How One “Golden Moment” Can Transform Your Entire Life

The Mel Robbins Podcast

Mel Robbins sits down with legendary author John Grisham to discuss the 'golden moments' that can transform a person's life trajectory. They

Key takeaways

• John Grisham attributes his prolific writing career to the discipline of showing up every day to write at least one page.
• The concept of 'golden moments' refers to unexpected events that act as catalysts for entirely new life chapters.

Main topics

• Golden moments and life pivots
• The discipline of writing

Notable quotes

You got to show up every day.

Conclusion

The episode provides a roadmap for navigating uncertainty by focusing

Transcript preview

Speaker 5 (0:00) Hey, it's your friend Mel, and welcome to the Mel Robbins Podcast. Speaker 5 (0:08) I am just so excited for what's about to happen because this episode is a full circle moment for me. And I am so thrilled to invite you to take a seat at the table as it happens. Today, I am finally sitting down with a man that changed my life 35 years ago without having any idea that he did it. His name, John Grisham. Yes. That John Grisham, one of the most successful writers of our time. He sold 500 million copies of his books. And today, John Grisham is here in our Boston studios to share his most personal story yet, his own. John says there are these things called golden moments in your life that just change everything. These are moments you don't see coming. It's as if a light goes off in your mind and it transforms your entire life. Today, he'll share two golden moments with you that changed his and teach you how you can create them in your own life. Plus, John Grisham shares takeaway after takeaway after takeaway on so many topics, from dealing with rejection, defining your dreams, exactly what to do when you feel like you're drifting through life. He'll teach you his exact morning routine that he has followed for 30 years, the one that led to 52 bestsellers. He still follows this routine today. And how to create space for your dreams in the middle of your busy life. What you're about to hear is just so incredible that as publicist and publisher told me that they've worked with John Grisham for decades, he hasn't shared half the things he's about to tell you. Honestly, I feel so inspired right now. I got to stop talking because I got to start writing my next chapter. And after you listen today, so Speaker 3 (1:59) will you. Speaker 1 (2:04) Hi, friends and fellow students. Americans living abroad can legally vote in the U.S. election. Register or get tailored support at VoteFromAbroad.org. Look, state deadlines are super close, so don't waste another second. Go to VoteFromAbroad.org now and click Request My Ballot and ask to receive it by email. All you got to do is fill it out and send it back in. Don't miss this chance to shape the future. Don't delay. VoteFromAbroad.org. Speaker 5 (2:33) Hey, it's your friend Mel, and welcome to the Mel Robbins Podcast. I am ecstatic that you are here with me today. It's such an honor to be together and to spend this time with you. If you're new here or somebody sent this episode to you, I just want to take a moment and personally welcome you to the Mel Robbins Podcast family. Today, in our Boston studios, you and I get to spend time with the one and only John Grisham. John Grisham is one of the most successful authors of all time. He's sold almost 500 million books around the world. He has written some of the most iconic and award-winning legal thrillers ever. The Firm, The Pelican Brief, The Client, The Rainmaker, Runaway Jury, and A Time to Kill. All 52 of his books have been number one bestsellers. And I personally cannot wait for John's newest book. I've been looking for a page turner, and John says, Omel, this is the fastest page turner I've ever written, The French Illusion. Now, you may know these titles, but I bet you don't know his backstory, the rejections, the twists, the turns, the doubt that he struggled with, and how, one page at a time, John Grisham rode his way into an entirely new life. This conversation means a lot to me because 35 years ago, John Grisham changed my life and he didn't even know it. And there's no doubt that if I hadn't picked up a book called The Firm and read it while I was miserable in law school, I wouldn't be sitting here right now in the career that I have. So please help me welcome the one, the only, the legendary John Grisham to the Mel Robbins Podcast. Speaker 2 (4:16) Happy to be here, Mel. Good seeing you. I Speaker 5 (4:18) am thrilled to meet you in person. Speaker 2 (4:20) I'm thrilled to meet you in person. Speaker 5 (4:21) And the reason why I'm so thrilled is because 35 years ago, it was 1991, and I was here in Boston. I was in my first year of law school at Boston College Law School. I was absolutely miserable. I had... gone to law school because a bunch of my friends, you know, were starting to go off to different schools and I had a part-time job as a paralegal, which I hated. But for some reason, I applied to law school because I didn't know what else to do. I get there and I realize I've made a huge mistake. I hated every aspect of it. I cried all the time. I drank a lot. And somebody told me that there was this book that had come out and I picked up a copy because I hated doing the academic work. It was the firm. It was your book. I bet I stayed up two nights in a row reading this thing. And the reason why it changed my life is because when I found out that you were a lawyer, I couldn't believe that you were both a lawyer and that you could write such an extraordinary fiction story. And it gave me this epiphany. I thought, oh, wait a minute. I don't have to practice law. I could do something else. And that was the beginning of me making a huge pivot. I stayed in law school. I actually did become a public defender in New York City for a couple of years. And then I ultimately left the law a couple of years later. But I've always thought about that moment, that you don't have to stay who you are and what you are. For the rest of your life, that at any moment you can decide that you want to do something different. And I, I will tell you right now, I would not be doing what I do today if it weren't for you. So thank you. Speaker 2 (6:19) It's very touching. I've heard similar stories over the years and still find them hard to believe. Because when I started writing the firm almost 40 years ago, I had no idea what I was doing. I had the story. I knew I could write. I had no idea what was coming. We were so young and still a lawyer and still having fun and having babies. Life was good. It was a little serious part-time hobby, writing was. I'd finished the first book in 87, trying to get it published. And my wife had always loved the story of the firm. I talked about it for years, not as a writer. It's based on something that really happened in law school. Speaker 5 (7:05) For the person who's listening, John, who hasn't read the firm, and I'm just going to warn you, don't buy this book if you want to sleep tonight. Because if you pick this book up, there is no way you are going to go to bed because you will just keep turning the page and turning the page and turning the page. Put them at the scene of kind of what the book is about and what inspired it. Speaker 2 (7:26) It goes back to law school. When I was in law school at Ole Miss in the early 80s, I was not heavily recruited by law firms. I knew I was going back to my hometown. I was going to marry my sweetheart from my hometown. I did 45 years ago. And I knew I was going to open up my own little shop and practice law. I didn't like any of the law firms in town. I didn't really want to go to work for them. And so I didn't interview. I didn't really care. I also was not a top student. There was no great demand for my interviews. A close friend was a top student, and he would go off on the weekends to our senior year in law school, and he would go to visit a regional law firm in Houston or Kansas City or Memphis or New Orleans, all in the south, Memphis. And he'd come back, and we sort of vicariously lived through him. What was the firm like? Speaker 5 (8:16) What Speaker 2 (8:17) were they offering? How much money? What are the perks? What's the practice? And he would tell us about these law firms. And he came back one weekend. We were all sitting around probably drinking beer in our favorite bar. And he said, I visited a weird law firm last weekend. He said, I got the impression that once you join that firm, you never really left, like it was owned by the mafia or something. a tax firm. That stuck. That was 1980. I wasn't thinking about being a writer. I was trying to finish law school. But the story was always there. Like a lot of stories, they hang around. Most of them are based on something that really happened still today after all these books. And so I had the story. And as I was writing A Time to Kill, my first novel, which is a tough book to write, tough book to read, tough book to get through, I wanted something that would be more fun to write and read. And I'd always... pitched the story to Renee and she's a sounding board. And she's always said, I love that story. I love that story. I love the story. And so that's how the firm got started. And as soon as I finished a time to kill, writing a time to kill in early 1987, I went straight to the firm. And we used to laugh. We thought the firm was just sort of a, you know, a simple title that would never stick. Funny to say that now, but I started writing the firm. right after I wrote the first book, and I took two years to write it. And then when it came out 35 years ago, Speaker 4 (9:41) well, Speaker 2 (9:42) it changed the world. I mean, our world was upside down and has been ever since. Speaker 5 (9:48) You know, I want to hover on one detail of that story because I think it's really an interesting thing to explore, and I'd love to hear your perspective on it. So it's 1980, and you have a friend in law school who comes back and just says one sentence. after being at that firm, it was kind of weird. It kind of feels like it might, you know, be the kind of law firm that you never leave. Speaker 2 (10:10) You never leave, yeah. Speaker 5 (10:12) Do you think about that moment and what's your opinion about ideas and about the things in life that are sort of planted in front of you and whether or not you're even... aware of them or if you think there's some sort of divine ordering to it, you know what I mean? Because it feels like one of these things that could have been a blip that turned into nothing. And I tend to be the kind of person that thinks that there are these signs all around you if you're awake enough to see them or little threads that you weave together throughout your life that make sense later. Speaker 2 (10:49) I'm not sure I buy that, that there are things that are out there waiting for you to see. I have a real knack for a story. And I grew up with storytellers. My father, my grandfather, uncles were big storytellers. These are farm people in rural Arkansas when I was a kid. And we'd sit on the front porch at night in the heat and listen to the Cardinals game on the radio and listen to stories. All these stories that probably were all fiction, but they sure were good. They'd been polished for years and worked on for years. And I just always enjoyed the wild stories. or funny stories. And as a kid, I was an avid reader. My mother did not really like television, even in 1960. So we went to the library all the time and got books and we read, she read to us. And I just grew up reading a lot and loving the idea of a good story. And I guess that's where the eye comes from, the talent to be able to spot something almost immediately and say, and I do this almost weekly. You hear a story and say, that's got potential. And when I hear these great stories, I'll make a note. And the notebook is always full. Most of them don't work for various reasons. Most of them kind of go away with time. They're all brilliant initially, but the brilliance kind of rubs off. But the good ones stick. The good ones stick. Speaker 5 (12:16) Well, what's super cool about stories, when you think about the intersection of your work and the intersection of mine? And my work is really about empowering people to see bigger possibilities and giving them a sense of hope and encouragement that they could do little things that could make their life or their relationships feel better and that they could do better over time. The power of stories is that it allows you to escape your current life and actually imagine something else. which is what you did for me in 1991, Speaker 2 (12:53) that Speaker 5 (12:54) I could escape the misery of, I hate this law school. I've made a huge mistake. I've now got these loans and I'm trapped here and I hate these people. And what the hell am I going to do? And that story just opened up a different possibility, even though I wasn't thinking about being an associate that would go to a firm where people never leave and then discover that the mafia actually is involved and then have the FBI on my case as I'm running, you know, from them with my wife. Speaker 2 (13:21) You gotta love fiction. Well, Speaker 5 (13:23) I've never written fiction, but I love fiction because you step outside yourself. And so if someone who is listening right now. feels just like I did. And I know you've probably felt a little bit this way in certain twists and turns of your life, where you are in a chapter of your life and you feel trapped and you don't know what to do next. What do you think they're going to learn from the various stories you're going to tell us and the wisdom that we're going to talk about that you've learned through your life and your work? Speaker 2 (13:58) You got to keep working. You can't. be smothered with doubt or depression or fear or whatever, you got to keep working. I learned a very valuable lesson when I was writing A Time to Kill. And this is back in the dark ages where I knew nothing about writing. I started, it was all written in hand on legal pads. And I showed the first chapter to my wife one night and she had no idea what I was doing. She knew I could write because she saved all of our love letters. She still has them, but she always, you know, she knew I could write. She knew I could tell stories, but I had never thought about being a writer. I was 30 years old. And she saw the first chapter and said, this is pretty good. I'd like to read some more. I said, okay, I'll go write some more. I don't have another chapter. I said, man, let me go write chapter two. And that went on for a while, but it was back in those days, I did not know what I was doing. But one of the first lessons I learned was that you have to do a little bit every day or it's not going to get done. I'd take a week off, and I was losing sleep writing the book because I was up at 5 in the morning. Speaker 5 (15:04) Well, I lost sleep reading it, so we're even. Speaker 2 (15:08) Yeah. Well, I'm not losing sleep now, but I did back then. But I realized, and I probably read this somewhere, write a page a day. I said it a thousand times. Write one page. If you're serious about writing anything, stop talking about it. Don't talk your book to death. Don't tell folks what you're going to do. Sit down and write a page every day, at least a page. And it may take you 15 minutes a day and an hour tomorrow. But find that time of the day, whether it's during lunch or whether it's late at night or whenever, Speaker 5 (15:41) preferably Speaker 2 (15:42) the same time, same spot, same coffee, like I still do after 50-something books. I don't care what your task is or what your... thinking about doing, you got to show up every day. You can't just talk about it, dream about it, think about it. You got to show up. I don't care what you're doing, what your dream is or what your goal is, but you've got to do it every day. I learned that lesson the hard way. And once I started practicing that 40 years ago as a rookie lawyer trying to write a novel, I made myself get up at five o'clock every morning and have time to write. And it took three years for the first one, took two years for the firm, over a five-year period. I wrote them back to back at five o'clock in the morning. Speaker 5 (16:28) I also was curious because you said, I learned it the hard way. I think it would be very helpful for the person listening to hear how it wasn't working. You know, because I think you were about to tell us that I was trying to find a week off. I was trying to do it in these big sweeps of time. And then I realized I just have to do it a little a day. So how did you find the hard way? Like, what was the way you tried that was like, well, this definitely does not work? Speaker 2 (16:50) The first time it happened, I'd gone a couple of weeks and written nothing. Speaker 2 (16:56) And my wife, I can remember more than once said, where's the latest chapter? And I said, I haven't written it yet. She said, why not? And I said, okay, I'll get busy. Because she always loved the story. And I'd learned, okay, to do this, you got to start somewhere. You got to blast off at some point. And so I would get started again and I would make myself do it at least one