Jeremy Deshazer
Author blog
Join Jeremy on the adventures of life… Quest is the root word of question, come along on this series of quests.
Featuring stories from Jeremy’s life, inspiration into the book, thoughtful questions, and more!
Slay Your Dragons Today
What does it mean to slay dragons in our life, and how can this be rewarding?
As I was walking out the door today to work, my wife said, “slay those dragons today.” What does it mean to slay dragons in your life? Stories of dragons have been in every culture. Often, a hero leaves the safety of the village to confront the dragon and slay it. In doing so, they are rewarded with the treasure that the dragon guards. This treasure is brought back to the village. The hero is greeted and cheered when they return; a good hero shares the bounty with all the people. Let’s break down what this can represent in our lives.
What does the process look like step-by-step to confront the Dragon, slay it, and obtain the treasure?
The obvious first step would be knowing there’s a dragon in the first place.
It takes personal awareness. One must examine their life with honesty. Let’s take a moment and examine what a dragon can be in life. In this case, it would be anything that challenges us greatly. Death could be an outcome if you truly faced a dragon. This is not the case in our lives. Why do we sometimes treat it as such?
“Slay those dragons today,”
What does this mean in my life? First off, this is the first week for me at a new location for my job. New people, new experiences, new challenges, a longer commute—all of these potential dragons. What is the treasure that these dragons guard? The first challenge is new people. I do not know what to expect and who I will meet. I could choose to look at this from two different angles.
The first angle would be one of fear, anxiety, and stress at the unknown.
The second could be to choose to look at this as an opportunity to meet people as a leader. It gives me a chance to make a difference in people‘s lives; to guide, to shepherd, to challenge, to encourage, and for me personally, to learn.
What new experiences will I encounter on this journey?
Will my eyes be open to them?
Will I seek them out?
Will I understand the value and growth that can come from these experiences?
Dragons represent a powerful, cunning, deadly animal. A hero must rise to face them. What if you could become that hero in your own life?
We read many books and see many movies or TV shows that show dragons killing many, many people, yet the hero always overcomes.
Imagine yourself for a moment sitting in a medieval village. As you look around, you see fear in the eyes of the people. Each one is a representation of you. One of you must choose to confront the dragon. Will you send an NPC? (non-playable characters). We already know what will happen if you do. Or will you send the version of yourself that has a hero hiding inside?
You claim this version of yourself as the main character. Immediately, you feel something different inside, a yearning. Your hands feel strong and capable; your shoulders spread and move back. Your head is held high.
Your eyes go to the blacksmith’s shop, and your feet carry you there. Waiting for you is a suit of armor, the kind of armor you would imagine yourself wearing if you were to face a dragon. You try it on, and it fits as if it had grown with you your whole life, molding itself to your frame. Next to it, hanging on the wall is the most beautiful sword you have ever seen. You dare to reach out and take it in your hand. It feels as if your arm is now twice as long, an extension of you. With your other hand you, you take the round shield from the wall, it’s gleam catching your eyes.
As you make your way through the village, countless NPC’s nod to you, respect in their eyes. The trail leads you out of the village and into the snowy mountains. The climb is hard; your mind on the task at hand. The dragon’s lair is now before you. You study it and discover that the dragon is missing scales around its heart. This discovery fills your soul. Attacking, you spar with the mighty beast until finally the opening presents itself. You thrust forward with all your might; your aim true.
The dragon is no more, its life leaving it. You step around the dragon and claim the treasure that it guarded. You return the hero; the whole village saved.
Identify the dragon that must be slayed. Prepare to face it. Be brave and courageous and bring the treasure home.
September 23, 2026.
What are Your Eyes Focused on?
When we look at priorities, it is important to understand that whatever sits at the top of the list is what our eyes will stay fixed on.
Why does this matter?
We only have so much time in a day. Time is the great equalizer. If you want a life that feels full rather than wasted, you have to understand this. What are our eyes easily fixed on in this modern world? Take screens for example: Netflix, YouTube, TikTok. All of them quietly eat the hours that could have been spent on what actually matters.
I want to write more about priorities. How do we decide what the right ones are? The first question is simple: Have I actually thought through my priorities? And would it help if I wrote them down? Studies show that writing out our goals makes people more likely to reach them. This is true of priorities.
Here are mine.
Priority one: Loving God and loving others. This has to touch every part of my life.
Priority two: Family. How can I encourage them? Love them? Challenge them to be the best they can be?
Priority three: This writing project. The books and everything around them. The work is a platform to help others.
Priority four: My job as a leader. Helping people, encouraging them, challenging them, and running a good business.
Once these priorities are clear, the next question is how to build a routine that actually includes them. I have found that I must choose to tackle the highest ones first, at the beginning of the day, before the rest of the day arrives and steals my time.
If I were taking a trip to Europe, I would not buy a plane ticket to Asia. Why would I plan a life and then spend my days heading somewhere else? It is easy to do. We hold an aspiration in mind and never take the time to take practical steps toward it. Setting priorities as the foundation for each day keeps my eyes on the right destination. Time leaks through your fingers like sand. A month can pass, and you have done nothing toward the things you said mattered.
Living in alignment with your priorities every day is hard. The reward is worth the effort.
What would happen if you truly aligned your life and lived it out daily?
Where could your life go?
Where would you be in five years? Ten?
How could your growth benefit the people around you?
I said in my first blog post: we would not go to a movie to watch the main character sleep through the entire film. Don’t sleep through your life.
I am currently driving to work. My commute used to be 35 minutes. Now it is an hour and a half. Yesterday was my first day at the new location. People recoil when they hear how long the drive is. That reaction gives me a chance to talk about a truth we all face: life often hands us two undesirable options, and we still must choose, we can decide to be grateful. I am grateful, I now have three hours I did not have before. My time would be spent differently and filled with other things, or the temptation to fill it. Now, while I drive, I speak and convert words to text. The longer drive has become time to write the book, blog posts, and the Companion Guide.
The next question is: is there a way to experience more joy?
I have found that joy shows up when I am making progress towards my goals.
Could I set up my life so that I make progress on each priority every day?
Before I leave for work, I have built loops that move me forward.
Loop one: When I wake up, I thank God for another day. That sets my eyes on gratitude and treats the day as a blessing.
Loop two: While I make coffee, I think through the day’s priorities and how I will make progress on them.
Loop three: I have a space where I read my Bible and write out my prayer.
Loop four: I write. About an hour a day. Roughly five hundred words.
Loop five: Music. I have practiced guitar ten minutes a day for a year and a half. I had tried twice before and quit. While writing Brock’s story, I decided to learn. Out of that practice came an original song for the prologue, “We Held You Once.” It is now out on Spotify and Apple Music as part of the book’s soundtrack.
Loop six: Ten minutes of lifting weights. It helps me stay healthy.
Loop seven: Talking with my wife before I leave.
Loop eight. Getting ready for the day. This is the start of the adventure after the morning preparation.
Loop nine: The commute to work. More progress on the book, the blog, and the Companion Guide.
Loop ten: The workday begins—countless chances to help people, encourage them, and challenge them to be their best.
The commute home is another hour and a half I can give to the same work of helping others. When I get home, the sense of accomplishment is significant and the joy is real. I have moved the important things forward. Now I can be with my family. When I lay my head down at night, there is a deep satisfaction in a day that was aimed at what I said mattered.
If you have not done this yet, write out your priorities. Then build a routine that makes progress on them throughout the day.
A few questions to start:
What should be my number one priority?
What loops can I create that represent real progress toward these priorities?
How would clear priorities and an intentional routine help me create more joy?
September 10, 2026.
Can Life’s Monsters Become Catalysts for Growth?
My wife and I will soon be empty nesters. In a moment of divine inspiration, I offered to join her as her doubles partner in tennis. She discovered the sport three years ago, and I’ve watched the growth, dedication, and pure joy it has brought her. We’ve played together at different times over our 28 years of marriage, and I had always been the stronger player, until now. Her skill has surpassed my raw athletic ability; she is simply the better tennis player. Still, I felt inspired to pursue the game with Shannan. Tennis is something that we can do together for years to come. When I proposed mixed doubles, she was excited, and I was excited that she was excited. I planned to attack tennis in the same way I once attacked my earlier sports career: with focus, growth, and improvement. We would become the doubles team that struck fear into the hearts of our opponents. How the mighty fall, even before they get started. We scheduled a tennis drill with our daughter. The day arrived and I was genuinely excited. I’ve always found deep satisfaction in sports that involve a ball. The feeling of squaring up a baseball traveling over 95 mph is unlike anything else, and I was getting echoes of that same pure joy as I struck tennis balls around the court. After about an hour, I lunged for a ball at the net and felt a small pop in my Achilles tendon. I stopped immediately. There was no real pain, but I knew I had to shut everything down.
How can we approach these unexpected forks in the road so we give ourselves the best chance of moving forward?
In my case, I had been on the road to tennis stardom. Now I face the reality that I jumped in too quickly and have a long recovery ahead. I’m using humor here, but if I’m honest, this is not what I wanted. These moments arrive in many forms, a career change, an unexpected breakup, the loss of a friendship, or, in my recent case, a partially torn Achilles tendon.
In Brock Smith and the Dagger of Souls, Brock confronts several of these moments, facing monsters both literal and figurative. Without giving away spoilers, his story shows how an effective, thoughtful approach can shape both our immediate response and the lasting effect these moments have in our lives. Do they paralyze us, or do they become a catalyst for growth?
Here is the approach I chose with my Achilles tendon.
The first thing I refused to do was to catastrophize: Imagining the absolute worst possible outcome. I simply did not know yet what the injury meant, and that uncertainty became an advantage. Staying calm kept my thinking measured. I refused to let my mind race ahead to disaster. Instead, I took a deliberate pause to explore my options before reacting. I turned the anxiety that I felt into action. That meant seeing a specialist, getting X-rays, and undergoing the inevitable MRI so I could receive a clear diagnosis and begin moving forward . In Brock’s story he chooses early to face his fears head-on. I made the same choice. By dealing with the injury directly I kept myself from getting stuck, and I avoided the wasted energy of beating myself up for starting tennis too aggressively. I am confident I will learn and grow from this. My eyes and ears are open. And in the end, Shannan and I will still become the tennis champions that strike fear into the hearts of our opponents.
Here is the approach I’m carrying forward when I meet future monsters:
1. Refuse to catastrophize; let anxiety be a catalyst for deliberate action.
2. Dive in and gather the facts before you respond.
3. View the situation through a growth lens.
4. Take the deliberate steps required to grow from the confrontation.
We all meet monsters. The question is what we do next. If you’d like more stories and practical approaches for turning setbacks into growth, subscribe below or follow along on Goodreads.
And if this helped you today, sharing it with someone who might need it is one of the kindest things you can do
August 12, 2026.
The Call to Adventure
What is the Call to Adventure?
Hi everyone, my name is Jeremy Deshazer, author of Brock Smith and the Dagger of Souls. Just over three years ago, at the age of 46, I experienced a widow-maker heart attack, yet I survived. This moment in my life has changed me. I have always had a passion for helping others, but this event gave me an opportunity to narrow my focus and truly aim at this target. My brush with death brought up many questions. Quest is the root word of Question. Every question that we seek an answer to can become an opportunity to go on a quest for its answer. I believe it is of the utmost importance in life to seek answers to the most important questions. In this blog, we will be undertaking many quests. I will be guiding you through many questions as we seek the answers. These answers will not be given to you, as each of us brings a different experience to the table. The journey will be about self-discovery. I will be sharing and exploring many of the themes that are written into my son Brock’s story.
Our first quest together will be to seek answers to this question:
What is the Call to Adventure?
My mind goes to the Hero’s Journey. What is it about this story that has held it up as an example in literature, film, storytelling and life— and that resonates so deeply with us?
What does the Call to Adventure mean? One definition that I found is as follows:
“The Call to Adventure is a moment during the Hero’s Journey when the protagonist is faced with a dilemma, one which they choose to confront, which sets them off on the adventure at the center of the story.”
Let’s break this down and investigate it one line at a time:
“The Call to Adventure is a moment,” A moment can be categorized as holding profound significance. For me, this moment came in the form of a widow-maker heart attack. I have often described this moment with the following analogy: The desk of my life was wiped clean; everything was swept onto the floor. This presented me with an opportunity to intentionally place only the most important things back on the desk of my life.
Let’s take a look at the second line. “during the Hero’s Journey where the protagonist is faced with a dilemma” Here I want to write out the definition of a dilemma: a complex situation requiring a choice between two or more conflicting alternatives, often where all available options are equally undesirable, unpleasant, or difficult.
Dilemmas can become signposts for us if we recognize them for what they are. Here a choice must be made—a choice that carries a great deal of significance in the story of our life. How can we determine the correct course of action in these moments? For me, these are moments that I must not be rash in my choice; they are moments that must be carefully examined. They are moments that I seek counsel from those I trust around me. I do not, however, sit in the moment for too long, as I may miss my opportunity to move forward. In the case of my heart attack, my world was turned upside down—or should I say right-side up. Many questions came to the surface, rising up from great depths.
For me, I was fortunate to write about my experience. These are some of the thoughts that I wrestled with as a result:
What should I put highest in my life?
How should I spend this extra time I have been given?
What could happen if I went all in?
I spent half a year wrestling with these questions and many more, writing along the way. What was this choice that I had to make as a result of my dilemma? The quests I undertook to find the answers to these questions have led me to where I am today.
The next line is as follows: “one which they choose to confront.”
“Choose to confront” sticks out to me here. We already talked about a choice having to be made above, but let’s talk about what it means to confront.
To “confront” means to actively face, challenge, or deal with a difficult person, situation, or truth, head-on.
In Brock Smith and the Dagger of Souls, Brock is faced with several of these situations where he has to confront what stands before him. When we choose to confront these dilemmas in our lives, it takes courage and bravery. Bravery is not the absence of fear; it is the willingness to face fear and move forward despite it. This is something that we must do in our lives if we want to follow the Call to Adventure and experience life to the fullest.
Finally, let’s discuss this last line together. “which sets them off on the adventure at the center of the story” What do you want your story to be? We do not go to movies to watch the main character sleep for the entire film. So why would we choose to sleep during our adventure of life? Every great story has these elements of the Hero’s Journey—the blueprint that we can follow and experience in our own lives.
Here are some questions (or quests) for you to consider. I highly encourage you to write out the answers to these questions in your own life. This is the first step in your adventure.
What dilemma am I facing in my life right now?
What choice could I make that would help me move forward?
Who in my life could I seek wise counsel from?
I encourage you to live out and respond to The Call to Adventure in your own lives. Be brave, be courageous, make the proper sacrifices, become who you were meant to be.
July 31. 2026