Interview with Richard Singer | Sound Authors Radio

November 10, 2008

Dr. Kent: Welcome back to Sound Authors. My next guest on the show is Richard A. Singer. He’s the author of several books. One is called Daddy What is Success? A children’s self-help book. He is also the author of an upcoming book called Now and has written a book called Your Daily Walk With The Great Minds. That was a non-fiction book of the year. Welcome to the show.

Richard Singer: Thank you very much, it’s a pleasure. Thanks for having me.

Dr. Kent: I gather that you are thinking about breaking a Guinness book of world records?

Richard Singer: I am. I am going to be running across the US for several charities.

Dr. Kent: Tell me about this, what some would say crazy attempt.

Richard Singer: I love to help people and I like to do things that are definitely a challenge that people think are impossible. I don’t think there is much in life that is impossible if we use our complete potential as human beings. So that is my reason for doing it and to raise awareness for several challenging issues in life and for several charities.

Dr. Kent: So you want to go across the United States n 46 days. How do you go about doing that?

Richard Singer: I’m going to run each day several miles. The average will be about 60 miles. I just did a similar training run which was successful; I did 60 miles. So I’m training for it and I have a crew that’s going to go with me; a publicist, a director and we’re going to attempt to do this in about a month.

Dr. Kent: So what brought you to this? You’re an author, you’re a psychotherapist. Why would you do something like this Guinness book of world records attempt?

Richard Singer: I think it will be a great way to raise awareness for mental health issues; that’s one of the charities I’m working with. Another is addiction, an addiction charity and some others, the cancer society and the AIDS foundation. So it’s to raise awareness and getting the attention of people that need to know this is something I’m serious about and a lot of people are serious about and we need to continue to work on these issues. So I think it will get attention and also show that nothing is impossible.

Dr. Kent: So now talk about your older books. You’ve got the book coming out soon called Daddy What is Success? It’s an illustrated children self help book. You’ve got some of your older books; You’re Daily Walk with the Great Minds and Eastern Wisdom for your Soul. Talk about your books.

Richard Singer: My books I believe are and my books come from my heart and I’m very passionate about them. I don’t consider myself a great writer but I like the truth that comes from within and I write for people to think and what are affective ways of living ### I believe shows us how to live and gives us a map of how you need to live. I think they’re all very effective and they teach ways to live our life. My books are about the truth that I see and anything that can help another human being I write about.

Dr. Kent: You know, I’ve got to come back to this world record run. How is it possible to do that many miles every day for 46 days? What part of the US are you running across? The middle, the top, the bottom?

Richard Singer: I’m going to run starting in the middle, a little bit south of the middle. As far as I know right now that’s about right. Is it possible? I don’t know, I’m going to see. But I’m going to do everything in my power to do it.

Dr. Kent: It’s a 27 year old record, right? Talk about the old record.

Richard Singer: Yes it is. It was done and I believe that if something is done by a human being then I can certainly do it. And I really believe if I’m healthy along the way. There’s two people trying to do it now, I don’t know if they’re going to break it. I know the one can’t run anymore and he’s on a bike. He’s not going to break it. But the other one was doing very well.

Dr. Kent: Let’s talk about your charities and about the book. I would assume its coming out of the attempt. What charities are you going to benefit? You’re trying to raise a million dollars and what are your plans for writing a book afterwards, whether you’re successful or not?

Richard Singer: Yes, I’m definitely going to write a book afterwards and talk about the whole experience of this. One of the experiences for me was trying to get money out of people and that’s a very difficult experience. I’d like to write something about that. I live in the Cayman Islands so I’m trying to do a similar run across the Cayman Islands; which is about 85.5 miles to raise money for charity too. There are three separate charities in the Cayman Islands one is my own scholarship fund for at-risk youths, another is a mental health facility that’s here on the island and the last one is a great one. They help handicapped children scuba dive.

The incredible organization needed to do that on an island is like living in New York City. So those are here. The other charities in the US The ### Mental Health Foundation, The American Cancer Society, Make A Wish Foundation, Truth Drug & Alcohol Treatment Program, Animal Sanctuary that treats abused animals and I think the final one well I don’t have my notes in front of me. That may be all of them, but its distinct areas of life that I’m trying to benefit and things that I am passionate towards. Hopefully we can raise a lot of money towards that goal.

Dr. Kent: Now you have a couple of websites online, one is of course ricksinger.org, but you also have nowthemilliondollarrun. Is that the website for this project?

Richard Singer: Yes and there’s a lot of information on my website about is also called the milliondollarrun.org and that’s the site set up by the public system so there’s information on both websites. There’s a lot of information on ricksinger.org and anybody can call or email if they have questions or want to help out to do whatever for this project because it’s tremendous.

Dr. Kent: What do you hope to achieve with that project, with your children’s book, and with all of your books?

Richard Singer: I would like to achieve a transformation and I’m talking about a transformation of our world because I think it’s a mess. I think that if we all join together as one, which is very ideal but people can make changes and if we all join together we can make changes in society as well as the world as a whole because everything is connected. If we make changes ourselves it will emanate across the world.

Dr. Kent: It’s been a real pleasure chatting with Richard Singer. He’s the author of Daddy, What is Success? When’s that book going to come out?

Richard Singer: It’s coming out in December.

Dr. Kent: So we’ll look for that and we’ll check out milliondollarrun.org. We wish you the best of luck on that and even if you’re not successful with the run I think it’ll make a great story. It was a real pleasure chatting with you on the show.

Richard Singer: Thanks a lot. I would love to come back any time.

Dr. Kent: My next guest on the show is a musician of course the fourth guest of each show on sound authors is an author of sound. This group is called Circus Contraption. They are a non-profit organization and they are a hoot and they play incredible music. Here’s a song from Circus Contraption called Pink Elephants on Parade. When we come back after the tune, I’ll be chatting with Circus Contraption. Come on back for that.

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