I'm back! It's been four months since my last episode. Where have I been? "Out of pocket," seems like the appropriate response since I say I was "deployed." A better response is to say I just wasn't emotionally available. You Know Who and I have been through a lot these past few months. I call it Operation First Trimester. Listen to find out what I'm talking about.

Here is a link to a related article I wrote. https://medium.com/@davidsotojr/operation-first-trimester-ee5eec2eed0

Also, if you haven't caught on, You Know Who and I are expecting our first child in April—a son. If you'd like to show some support, you can pick up one of my books here: https://amzn.to/2RWa9xa

I reached out to my Instagram followers again this week for a podcast topic. I ended up with several and decided to talk about them all.

In this episode, I talk about the end love my life... Vanlife. After two and half years it's coming to a close. Yeah, I loved my life on the road but nothing is forever and circumstances change.

I talk about why I podcast. The biggest reason is I can't STF up so, why not podcast.

Someone asked me to talk about mental health. I think the majority of my podcasts are about mental health, mine!

Lastly, it was suggested to me to talk about what it feels like to be in love. This one really got my wheels turning and I kind of make a discovery while recording. Check it out!

Here is that link to the poem I wrote: https://medium.com/@davidsotojr/if-you-love-something-373b7e38ac5b

Also, here is a link to my Amazon author page in case you want to help me reach my goal of selling one million books: https://amzn.to/2mRXnSV

God bless John and Paul but those fools were wrong. Love is not all you need. Trust me, I know. I have loved a lot of women. And no I'm not bragging about conquests. I literally mean I have loved a lot of women and they have loved me back—most of them. Love comes easily to me and I give it easily. So what's the problem? Why have none of these relationships, with all this love, ever worked out? Because love is not enough.

In this episode, I will BRIEFLY cover what is going on in my love life. (The whole story will come one day.) I can sum it up right now, though. The woman I have loved for fifteen years but has been out of my life for the last thirteen has come back. This blessed event has caused me to look at myself and my life from a different perspective—from one of gratitude. The other thing you need besides love.

I am an expert a very few things if any. Today's topic is not one of them, but that doesn't mean I can't share some thoughts and opinions on the subject. The subject? Racism! Specifically, the fact that I don't think it will ever go away.

Why do I say this? Because I don't think it has diminished over that last 100 years one bit. Rules and policies have been put in place. We as a country have made advancement in the fair treatment of people of color but that doesn't mean it has stopped racist people from being racist. We have implemented consequences for being racist but we haven't changed racists' minds. And now with the leader of this country being who he is and what he is, racists now feel free to express their thoughts.

Our country may seem more racist these days but it's not, those people were always there.

Does anything good come from fear? I don't think so. While recording this I did realize that maybe fear keeps us from doing dumb and dangerous stuff but does it? Or is that more common sense than fear.

In this episode, I talk about the two types of fear, which I completely made up. Supported and Unsupported fear. Whether you are afraid of something because of past experience or not, what you are afraid of doesn't really exist. You are afraid of a future event, something that may or MAY NOT happen.

Can you imagine a world where we base our decisions on something that may or may not happen? In a world where anything is possible—limitless possibilities—we are going to base our decisions on the one scenario that would suck.

You can get "Moncada" here: https://amzn.to/2N6YnOK

Two very successful people recently killed themselves. Maybe we should redefine success. But that's another podcast. The death of Kate Spade and Anthony Bourdain reaffirms something I had been thinking about and prompted me to publish something I wrote a couple years ago. An article I wrote after I had the vision of sending a bullet through my own head.

The thing I have been thinking about is how everyone is struggling with something. All of us. We all have something we are dealing with. A lot of us think that our problems will go away when we have money. If this is the case then why have so many celebrities over the years killed themselves.

In this episode, I share my thoughts on how money does not bring happiness. (I know it's cliche.) In fact, I can bring the complete opposite.

You can read the article I am talking about here: https://medium.com/@davidsotojr/i-struggle-with-it-too-aef7dacbb6ef

I'm 44 now. I guess this is my 2018 birthday podcast.

Nothing special really to talk about. I pretty much took the week off. Not really. I'm a writer, I write and create every day but I did have a little birthday getaway up in the mountains. It's almost over, then back to... I don't know what. The land of the internet I guess.

In this episode, I talk about my week in the mountains and the accomplishments I have made. It's funny what you can do when you have no internet. You have no choice but to read and if you are a creator, you have no choice but to create.

One of the things that came to me was an idea for a new book. I share that idea here.

Well, I published another book and nobody cares. Not one bit. I launched Moncada and 5 people bought the damn thing. Three of them were friends helping me out.

I had a pity party for about a day and then I got back to work. I got more books to publish.

In this episode, I talk about what I went through and what happened a few days later that made me forget any doubts I had. I work things out on camera again. I figure out that I have readers out there, I just need to find them.

I am not giving up. This is all part of my story.

If you don't know why I do these podcasts, why any of should do anything in our life, really, it's for myself. It might seem silly. Yeah, I want to help people and all but what I have realized is that people don't want your help unless they ask for it. The thing is people aren't going to ask you for anything unless they see you have something they are also striving for. Basically, lead by example. If I want to help people be their best self, I need to lead by example and get my shit together. I have discovered that these podcasts help me do this. This episode is a prime example as I am caught on camera figuring something major out.

I wasn't sure what the topic of this episode was going to be. I just know I had a story I wanted to share. I talk about how poorly I was treated as a kid because I was not good at sports. These stories led to me asking why did I keep trying to play organized sports if I got so much crap for being bad, if I was ridiculed so much, if I was picked on so much?

As a writer, the most important tool in my arsenal is my computer. When it goes down it needs to be fixed or replaced ASAP no matter the cost. Now, when mine went down the other day, I replaced it with a used one. When that didn't work, I went out and bought a brand new one without returning the first one. (but with the intent to) Why do I bring all this up? Because I dropped $1700 without any problem. Me, an unemployed veteran that lives in a van and hasn't had an income for six months. Oh, and doesn't have a credit card. How was able to do this? An Emergency Fund.