Manders Mindset
Are you feeling stuck or stagnant in your life? Do you envision yourself living differently but have no idea how to start? The answer might lie in a shift in your mindset.
Hosted by Amanda Russo, The Breathing Goddess, who is a Breathwork Detox Facilitator, Transformative Mindset Coach, and Divorce Paralegal.
Amanda's journey into mindset and empowerment began by working with children in group homes and daycares. She later transitioned to family law, helping people navigate the challenging emotions of divorce. During this time, Amanda also overcame her own weight and health challenges through strength training, meditation, yoga, reiki, and plant medicine.
Amanda interviews guests from diverse backgrounds, including entrepreneurs, athletes, artists, and wellness experts, who share their incredible journeys of conquering fears and limiting beliefs to achieve remarkable success. Hear real people tell how shifting their mindsets—and often their words—has dramatically changed their lives.
Amanda also shares her personal journey, detailing how she transformed obstacles into opportunities by adopting a healthier, holistic lifestyle.
Discover practical strategies and inspiring stories that will empower you to break free from limitations and cultivate a mindset geared towards growth and positivity.
Tune in for a fun, friendly, and empowering experience that will help you become the best version of yourself.
Manders Mindset
What Happens When You Finally Draw the Line? | Teri M. Brown | 148
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What if the adventure you’re craving starts with one honest step?
In this heartfelt and revealing episode of Manders Mindset, host Amanda Russo is joined by award-winning author and podcaster Teri M. Brown for a conversation that spans heartbreak, healing, and hope. From escaping an emotionally abusive marriage to cycling 3,100+ miles across the U.S. on a tandem bike in her late 50s, Teri’s story is a powerful reminder that it’s never too late to reclaim your voice or your adventure.
Teri shares how she rediscovered her strength, embraced vulnerability, and turned the lessons of a cross-country ride into her inspirational book, Ten Little Rules for a Double-Butted Adventure. This conversation peels back the layers of resilience, self-trust, and what it really means to rewrite your story—no matter where you’re starting from.
🎙️ In this episode, listeners will discover:
🚴♀️ How a tandem bike ride became a catalyst for personal transformation
📚 The emotional journey from hidden manuscripts to award-winning author
🧭 Why mindset shifts are the real milestones on any big adventure
🛑 How communication, forgiveness, and self-honesty changed her marriage
💡 The power of doing hard things and why you already have what it takes
📝 How her book invites readers to define their own “rules” for living fully
🕒 Timeline Summary:
[1:04] – Teri introduces her multi-passionate identity and love for storytelling
[2:02] – Childhood dreams, family expectations, and a winding career path
[4:10] – Writing through adversity and learning to believe in her voice
[6:44] – The moment she finally chose herself and never looked back
[9:13] – Training for a tandem cross-country ride and finding strength in motion
[11:11] – The mindset shift that made publishing possible
[18:05] – Lessons from the road: teamwork, communication, and emotional honesty
[31:19] – Becoming an author after 50 and the thrill of historical fiction
[45:04] – Behind the book: how Ten Little Rules came to life
[57:05] – Final reflections on legacy, kindness, and the truth we already carry
To Connect with Amanda:
Schedule a 1:1 Virtual Breathwork Session HERE
📸 Instagram: @thebreathinggoddess
Follow & Support the Podcast:
📱 Instagram: @MandersMindset
👥 Join the Manders Mindset Facebook Community HERE!
To Connect with Teri:
Instagram @TeriMBrown_Author
Youtube @TeriMBrown_Author
Facebook @TeriMBrownAuthor
Welcome to the Manders Mindset Podcast. Here you'll find both monologue and interviews of entrepreneurs, coaches, healers and a variety of other people when your host, Amanda Russo, will discuss her own mindset and perspective and her guest's mindset and perspective on the world around us. Manders and her guests will help explain to you how shifting your mindset will shift your life.
Speaker 3:Welcome to Neander's Mindset, where we explore the power of shifting your mindset to shift your life. I'm your host, Amanda Russo, and I am so excited for today's conversation.
Speaker 2:I am here with Terry Brown, and Terry is an author having written multiple books a children's book and her recent book, ten Little Rules for a Double-Butted Adventure. Thank you so much for joining me, terri.
Speaker 4:Thank you for having me, Amanda. I'm super excited to be here.
Speaker 2:So can you tell us who Terry is at the core?
Speaker 4:Yeah, so people ask me that question and it's like, oh my gosh, I have a list because I'm not just I don't know, there's so many things about me but I'm definitely an author, I'm a podcaster, I am a mom and grandma, I am a cyclist, I am a beach bum. Although I'm not officially a teacher, I love teaching and being in groups and teaching and mentoring. Oh, I'm a lover of nature. To me, it's unbelievable the things that you can see, like watching the sunrise. I could do that every single morning and it never gets old. A lot of things. And oh, I'm a bridge player. I love to shop and find bargains. Like that just excites the heck out of me to find something really on sale. So I'm all of those things.
Speaker 2:I love that. A lot of us are a lot of things. Can you take us down memory lane a little bit? Tell us about upbringing childhood family dynamic.
Speaker 4:Yeah, so I was one of two children. We grew up in a very what I would. I was born in 1963. And I would say that I had the typical standard childhood of that age. You know that we had a cat. My parents stayed together my entire life. We grew up, we just did normal life.
Speaker 4:As a child I said I wanted to be an author, but I also said that I wanted to be an Olympic ice skater and a brain surgeon. And, given that I hate the sight of blood and that I am the klutziest person that has ever moved, two of those three were never going to happen. So I don't think I really knew what that meant to be an author. But I knew I loved books. I was, oh my gosh, an avid reader. I was the kid that would be under the blankets with the flashlight in the middle of the night trying to read my books, and my mom would say to me all the time go out and play, go out and play. And so I would open up my window, put my book out on the ledge, go outside, get my book and climb a tree and read, because mom wanted me out. So I got out, but I wanted to be reading. Then you know, you just go through. Now it's time for college. There's no way in the world my parents are paying for a degree in writing because they wanted me to get something that they considered would get me a real job, and writing wasn't ever considered that.
Speaker 4:Then I got married. I had four children. I got divorced. So did you get a degree in writing? No, I got a degree. So this is crazy. I have a degree in elementary education, I have a degree in psychology, I have a minor in sociology and a minor in math, and I never used any of it officially in any occupation. I didn't know what I wanted, I just didn't, and I loved to learn and so I just kept taking classes. Yeah, it's crazy. So, like I said, I got divorced, I got remarried. That was probably, if I had to list, you know, like your biggest mistake in the world. That second marriage was the biggest mistake. He, he ended up being emotionally abusive and I lived in that marriage for 14 years because I did not want to be divorced the second time. You know you get into it. You recognize it's horrible.
Speaker 4:While in that marriage I started writing for small businesses, and it was right. Before I got married In 2000, I started writing for small businesses. I recognized the internet was becoming a really big thing. A lot of people have trouble imagining a time before the internet, but there really was one. And in 2000, I would go on the internet and look and these small businesses had really poor websites. They didn't know how to say what needed to be said in a way that people would want to know about it. So I started contacting small businesses and would redo their content on their websites and started doing that and it was a nice little niche because it allowed me to stay home with my children and still have an income.
Speaker 4:I really wanted to be an author, like I wanted to write but I was living in this horrible relationship and when you're putting your feelings and things out on paper, you need a soft place to land, because people can be really. Sometimes reviews are not nice, you know, and people will say things and you need to be able to have someone that you can go to and I didn't have that. But I got out of that relationship in 2017 and words started pouring out of me and I wrote my first manuscript very quickly and it's no good. It probably will never see the light of day. But it showed me wow, I have 50,000 words, like I wrote a 50,000 word story in two weeks and it had a beginning, a middle and end, it had characters, it had all the things and I just needed I needed to figure out the how behind all of this and how to make it better. So I wrote another manuscript and I wrote another manuscript, but I wasn't showing them to anyone because I'm still damaged. You know, I still have all of that emotional abuse of yuck where I'm not good enough and I never will be.
Speaker 4:So I meet my now husband Bruce, and I was never getting married again. That could be a whole podcast all by itself. So I won't really. Husband Bruce and I was never getting married again. That could be a whole podcast all by itself. So I won't really get into it. But he tells people that he chased me until I caught him and I think what that means is he just stuck around until I finally got used to the fact that he was here and not going anywhere and that he really was the person that he said he was. And while we were dating he said I've always wanted to ride across the United States on a bicycle and I had been wanting to do a big adventure because I thought I needed to prove to the world that I was I don't know, had value, that I still could do things, that I wasn't just old and I don't know. It turns out.
Speaker 2:I need yeah, go ahead, I need to rip you real quick. You mentioned second marriage. You didn't want to get divorced for a second time. Did something shift like internally or in your life that made you realize, like no more, I'm just going to get this.
Speaker 4:I had drawn one line in the sand. My second husband would take our money, remove it from our account, open up a new account at a new bank without my information on it, and then I would be left with no ability to have money. He did that twice. After the second time, I told him if he ever did it again, I was leaving. It was the only that I had ever drawn, and he did it a third time, and 14 hours after I discovered that he had done it, I had moved three and a half hours away. Everything I owned was in storage and I was living with my son in another city. I'm so thankful To this day. I'm thankful he took the money again. If he hadn't, I might still be there trying to fix things that aren't fixable. It was interesting. When I left, my son said Mom, you know you can't go back. And I looked at him. I said I'm not. I had one line, one and it was easy not to do. You know, like you don't, how easy is it to not move money away from an account? It's easy. And yet he went and did it again and it was like that's it, I'm gone. So, yeah, so you know, now I've met my new husband to be, and he's talking about wanting to do this adventure. And I looked at him and I said is this something you're going to talk about until the day you die, or are you going to do it? He said, no, I really want to do it. And I said count me in.
Speaker 4:So we began training for a ride across the United States. We decided to do it on a tandem bicycle. That's a two-seater bicycle. So you know, two wheels, two seats, two people and we really did that because he is an athlete, has been riding bicycles since middle school, is super, super good at these kinds of things, and I'm not, and so if we had been on individual bicycles, I would have always been miles behind. It wouldn't have been fun for him or for me, but he put us on a tandem and it really equalizes us. He can't go faster than me and I can't go slower than him, you know. So we were and we had to work together, which was really wonderful, and so we left to go on this trip in the summer of 2020.
Speaker 4:So that's COVID summer, political unrest summer I don't know if you remember that summer, but it was a pretty wild summer and we didn't think we were going to get to go and we ended up finding a way to make that happen. We went 3,102 miles from the coast of Oregon to Washington DC and as I was coming up on the Washington DC like we're just about to stop we stopped at the Marine Corps Memorial because my husband is a 25-year Marine veteran and we were raising money for Toys for Tots, so it seemed very fitting to end there. We were coming up this hill, there's this flag, I can see it. My husband says Terry, do you see that flag? I said I do. He said that's it. That's where we're stopping and I started to laugh.
Speaker 4:And then I started to cry and laugh and cry. I was just a big mess and cry and laugh and cry. I was just a big mess and I thought, my gosh, I did it Me, a woman who hadn't been on a bicycle in 40 years when I met my husband. And I did it. I can do anything. It's not a matter of can I do it, it's a matter of what do I want to do? And it was. I want to be an author and 14 months later my first novel came out author and 14 months later my first novel came out.
Speaker 2:That's amazing. So did you sit down right after that and start?
Speaker 4:writing. I had that manuscript already. That was one of the many that I had kind of sitting there that I hadn't shown anyone, and I just decided it's time you know all of the fear that I had I found a place for it. I realized there's something about doing something that's really difficult, and for me, riding across the United States on a bicycle was really difficult, right Like it was well outside of my comfort zone, and so for me, doing something that difficult, it helps you put things into perspective, all of those things that I had heard. You're not good enough, you'll never be good enough, you can't do anything. You can't achieve, you can't.
Speaker 4:I kind of put that up against. Yeah, but look at me, I am, I can See me. And there was that aha moment right there at the end. That was like really, the only thing that is stopping me is me. That was like really the only thing that is stopping me is me. And if I want to do something, then I should do it. And I just changed my mindset completely. It took that ride for me, but by the end of it it was like, wow, I can do. I can literally do anything that I want to achieve. In fact, I've had someone say well, you should try to run a marathon and I said you know what I could have zero desire to and I'm never going to do it. But if I chose to, there's no doubt that I could go run a marathon. It's just not something that I care to try.
Speaker 2:I get that. That's amazing. How long did this take?
Speaker 4:you. We were gone a little over three months and it was actually 72 riding days, but there's always those break days. You have to take some breaks in between, especially because I was in my late 50s and my husband was in his late 60s, so we're not 20 year olds trying to do this. We definitely had some breaks in there.
Speaker 2:Now I'm curious is this, or even something similar to this, something you ever thought you would do?
Speaker 4:Oh no, nothing like this, because I'm like I've said, I'm not really athletic. I enjoy the outdoors. But I enjoy the outdoors, like walking along the beach and collecting shells. You know, I'm not the big adventure person. I don't jump out of planes, I've not done marathons, triathlons, none of those things just never. But there was just something about wanting to prove to people that I still had value and it turns out I needed to prove that to me. Nobody else was doubting it, it was just me. But it's good that this came about for me, that I did this really big thing, and then not only that, it brought my husband and I so close together. You know, we had to do everything together for that entire time and we say that it was like 20 years of marriage. We call it tandem time. So in Earth time in March would have been six years of marriage. That's beautiful.
Speaker 2:I bet it did, though especially like having to coordinate even the pedaling. You know what I mean.
Speaker 4:Right, everything. When you're riding a tandem bicycle, you have to work together. Everything is working together how you lean, how you sit, how fast you go, how you start, how you stop all of that. And then we were camping along the way. We were pulling a trailer that had camping gear and so, yeah it's crazy, we look like a small parade as we went by. So then there's the setting up the tent, getting the food together.
Speaker 4:Everything we did was together, and if we weren't getting along, we needed to fix it fast because otherwise it's miserable. And so we just really learned very quickly how to get along, what the other person was really like, especially under duress. You know, how are we going to handle that? How to apologize quickly, how to forgive quickly All of those things instead, because you can't hold on to it. Can you imagine someone says they're sorry and you don't forgive them? Now you're getting on this bicycle and you're having to ride together.
Speaker 4:We rode angry twice and neither time was good, and we realized right away it just couldn't. We just had to stop, like we had to fix things, and so we did. And then, even when we came back from the ride, that's just how we handled our marriage. You know, if someone said something and we found it offensive, we would take a good deep breath, make sure that we could say something in a manner that wasn't also, you know, offensive, and as soon as you could say that, you went to the other person and you said so by the way, this was said, and this is how I feel about it. And the other person and you said so by the way, this was said, and this is how I feel about it, and the other person would then say, oh my goodness, I didn't realize I had done that. I'm sorry, or you're right, I shouldn't have said, you know, whatever it was, and we just fixed it and then it was over. I love that. I think everybody should try that, by the way.
Speaker 2:It almost seems like this even helped you in relationships outside of just the relationship with your husband.
Speaker 4:Oh yeah, I mean the truth is, I think people would prefer. I like to know if I've done something that has offended you. Let me know so I can fix it. Like, don't hold on to it and walk around with it and be angry at me over something that I probably didn't know I did, or even, if I didn't know, didn't recognize how much it upset you. You know, give me the chance to fix it. Just tell me I'm much more.
Speaker 4:Be upfront with me and I think, especially after years of emotionally abusive relationship in which things were often held against you and you didn't know what they were and you were dealing with the after effects of whatever it was for sometimes weeks, months, and you didn't even know what it was you were dealing with. I don't like that. It feels like a game to me and I'd much rather you just say you said this and I didn't like it, you did this and I didn't like it. Good, now I know. Now I know what we're playing on and I can either explain myself or whatever I need to do to help us move beyond that.
Speaker 2:Did you have this type of like mindset before, like just being able to talk to people?
Speaker 4:No, I think before I was more of a. If you don't say anything about it, it will eventually go away. Like you know, sweep it under the rug, let's pretend it's not there and eventually we'll all forget. The problem with that is is that you do forget for a while, but the next fight that happens, it comes out. You know, have you ever been in an argument with someone where you're mad at oh, I don't know, they didn't take out the trash. And so in that argument about the fact that I asked you to take out the trash and you didn't, you bring up 18 other things that they also have not done. When you asked Right, that was me before, because I would sweep them under the rug and hope that maybe they would go away. And they don't. They never really go away. So no, I learned to be much more open and much more honest, and you know it doesn't always work. I'm not always good at it. Sometimes I find myself slipping back into old habits, but I really do try to be more forthright now.
Speaker 2:What do you think was the biggest thing that helped you with that in terms of the cycling experience?
Speaker 4:I just think, realizing how we could not have made it across the United States if we didn't do that. We would have never made it because we rode. One day, angry, I said something, I don't remember what it was. He was upset about it. We weren't speaking. I would try to speak to him. He's giving me one word answers as we're riding. Instead of being a nice smooth ride, it was not smooth, it was horrible.
Speaker 4:We stopped at a Dollar General and I thought, oh, I'm stopping here. This is the perfect place. There's a bathroom, there's air conditioning, there's food, there's something to eat. And so he says come on, let's get back on the bike. And I said I'm not getting back on the bike. And he looked at me. He said what? And I said not until we fix this, I'm not getting back on the bike. And he said fine, let's fix it.
Speaker 4:I said I don't think you're ready yet and I walked down this sidewalk and I sat down and I kept eating my snack.
Speaker 4:And about 15 minutes later, he came and sat down next to me and very calmly, in his normal he was such a good man, you know and he sat down and he said you're right, we need to fix this, at which point he told me what was bothering him. I apologized, I told him that sometimes I get snarky when I'm tired and I was very tired and I didn't mean it the way he took it, but that I would try to watch how I responded in the future. And we got back on the bike and had a very nice afternoon ride, and I think that experience taught me very quickly like which way would I rather do this trip? Would I rather do it the morning way or the afternoon way? And it was like I liked the afternoon a whole lot better. And then we practiced that for three months. So by the end of the three months it had become easier to do because we'd been doing it, and so that's just how we did things.
Speaker 2:I like how you mentioned which way do we want to do this, like you probably would have made it if even arguing like it might have taken longer. But like how do you want to?
Speaker 4:How do you want to feel about it when you're done Like I don't know? There's nothing good about being angry with someone, and it doesn't feel good for them or you, and so when you go to bed at the end of the night, how do you want to feel about that? How do you want to feel about the day? And I wanted to feel good about it.
Speaker 2:I didn't want to go across the United States angry the whole time. So, yeah, we just learned to fix things, wow, and it even. It seems like it even showed up physically, like you mentioned not smooth because, like, probably you won't I've never rode in a tandem bike but, like, I've been in a two-person kayak and if you're not communicating it's hard to know which way to pad. I'm not good at kayaking, I love it, but you know what I mean. Even the concept of that it was probably a bumpy, rocky.
Speaker 4:It was bumpy, not only that, but he was the person in the front and he normally they call that the captain who's in the front. Stoker is in the back. That was me, the captain in the front. Stoker is in the back. That was me, the captain in the front. As the captain, he was the best captain. He would really maneuver and make sure that if he saw a big bump that he would move.
Speaker 4:And when he was angry that day he did not purposely, like purposely, push us into a pothole, but he didn't try to avoid him. Do you know what I, what I'm saying? Like he just and you could tell, and I'm back there on the back thinking, oh, this is. Oh, you know, he was moving faster than I felt comfortable moving, so I felt like we were. It was just difficult. He wasn't thinking about the person on the back of his bicycle, he was riding as though he were on his own bicycle and had forgotten about me. And it was because he was angry at me. And, like I said, I don't believe he did anything purposely to hurt me. My needs were not top of mind and yet when we were working together, his needs and my needs were equal and the two of us worked to make sure that both were met.
Speaker 2:That it just really shows like the difference of working with somebody versus not like that team effort.
Speaker 4:Yes, absolutely.
Speaker 2:That's amazing, though I'm curious how you felt physically post this.
Speaker 4:Like when it was all done. How did I feel? I was? Well, first of all, you get used to it. I was actually more exhausted the first two weeks. At the end of every day I was like, oh my gosh, we have bitten off more than we can chew. It was hard getting used to sitting on a bicycle saddle for that many hours every day. We had done a lot of training, but you don't train that many hours every day after day after day, and so it was. Yeah, it was crazy, but at the end I think the thing that I remember at the end was more just, emotionally, just that wow, I've done it, and then having trouble believing that I'd done it.
Speaker 4:It was like we did all of those days. I have all of them in my memory. I have pictures, you know. I took pictures the whole way. I kept a blog the whole way. There's no doubt that I did it, but it was almost hard to take all of those days and add them up to make me come across the United States. It was just an incredible. To this day. I know I did it, but it still feels unreal.
Speaker 4:How did that happen? And I think partially because when you're riding across the United States. You do not ride across the United States, you ride today. So today is from here to here. It's 30 miles, it's 50 miles, it's however many miles you have to go that day, and then you put that day away, you can't think about it anymore. And now you're on the next day and when you're done with that day you put that day away, you can't think about it anymore. And now you're on the next day and when you're done with that day, you put that day away. So people would ask us where are you headed? And my husband always said to Washington DC, but not today. And that's really the way we came the whole way across the United States. And so when you finally made it, it was like oh wow, to Washington DC today, like we, we did it. All of those individual 20 miles, 30 miles, 50 miles, days added up, and now we're here. How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time? I mean, that's the same thing.
Speaker 2:Now, did you guys set out like a specific plan, like how many miles you would do each day?
Speaker 4:Oh, so you're going to learn a little bit about me. I am a planner, I love lists, I love plans, I love to have everything mapped out. It makes me feel very good and comfortable. And so, sitting at the kitchen table before we left, I had maps and we used adventure cycling maps that gave really good, like where hotels were and where campgrounds were and where restaurants were, and you had all of this stuff laid out and so we knew the route we were going to take and we pretty much kept to that route. But I had it all figured out. And so on day one we didn't get as far as I thought we were going to get. It was much hillier than I assumed it was going to be. So that's okay, I just adjusted my little schedule. And on day two, we also didn't get as far as I thought, and that's okay, I adjusted my little schedule. And on day three I threw it out.
Speaker 4:Yeah, because the truth is that you can't know, sitting at your kitchen table, what it is that's going to happen out there. What is the weather going to be like, what are the hills going to be like? How are you going to feel that day? Did you get a good night's sleep the night before? Are you raring to go or are you just exhausted and you're not going to make it far? Is there going to? Are you going to have a flat tire or are you going to have three? Was the traffic really bad and you had to, like, stop and wait a while? All of these things that you cannot predict several months in advance, sitting at a kitchen table with a map.
Speaker 4:And so it turned out that what we would do is, at the end of the day, I would write my blog and then we would open up our map and we would look and we would pick three different possible stopping places the next day. One was close, one was kind of medium and one was a little further away. And then we would say, as we're approaching that first place, okay, how are you feeling? The next place to stop is about 10 miles from here. Do you have 10 more miles in you? And sometimes the answer was yes and sometimes the answer was no. And if the answer was yes, then we would go on and as we're approaching that second place, it was okay. So 12 more miles to the next place. You know how do you feel? We very rarely would go to that farthest usually about the middle one You'd think, yeah, we're about done. We're about done.
Speaker 4:Now, there were some days we didn't have that option. One day in particular, we had to go 70 miles. There was nothing between where we had been and where we were going, and so 70 miles was how far you had to go, and on those days you just had to grit and you just had to make it, whether you felt like it or not, because there was nothing else to do. Right, but most days we had options and that's just how we did it. So I would love to say that I had it all planned and my plan went beautifully, but it did not.
Speaker 2:I love that, though I get the planning. I'm a planner myself, like the stops, the hotels. I understand that completely.
Speaker 4:It makes me feel really in control, but the the truth was is that this trip that I had very little control you, the weather was more in control than I was.
Speaker 2:you just had to figure it out based on the information you had at the moment and then just go and hope that it was gonna be okay it almost seems even more so with that, like you needed to be collaborating and communicating effectively with your husband, because, like, oh, you're not going on if you're not really talking Exactly.
Speaker 4:And the other thing is that you have to be honest. See, and that was a little hard for me because he is athletic, he can ride a hundred miles every day on a bicycle, doesn't bother him at all. And I cannot like I was not. I just was not there. And I had to be able to be honest with him and say I'm done, right. And that's hard to do because I didn't want to disappoint him. I didn't you know what I'm saying. Like this was a dream that he had and I didn't want to make it where he wasn't getting what he needed out of it.
Speaker 4:But he, during a lot of the training rides, he would tell me Terry, I can feel that you're done, you're hardly pedaling back there. And it's like I'm giving it everything I have. And he said why didn't you tell me that you were done? We would have stopped. And it's like I didn't want to disappoint you. But and it's like I didn't want to disappoint you. But I learned that it was more disappointing to him to have to be the only one peddling right. I mean, I'm back there trying, and he's doing 95% of the work he needed me to do my 50%, his 50, my 50, that gets us there, and he didn't want to do 95.5.
Speaker 4:And so he had to learn to be very honest and open. I'm not having a good day today, or we would get up in the morning and I would say I had a horrible night's sleep. I am so tired from yesterday. I'm sore. Can we take a break day, you know, to be able to just say this is what I need. And he could do the same. He could tell me there were days that he said, oh, my back hurts so bad. Today. I don't think. I just don't think I can do this, and I'd be like, okay, well then, let's, why don't we take a rest day? And we had to listen to one another. We both had to be ready to move forward. One person ready to move forward on a tandem bicycle does nothing.
Speaker 2:Was there something other than this conversation with him that helped you be honest with him about how you were feeling?
Speaker 4:I think that while we were training, there were several times that I tried to do far more than I was capable of doing yet and we would end up in situations that weren't good. And he would always tell me you know, I need you to be honest with me so that we can plan appropriately. And when I was honest with him, especially in those training rides, I realized that, unlike my previous relationship, where being honest would often get me in trouble right where it'd be used against me, he never held it against me. He never said, well, it figures, or of course you couldn't do it or I wouldn't have expected. He just understood. He just would say, okay, good to know, you know we can stop up here in about a mile. So let's just you know, let's get up to that mile point, we'll stop there.
Speaker 4:He was always just very kind and I think that over time I just realized that he is a genuine honest, kind guy who really truly did want to know how I was doing and really did care and wasn't going to hold it against me. And I think that was a lot of it is. I just recognized he was who he said he was and that I could trust him and that he wasn't going to hold it against me. I was never going to hear two years from now oh yeah, terry, we could have made it faster if it weren't for Terry. He was never going to say something like that to me, and once I knew that, then it was real easy to be honest.
Speaker 2:You almost had to train your mind that though.
Speaker 4:Had to remember who he was and who he wasn't. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Wow, that's beautiful. Though I love that, now I'd love if we could transition a tad into your writing. Okay, so you have mentioned that you always wanted to be an author. I'm curious how old you were when you wrote the first book.
Speaker 4:You wrote so the first book came out in 2022. So that would have been I would have been 58. So I had a book come out when I was 58, one when I was 59, one when I was 60. This 10 Little Rules for a Double-Butted Adventure came out when I was 61, and my children's book came out this year at 61 as well.
Speaker 2:That's amazing. So have you always thought you were going to write multiple books?
Speaker 4:You know it's funny. I don't think I was sure I was going to write one, and then I decided I was going to. Then I get the first book out. It did relatively well, it won some awards, it made a little bit of a splash. And now it was time to write the second book.
Speaker 4:And oh, I had such fear. I kept thinking what if I'm a one-hit wonder and can't write? What if this was just an accident? You know like, what if it's not real? And there's just a lot. I think there's a lot that happens with people where they feel like a phony. You know, like if people really knew what I was doing, the imposter syndrome becomes really big. And then I wrote the second one. And as soon as I wrote the second one and got it into the hands of some reviewers and found that they liked it too, then I think I became confident that I would write many more books. And now I have no intention. I'll write books until I simply cannot anymore, like, physically I'm unable to write. Oh, I love it, I absolutely love it. I will do it. I've got book ideas floating in my head. I have to tell them to hush up, because I can only do one thing at a time, like I can't write four books at once. So let me get done with this one and then I'll write the next one.
Speaker 2:I love that. How long, on average, does it take you to write a book?
Speaker 4:It depends a lot on what's going on, something I don't know that you're aware of my husband was diagnosed with brain cancer in June of 22. And so for two and a half years I was his caregiver. He passed away in January. It's been a yeah, it's been a tough adjustment, but during the time before I was a caregiver I would like to go away to a writer's retreat and in two weeks I could pump out the first draft of a book because I had nothing else to do, nothing else to take care of just me and writing. And then it takes me probably somewhere between three and six months to do editing and other things, because I often will put the book down for a while and then pick it up and then really work a lot on it and then put it down for a while because the fresh eyes helped me in the editing process, you know, because if you work on something too long, after a while you're not even seeing mistakes or you're not, you know. But if you pick it up fresh it's like, oh, wow, I need something there. So that helps me. So it's, you know, three to six months. So from the start to the finish, in about six months time I can be ready to start the marketing aspect, to start getting that book out there.
Speaker 4:During the time that I was a caregiver, I could not get away for two weeks, so I had to write whenever I could find time and then it takes a lot longer because my time is an hour here, two hours there, as opposed to two weeks of Terry just gets to write and nobody's going to bother. And during that two weeks I have a very odd sleep schedule. I'll write until I'm tired and then I'll sleep and then I'll get up. It doesn't matter what the clock says. I tend to eat weird, like I'll make a big meal and I'll have it sitting next to me and I'm like I'm not I'm.
Speaker 4:I tell people, you don't want to be around me during one of these because I don't know when I showered last. I mean, I'm just writing and I get it all out. So yeah, it kind of depends, like which way am I doing it, how fast I get it done. But I'm a fast writer. When the idea comes to me, I sit down and I just start writing. I tell people I call it word vomit, it just falls out, I just type until it's all out on the page. Now, that first draft is not pretty. I wouldn't show it to anyone. It still needs a lot of work, but that first draft is usually out in about two weeks.
Speaker 2:Now, what type of research do you do to go into this and planning a book?
Speaker 4:Yeah, so research, I love research. It's one of the reasons why my three novels, my current three novels, are historical fiction, and I love that because it lets me do a lot of research, which I love, and it lets me write, which I love, and so you put those two things together and I'm just in a happy place. I do a lot of internet research. If I can't, I like to go to places, but sometimes that's not possible. But yeah, I do a lot of internet research. I talk with other people. Sometimes I even just watch movies or read other books that maybe have that time period just to kind of get a flavor. For how does that feel? I do research before I get started. I do a little bit of research while I'm writing, like if an idea comes to me and I'll think, ooh, could that really have happened? Maybe I have to do some quick research. For instance, my second book is a World War II I have it's called An Enemy. Like Me.
Speaker 4:I have the guy going on a date in 1939 and he was putting Brylcreem in his hair. That's that greasy cream that the guys used to use, you know, to slick their hair back, and I thought, wait a minute, was real cream around in 1939? So I did a quick. Yes, it came out in the early thirties, by 39, it would have been around pretty significantly so I could have him put real cream in his hair, otherwise I would have had him put something else in. I would have then done research to find out, well, what were guys doing to their hair as I have him preparing for this date? So sometimes when I'm writing I do a little and then I do more at the end, especially if I feel like my setting isn't strong enough and maybe I need more details. I'll do some more research to make sure that I'm getting my details right.
Speaker 2:Now, that's detailed research in terms of, like, what they were doing with their hair.
Speaker 4:But the thing when you're reading a book, I don't want something that I've said to pop you out of the book. I want you to stay so engrossed in what you're reading and I don't want maybe the Brylcreem wouldn't have mattered to you, but it's going to matter to someone and I don't want them to go. That didn't come out until the 40s. You know what I'm saying, because that's happened to me where I've been reading a book and I've thought really, and then I stop and have to look it up because I'm that research person, right, and then I'm completely out of the book and I don't want to do that. So I try to make my facts as close to true as possible, given the fact that I was not there, right. Like, have I ever made mistakes? I'm sure there are mistakes, but I do my best to make it as accurate as I can.
Speaker 4:And then my fiction part, with my characters. I can make them do whatever I want, as long as it's within that setting. I can't have them pick up a cell phone in 1940, but I can have them make a phone call, and so you just have to think about what is it that? How would they have handled this then? You know, in today's world we would have gotten a text. Well, that's not going to happen. They might've gotten a phone call. They might've gotten a letter probably got a letter, you know. So you have to think about how that would have happened.
Speaker 2:Wow, I love the in-depth research that you do with this. I'm curious what type of research you did for your latest book, the Ten Little Rules for a Double Button.
Speaker 4:Very little, because this one is completely about me, right? This is more memoir inspirational. These are 10 things I learned while riding across the United States. So my research really was. I went back to my blog and I kept the blog every single day and I went through and I read my blog and I took notes on which. What things did I learn? When did I see that I learned them? Which things that happened on the trip really illustrate that. You know, because you go on a trip like that and you think you're going to remember everything and you do not, because even at the end of the trip, right. So we're just home and I start reading the blog and it's like, oh, I forgot that so many things happen that you just don't keep them all at the top.
Speaker 4:Most of mine was just looking over my own words that I had written and then asking my husband, sometimes I would say do you remember when, such and so? And he would say, oh, yeah, and he would inevitably have a detail that I had forgotten, because what he remembers from an event is going to be different than what I am. He's an engineer. He sees things one way. I'm, you know, an artistic crazy person. I see things a whole nother way.
Speaker 4:And so between the two of us we would have a nice well-rounded memory of the thing and he would say, oh, don't you remember the whatever? And it was because he's into trains and he's you know what I'm saying. Those are the kinds of things that he would notice and I would say things like do you remember those wild flowers? And he's like, yeah, I mean there were flowers everywhere. And I was like no, those particular. Don't you remember when the dandelions were as big as my fist? And he's like, no, is that the day that we were standing next to that big whatever diesel engine? Yeah, it's funny how that would happen.
Speaker 2:So it's just like we all see from our own lens. Absolutely.
Speaker 4:That happened. I was a bank teller way back before I ever married the first time and I was in a training and we had this pretend bank robber who came in. You had like 15 seconds of this event and then they had us each write down what we had seen and what we had heard. And there were six or eight of us in the room and we're all writing it down and nobody had the same details. Everybody thought he was a different height, everybody. Some people remembered an accent, other people did not. Some people remembered certain words that he said, other people didn't remember the words but remembered actions. Some people thought he had a weapon, other people did not think he had a weapon. It was crazy and it's. We all saw the very same thing. So, yeah, it is crazy how our memories kind of we just remember what fits, who we are and what we're looking for.
Speaker 2:So you mainly used the blog, did you? I'm curious, did you plan like out writing a blog all along when you were going on this adventure?
Speaker 4:Was that part of your plan, and so I planned on writing the blog, because I read some blogs before we were ready to go and I found them to be a bunch of liars, because the blogs were so oh, and then we made it to the top of this ginormous mountain and we're all so happy like I never heard any of the difficulties. It was all of the wonderful stuff that they did. Look at me and I wanted to write a blog from the standpoint of someone who was not a cyclist, who was doing something really big, and I wanted to be honest. I wanted to show the good, the bad, the ugly, right. I wanted it all out there, and so my intent was look, I'm going to be super honest. I'm going to tell you when it was hard, I'm going to tell you when it, when I cried, I'm going to tell you. When it was hard, I'm going to tell you when I cried, I'm going to tell you. When I did something stupid, I'm going to tell you. When it was fabulous, I'm going to tell you all of it. So that was my intent, and I started getting the idea that I was going to write a book about it.
Speaker 4:About halfway through I started thinking I bet there's more than a blog here. I bet I could write a book, but I wasn't convinced until we actually got to the end that I could indeed write the book, but the idea started to float in there. It was like you know, there's a lot of stuff here that I'm learning. There's a lot of cool things. My husband wanted to write a book about the mechanics of making a trip like this, the things that you would need to know about, like caring for your bicycle and what to take and that kind of thing, and we never had a chance to do that. But once again, you can see the difference in our personalities. He's very much an engineer, and he wanted to write a how-to manual on how to take a tandem bicycle ride across the United States or do tandem touring or whatever. And then me, I'm wanting to talk about things I learned about life. You know so we're very different people, but those are two books that could definitely come out of a trip like that.
Speaker 2:Now I'm curious how, after this long of an experience of writing all these blogs, how did you come up with only 10 rules?
Speaker 4:I actually have 20. I do so. What's interesting is I had written just kind of a very quick draft. I had 20 lessons, is what I called them and I came. I met a woman named Carol Pearson who is the publisher at 10 Little Rules Publishing, and she and I met, and the more I thought about the kinds of books that they published, the more I wondered if maybe what I had written might work for her publishing company. So I reached out to her and sent her my 20 lessons and she was so excited that she said yes, let's pare it down to 10. And maybe we'll do a second book. So there may be another, there may be a continued I don't know what we'll call it but there may be a second version. And so what I did was I went through and I picked of the 20 that I learned, I picked the 10 that I felt worked together the best to so that it would make the book flow better. And then I've got the other 10 saved, so I'll have them. And then how did I? I probably have more than that.
Speaker 4:If I went through, I could probably even come up with more, because you learn quite a bit about yourself and just living life bit about yourself and just living life. And I tell people this book is not about bicycling. I mean it is, but it's not. I use my bicycling to kind of give you an idea of how I learned it or how I put it into practice.
Speaker 4:But really, if you want to live an adventurous life and by adventurous I mean do something outside your normal box and that could be moving. That could be changing jobs, that could be stopping or starting a relationship. That could be figuring out what you're going to do once you empty nest. That could be figuring out what you're going to do once your kids go to school and you want to now go back into the workplace. It could be so many things. It could be a big adventure like this. It could be a small adventure, like I want to learn to paint with watercolors or I want to whatever that is. These rules help you have the right mindset to achieve something that's outside of your norm.
Speaker 2:But definitely it was not just a cyclist book. You know, I was like these lessons could be for even something that isn't a physical thing, like I think it was your first or second one was about expecting setbacks Like that's going to happen no matter what you do.
Speaker 4:Absolutely and like, do hard things. And you know, I had this vision and it was, I think, in the expect setbacks part. I had this vision that you know, you go from point A to point B and it's this nice gradual line, right, and it just looks beautiful, and instead it looks like a big tangled knot of a mess, because you've gone forward and backward and around in circles and oops, you're off to the left, and oops, you're off to the right, and finally you make it to point B. That's reality. And whoops, you're off to the right and finally you make it to point B. That's reality.
Speaker 4:And it was hard for me to accept because anytime there was a setback, especially while we were training, I felt horrible, we're never going to make it. I'm never. You know cause. Look, yesterday I could and I just learned that's not the way it is. It isn't pretty, it isn't straight and even. But the point is did you make it? In the end, when you look back, can you see that you've moved forward? And if the answer is yes, it doesn't matter how knotted up it was to get there.
Speaker 2:That's so true. I love that. I think it was so eye-opening, because so many people you see talk about oh, they started this and they ended up here, but you don't hear about a lot of the middle. Whether it's an author, whether it's a podcast host, no matter what it is, even like their journey to starting their own business, people don't share the middle they leave out the messy parts, or if they bring them up.
Speaker 4:They bring up just a little tiny bit and then they go on and on about how they fixed it, but they don't talk about all of the things that they did that didn't fix it. They don't talk about the times they stood on the side of the road and cried and my blog talks about sit on the road and cry parts, because that was part of my journey, that was figuring it all out. You know how do you move forward when you have nothing left. Know how do you move forward when you have nothing left. You know. That's the part and I really think that's the part people prefer to hear, because if you're doing something really tough, something difficult for you, something outside of your box, and everything that you've read up till now shows people successful and doesn't show them struggling. The first time you struggle, you're going to assume there's something wrong with you and you can stop Right. Oh, I can't. I obviously I'm not cut out for this, but what if, instead, you had read a book in which you saw that person struggling, doing this thing, where they struggled and they struggled and then they had success, and then they had a failure, and then they succeeded again, and then they succeeded, and then they failed, and then they succeeded until finally they had their ultimate success. Well then, when you have problems, you say, okay, this is to be expected. You know, it's a different mindset, and that's kind of what I wanted to do. I just want to give people an idea of things that they could possibly think about that will help them move forward.
Speaker 4:And then really the other thing is I tell people I am a 100% expert on me, but I am not a 100% expert on Amanda. Right? I don't know you well enough to tell you whether my 10 rules are the exact 10 rules you need. Don't know you well enough to tell you whether my 10 rules are the exact 10 rules you need. So I have questions in the back of each chapter that give you the opportunity to look at it and say, okay, I'm going to answer these questions, and maybe Terry's rule isn't my rule, but I have one now based on the answers to these questions, and this is the rule I'm going to use. And maybe you need 12 rules and maybe you only need six rules, and that's fine too. The point of the book is to really get you thinking how can I live an adventurous life and how is that going to look for me? What does adventure look like and how am I going to achieve it?
Speaker 2:No, I love that. I love that so much, terri, and I've been reading self-help books since before I even launched the podcast and I really loved your approach as to how to make it actionable, how to take it away, and I loved this you even mentioned now go grab your notebook and a pen and write this down before we continue. You know, like it gives people that permission to like okay, like, and some people need that honestly to like. I'm one that sometimes I'll just keep working or I'll just keep reading if I'm really in immense in it, you know, and like that little reminder, like let's ask ourselves these questions, like how to make it potent and how to make it lasting, like it's great information, but are you going to use it? How are you going?
Speaker 4:to apply it. To me, information is a wonderful thing, but it just clutters up your head if you're not going to do anything with it. I've done some teaching where I do that same thing. Now, what are we going to do with this? Who cares? I taught you this great lesson. Who do with this? Who cares? I taught you this great lesson. Who cares? And if you care, then what are you going to do with it? How is it going to change tomorrow? What are you going to do?
Speaker 4:And sometimes it's hard. You've just read a book and you've got all this information and you don't know, like what am I supposed to do? Like where do I even start? And so I didn't want people to walk away with that feeling, which is why, like each chapter, you could really read one chapter, put the book down, work on that chapter for some time, read the next chapter. You can go back and read it.
Speaker 4:I read, I reread it every now and then I'll find myself struggling in a place in my life and I'll think, okay, I've got rules. Which one am I forgetting right now? And I'll just even just look over the titles and it'll be like, oh, there it is. I wasn't thinking about the fact that I need to enjoy the downhills. You know like these are the things that I need to remember, and it's easy to forget when you're in the middle of whatever's going on. It's so easy to forget and then to have that reminder. So I love that. The book is, yes, a whole book, but you really could just take chapters and you could just work on one chapter for a long time if that's where you needed to be.
Speaker 2:I love that. I love the way you set it up. Terry, I really did Thanks. Did you plan on making it like a teaching moment, like you mentioned how you've always been kind of a teacher? Was that intentional?
Speaker 4:I think it was intentional. But, publisher that I use that's one of the things that they do is ask these questions at the end, and it really solidified it because I didn't have those questions. I think that mine were implied throughout and she was like and this is, you know, this is the format and I thought, oh, that's perfect. Like I wish I had thought of it, because that is the way I teach, but I didn't think of it in the book and her method of producing the book they have you just had this certain outline and what I had written fit into it perfectly. And then I just had to add those questions and it was like, oh, isn't this great? And it just it worked out beautifully and I'm so thankful.
Speaker 4:You know, sometimes you find the right place and you know that this is where you need to be. This is the right place and I this book was meant to be at Little Rules Publishing. It was meant to be there and their, their outline of how they expect the books to be was exactly what I needed and I was so thankful for it. You know, I waited. I'd had this book written, so we finished the ride in 2020.
Speaker 4:I probably wrote this in 2022, and then it just sat there as a draft, doing nothing until probably May of 24. And that's when I reached out to Carol and then things really started moving from there and it sat there because I knew it didn't have the right home. I couldn't figure out. I didn't think self-publishing it was what I wanted to do. I knew it needed to have I don't know just a place to be that it made sense. And when I found that publishing company I don't know just a place to be that it made sense. And when I found that publishing company, it was like this is exactly what this book needs.
Speaker 2:Oh, that's amazing. I love that. Well, thank you so much for speaking with me, terry, thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 4:This has been wonderful. I love talking about my books and I love talking with people, so, hey, anybody out there, feel free to reach out to me. I love chatting about my books and about my writing and about riding a bicycle or pretty much anything, so I'd love to hear from you.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, and I will link all your links in the show notes for them to connect with you. Where's the best place?
Speaker 4:social media that you're most active on, I would say, the best thing to do is go to my website, which is my name, Terry M Brown, and that's terrywith1rcom, and there I've got my social media icons so you can just find them all and click. You can sign up for my newsletter. You can see the podcast that I host, which I talk with other authors about books that they've written, which is called Online for Authors. You can buy my books. If you live in the United States, I'll sign them and send them to you. You can even just reach out to my contact page and just say hey, I just wanted to ask you one quick question. So all of that's there. So I would say that's the easiest place to find everything you need.
Speaker 2:Awesome. I will link that in the show notes. Wonderful. Now, have you heard of a man named Jay Shetty? No, I have not. So he's an author, motivational speaker. He's got a podcast called On Purpose and I'm a big fan of him. He ends his podcast with two segments and I stole them and I end my podcast with the two segments. Okay, first segment is the Many Sides to Us, and there's five, five questions and they need to be answered in one word each.
Speaker 4:Oh, I'm not a one word person. Let's see what I can do.
Speaker 2:Okay, what is one word someone who is meeting you for the first time would use to describe you as Enthusiastic? What is one word someone who knows you extremely well would use to describe you asastic, loving, authentic, confusing. What is one word you're trying to embody right now?
Speaker 4:Oh, it's three words and I can't figure out a word. Two hard things. I'm going to just say it all together is two hard things.
Speaker 2:Second segment is the final five, and these need to be answered in a sentence. Oh, that's going to be so much easier. What is the best advice you've heard or received?
Speaker 4:Never quit on a bad day.
Speaker 2:Why is that the best?
Speaker 4:Because when you're having a bad day you're very emotional and if you quit you'll always wonder if you could have succeeded. And if you quit later, then you've made it a decision versus just an emotional decision. It's very difficult to make a good decision when it's just emotion.
Speaker 2:What is the worst advice you've heard or received?
Speaker 4:Don't quit. Sometimes, quitting is exactly what you need to do.
Speaker 2:What is something that you used to value that you no longer value?
Speaker 4:That is a good question. I don't know that I have an answer to that one. I think maybe I used to value what other people thought of me and I don't worry about that. It's not that I don't still value it, but I don't think I worry about it anymore. People are going to think what they're going to think and I am who I am.
Speaker 2:Worry about it anymore People are going to think what they're going to think, and I am who I am. If you could describe what you would want your legacy to be, as if someone was reading it.
Speaker 4:What would you want it to say?
Speaker 2:That she lived with everything that she had and left nothing on the table. Love that. If you could create one law in the world that everyone had to follow, what would it be? And I want to know why. Love thy neighbor.
Speaker 4:And why? Because if we could all just love one another and I mean that even more in a sense of just be kind to one another if we could just understand that everyone is who they are, if we could just do that, can you imagine how much nicer this world would be if we could do that? I mean even if we could just follow my mother's rule, which was if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all.
Speaker 2:I mean, my Mimi always said that Like just shut up.
Speaker 4:Yeah, and really, when you think about it, if we could be kind to one another, love one another, just keep our inside thoughts inside, like there's no reason to put them on the outside. That's an inside thought. Keep it there. Wouldn't the world be a better place?
Speaker 2:wouldn't the world be a better place? I so agree, I so agree. Well, thank you so much, terri. I really appreciate it. This has been a blast, this has been wonderful, thank you. Any final words of wisdom you want to share with the listeners before we close out?
Speaker 4:I always like to give it back to the guest, I think that the one thing that I would say is you have inside of you what you need to be successful at. Whatever it is you want to be successful, you don't have to go be someone else. It's there in you. If you can't find it, there are people that can help you. There's friends, there's therapists, there's pastors, there's teachers, there's people. There are books, but you're capable. There's pastors, there's teachers, there's people. There's books, but you're capable and it's there in you. And the world has a way sometimes of dumping so that you don't see it anymore. But when I wrote Across the United States, I learned that everything that I needed to be successful I already had. It was just a matter of pulling it back out and believing in it.
Speaker 2:I love that. Well, thank you so much. Thank you, and thank you guys for tuning in to another episode of Mandu's Mindset.
Speaker 3:In case no one told you today, I'm proud of you, I'm booting for you and you got this as always. If you enjoyed the show, I would really appreciate it if you would leave me a five-star rating, leave a review and share it with anyone you think would benefit from this. And don't forget you are only one mindset. Shift away from shifting your life. Thanks guys, until next time.
