A Letter to My Younger Self...

What would change if you could sit down with your 25-year-old self and tell the truth before the bills, the burnout, and the busy years take over? I’m Aaron, and this solo conversation is a straight, personal look at the lessons I learned the hard way while building a demanding career, raising three kids, and realizing I wasn’t always emotionally present in my own home. It’s reflective, faith-forward, and meant to spark a real gut check about what actually matters.

We talk about career and identity, including the painful truth that a job you love may never love you back. I share why chasing overtime and recognition can quietly cost you your marriage, your health, and your peace, and why “being needed” at work is a terrible substitute for being present with your family. We also dig into money and prestige, how they shape your heart over time, and how status-seeking can create distance inside the very relationships you’re trying to provide for.

From there, we get practical and personal: protecting marriage without denial, recognizing ego before it turns you into someone you don’t respect, and dealing with trauma early through therapy and honest processing. I also reflect on parenting without a rule book, the power of friendships and community, finding a passion like music that brings you back to life, and holding onto faith when you feel unworthy or stuck in imposter syndrome. If you’ve been searching for life advice, work-life balance, mental health tools, and a clearer set of priorities, this is for you. Subscribe, share this with a friend who needs it, and leave a review with what you’d tell your younger self.

Gift For You!!! Murders to Music will be releasing "SNAPSHOTS" periodcally to keep you entertained throughout the week! Snapshots will be short, concise bonus episodes containing funny stories, tid bits of brilliance and magical moments!!! Give them a listen and keep up on the tea!  

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Transcript

Why This Is A Solo Talk

SPEAKER_00 0:22

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to Emergers to Music Podcast. My name is Aaron. I'm your host, and thank you guys so much for coming back for another week. So on this week's episode, I'm going to talk about uh this is going to be a solo episode. So I'm going to talk about some things that I've learned over the years. Now, before I get into this, I want to preface it with I don't know everything, right? And I'll sit here and listen to this podcast 20 years down the road, God willing, I'm still alive, and I'll probably laugh at some of the things that I'm going to say tonight. Some of you out there who are older than I am may listen to this tonight and think, man, if he only knew, you know? But what I want to talk about, you know, as I'm going through my mid-40s here and I'm raising kids and I'm seeing their interaction with the world, with each other, with life, with jobs, it makes me think back to when I was their age, when I was early 20s, 25 years old, something like that. It made me, it made me think back to, you know, what essentially, if I would have known then what I know now, what would have been different? What would have I changed? What would have I done differently? How could have I redirected my life? And as parents, we don't have this thing figured out, you or I. None of us had a rule book that came into this world right out of the womb with the child that said, Hey, do this, do that, check this box, and life is going to be good. Now I am blessed. I have got three amazing kids. They get into some stupidity every now and then. They make some bad choices, or they sassy and they talk back. But at the end of the day, especially with what I did for a career, I have seen the other end of the spectrum. I have seen the darkness. I have seen the 13, 14-year-old girl who is involved in multiple drive-by murders, and it doesn't phase her. I don't have that. I have no issues. I have three blessed children. Now I'm going to give all the credit to my wife because I was unplugged from their world for so many years. While I was home, I was here. I was in the household. I wasn't emotionally attached or present. I was a I essentially abandoned them emotionally during some of their formative years because I was so tied up working my career. I was so tied up saving other people's worlds and lives while my world crumbled underneath me and I was unwilling to make a change at that time. And that circles back and leads in to this whole conversation. You and I have both had situations where we look back in hindsight and be like, man, if I'd have only known, I wouldn't have made choice X, Y, or Z. I wouldn't have done things the way that I did them. So as I am thinking about raising my kids, and as we just got back from Mexico,

The Letter To My Younger Self

SPEAKER_00 3:30

and I'm going through the motions of being a parent and trying to discipline and make sure that everybody gets along, it really made me focus my energy on what is truly important. I want to talk about some of the things. If I could sit across from my younger self when I was 21, 22, 25 years old, here are some of the things that I think I would say and some of the lessons learned. Now, like I said, I will be so excited to listen to this in 20 more years when I look back on this. I don't have this figured out, but when I look back on what I'm saying today, we'll see how much of it still reigns true.

Loving A Career That Hurts You

SPEAKER_00 4:07

My career. My career was amazing. My career was a career, I was so lucky to have the career that I had, because it is one that I truly wanted since I was a small child. And I was filled with passion and joy and love for what I did for so many years. And I was talking to a friend today. And even in the bad times, even in the times that I prayed for God to take me out of that role and plug me into something else, at the bottom of it, when it all boiled down, when you ran it through the sifter, what was left was love and passion for people and my career. And I was so lucky and blessed to have that. Now, the job that I currently have, it's great. But it's not the same passion that I had before. And I miss that. I miss that sense of being needed. I miss that sense of ownership, leadership, and helping people in their critical moments. I do miss that. But let's talk about that career. That career, while it was very positive on one side of the fence, was very negative on the other. It was a career that essentially devastated me as a human being and nearly took me out of the gene pool multiple times, either because of health or because of a gun in my mouth. And that career that I loved so much, I learned didn't love me. I learned that that career could care less whether I was there or not. Those people that were my brothers in blue, at the end of the day, and the city that I worked for didn't care when I went out on medical. So I learned that the career I loved didn't love me as much as I thought it would. And then I had to ask myself, was it worth it to sacrifice the family, the kids, the wife, the friends over the years for something that didn't reciprocate the love and care that I put into it. You know what I mean? So what would I tell myself about my career? I'd say keep it in check. It's okay to love your career, but you also have to understand your career doesn't love you. And at the end of the day, when you leave, and you will leave, the you know, your last day will come. When that happens, the cogs in the wheel will keep turning, and you are nothing more than a drop in a bucket. You will be replaced. Keep it in check and remember what is important to you in this life and pay attention to those things.

Money Chases Change Your Heart

SPEAKER_00 7:00

Money. Money, money, money. Money. We all chase money. Back to my career, I would work the overtime, the extra shifts, all for money. They say you can't take it with you. Nobody ever has a headstone that says, Man, I wish I worked one more day. They all say I wish I had more time with my family. Money is important, but money is also the root of evil. Where you put your energy and resources, your heart will follow. And when you put your heart and resources into material things and making money, it can really change you as a human being. Somebody very dear to me got involved in the money game. Somebody very dear to me, who I love very much, had a period in life where family was important, but then this is my perspective, money became more important, and prestige and chasing the job and the career became more important. And before you know it, the family was on the back burner, and that caused some separation, and money and houses and vehicles and all that stuff became more important. And it really did really destroyed elements in the family. Now, those have been rebuilt, but it was over money and prestige and status. Watch yourself. It is the root of evil. And again, like the career, money doesn't love you. Marriage.

Protect Your Marriage Without Excuses

SPEAKER_00 8:37

Protect it at all costs. Do not slip. Do not allow your marriage to fail. When you recognize that there is a problem in your marriage, deal with it, address it head on. It is so easy for us as human beings and for me as a man to feel like everything is okay, or I can bury my head in the sand and it doesn't matter. Or if I ignore the problem, it'll go away. Or if I just do this or just do that, I'll feel better, and that's all that really matters. Your marriage is a non-negotiable. God put you and your partner together for a reason. You are inseparable. Make it work. You know, there was a movie called Fireproof a few years back, and in that movie, one of the actors, you know, the premise of the movie, it's the fire department, and one firefighter is going through a rough spell in the marriage, wanting a divorce, wanting an affair, etc. The other firefighter says, Hey, God put you guys together for a reason. And that firefighter, the second one, took the bottle of salt and bottle of pepper and super glued them together. And then as it dried, he told that other firefighter, This is you and your wife. And you guys are together. You were bonded by God. And you can break these apart, but you will never be the same again. You will be just a shattered image of what you were before. Your contents will spill out, and you'll never be able to hold things and be as useful as you once were. And I remember that part in the movie because I was going through a rough spell in my marriage at that time, and that part meant so much to me. It stuck out your marriage, your family, your home, take care of that first, son. Take care of the things that God has given you in your own four walls and take care of that.

Ego Grows Quietly Then Takes Over

SPEAKER_00 10:38

Ego. Man, my ego is huge. I was talking to my old partner yesterday, and we were discussing me and law enforcement and some of our peers that we worked with, and you know, the things that have changed since I left the police department. We were talking about the way that it used to be. When I was there, there was a lot of ego-driven people, and I was never one of them, I thought. And there was ego-driven people, and they were just buttholes, and they would make it a very toxic work environment, and they were yelling and screaming and high stress and 100 miles an hour, and that's just the way that it was, and that's what I learned first when I went back into detectives. Well, as those people retire and move on, I took their place and I didn't even recognize it. I took their place. I was the high strung, egotistical prick that they were, and I talked about them, but I didn't recognize I was that same way. I thought I was just very productive, and I thought I was the best thing since sliced bread, and I walked on water, and I was close to the second coming of Christ, and that is how I felt about myself. Then you make a couple of TV shows about me, and you put me on a pedestal and you put me in the paper, and before you know it, I can do no wrong in my own mind. I didn't recognize that was ego. I just thought that's the way that I was. It wasn't until I was able to come out of law enforcement and literally there is a podcast, and I live on the air, I recognize my pride in my sin and my ego problem. And it all comes out right here on the microphone. And it wasn't until I was out for a couple of years, and that is exactly something I would be concerned with or want to watch for is that ego and that pride. Remember, you are no better than the person next to you. I am no better than that murderer or child molester that I have in the room. Now, we have both sinned, we have both fallen short of what we're put on this earth to do. Our sins look differently. But God died for the saint and the sinner. And neither one of us are perfect. Nobody is perfect. So my ego getting so big, thinking that I am so much better than everybody else around me, even my peers. I'll run a circle around my peers. That is such an egotistical comment. What I would what I would tell myself at 25 years old? Hey, bro, here's the deal. You're looking down a long career. You're going to get good at something. But when you do, remember where you came from. Remember the the beginnings, the humble beginnings. Remember who you were when you knew nothing. You're still that same person. Treat the people around you with love, respect, and kindness, no matter who they are. Watch your ego, watch your pride. It's sinful behavior. It can get you into trouble. You can keep chasing that high. You can keep chasing the next big attaboy, the next newspaper, the next television show. Just keep yourself in

Parenting Without A Rule Book

SPEAKER_00 13:52

check. Parenting. There is no book on parenting, son. There's no book on how to do things right, wrong, or indifferent. And if you have three kids, you're going to handle the same situation three different ways. So when you grow up and you will have kids, no, you have to do your best. And your job is to provide safety, food, shelter, and moral and ethical foundation for your kids. They are going to make decisions that you disagree with. They are going to make left-hand turns when you wish they would have right. They're going to zig when you want them to zag. But they're still your child at the end of the day. Love them through that. They are not perfect. You are not perfect. You guys will come out on the other side. Maintain your friendship. Always tell each other you love each other. Always give your kids hugs. Always hold them tight and dear. You are never guaranteed tomorrow. God give us our kids to take care of for a period of time. We hope that period of time outlives us. But sometimes it doesn't. And we're never know when tomorrow will be the last day. Love each other for today. Stop the nonsense. Stop the small bickering and fighting. Stop the things and the arguments that don't matter. If it's not gonna matter a year or two or three down the road, if it doesn't impact your life significantly, it's not worth arguing or talking about. Nobody cares that they took the last Red Bull out of the refrigerator. It's not worth having the conversation. Love your kids through whatever decisions they make. Whether you agree or disagree, hold them tight, hold them dear. That is what you're charged to do. Trauma.

Process Trauma Before It Hardens

SPEAKER_00 15:48

Trauma will happen. And drama will happen. Do not let the trauma define you. When trauma comes into your life, get it out as soon as it comes in. Don't allow it to manifest. Don't give it residency. Don't let it pack a box and bury it in the backyard. As men, you and I, as men, we are so easy to say we're fine. We got this. We wash the blood off. We move on to the next one. It is so easy to do that because if we do that, then we don't have to confront our feelings. Well, when we don't confront our feelings, we forget how to feel and our nervous system gets all out of whack. So as trauma comes and it will, process it. Find a therapist up front, find somebody to talk to, a professional, somebody that you can run these things by. And as they come on, take them off. As they come into your world, give them away. Speak through them, process them, and don't hold on to the nonsense. If you allow it to gain residency in your backyard, it will unpack itself when you don't want it to. It will cause stress down the road. It is going to come back to the surface. Your brain remembers everything you see, taste, touch, smell, feel, everything. You just may not remember it. But somewhere in the crevices of that gray matter, all that stuff exists. And one day it will come back up. So, son, as you experience trauma, as you see things in this world that we shouldn't see, we shouldn't process, relationships that fail, kids that die, whatever it is, process that trauma and don't allow it to take a hold of your life and ruin you.

Friendship And Community Keep You Steady

SPEAKER_00 17:41

Friendships. Friendships are important. Friendship. Friendship is such an important thing. In our world, it is so easy to isolate and insulate and guard our hearts and put on this shield of armor and not let anybody in. Because as long as we're on the inside, we feel like we can protect ourselves. As soon as we open ourselves up, we become vulnerable. So, son, as I'm looking back, and what would I tell you? I would tell you that it's very easy to think that you can be a one man on a lonely island, but that in fact is not true. You need a community, you need friends, you need fellow believers, you need people with like minds around you that can help you and support you and help hold you up and carry you through the hard times in life because there are going to be hard times, whether it's in marriage or life or work or whatever it is. The day is going to come where you can't handle it. And when you've isolated and insulated, and all you've turned to is yourself. And you can't turn to yourself because you're upside down in this moment. You turn to other things, you turn to alcohol and drugs and affairs and ethical dilemmas and problems. You turn to things outside of the person that you really are. Have those friends that you can go to, you can confide in, that community that can help carry you and support you when you can't carry and support yourself.

Find A Passion That Feels Alive

SPEAKER_00 19:04

Passion and music. Find something that you're passionate about. For me, it's music. Find something that absolutely blows your hair back. Something that you would give anything to do. Find that thing that makes the hair stand up on end when you're involved in that situation or that activity. For me, it's playing music, it's listening to music, it's entertaining. Find something that is passionate. Find something that's passionate you can share with your family, with your kids, with your wife, with your husband, whoever it is. Share, find that passion that you can share and that you guys can grow together in.

Faith When You Feel Unworthy

SPEAKER_00 19:48

Faith. It is so easy to run and hide. As we go through all these things: career, money, marriage, ego, parenting, trauma, friendship, passion, music, whatever it is, it's so easy to not do things right. And as we do make our way through this life and we figure out that we have failed in certain areas, it's so easy to turn away from faith. We feel like, you know, those people in church think they're perfect and we call them hypocrites and they're not perfect. Well, no, they're not. The people go to church, it's like an emergency room for the broken, and that is where we belong. But it is so easy to run from God and to run from faith and to blame other people for the situations that we're in. I would say you surround yourself in faith, surround yourself in people, surround yourself in like minds. You've got to believe in something. If you just believe in yourself, in my opinion, you're not going to go very far. You've got to believe in something that is bigger than you, that is bigger than this world. I don't believe in the Big Bang theory. I believe that everything on this world and in this earth was created by God. I believe that everything is a product of that belief system. That allows me the ability to pray. That allows me the ability to believe in something that I can't see, something beyond myself. And when you read the Bible, when you bury yourself in that faith, and it's not going to be perfect, you're going to fall, you're going to make mistakes, you're going to do stupid stuff. But there's always God right there behind you, ready to take you back, ready to forgive your sins, ready to carry you when you can't carry yourself. There is going to be times when you feel like you are unworthy, when you don't deserve to exist, when your imposter syndrome is so bad you feel like the world will be better off without you. Going to happen, and when it does, remember it's a lie. It is a lie. It is Satan getting a foothold in your world and telling you that you're not worthy, and we know that is not the truth. Turn, repent, find, believe. Have faith.

Your Own Letter To Younger You

SPEAKER_00 22:20

It's entirely possible that nobody cares about any of this stuff that I just spoke about. It's entirely possible. It's entirely possible that people on this podcast listening right now are like, well, that was a wasted 25 minutes. But I think think about this in your own world and in your own life. If you had to talk back to your 25-year-old self, if you had to write a letter to your younger self, what would it say? What do you wish that you knew at a younger age? And how would have that shaped or changed your world? For me, I wouldn't have been as career focused. I wouldn't have sweat all the small stuff. I wouldn't have chased money so much. I would have been stronger in my marriage. I would have been able to check my ego at the door. And just because I've got things and I mean I feel important doesn't mean that I am, because at the end of the day, when I leave the office, nobody really cares. I would, my parenting, I would check myself on my parenting and realize that I'm not going to do everything right. But my job is to give my kids an ethical and moral foundation that they can stand upon for the future and that they can hold their faith high and proud and tall. Trauma, deal with it when it comes up. Make friends, don't push them away, and find something that you can be passionate about. That is what I would have told my younger self. It's the advice that nobody gives you. If I could sit across from my younger self, that is what I would say. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you so much for listening. Think about this, process it, and have a wonderful, wonderful day. That is a merge to music podcast.