1st Podcast

This podcast is about pursuing our dreams while working day jobs. The host shares his goal of becoming a successful novelist and encourages listeners to work towards their desired lives. He emphasizes the importance of caring for others and working together. The host plans to interview guests who are also balancing day jobs and chasing their dreams. He discusses the importance of putting effort into our day jobs while working towards our passions. The host shares his personal goal of eradicating human trafficking and promotes his trilogy of books on the subject. He talks about his own journey of starting over in Florida and the challenges he faced. The host emphasizes the need to prioritize basic survival before pursuing a better life. He encourages listeners to strive for more and reminds them that achieving our dreams is a difficult but worthwhile endeavor. Hi, I'm Kirk. Welcome to the first ever podcast of Day Jobs and Dreams. I'd like to give a shout out to my friends in Texas and back in Florida. I've had a wake-up call recently and realized that tomorrow isn't guaranteed for any of us. There comes a time when you realize that if you really want to do something, you best get to it. That's what this podcast is about. I'm new at this and I'm still feeling my way around, but here's the gist of what I hope to accomplish. I have known co-workers who want another life. They wanted to be actors or musicians or scriptwriters or whatever. Others are finishing their education. I'm on a quest to become a successful novelist. The common thread among us is that we are all working day jobs. By day job, I mean the job you work to support the life you hope to have someday. A more fulfilling life, the life you want to be remembered for. It's no secret that our world is dysfunctional. Too many people are pushing hate and exclusion while trying to tear things down. We need to get back to caring for one another and the world we live in. We need to get back to working together. And time is running out. If ever the world needed good, decent people to step forward and take charge, it's now. Who better to do that than us, regular working stiffs who are providing essential services for the economy while chasing our dreams? We are the people who make the world go around. Let's use this podcast to build a healthier, kinder, more compassionate world. So, the ultimate goal is to change the world for the better. And no, I'm not deluding myself. Anyone who has ever worked a day job for a long time while pursuing another life knows the odds are stacked against him or her. We've all faced disappointment. It's how we deal with it that makes us who we are. There are over 100,000 new podcasts every week. So I, who am new at podcasting, am competing with all these other people, many much more polished and experienced than I. But what have I got to lose? Nobody's going to give me the life I want or the world I want to live in. I'm hoping we can use this podcast as a forum where we exchange ideas on how to achieve that other life we're working towards. I know your time is precious, and you expect to be entertained. That falls on me. As I get more familiar with podcasting, I plan on interviewing guests who, like me, are working day jobs while chasing their dreams. Most of us have had to overcome disappointment and obstacles and make sacrifices on the road to that more fulfilling life. This is where we can share our dreams. I welcome all positive comments, whether it's advice on how to advance the life we're hoping to achieve, or funny or interesting anecdotes about something that happened at your day job. If this podcast is successful, I will add videos after I learn how to, of course. Over the years, I have worked with others who are chasing their own dreams. I remember this one girl who worked to support her garage band. Another former co-worker started a podcast talking about sports. Last year, I worked with a young man who wanted to be a thespian. In the summer, he moved to Ohio to act in an off-season dinner theater. Like me, they were all working in restaurants to support the life they hoped to achieve. By the way, the hospitality industry, restaurants, bars, hotels, and the like are great places to work day jobs. Usually, you can work your shift around the career you're hoping to achieve. Day jobs keep you grounded while you hone your people skills. You'll have your challenges and bad days, but it's kind of cool interacting with ordinary people going about the business of living. It can renew your faith in mankind. Concerning your day job, don't just put minimal effort into it. Yeah, we all hope someday to be rich and famous, or at least financially secure enough to pursue our passions. But in the here and now, it's the day job that's financing the life we hope to achieve. So, be the best employee you can be. The only downside to being a great employee is that your employer will likely want you to work all the time. But if you let your bosses know you have other priorities, most will let you work your schedule around your other life, since you are an asset to the company when you are there. I'm inviting you to join me on my quest to become a successful writer. I've been busting a gut to get the word out on a fictional trilogy I've written titled Cyber Slavery about human trafficking in modern society. Cyber Slavery, Cyber Slavery 2, Sex Trafficking, and Cyber Slavery 3 Dark Web are all available at Amazon under my pen name rkirkwhite in ebooks and paperbacks. Though my trilogy is fiction, it closely mirrors what's going on in the world today. Aided and abetted by the World Wide Web, hell is popping up all over the earth. People on the other side of the world can ensnare you in their evil with a click of a mouse. They can take your money, your life, your soul. But there are ways to fight back, and isn't that why we're alive? To push back evil? I've written about victims of human trafficking, those who were killed, those who were broken, and those who fought back. Make no mistake about it, human trafficking, sex trafficking, and slavery are all part of the same evil. There's no place for any of it in a civilized society. My trilogy shows you just how bad it is for victims and their loved ones. Yet evil isn't all powerful. It can be defeated. It can be stopped. My personal goal is to eradicate human trafficking in my lifetime. Now, if you're wondering how I came to this epiphany, by reading about real human trafficking cases while working a day job. A number of the characters in my trilogy are based on real people. One young lady was captured by one of the most hateful, sadistic groups on the planet. They subjected her to a couple of years of pure hell as their sex slave. But they never broke her, and she spent the rest of her life caring for her fell victims. Another young lady answered an ad for a job in the hospitality industry, only to be forced into sexual slavery. The more I study cases like these, the more I realize that this was a story that needed to be told. There are around 28 million human trafficking victims yearly. Many millions more if you add people who are enslaved by the rulers of their countries. The cost of lives and resources is enormous. Psychopaths and criminal organizations have mastered the art of using the secrecy of the World Wide Web to reach out and ensnare their victims. While researching human trafficking, I found my calling. I truly believe that the world would be a better place if enough people read my books. If I was ever so lucky as to get my trilogy made into movies, all the better. Knowledge is power. Now I'd like to share some background information with you to give you a better idea of who I am and where I'm coming from. There came a time, years ago, when there was nothing left for me where I was living. No hope for a meaningful life, no chance for happiness. No chance of ever rising above a marginal existence. So I thought, screw this. I packed up what little I had, put it in my old car, and headed to Florida. I remembered Florida from spring break in college. I wasn't sure if my car would even make it to Florida, but so what? I knew if I wanted a better life, I'd have to start from scratch. What better place to start over than on a beach with year-round warm weather and girls dressed in tiny bathing suits? As luck would have it, my car rolled into Fort Lauderdale on a beautiful fall evening. After I rented a room at a cheap inn on the beach, I had a little over 20 bucks left in my pocket. The next day I was living in my car with no spare and a tire that had a knot that swelled up when I drove. At night I would park my car behind a gas station that had closed for the evening and try to find a place where I could sleep on the beach. Usually, however, the cops would run me off the beach, forcing me to sleep cramped up in the backseat of my car. Each day I would have to wake up before the gas station opened and park in whatever free spot I could find along the beach. I remember that first night homeless, sitting on the beach and looking up at the huge, full, blue-white moon feeling small and insignificant. There was nothing to go back to. There was nobody to call for help. It was find a life in Florida or die. As I sat on the beach looking up at the sky, I thought of all the other people who had come to that same beach over the years. Some of them from countries who could not even speak the language, and they had made it. So each day I would shower at the beach, put on my good clothes in whatever bathroom I could find, and go look for work. Eventually I got a job bussing tables at a hotel. The reason I bring this up is because when I was homeless, all my effort went into basic survival. Where to get water, where to park, where to find something to eat. There was no time to think about a better life. I remember frequenting a beach bar that had a huge guy grilling hot dogs, which were free, but he expected to be tipped. As he handed me a hot dog, I dropped the 20 or 30 cents I had into his tip jar and hustled into the crowd, hoping he hadn't noticed how little I'd given him. My point being, the first duty of each of us is to put food on the table. I worked a number of day jobs that it took me years to get beyond living paycheck to paycheck. As long as you're in that situation, all you can think about is getting through the week. But once we get past this marginal existence, some of us aspire to want more. It's that other life that I want to talk about in this podcast. The one we hope to achieve, the one we want to be remembered for. And I want to add, anything worth doing is never easy. A friend once told me, and I quote, If you ain't nobody, you just ain't nobody. Boy, is that true when it comes to publishing. If you're not rich or connected or have friends with deep pockets, no publishing house will give you the time of day. Publishing houses won't accept manuscripts unless they are submitted by an agent that they do business with. Agents won't accept manuscripts unless you are a known commodity. So what's a nobody to do? I figured to screw them. I'd written a damn good trilogy that needed to be read. So I self-published. At least that way I was in total control. The best way to be taken seriously as a writer is to put out a professional product. In self-publishing, that means doing the research and putting in the time to create an entertaining, riveting storyline with memorable, well-drawn characters, learning from your mistakes and sticking to it no matter what. And another thing, professionalism isn't cheap. I had to buy barcodes, copyrights, and covers for the books, and more importantly, have the manuscripts professionally edited. The most expensive thing a self-publishing author has to get is professional editing. Yeah, it can run you two, three grand or more, but it is an absolute must. I'm pretty good with English, but found out the hard way that no matter how many times I edited my manuscripts, I got blind to some of my mistakes. Not only do professional editors correct obvious mistakes, but they also offer suggestions on how to improve your writing. The person editing your book is looking at it from a different perspective. He or she might show you how to clear things up, point out discrepancies or omissions, or suggest that you move things around. Of course, you don't have to agree with everything your editor says. You use the suggestions you like and incorporate them into your writing. So once you have a professional product and publish it, then you have to promote it. And that's what drove me to do this podcast. But I also want to raise awareness about human trafficking. The Polaris Project is an organization headquartered in New York that is dedicated to eradicating human trafficking in all its forms. It works with law enforcement to bring slavers and human traffickers to justice. It educates the public on human trafficking and helps victims with psychological, educational, and financial support. Not all human trafficking is done by organized crime. Not all victims are locked up in brothels and massage parlors. You may even run across a victim of human trafficking as you shop or eat in a restaurant. The Blue Campaign is a national public awareness campaign designed to educate the public to recognize the indicators of when a person is in distress. You may have seen their signs in restaurants and nightclubs. Most of us are more likely to run across a victim of a pen or an abusive boyfriend or spouse. The Blue Campaign lets you know who to contact and how to get involved. If you're like me and want to end slavery in all its forms, let's get to it. If you want to help repair the damage being done to the earth, the time is now. Or if there's anything else you'd like to share that would make the world, the life on this planet better for all of us, please let me know. I'll keep you updated on my quest. I'm forever looking for more ways to promote my books. If I decide to do a reading somewhere or interview, I'll let you know how it went. And I'd love to hear from you as you chase your dreams. Let's start to build the world we'd like to leave for our children. Thank you so much for listening. I hope to do a podcast a week. Until then, have a great life.