1178. Sometimes You Just Have to Throw Your Hat Over the Fence

Discover Your Talent–Do What You Love

Don Hutcheson

Education, Business, Self-improvement, Careers

5.0 • 619 Ratings

🗓️ 30 April 2025

⏱️ 35 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Allegra Huston is the author of "Love Child: A Memoir of Family Lost and Found", the novels "A Stolen Summer" and "Say My Name," and many screenplays including the award-winning short film "Good Luck, Mr. Gorski," which she also produced. In 2019 she published how-to books on "the stuff nobody teaches you," including "How to Read for an Audience" by Allegra and "How to Edit and Be Edited" by Allegra and James Navé. Allegra's and James' most recent collaboration is a book for authors, "Write What You Don't Know."

"At major turning points in our lives, the circumstances are rarely perfect for us to make the next move or decision about what to do next. The obstacles may be vast, but it's at this point that you 'throw your hat over the fence,' or in other words, 'just go for it!'

"In my experience, most people don't know what they are good at—what they are naturally good at. So sometimes you have to find one or kind of create one for yourself. You have got to put food on the table and send your kid to school. So, there are those reasons. I think if we are good girls or boys, we try to fulfill the expectations that are inevitably held for us. If we're bad girls and bad boys, we're fighting against those expectations. But in either case, we're still being driven by other people's expectations. It often takes time, maturity, mistakes and even unhappiness to lead you to what you really want to do–to start to find what it is that makes you excited in the morning, that makes you want to be doing whatever it is that you want to do."

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello, world. Welcome to discover your talent, do what you love. I'm your host, Don Hutchison.
0:16.7	Every Tuesday, I interview someone from around the world who's discovered their talents to do work they love to create a life of success, satisfaction, and freedom.
0:26.9	On Fridays, I interview an individual with many years of experience from one of the most popular or interesting occupations or professions who shares an insider's look at what it's really like to do what they do.
0:39.1	I'm delighted to bring you our featured guest, Allegra Houston.
0:42.9	Welcome, Allegra.
0:44.2	Thank you, Don.
0:46.1	Allegra, are you using your talents doing work that you love?
0:49.7	I am doing my very best to, yes.
0:52.4	Good, good.
0:53.8	Allegra Houston is the author of Love Child, a memoir of Family Lost and Found, the novel,
0:59.6	A Stolen Summer, and many screenplays, including the award-winning short film, Good Luck, Mr.
1:05.2	Gorski, which she also produced.
1:06.9	In 2019, she co-founded twice five miles to publish how-to books on the stuff nobody teaches you.
1:14.2	The first two titles are How to Edit and Be Edited by Allegra and How to Read for an
1:20.2	audience by James Navay and Allegra.
1:22.7	Well, as you know, everyone's life is about turning points or passages, as Gail Sheehanes,
1:26.9	you call them,
1:32.3	from the day we're born until we leave this plane of existence. So take us into the backstory,
1:37.3	all the way back to family of origin to Allegra Houston, where it all began, the people in places and choices and changes that got you where you are today. It's too long, but if anybody's
1:43.3	interested, you can read my memoir, Love Child,
1:45.3	because that's what it, that's the, that's the story that it covers.
1:49.3	Mother, who was killed in a car crash when I was four years old. After that, I was led into a
	...

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