Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Kale and Ali, welcome aboard to the show. I'm so happy to have you today.
[00:00:04] Speaker B: Thank you for having us.
[00:00:06] Speaker A: I. You've written a book at such a young age.
[00:00:10] Speaker B: I was born with a stutter, and that just really made everything that had to do with books just.
I didn't want anything to do with it as a kid because I was nervous that I would. I was going to get made fun of at every point that I ever was around books.
It was just so hard to get my ideas across when I was trying to talk. And this went on until I was about 15 years old. And when I was 15, I was just sitting there with my thoughts one night, and a word came into my head, and that word was author. And I knew I would never try to think of this word. I tried to push out everything that had to do with books. So I just took a moment and I just said, God, if this is you, then you've got the wrong guy for this.
And I just put it out of my head. I went to bed, and I thought it was over. And then I woke up the next morning, and the first thing that happens, I see my grandma helping my mom clean. And the first thing she says, she pulls out her phone and she starts telling me about this children's book author she saw on Facebook. And sort of bells went off in my head when I heard that word, author. And my mind snapped back to the night before when I heard that word. And I just said, coincidence didn't happen. Fast forward throughout the middle of the day, I was sitting there doing dishes, and I could hear my mom and my sister talking in the background. My sister was studying to be an elementary school teacher at the time. And my mom says, you know so much about kids. You should be a children's book author. And I heard that word again. And I was getting a little paranoid at this point, but I just pushed it out of my head, tried not to think about it. Later that night, I was. I was just sort of trying to keep the. Keep that thought out of my head. And I was drawing. And while I'm doing this, my parents had the TV on in the background.
I just get this feeling that I should look up. And while this is going on on the tv, they're asking the new contestants to say their name and what they do for a living. So I look up and I see this older woman staring at me dead down the barrel of the tv. And she says, I am a children's book author. And I just sort of broke down at this point. I got out my phone right away, I downloaded the Google Docs and I just started writing. And I was astonished at how naturally it came to me, almost as if I was made to do this. And I had been avoiding it my whole life, almost as if there was a whole part of me that I didn't even know was there. And it just goes to show that God can take your greatest struggles and turn them into your greatest triumphs.
[00:02:53] Speaker A: Tell me about your greatest struggles, your topic and narrative for the story. Where did that come from?
[00:03:03] Speaker B: Well, I like to write for kids with what we call exceptionalities in the teaching world. That's when certain kids find some things extremely hard to do while other kids find them extremely easy to do. So in my instance, I had my stutter and it was extremely hard to get my ideas across as a kid.
In my first book, Danny the Duck Heads South. Danny ends up hitting a tree and he can no longer fly south for the winter. So he has to find a new way to get south that's different from everyone else. But the whole point of the story is to show that you don't have to do everything by the book, how everyone else does it. And you can still do it your own way and still be great at it.
[00:03:47] Speaker A: Love that. Have you, have you kind of come across parents and children and heard their stories of how this is impacting them, what they think about your books?
[00:03:59] Speaker B: One of my favorite things to do is go into schools or go into book signings and stuff and talk with the people who are actually reading my books.
One encounter, for instance, this changed my whole perspective.
It was my first book signing. For my second book, the day was sort of winding down. We had a good turnout, but a lot of friends and family. I wasn't really seeing the sort of impact that I wanted to on the people that I was writing for.
And I just sort of took a second and I was pretty. I was sort of angry and I just said, God, why did you have me write this book if it's not going to affect anybody? And not five minutes later, the door swings open and in walks a 12 year old girl with special needs.
And she was with her dad and her younger sister who did not have special needs. And the first thing she does, she walks right up to my table and just starts talking to me like she already knew who I was. And her dad pulled up a chair, sat her down and just walked away.
And I noticed a great difference in how he treated her compared to her sister who did not have special needs. And we sat there for a good 20 minutes and just talked. And I said maybe three words to her the whole time. She just needed somebody to listen to her. And I was seeing this beautiful personality inside of a girl that nobody really would ever take the time to get to know.
And my heart was just breaking for this girl. And the 20 minutes were up, her dad comes over and tells her it's time to leave. And the last thing she says to me was, maybe someday you'll write a book about me.
And those words have stuck with me up until this day. They're the words that keep driving me forward.
And it showed me that I don't need a huge, gigantic outreach to make a difference in people's lives. If my books can make a difference in one life, then I will have succeeded.
[00:06:15] Speaker A: I love that. When you think about your books, what is the message or what is the change that you're trying to drive?
[00:06:25] Speaker B: Well, first off, I want to bring home the message that you should never give up, no matter the adversity, no matter your circumstances.
I also want to show other kids who maybe aren't going through those struggles that they shouldn't exclude others for being different or for having different circumstances. And I am a big believer that if kids see something on TV or in a book, that they're more likely to treat it as normal when they see it in real life. So if they see something like this in my books, for instance, then when they see somebody going through those same struggles in life, they're not going to laugh, they're not going to point, they're not going to think that person is not a person. They're going to say that person is a person, just like me. They may go through different struggles than I do, but I should go try and help them through that instead of avoiding them.
[00:07:17] Speaker A: What was the. What was the insight or the change point for you where you understood that there was a way for you to understand that what is your. What makes you different, actually makes you special?
[00:07:33] Speaker B: Well, I spent a lot of my childhood trying to fit in with the crowd.
It wasn't until I was older that I began to realize that standing out is good and that all these really famous, really successful people are successful for standing out. You gotta find what you were made to do and go out and do it. No matter what anybody else says, no matter what they say, you should be saying that you should be something else. You shouldn't try to be something you're not. You should try and be what God made you to do.
[00:08:10] Speaker A: And is there an element Here of hard work. Like you need to work through this. What did that look like for you?
[00:08:19] Speaker B: I've always had a pretty great work ethic. I always believed in hard work. And hard work will always get you where you need to go.
Yeah, I always had to really stay motivated through the writing process. I've had writer's block and stuff and just staying persistent, not giving up. And yes, hard work is substantial if you want to succeed at pretty much anything.
[00:08:45] Speaker A: What did you do to kind of get around the writer's block? What was your tricks? Or is it just wait it out?
[00:08:52] Speaker B: Well, a good thing to do if you're trying to write a story and you just don't have an idea right at that point, don't try and force it.
I would always just take a step back for a little bit, maybe go about my day and sort of ideas would just sort of come to me sometimes and I would take out my phone and just write a little note and go back to whatever I was doing. And then I'd revisit it later and put a lot more detail into it.
[00:09:18] Speaker A: Can I ask you to share one of these private moments where you were just facing an incredibly painful moment with how other people were perceiving you and reacting to you?
[00:09:29] Speaker B: One year when I was going into school, it was the first day of school and my sense of self confidence was really low at this point and how people perceive me. And when I got into the classroom, I was a kid that did not like to be called on and I was just sitting in the back just saying to myself, don't call on me, don't call on me. And the guy calls on me. And the second I opened my mouth, the whole room just started laughing. And I looked up and even my new teacher was laughing. And that was just.
It was a pretty shattering self confidence moment for me because not only were my classmates laughing, so was the teacher.
[00:10:22] Speaker A: How do you rebuild your confidence? What were the things that helped you basically move from this state of fear to have that confidence?
[00:10:34] Speaker B: My sense of self confidence doesn't come from people, it comes from God. I know what he put me on this earth to do. And if somebody wants to stand in my way and say, no, you're wrong, then I'm just going to go around them.
[00:10:50] Speaker A: I appreciate that. And what is your message? I mean, you know, you know, what is your message to people on how to approach people that are different than.
[00:11:02] Speaker B: Them, really celebrate people's differences? We call. We all can learn something from each other. And I work at a preschool Right now I see this so much in little kids. Little kids want to include everybody. They don't necessarily try and exclude anybody. They'll go up to anybody and say, hi, what's your name?
And yeah, it's just great to see them including everybody no matter who they are. And I think it's when they get older, this world kind of conditions them to push out things that are different. And I just really want to get the message across when they're young that you shouldn't exclude anybody for being different. And you can learn so much from somebody who's walking through a different walk of life than you are.
And if we all work together and can learn from each other, then our world's gonna be so much better off.
[00:11:56] Speaker A: What do you think you wanna tell 40 year old Cale?
[00:12:04] Speaker B: Never forget your mission. Never forget what you were put on this earth to do. And I hope that when I'm 40 that I'll still be doing what I'm doing now, trying to make a difference one life at a time and still trying to show kids the same message that you can learn so much from someone who's walking through different walks of life than you are. Don't try to exclude anybody. And yeah, just let God's love flow through you to all those around you.
[00:12:37] Speaker A: Kayl Ali, thank you so much for your time today. I appreciate you both.
[00:12:41] Speaker B: Thank you.
