
Ginny Yurich It's true. I can read 25,000 words per minute in the fastest reader in the Philippines can read 80,000 words per minute, which is like a whole novel and can have 100% comprehension. Oh, and here's the quote. Mediocrity knows nothing higher than itself, but talent instantly recognizes genius. Why did you create Hunter as a character that was misunderstood in that way?
Jim Shockey Because I think there's a lot of people right now that going through public school, when they started, they couldn't read. You know, one of my best friends out here never got Grade eight education, but he's worth hundreds of millions of dollars. And he couldn't you know, it was a it was a dyslexic. Was he autistic know was he on the spectrum somewhere or was he Asperger's? You know, I think there's many, many people that don't fit in that bell curve. You know, they're not in that group. But, you know, there's a significant, you know, bell curves, great middle of the road, mediocrity, wonderful. But there's a lot of people on the outer edge that that slip through the cracks, starting in public school, even before that, people particularly that are interested in the outdoors nowadays because you're you're a bit of an anomaly. I like the outdoors, though. They're collecting insects, but you're going to school in downtown Montreal or Toronto. You know, there is no insects here, you know, like seeing a bird. You know what? Single whatever flies over your weird. Yeah. You know, come and play video games with me, you know. So it's cool. That bell curve, unfortunately, is is putting a lot more people nowadays. I think it's much it's a bigger population number but it's it's not representative of the I guess demographics geographically. You know so so there's people that many I talked to another school yesterday that couldn't read he wasn't interested in the school because he was bored. They weren't challenging him with the things that he was interested in. And that's what Hunter, you know, the the child psychiatrist explains. You have to take them to the library and get them to read. You know, there's just there's many, many people that I think can relate to that. And for whatever reason, what they look like, maybe how they dressed, what their color of their skin, what their religion, whatever, just maybe the food they brought for lunch. I mean, I went to school. I had I had moose sausage, you know, four big slabs of homemade bread. Well, everybody else had wonder Bread and processed meat slices, you know, which I. I was so ashamed of my big, thick sausage, you know, So I, you know, eat it quietly with, you know, those kind of stigma that affects people for their whole life. For me, you know, I guess it it affected me because, I mean, I, I vowed to embrace what I am and who I am and and never be ashamed of it, never apologized for it. And it doesn't matter that I don't fit into this little crowd Now, I had the strength and maybe the biggest motivation tonight to. Be pushed around or bullied or. But not everybody does. You know, everybody has a physically I'm I wasn't a little guy. I could if I had to get to duke it out with my buddies, you know, that were making fun of me, I could do it, but not everybody can. So. So, yeah, I mean, part of the heart of this book is also so that people that are out on the edges of the bell curve can relate. And so, yeah, yes, there's a there's one of us that, you know, was recognized for their ability and we all have it. We all have something for every single person that you've met, no matter how foul they may appear on the surface or feel, how alien is their point of view on something? Every single person in this world has something about them that that is interesting and something that we should look for and try and find that, you know, that connection again.
Ginny Yurich Jim, what a book. What an honor to get to talk with the author. I mean, truly, truly, I just am beyond thrilled, Loved it. And I'm so grateful for this hour. We always end our podcast with a favorite memory from your childhood that was outside.
Jim Shockey You know, I can remember my my earliest memory was my dad and my uncles tearing down an old wooden greenery on the farm. And while they were working, I was, you know, there was bricks laying around the bricks and they had a little indent on the bottom. If I turn them over, there was earthworms. And I can remember vividly and beetle bugs. I can remember that instant, knowing who I was, that this I was fascinated by this. You know, I wasn't interested in the toys that the other kids were playing with. I was fascinated by the natural world starting at the age of two. And that that set me I mean, it's defined who I was, you know, just being true to who I was for the rest of my life. That's why I love. I don't care. I don't it doesn't matter to me what anybody else thinks of me because of because I'm a little weird, you know, or different. You, based on what they think is not weird. You know, I don't think I knew at that point. That's true. I was. And I was, too. I mean, I don't know, two or three years, I was so small anyway that I know my dad got hit for leaving me alone to get covered in mucky earthworm guts. So it was so. So yeah, that's, you know, a beautiful, wonderful memory. Close to family, doing good hard work.
Ginny Yurich Yeah. Wow. What a memory. Jim, thank you so much for your time. Thank you for a wonderful, entertaining, but also educational story. Huge. Congrats on your first fiction work. Absolutely Loved it.
Jim Shockey Oh, thank you. I'm going to get a big fat head. It will to put my cowboy hat on.
Ginny Yurich Thanks so much.
