00:00:00 - Margaret Agard The only thing I can say about turning my to do this over to God as I turning this, how I turn my life over to God is I wish I'd done it sooner. So if you're younger listening to this, now's the time. 00:00:11 - Jerry Dugan Do you feel like you're stuck in a rut in life or in a dead end job with no progression? I'm Jerry Dugan and welcome to beyond the Rut, the podcast that offers you the motivation, inspiration, and practical tools to help you build a life worth living. My show is here to help you break free from your limitations and find a path to success. Join me as I share encouraging stories and actionable advice on how to get out of your rut in life and create a vision for your future. Life is just too short to live stuck in a rut. Here we go. Hey, rudder nation. This is Jerry here. And in this episode we're going to be joined by Margaret Agard. Now career wise, she's retired and she's just writing. She's writing. She's getting the word out there. She's hoping to inspire people to let go of their to do lists, let go of all the little things that are sucking up joy and time from your life so that you can really embrace the things that matter most. So we're going to talk about her story, working as an executive in the software technical industry, doing sales. We even talk a little bit about something called ransom insurance. First time ever on this show we talked about that and then how she surrendered her sense of control over the world around her and as a result, gained a sense of control over her life. It's kind of cool. Anyway, there's a biblical connection here. It's like you gain your life by giving it up. In a sense, it's really cool. And we'll even talk about her transition into becoming an author to write her first book, giving to your to do list to God. I'm just doubling over my words right now, but this was a great conversation. Sit back, relax, grab a notebook and a pen. Here we go. All right. Hey, Margaret, thanks for calling in from Florida. How are you doing? 00:01:57 - Margaret Agard I'm doing great. It's actually cool here today. It doesn't happen often in Florida, right? 00:02:02 - Jerry Dugan Yeah, we're kind of like the same latitude on the globe here. And my wife and I were talking the other day about we got winter during the week of Christmas and it went right back to springtime or fall, like what happened to the weather? And it is hot, but if it's cooling down, that's good. We might actually experience that. Yeah, you kind of sent me a pitch that was perfect because you wanted to talk about how do you pursue your career or business and build that and also build a life that is aligned with your purpose. And that's the essence of beyond the Rut, because beyond the Rut wants to help people through encouraging stories, practical advice, so that our listeners can pursue their dream, whether it's a career, a business, without losing their faith, their family, or their health. And so it's like, how do you go about doing that? I'm glad you've been able to jump on here with us. We had a couple of reschedules for different reasons, but we're here, we made it. So, Margaret, you had a career as an executive in the high tech industry. So tell us a little bit about that and we'll get into the why did you leave it question later on. So what did you do for the high tech industry? I mean, were you making lasers? That's kind of really what I want to know. 00:03:21 - Margaret Agard I was in software. 00:03:22 - Jerry Dugan Okay, no lasers. 00:03:23 - Margaret Agard I was a few women executives in the high industry, and I took construction and engineering firms. It was like CAD and accounting and critical path scheduling and just estimating systems and I don't know, I'm the oldest daughter, I have seven brothers, and I just had never been cowed by men. I'm used to kind of being in charge, so I guess that worked for me to be able to land in a high tech industry. And I started out in sales and just ended up in the executive level where I was managing sales and dealer channels, things like that. 00:04:04 - Jerry Dugan Okay. 00:04:05 - Margaret Agard I didn't even know they had such a thing as executive insurance until they bought it for me, really. But when I was in it. 00:04:16 - Jerry Dugan Is executive insurance, like, in case you get abducted in a foreign country that pays your ransom? 00:04:21 - Margaret Agard Or is it die, I'm going to die of a heart attack or something? They can sort of make sure they have time to get someone in and there might be a little bit of a problem, so they get covered. They have some money coming in to cover what? I didn't even ask them how much it was for, I just did it. 00:04:40 - Jerry Dugan Sorry, game on. 00:04:42 - Margaret Agard What was happening at the time? I was doing that for a while, but then I ended up ending my first marriage and I was finishing my degree. Because when you first started in the high tech industry, it wasn't so much about degrees as just, can you do it? And I am smart in that kind of thing. I'm smart in math and the sciences and computers. Maybe not so much emotional intelligence. It's like my kids had data for a mom. We watched Star Trek. What was happening in the industry is everybody was going public and you want to be able to say about your executives, they have this experience and they had these degrees. So I just went back and finished I had less than a year left, so I went back and finished my degree. And I had these eight children who were older at the time. The youngest was twelve and the oldest was in his 20s, but they were staying home while they went through college. That was how I helped them. And so there was a single mom going to college and working as an executive in the high tech industry, and I was pretty stressed. Let's just say that any one of those might have been a full time job. And I knew as an executive how to set priorities, how to stay in the student cubby quadrant of important and not let things get critical. I just knew that and it wasn't working for me. It wasn't working for me because I had too many high priority items. 00:06:12 - Jerry Dugan Yeah, it's that overwhelming force, right? 00:06:16 - Margaret Agard But I did the best I could. And what I noticed is more than once I did something and it turned out that it didn't have to be done. Back in when I was doing this, there wasn't online classes. You didn't turn your papers in online. You actually walked into the class and handed it to the professor. And I can remember just walking up to the door having spent hours finishing up this paper, only to see a note on the door that the professor was sick. And we didn't have to hand it until the next week or go to a client. And the client said, oh, we've been reviewing what we're going to do. Appreciate you put this proposal together, but now we want to completely redo it. And I'd think if I'd known this, I could have been doing something else during those hours. If I could only see the future. That's what I was really thinking. I could always see the future. And at this point in my life, I literally was getting maybe four or 5 hours sleep a night because of everything that had to be done and getting the kids places and back from places. And I would wake up in the middle of night just panicked, what have I forgotten? What have I forgotten? And I had these long to do lists, this has to get done. And so I thought, well, here's what I'm going to do. I know God knows the future, so what I'm going to do is take my list every day and say what has to be done? What do I need to do today? And not do anything else, just that. And I've shared this with people who they think of it as their higher power or it's that inner knowing or however you use the word. That's what I was doing. And so I began to ask that question each day. What do I need to do today on this horrendous to do list that I have in front of me? And I got answers. I had a thought. I would have this thought, okay, not that, not that, but this. And what was interesting is but this was often something helps them just make a phone call just on the way home from work, stop by your friend's house and just talk to her for a few minutes, things like that. And after about a couple of weeks of doing that, all of a sudden I was finished every night by eight. As long as you didn't add things, type A personality. 00:08:27 - Jerry Dugan I never do that. 00:08:29 - Margaret Agard No. Relax. Right. So that's how it went. Now I felt weak doing that. I felt like I should be able to manage my own life. And so as soon as it got under control, I let it go again. I took it back. Let's just put it that way. I took it back, and not too much later, I was back in the same situation. And so I turned it over again. And this time I made it a little different. This time I started asking, what do you want me to do? Yeah, well, since I feel as if I'm talking to the creator who knows me probably better than I know myself, you know how little kids, when you're dealing with little kids and you're kind of watching them, you've known them since they were in the womb, and they're like, you don't know me. I think, well, maybe I do. And you kind of know what will bring them pleasure and what brings them joy. And so that's what happened to me. I felt as if as soon as I could financially step away from being in the high tech industry, I was steered away from that to writing books instead. And it was a process, and this is one thing I know happens, is sometimes you'll take that first step, which probably happens with you, Jerry, too, and you don't know where that step is heading. And if you did know where that step was heading, you think, oh, I can't do that. No, that's way above my pay grade. So it was a step by step process that got me out of the high tech industry and into, for a while, an Internet business and writing books. That's what happened. 00:10:06 - Jerry Dugan Wow. 00:10:07 - Margaret Agard I love my life. 00:10:09 - Jerry Dugan Yeah, it's a big shift. And it was just that moment of surrendering your sense of control over it. And it was interesting because the first time you went through that process of just kind of praying it up, in a way, I guess that's the phrase I've often used, is when you wrote out your list, you're like, okay, of all these things, what do I need to do? What's the most important? And it was really interesting that sometimes the thing you needed to do was a small thing to serve somebody else's need, just to check in on them, pop by and see how they're doing. Which might have been a small thing for you to do, but I bet the impact on the other person was huge. And you'll probably never know on this side of life what kind of impact that had. And that always just blows my mind. It's like I was having this down day and market showed up and just checked in on me. You'll probably never get to hear those kinds of stories, but then round two, it's kind of like for your life, you were doing what I do with my fitness. Like, I get back in shape. I'm like, good, now I can go back and eat the double cheeseburgers from in and out. Oh, man, I should not have said that. I'm so hungry. 00:11:11 - Margaret Agard Okay. 00:11:14 - Jerry Dugan But you got back to it and you surrendered it even more. You're like, what is it you want me to do? And from there, it started locking in, not just on what to do on a day to day basis, but it sounded like you got like this whole calling to write books, step away from the career you have that's so lucrative. And then here's the plan. You're going to get to a point where did you have like a dollar amount that you knew you had to have saved up before you crossed over. How did that planning go before you took that leap of faith? 00:11:43 - Margaret Agard Yes, and there was a bit of a transition. So I started consulting rather than working for a company. And then as I was doing these consulting projects and what was interesting I'm interrupting here. At one point, while I was finishing that degree, as part of what I was doing, I had this thought that I should add environmental science minor. 00:12:06 - Jerry Dugan Right. Because life was not hard enough. 00:12:07 - Margaret Agard More credits. 00:12:09 - Jerry Dugan I love that. 00:12:10 - Margaret Agard Yeah. And then I went down. They actually had something that was an environmental science certificate. And I only had to add a couple of classes, and they actually all fit in, all worked. And what was interesting is, in order, I had to take some advanced classes. And I can remember going to a professor in this environmental science division, and I had no undergrad classes for his class. And the guy that said, you need this class. And they went and said, Can I get in this class? And I remember as he was signing the form that I could get in the class, he said to me, I never do this. I don't even know why I'm doing this for you. 00:12:45 - Jerry Dugan Wow. 00:12:45 - Margaret Agard And then he gave me the paper so I could take this class. And I thought, well, I know what you're doing. And then later, at this point, I had remarried, I'm running my consulting business, and I found a professor who needed someone to run scenarios in environmental management and do some rewriting of the software. And I knew how to do all that. So that was a job I was now able to do from home because I had that certificate and that connection. And so sometimes looking back, you're like, That'll make sense now? And then at the same time, there was a thought that came, I want you to start writing your life on the Internet. Now, this was in 90, no around 99. This is before WordPress was even out. 00:13:30 - Jerry Dugan Yeah. 00:13:31 - Margaret Agard And logs were not a big thing and they weren't easy to do. And I thought, I don't even know how to do that. I often say that to God. I'm at a loss, I don't even know how to do that. And then I just ran into randomly something called Open Diary, which I think still exists. And I started writing on there. And then after I'd written on there for a couple of years, it was now once you make a book. And I thought, okay, so I knew how people did memoirs. They took their journals and they rewrote these chapters and I started to do that and I was like, no, no, just take these things that you wrote for these people online and make that the book. And it wasn't out there for public because it was inside this closed gate, open Diary. And that's where the first book came from, which is I gave my to do list to God because that's what I was doing. I would be writing well today. I prayed and felt I should do this. And this is what happened as a result. So that's where the first book came from. 00:14:28 - Jerry Dugan So you essentially did what Pat Flynn had done way before Pat Flynn ever did it. He had a blog about how to pass the lead exam in home building and that kind of thing. And it turned out everybody wanted it was just for him to have a place to put his notes so he can go there anytime, anywhere on his phone, not on his phone, and just reference the material that he was reading and learning. Well, it turns out the rest of the internet was going to his blog to copy his notes. Basically like, I need to pass this thing too. And he was in a mastermind group and they said, Pat, why don't you package that and sell it? Because people obviously are visiting your website. Something like 15,000 to 20,000 people a month were coming to his website and he's like, they can get the information for free right there. And they're like, yeah. And what they're also looking for is maybe an easy guide to take all the notes you've got and put it into a step by step process. Or in your case, a start to finish journey that you've gone through where people could find it for free if they go through enough of your content online. But the moment you put together in a package that makes sense for a lot more people, that becomes much more valuable because you're saving them time and giving them the content. Fast forward, I think, ten years later, and Pat Flynn's like one of the high end earners when it comes to passive income, selling courses online, that kind of thing. Anyway, you just made me think of Pat because very similar story, but again, happening way before Pat. 00:16:05 - Margaret Agard It's pretty Shalor. 00:16:06 - Jerry Dugan Yeah, I think Pat was in school at the time. He's a kid. Whatever, we'll forgive him for that. Oh, man. So I love the transition you made, though. So you were in in a career. 00:16:21 - Margaret Agard While to my kids the other day. 00:16:23 - Jerry Dugan Really? 00:16:24 - Margaret Agard I was going to say one of my kids turned 40 and the kids are like, oh, you're getting old. And I said, you're old when your kids turn 40, not when you turn 40. 00:16:32 - Jerry Dugan Right. It's like a blessing and a curse at the same time. You too will experience this. Oh, man. Oh, gosh. I was sad when I saw a lot of I guess the people I looked up to when I was growing up, showing up on the COVID of AARP and I was like, no, I'm not ready for this. I am not ready for this. And why am I getting an issue of AARP? I don't think I qualify for this yet. My wife was just laughing. I was like, did you do this? 00:17:00 - Margaret Agard Not great yet. I think they start sending them when you get near 50. Like, why? 00:17:05 - Jerry Dugan I think I just turned 40 when I got that copy, though, I was like, oh man, it's coming though. It's coming. It's a good thing though. I didn't think I was going to be around this long, so here I am. So I love the transition you made, though. You were in corporate America and working as an executive in sales. This is just a recap for those who are just now, like, paying attention to us 17 minutes into the conversation. So Margaret was in sales working as an executive, raising her children as a single mother. Decided that wasn't hard enough. Was going back to school to earn a degree and just realized there were too many things to do that she couldn't do at all. Choices were made. Surrendering the to do list so that of the things that had to be done, what are the most important? Got everything back on track, gave up doing that practice, things went crazy again and then surrendered the to do list again. And this time around had it on our heart of it's time to leave this job. That's taking time away from your life and your family. So you made the transition into doing consulting work, so doing the same thing you were already doing, but now you get to freelance, you get to flex your schedule a bit more. There's probably no commute as much because it's still a time where you're not remotely working, but you can if you have the means. And then the bigger move, the bigger leap of faith, in a sense is now you're going to give up consulting to be an author. And somewhere in there you were just kind of already blogging your life in an open diary so that you had it somewhere. What was it like to transition into being a full time author, though? Do you still do consulting or you eventually hung that up? 00:18:47 - Margaret Agard I hung it up. It was a little difficult at first because I really enjoyed it, but I did hang it up because I started a business online too. I started an online selling a product, a chart, and so that brought in some income, too, and then I was able to work on the books. Now, I have to say, I'm like most authors, we could not live on what I make as an author, but I'm still considered in a top level as an author. So very few people it's almost like working actors. Like, yeah, there's Julia Roberts, and then there's that guy who keeps showing up as the sub character. And so my books are popular among a certain group, and I do fine with that. And now we're retired. I've reached the point of my life that I'm now retired. My husband's retired. We had some savings. We own our home, so I'm pretty comfortable. And getting there was actually part of that process, like now doing this, and it seems like, why would you keep asking God? But a lot of people say I want to give my life to God. For me, giving my life to God was giving my to do list to God. Because my to do list is my life. When you think about it, what you're doing every day is your life. And I like where he's brought me. And he brought me there in a way that he promises, you'll be taken care of, you'll be cared for. And I trust that. It took me a while to trust that. I got to tell you, Jerry, sometimes he would tell me to do things that I think that makes no sense and no, unlike most people, I will give it to you only so far and was because we were shipping out of our when we were shipping out of our home, we first started selling products online. My thing always at the top of my to do list was send the orders, do the orders. And that never got changed. I had do the orders. Well, we didn't ship on Saturday or Sunday, so by Monday, we had three days worth of orders. Almost half the week was Monday. I can remember getting up one Monday with my list and God saying, don't ship the orders. And I thought, Well, I don't know how things work in heaven down here. This is my website. I ship next business day. And I'm a person of integrity, and I am shipping the orders. And it was a really stressful day because I was trying to fill all these orders and get to the post office. And when I got there, I had forgotten it was President's Day. Where Martin Luther King? It was a day that the post office was not open, and that because I worked from home. Who does holidays? You don't do holidays, and you're at home paying no attention, you forget what. 00:21:24 - Jerry Dugan Day of the week it is as an entrepreneur. 00:21:27 - Margaret Agard Exactly. I remember it Sunday and Saturday. As I have experiences like that, I began to trust more and more that I could trust, if that makes sense, that I didn't have to insert yeah. 00:21:44 - Jerry Dugan Your own sense of dominance or control over the day. If you're surrendering it and following the prompt that you get yeah, that freaks a lot of people out. I catch myself doing it where it's like, all right, here are my big three. After having some time to reflect and then after a while, I'm like, no, I need to add these four things, and then I wind up not being as effective. But if I kind of surrender to, these are the three that need to get done today, and I'm just obedient to that. It's weird. Like, everything just falls into place, and it's like, wow. So if I pay attention and I'm obedient to what's on my heart after time of prayer or reflection in the morning, then it just works out. And if I try to just change the plan and take it all for myself, I find that I'm really good at screwing things up. If somebody wants to start this process for themselves of surrendering their to do list, how would you guide them through? For that guy who needs three simple steps or four simple steps, what is the process? What do they need to kind of think through? You kind of said it through the conversation so far, but just kind of bring it all together for the person listening, like, I want to try this tomorrow morning. How do they go about doing that? 00:22:56 - Margaret Agard Well, first of all, I would recommend doing it at night. Now, I say this now because I switch from morning to night for this reason. During the night tonight, you wake up and you're thinking, and often you're thinking about what you're going to do the next day. So by the time I got up, I was committed and so forgot to change. It was like, okay, and I do exactly what you say. I have some time, some time of reflection. I'm often journaling. I'm reading my spiritual book, which in my case would be the Bible. And as I spent that time, then I will take the list, and I will have written it all down, and it can be a long list, and what should I do and what do you want me to do? And I will rearrange the list. And often I'm at the stage of life, call certain people, check in on people, and I will do that too. And I know some people. How do you know what to put on and take off? And you just said you mentioned your heart. It's in my heart. I know I need to do it. And so for people who have a sense of I have a gut instinct. I know what I'm hearing. God's voice, it's in my heart. Whatever that is that works for you, take that list and do that. And don't add. Don't add. Once I could see I was going to have a huge break, like I could have like this huge break. I get this done, this amount of time. I got like two or 3 hours. Right. We had foster kids at the time in high school and my huge break got taken up with going to the high school to help take care of some issues with the foster kid. So yeah, often it looks like I'm going to have a huge break. I'm not going to have a huge break. 00:24:37 - Jerry Dugan True. Yeah. That time can be used sometimes that break is you really do need the rest and just embrace it. Take that time to rest and regroup because I don't know, it probably works for you too. Like when you take time for you and you take just some time to sit back, it doesn't mean like veg out in front of the TV. Like you could read a book you could just be contemplating and quietly in prayer, not like on your knees in prayer, but just sort of like quietly contemplating. And for me that recharges and it puts things into perspective and gets me thinking strategically. And I know there are people who are not Christians or not religious in any way who also practice this, where they just block some time to be strategic. And that's something you just got to have the faith to go do. And the temptation I know for me is to ditch the strategic block and just take that time to knock out more things on the to do list and feels great in the moment, but then in the long run it's like, why is this tool not implemented? Why is this process not implemented? Why are these sales not made? Why is this book not written? And it's because I keep throwing the strategic block out the window. And so if you have that window, I say stick to it, trust that it's there for a reason and market shared that it's paid off in some cases. It's taking care of an emergency for a foster child who really needs somebody there for him or her. And that could be a life changing as well. So I love that. So if I'm understanding correctly, Margaret, a great way to implement this practice is in the evening, you write down everything that you feel you need to do the next day, and then you contemplate about it. You pray about it. And you just start to realize just through kind of a gut feeling that intuition, it's on your heart that of these things, there's so much here to do. But really, what's the most impactful? And chances are, what's the most impactful that I can reasonably do. And it'll impact other people in a big way almost. Becomes, for me, kind of the criteria. So if you're really looking for criteria, that might be it. If I'm catching the lesson here, and then I guess that's it. You kind of prioritize based off of that. 00:26:56 - Margaret Agard So it's like, write the list pretty simple, Jerry. It's not hard to do in terms of what to do. It's hard to do in terms of emotionally chewy. Get that? Because most of us don't like to be micromanaged. It might start to feel like that rather than being mentored. I like to think of it more as being mentored and guided. And I do like that. And the other thing that happened is I gave up things. There were things that didn't matter. And the other thing I learned was if I focused on the things I was given to do, those other things I thought were important would be taken care of. Those two promises, those two principles applied constantly. If I will take care of what I'm given to do, then the things I'm worried about will be handled. 00:27:44 - Jerry Dugan Yeah, I love that part about letting go of things because that relieves so much stress and so much pressure. Because when you're looking at the whole list, you think, I need to do all these things. But if you really think about it and process it, you realize, you know what? More than half of this doesn't have to be done or doesn't have to be done by me. And when you cross that off, it's like, I could totally do those things. What's left of that. Here's my prioritization. And I love that it's being done at night because you mentioned it. You wake up in the morning ready to rock and roll. Like it's boom. I know what my mission is for the day. And in between, you writing that list, going through it, giving it up to God and then waking up. Your subconscious mind is also processing that and you're planning and you know what you need to get done and preparing you for what's coming up the next day. Whereas if you have that whole list and you don't have it spoken out or thought of or processed, all of it's going through your mind and probably keeping you awake at night. 00:28:43 - Margaret Agard Right, exactly. But now I don't wake up like that. I don't wake up in a panic anymore. It's been great. 00:28:48 - Jerry Dugan Yeah. 00:28:48 - Margaret Agard And the point is, I went from where I was, single mom in the high tech industry and ended up an author, remarried, things I didn't expect. And I had a 20 year plan. I didn't do any of it. Got it. A 20 year plan, apparently. And it's been great. I loved it. 00:29:06 - Jerry Dugan Plans ought to be written in pencil. Anyway, I was telling somebody in the army we do a lot of planning for missions, a lot of planning, a lot of preparation. And then we have this one phrase no plan ever survives first contact with the enemy. Or as Mike Tyson says, there you go. Your plan goes out the window the moment you get hit in the face or something like that. I don't know why I went with the violence. I don't know. I don't know. But it's true, though. You can have a plan, but then the rest of the world kind of impacts that plan. And now you got this thing that you dreamt up hitting reality. You still have your vision that to me is important. That needs to be as plain on tablets as possible. In the military, we said that's the commander's intent. Like, no matter what, that's the thing we're going to do, how we do it, that's going to change 50 to 100 times by the time we get there. But it still pays off to do a plan, because I think having a plan at least gives you an inventory of your capabilities and your limitations. So there is that. Guys, now you've got three memoirs already out and you're working on a fourth. Did I hear that on some interviews you've done recently? 00:30:13 - Margaret Agard Working on the third. Okay, yes. The first two are also audiobooks. They're available@innisfootsteps.com. I have links to the places they are available. So obviously Amazon, Barnes and Noble, places like that. And the two audiobooks, the first one is available just anywhere audiobooks. The second one is only at this point on whatever Amazon calls their audiobook thing. I forget. 00:30:40 - Jerry Dugan Audible. 00:30:41 - Margaret Agard That's what it is. Thank you. 00:30:43 - Jerry Dugan Yeah. 00:30:44 - Margaret Agard And the first one is about this whole process, what happened when I gave my to do list to God and how my life changed and the things that happened along the way, which are just fun. And then the second is about we actually gave everything away or sold it and served as missionaries, and we traveled for three years. We were working in prisons and working up in Alaska with Natives, and we just did that. And the third one I'm working on is taking the longest, and I keep changing the name. I forget what I have. It on is online, but I think of it as the gift. And it's about what happened with my second marriage, which was I was directed to by God, and my first reaction to you're going to get married again was, no thank you. That working out well. And we were still kind of reeling from the divorce and my ex husband's announcement that he was gay. And I thought, you know, the last thing we need in the middle of this is a stepfather. No, not happening. But did remarry for a match made in heaven. It didn't look too good at first, Jerry. It was not looking good. And so I asked God, I just need some way to get through this if I'm supposed to stay in this marriage. And I got a promise all will be made whole as a result of this marriage. And the biblical word whole means spiritually and emotionally healed, not just physically. And I knew he was referring to us and our children, and so I became very committed to that. And that book, it follows the arc from the promise to the fulfillment 25 years later and as names like The Three Day Mat and We Are a Genius, and just things we learned in that process. 00:32:33 - Jerry Dugan Wow. 00:32:35 - Margaret Agard Never knows. Gary yeah, exactly. 00:32:38 - Jerry Dugan Yeah. We'll definitely need to reconnect when that book comes out because I think that'll be a great story to share with everybody listening in today. Now, we know your website is in his footsteps.com, so if you want to reach out to Margaret, go there. I'll have the link in the show notes. I'll also link her books in the show notes as well. And before we go, are there any final words of wisdom you have for our listeners? 00:32:59 - Margaret Agard The only thing I can say about turning my to do this over to God is how I turn my life over to God is I wish I'd done it sooner. So if you're younger listening to this, now's the time. 00:33:09 - Jerry Dugan Yes. What do they say? The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The next best time is today. So don't wait for perfect conditions. Go get it done. Otherwise you'll never will. And life's too dang short to live stuck in a rut. Margaret, thanks so much for being on here with me. I love this conversation. I can't believe the time has already flown by and I look forward to having you on again when that third memoir starts to come out. 00:33:34 - Margaret Agard Thanks, Jerry. Wow. 00:33:36 - Jerry Dugan Hey, I hope you got a lot out of that conversation like I did. It was wonderful talking with her because I got to see her life, the mistakes, the triumphs, her perspective, her sense of hope and resilience. And that inspired me at a time when I just left my job to take some time off, finish my own book beyond the Rut, and then think about what do I do next? And instead of diving back into the corporate space, I decided the best thing for me to do was to start my own leadership business. And I'm loving it. Now, let's come back in a year and see if I'm still saying that maybe I'm working too hard and then I have to reevaluate everything. But that's the whole point about beyond the Rut, right? You got to keep evaluating where you are to make sure that your groove has not become the next rut. So there you go. If you want to learn more about Margaret related episodes of beyond the Rut, just go check out the show notes. Beyondtherut.com. Three, six, five, and there you have it. Now I'm going to bring you another episode pretty darn soon with a friend of mine named Jay twining, really cool guy. We're going to be talking about fatherhood, but until then, go live life beyond the rut. Take care.