Jeremy Deshazer
Author blog
Featuring stories from Jeremy’s life, inspiration into the book, thoughtful questions, and more!
Join Jeremy on the adventures of life… Quest is the root word of question, come along on this series of quests.
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