Podcasts about 'alright

Pastor Greg Laurie says, so many times, we approach prayer as if we're placing a takeout order. ''Alright, Lord, let's just get to it. How are you doin'? Love you. Amen. Okay, here's what I need.' ? Right? But Jesus taught us this: 'Pray our Father who art in heaven hallowed by your name, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven'... Support the show: https://harvest.org/resources/ See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Summary: One vital thing that you must know about Facebook ads is that they have changed since Apple changed their privacy settings.  If you try to run your Facebook ads on Facebook and Instagram, you won't be able to track conversions for those that click on your ads while using Apple devices.  Ultimately, it seems that Facebook ads are a bit less effective, which only means the cost will be going up, too. The same is happening with Instagram; Instagram feed is mostly dead now as it is all about stories (after they copied Snapchat) & IG Reels as they are competing with Tiktok.  That is why it is an excellent opportunity to get on the Clubhouse now as it is early, and you have a chance to build your network with the app while it is in its infancy stage.   You might be wondering what this clubhouse app could be about. Will this be another shiny object out there that is just a distraction? Can you add more to “your plate” right now? Do you see the value of global connections for your business? The earlier you get on this app, the more exposure you have and the more chance to build yourself and the opportunity to develop your authentic community. When it comes to this Clubhouse app, you also need to ask these questions: Is your business focused on building relationships? Or are you wanting to position yourself as an expert? This platform is a good platform for those things mentioned above, as many connections and collaborations are happening in real time. I firmly believe in connections as a core concept of what I teach in my Amplify Method, leveraged marketing, leveraging other authority referral partners' audiences to build your network.  In this episode, we will discuss the Clubhouse app, take you behind the scenes, break it down for you, and give you all the information.   "It's a great opportunity to get in on the Clubhouse app because it's new, and you can really build a following while the clubhouse app is still in its infancy."  - April Meese   Topics Covered: 00:57 - Thoughts about the new app called Clubhouse 02:22 - The phone you need to have to download the Clubhouse app: iPhone 02:40 - What you need to know about the Facebook ad changes 04:24 - Why is it an excellent opportunity to get on the Clubhouse app now 04:38 - What is a Clubhouse app 05:43 - Key things you need to know about Clubhouse: etiquette, do's and don'ts, terminology used 09:05 - April talks about how to download the app, walking and navigating through the Clubhouse app 10:54 - What is a 'Ping' 11:23 - What is a 'room' and what are the different types of rooms 12:34 - What are 'clubs' 15:31 - A calendar of upcoming rooms 16:15 - A walkthrough on how to join the room  20:37 - How the clubhouse app is accessible by the blind and deaf 21:49 - How to have a chance to follow a speaker on Instagram or Twitter 24:16 - What you need to do for you to connect with people in the room 25:50 - What happens when you start to follow people 29:53 - How to follow speakers in the room, how to get notifications when they're on stage 31:48 - Where to find your profile and how to edit your bio 33:02 - Why the first line of your bio should be the six words that you want somebody to know about you 33:42 - What it means to 'reset the room' 35:45 - The moderator's role 36:28 - What I love about the Clubhouse app   Key Takeaways: "When I experienced it myself, I'm like, 'Alright, this is something I can get behind.' And you have to have an iPhone or an iPad to be able to download the app. So I have an Android phone, but I have my iPad." - April Meese "It's a great opportunity to get in on the clubhouse app because it's new, and you can really build a following while the clubhouse app is still in its infancy." - April Meese "What I love about it is, it's real candid conversations, it's not overly produced as we see in this world where things are glossy. It's a natural conversation; there's not going to be a replay. And so just as you see, Tiktok broke away from the curated type of reels, and they're going for more of the authentic -- that I feel like people are just craving more of the authentic." - April Meese "You could get into a room with top business owners and ask them questions, or might be, there's a lot of celebrities that are on the platform if that's important to you. But you're able to get proximity to people that you're unlikely to get proximity to before." - April Meese  "It's physically, in my opinion, impossible to fake it. Like, it's you authentically on there. There's nobody faking their photos, there's no way to fake boost your numbers right now, or straight-up lying about what you've accomplished, maybe people can put lies in their bio, but when they get on the stage, people are going to know like, 'Are they real or not'?" - April Meese    Connect with April Meese: aprilmeese.com support@aprilmeese.com LinkedIn Instagram Facebook

In this Between Takes interview, Shawn chats with author Melissa Maerz about her amazing new book 'Alright, Alright, Alright: The Oral History of Richard Linklater's Dazed and Confused.' The two discuss Linklater's initial reluctance about being interviewed about 'Dazed and Confused' AGAIN, the film's many production challenges and how this oral history ends up being even more of a Linklater-esque project than the film itself.Follow Melissa on Twitter: @MsMelissaMaerzPurchase Alright, Alright, Alright: https://amzn.to/2MDp6Hc

In this Between Takes interview, Shawn chats with author Melissa Maerz about her amazing new book 'Alright, Alright, Alright: The Oral History of Richard Linklater's Dazed and Confused.' The two discuss Linklater's initial reluctance about being interviewed about 'Dazed and Confused' AGAIN, the film's many production challenges and how this oral history ends up being even more of a Linklater-esque project than the film itself. Follow Melissa on Twitter: @MsMelissaMaerz Purchase Alright, Alright, Alright: https://amzn.to/2MDp6Hc

Show Notes:Personal and business development can never adhere to a singular formula, we are all complex souls, with different tendencies and needs, and fitting into someone else's ideas of happiness or success will leave you unsatisfied and frustrated. Human Design is one of a few modalities that helps individuals discover their own definitions, based on their purpose and what actually lights them up. Here to talk about the amazing power of the ideas of Human Design is Intuitive Human Design Reader, life coach, triathlete, and all-round powerhouse, Kelsey Abbott! Kelsey shares so much great wisdom in today's conversation, from the lessons she has learned on her own journey, to the ways in which she has been able to help her clients access unchartered territories of energy and success. We talk about how Human Design came into Kelsey's life and how it relates to the varied work she has done at different times. The conversation also covers the ideas of the soul's journey — which starts before birth, using your gifts, authenticity, and so much more! Kelsey generously unpacks her role as a Manifesting Generator and how learning this changed her life forever, a story you will not want to miss! To hear it all, make sure to join us! Key Points From This Episode:A brief, six-word description of Kelsey and her personality.Kelsey's current location and the time she has spent traversing the country.Work after college, researching dolphins, and lessons learned about working for free.Kelsey's discovery of life coaching, Human Design, and the idea of the Manifesting Generator.The common thread of curiosity that runs through the different things that Kelsey has done. The extended break that Kelsey has taken from social media and how beneficial it has been. Kelsey's role as an instigator of joy and ways that this plays out in her life. Unpacking Human Design; Kelsey's own definition of our soul's journey.What it means to be a 'Manifesting Generator'; breaking the mold and transcending labels!The other roles that make up the Human Design framework; projectors, reflectors, and more!Self-knowledge and fitting into the tapestry around you.The key takeaways that are possible with a Human Design reading. Kelsey's personal discoveries on her path with Human Design. How to manifest; receiving abundance for your authentic self. Getting away from a one-size-fits-all approach to business and life strategies. Comparing Human Design with other modalities of self-discovery and knowledge.How to connect and work with Kelsey online! Tweetables:“There is a difference between what we put on social media, our content pillars and who we are as a human.” — Cassandra Shuck [0:18:20]“The things that have come into my life from this break from social media are amazing!” — Kelsey Abbott [0:19:11]“When we are lit up, meaning we are doing exactly what our soul wants us to do, our energy becomes sparkly AF, and we elevate everyone around us!” — Kelsey Abbott [0:24:03]“When I learned that I am here to be intuitive for other people, I actually started laughing out loud. I was like, 'Alright universe, you got me.'” — Kelsey Abbott [0:33:59]

In today’s Solidarity Fridays episode, Joe and Kyle sit down and dissect 3 recent items in the news. First, they discuss a 2-year study on 18 older long-term AIDS survivors (OLTAS) with a high degree of demoralization and trauma, in which participants underwent 3 hours of individual psychotherapy, one 8 hour psilocybin session, and 12-15 hours of group therapy. While the study predictably showed improvement in demoralization after a 3-month follow-up, the bigger takeaway is the effectiveness of group therapy and the ability to replace hours of individual therapy, (in this case) cutting therapist time almost in half. With many people struggling to connect with facilitators but finding connection in groups, could group therapy work better to help with healing while also cutting costs? This brings up the concept of AI therapy and what improvements we could see by adding technology to this fairly established clinical model, both in cost and effectiveness. They next talk about Decriminalize Nature Oregon groups urging voters to vote "no" on the upcoming Oregon Psilocybin Service Measure 109 due to them finding the measure to be highly restrictive and essentially putting these plant medicines behind a paywall, making it even more difficult for those with race and income-based trauma to gain access. They wonder why DN is so opposed to what they see as progress- why not come at the problem from all angles and embrace legality alongside other initiatives, especially in a time when we are likely to see huge spikes in pandemic-related PTSD? This leads to a discussion of David Bronner of Dr. Bronner pulling funding from DN at a national level (but still supporting local initiatives) and the in-fighting that's seeming to happen everywhere with this battle. And that leads to money and the very common feeling that large donations usually come with ulterior motives. And how do you make sure they don't? Does taking money from someone to further your cause automatically make you a sell out? Or is there only a conflict if you have the contingency of the donor needing some sort of return on investment that affects the end goal? Notable Quotes “Let’s just keep experimenting and understanding what we lose when we get a little bit more technical, and perhaps also what we might gain. What would happen if you had your clients wearing a wearable, so you could review how their week actually was in data terms vs. self-reporting? That would be an interesting adjunct. And what happens when you do a full system thing with apps and the wearable being tied to that, to say, 'Alright, hey, you should go meditate for a little bit, [and] right now, because you are spiking' or 'Go do this bio-feedback thing for 5-10 and re-regulate and then go back to your day'?” -Joe “I think a lot of people that are just starting off, that are looking for some sort of mental health treatment- they’re probably going to want this medical model. Going to a group setting scares the shit out of them. They might not want to go to ayahuasca ceremonies or these spiritually-oriented, self-development groups with people. They might want that one-on-one, individual session, maybe to start off with, until they can build up a little bit of expertise and understand their own inner psyche, where they say, ‘Huh, maybe I can explore different models and different uses of context now.’ But I think that is something that is important to try to explore too- what do the people want that are outside of these inner circles that are more seasoned psychonauts- people that are trying to push for some of these changes and trying to say, ‘Hey, this is the model that we want’? Well, does everyone want that? Is that going to work for everybody?” -Kyle “There’s no real reason to think that laws stay forever. Laws are flexible. Laws are a pain in the butt. Laws are also amazing sometimes. So consider flexibility when thinking about laws and that citizens can change things. Perhaps we don’t get it right [on the] first try, but let’s get it right iteratively. This is the direction of right, in my mind- what OPS [Oregon Psilocybin Society] is doing.” -Joe Links Thelancet.com: Psilocybin-assisted group therapy for demoralized older long-term AIDS survivor men: An open-label safety and feasibility pilot study Decriminalize Nature's facebook post/press release on Oregon Psilocybin Service Measure 109 Ballotpedia.org: More info on Measure 109 Drbronner.com: Clarifying Our Support of the Decriminalize Nature Movement and Challenges With Its National Leadership Support the show Patreon Leave us a review on Facebook or iTunes Share us with your friends Join our Facebook group - Psychedelics Today group – Find the others and create community. Navigating Psychedelics  

Democrat convention showcases lineup of JOKERS & THIEVES. The Duran Quick Take: Episode 639. Via The Daily Mail UK (https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8642045/Stephen-Colbert-leads-outrage-against-Bill-Clintons-DNC-speech-lectured-Trump-behavior.html)... Stephen Colbert has mocked the Democrats for featuring Bill Clinton discussing the importance of the Oval Office and lecturing President Donald Trump about his behavior. Colbert, in his nightly riff off the two-hour convention, joked that Clinton's expression was of shock - 'seen here finding out Ghislaine Maxwell was just arrested,' he joked. 'The former president let Trump have it,' Colbert said, cutting to show a clip of Clinton stating that the Oval Office 'should be a command center.' 'Instead, it is a storm center,' Clinton said in his speech. Colbert commented: 'Alright, that's true, that's a good point. 'But I don't think Bill Clinton gets to lecture anyone on what should happen in the Oval Office. 'Those in glass houses should not be allowed near the interns.' *** The Patriot Beacon #1 Tactical Flashlight on the Market Link: https://www.patrioticlegacy.com/product/patriot-flashlight/ Coupon code: Duran20

Do you ever feel like your family is drifting apart? Rodney and Michelle Gage share how you can stop drifting and start living with greater intention. It's the family shift! Rodney and Michelle Gage: They have been married for 28 years and have 3 adult children (two who are married and one in college). Rodney and Michelle are the founding and lead pastors of ReThink Life Church in Orlando, Florida. For over 25 years, they have devoted their lives to helping people live life on purpose through full-time ministry. Rodney is a speaker and author of six books. In addition to that, Rodney and Michelle co-authored the book, ReThink Life: How to Be Different from the Norm. Plus, their 40-day devotional companion is featured on the YouVersion Bible App. "There's not a single couple that walks down the aisle and says, 'Alright, let's make a deal. Twelve months from now, we're gonna go our separate ways.'” ~ Rodney & Michelle Gage   CONNECT with Rodney and Michelle Gage BOOK: Family Shift Enjoy the multitude of topics discussed including comparison, family, intention, self-worth, and marriage, plus so much more. Family Disney Passes The Love Story The Youth Social media Comparison Identity Focus time Heart of the book Happily-ever-after The D.R.I.F.T. Start with the end in mind Divorce Intended purpose Medical challenge Adaptability Serve Truth Romans 8:28 Zig Ziglar Direction It's never too late Who do you want to become? Unified Core values Control Self-worth Make the hard call Leadership   CONNECT with Rodney and Michelle Gage BOOK: Family Shift   "Every family ends up somewhere, but few families end up somewhere on purpose." ~ Rodney & Michelle Gage #MyStrengthIsMyStory #CreateYourNow #FamilyShift   Quotes and statements within the interview: "Now we have the opportunity to piece all of that together to really help bring, I think, what we like to call, hope and how-to's to a lot of families that desperately need it." "Social media is an awesome tool if we use it to learn and to gleam from; and if we choose the right voices to speak into our lives." "And so, a lot of times, we're almost reactive than we are proactive. Rather than being on the defense, let's just be on the offense." "I didn't know she had needs." "There are great marriages out there. It's just a matter of commitment of both people's part and how hard you're going to work at it, and commit to it." "Or is your intended purpose to serve God and to serve each other and to focus on building a legacy rather than building memories." "It was something that we never anticipated, never expected, that we would have something like that happen in our lives. But it brought out so much good." "It helped our family work through adversity. It helped us take the focus off of our circumstances and put the focus on each other." "It's the voice we choose to listen to." "No matter what the challenge is, He's working it together to fulfill a greater purpose so that I can make an impact with my life." "If a couple is not unified around that mission and that vision of who they want to become, then they're going to be vulnerable to drifting to the things of this world and all the distractions that come with it." "Spend more time preparing for your marriage as oppose to planning your wedding." "Focus on the who before the do." "You didn't do anything wrong. God's created us to have a choice." "So we can't ever allow our self-worth to be based on what our children decide to do." "The only way we can do that is to be intentional in everything that you do."    What has your story gifted you? How to relate to the difficulties people face. How to navigate through personal challenges. "We are a product of our past, but we're not a prisoner of our past." Encouraging moms "We've been through it. We've walked through it. And we're survivors. We're thriving." "At some point, we have to give the pen to God and allow God to help us write our story."   Resources mentioned in the episode: CONNECT with Rodney and Michelle Gage BOOK: Family Shift Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/FamilyShift/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/familyshift/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/FamilyShift   "One step at a time leads to miles of greatness!"   Subscribe to Create Your Now TV on YouTube. Listen to Create Your Now on Spotify and Pandora. Listen to Create Your Now on iHeart Radio. Click here. The Create Your Now Archives are LIVE!! You can subscribe and listen to all the previous episodes here.  http://bit.ly/CYNarchive1 and http://bit.ly/CYNarchive2 and http://bit.ly/CYNarchive3 and http://bit.ly/CYNarchive4 and http://bit.ly/CYNarchive5 and http://bit.ly/CYNarchive6 Contact me at YourBestSelfie@CreateYourNow.com THE NO FUSS MEAL PLAN Instagram @CreateYourNow @Kristianne Wargo Twitter @KristianneWargo @CreateYourNow Facebook www.facebook.com/TheKISSCoach www.facebook.com/CreateYourNow   PERISCOPE USERS!!! Click here for ANDROID Users / GOOGLE  https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=tv.periscope.android Click here for APPLE Users  https://itunes.apple.com/app/id972909677   Read more from Kristianne, a contributor to The Huffington Post, MindBodyGreen, Thrive Global, Addicted2Succes, and She Owns It. https://addicted2success.com/success-advice/5-things-to-do-while-waiting-for-success-to-manifest-in-your-life/ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kristianne-wargo/ http://bit.ly/9amHabits https://journal.thriveglobal.com/how-to-configure-a-sleep-pattern-fit-for-you-d8edd3387eaf#.sniv275c3 https://sheownsit.com/when-failure-is-your-middle-name/   DOMESTIC BEAUTIES (Announcements) 1. Come and let's connect on Facebook - Women Of IMPACT  http://facebook.com/groups/thewomenofimpact 2. Create Your Now ~ Your Best Selfie can be heard on iHeart Radio, Spotify, and Pandora! 3. Create Your Now Archive 1 is LIVE! You can subscribe and listen to all the previous episodes here. http://bit.ly/CYNarchive1 4. Create Your Now Archive 2 is LIVE! You can subscribe and listen to all the previous episodes here. http://bit.ly/CYNarchive2 5. Create Your Now Archive 3 is LIVE! You can subscribe and listen to all the previous episodes here. http://bit.ly/CYNarchive3 6. Create Your Now Archive 4 is LIVE! You can subscribe and listen to all the previous episodes here. http://bit.ly/CYNarchive4 7. Create Your Now Archive 5 is LIVE! You can subscribe and listen to all the previous episodes here. http://bit.ly/CYNarchive5 8. Create Your Now Archive 6 is LIVE! You can subscribe and listen to all the previous episodes here. http://bit.ly/CYNarchive6 9. NEW Website! Go check it out and tell me what you think. http://www.createyournow.com 10. Sign Up for The A.I.M. Academy! You will be the first to learn all about it. http://createyournow.com/m-academy-2 11. Schedule a Discovery Call. This is a free 30-45 minute call for those serious about coaching with me. 12. Newsletter and Library: If you desire to get weekly emails, be sure to sign up here so you can stay connected. http://createyournow.com/library   Cover Art by Jenny Hamson   Music by Mandisa - Overcomer http://www.mandisaofficial.com Song ID: 68209 Song Title: Overcomer Writer(s): Ben Glover, Chris Stevens, David Garcia Copyright © 2013 Meaux Mercy (BMI) Moody Producer Music (BMI) 9t One Songs (ASCAP) Ariose Music (ASCAP) Universal Music -  Brentwood Benson Publ. (ASCAP) D Soul Music (ASCAP) (adm. at CapitolCMGPublishing.com) All rights reserved. Used by permission.

'Alright mate, where to? Sorry about the sick on the seat. Used to be all h'aaarses around 'ere' No cockney banter was harmed as Mike, Ben and special guest Peih-Gee Law escape Tony's deadly runaway hackney carriage. Robots! Puns! Sausages! Two of those three things are in this episode. We mention a fantastic online few rooms in the episode, they come with Peih-Gee's stamp of approval so why not check them out? Ready Mayor One The truth about Edith Miss Jezabel (this one sounds right up our street) Project avatar You can check out Peih-Gee's reviews over at Room Escape Artist. Oh yeah, while we're on the subject they've got a sweet online conference coming up on escape rooms. More on that later - but here's a juicy link for RECON in the meantime. Oh yeah we're still on the Patreon the Twitters and the Facebook. Hit us up.

Series 4 Episode 1 Maria Ferguson - We talk about Maria's debut poetry collection 'Alright, Girl?' as well as working class culture, form in poetry, the great British boozer and more! Poetry recital from Maria Ferguson. Follow us on Instagram: @peoplespoetrypodcast Twitter: @people_poetry Facebook: People's Poetry Podcast Submissions/ letters to: peoplespoetrypodcast@hotmail.com www.peoplespoetrypodcast.com Episode links: Maria Ferguson Instagram: @mlferg Twitter: @kerdonk www.mariaferg.com

We are joined by Maria Ferguson, author of 'Alright, Girl?' and our conversation takes us to finding ways to motivate our writing, imposter syndrome and Maria's future plans. Mentions of pandas. Maria also reads a poem from the new collection. https://mariaferg.com/ http://burningeye.co.uk

More words, better words, in less time? Sometimes. In this episode, finding your own path to write faster.If only we could write as fast as we type! You could set your clock by our book production, right? Not so. This week we’re exploring how to write faster with Sarina in the lead. Finding your own patterns, prewriting and avoiding that “stuck” feeling by finding tangible ways to explore your characters and book without doing battle with words dominate our conversation as we riff on ways to up our daily word counts without ending up with something that’s destined for the cutting room floor file. Episode links and a transcript follow—but first, a preview of the #WritersTopFive that will be dropping into #AmWriting supporter inboxes on Monday, September 30, 2019: Top Five Reasons to Be on Instagram. Not joined that club yet? You’ll want to get on that. Support the podcast you love AND get weekly #WriterTopFives with actionable advice you can use for just $7 a month. As always, this episode (and every episode) will appear for all subscribers in your usual podcast listening places, totally free as the #AmWriting Podcast has always been. This shownotes email is free, too, so please—forward it to a friend, and if you haven’t already, join our email list and be on top of it with the shownotes and a transcript every time there’s a new episode. To support the podcast and help it stay free, subscribe to our weekly #WritersTopFive email.LINKS FROM THE PODCAST2k to 10k: Writing Faster, Writing Better, and Writing More of What You Love, Rachel Aaron#AmReading (Watching, Listening)Jess: She Said: Breaking the Sexual Harassment Story That Helped Ignite a Movement Jodi Kantor, Meghan TwoheyKJ: Podcasts for book recommendations: What Should I Read Next? with Anne Bogel and Get Booked, from BookRiotSarina: 100 Deadly Skills: The SEAL Operative’s Guide to Eluding Pursuers, Evading Capture, and Surviving Any Dangerous Situation, Clint Emerson#FaveIndieBookstore NEWSJenny Lawson, author of You Are Here, Let’s Pretend This Never Happened, and Furiously Happy, will be opening Nowhere Books in San Antonio with the former GM of Book People. We love it when a new indie is born. This episode was sponsored by Author Accelerator, the book coaching program that helps you get your work DONE. Visit https://www.authoraccelerator.com/amwritingfor details, special offers and Jennie Nash’s Inside-Outline template.Find more about Jess here, Sarina here and about KJ here.If you enjoyed this episode, we suggest you check out Marginally, a podcast about writing, work and friendship.The image in our podcast illustration is by Jordan on Unsplash.Transcript (We use an AI service for transcription, and while we do clean it up a bit, some errors are the price of admission here. We hope it’s still helpful.)KJ:                                        00:01                    Hey writers, are you whispering to yourself that this might just be your year to make NaNoWriMo happen? Or maybe planning to do it again? Then, do yourself a favor and invest in Author Accelerator's Inside Outline coaching now, so that you've got a structure to free you up to use those 30 days in November to write something that really works. It is no fun to 'win' NaNoWriMo with 56,000 words and then realize 35,000 of them don't serve your story at all. Trust me, I speak from experience. The Inside Outline really works. Find out more at authoraccelerator.com/insideoutline.Jess:                                     00:36                    Go ahead.KJ:                                        00:36                    This is the part where I stare blankly at the microphone like I don't remember what I was supposed to be doing.Jess:                                     00:36                    All right, let's start over.KJ:                                        00:36                    Awkward pause, I'm going to rustle some papers.Jess:                                     00:36                    Okay.KJ:                                        00:36                    Now one, two, three. I'm KJ Dell'Antonia and this is #AmWriting. #AmWriting is the podcast, your podcast we hope, about writing all the things, short things, long things, fiction, nonfiction, genre, new and creative genre, proposals, pitches, emails to potential agents. This is the podcast about sitting down and getting your work done.Jess:                                     01:26                    And I'm Jess Lahey. I am the author of the Gift of Failure and an upcoming book about substance abuse in kids. And I think I'm on like day 31 until my deadline, so I'm completely insane. You can also find my most recent work that I'm super excited about The Smarter Living Guide to How to Help Your Kids Succeed in School This Year, which was super fun to write. And my first foray into the guides at the New York Times.Sarina:                                 01:53                    I'm Sarina Bowen, the author of several USA today bestselling romance novels and my newest one will be called Moonlighter coming on October 22.KJ:                                        02:04                    And I am KJ Dell'Antonia. I am the former lead editor of the New York Times Motherlode blog, the author of the book How to Be a Happier Parent and of a novel forthcoming from GP Putnam and Sons next summer about which you'll just be hearing so much later. And now that we are providing (by email) show notes every week, I'm going to invite everybody, first of all, to head over to our website and sign up so you can get the show notes and consider supporting us by signing up for the #Writer'sTopFive emails. But the real reason that I wanted to bring that up, is that every time Jess introduces herself on the artificial intelligence transcript app that we use to start out before our lovely assistant Marisa goes through and makes it all much, much, much better it says, I'm just lucky. I thought that was glorious. All right, we have a great topic today. Sarina, kick us off.Sarina:                                 03:16                    Today we're talking about writing faster, which of course you know is an art and a science. Jess laughs because she's up against her deadline, but the truth is...Jess:                                     03:29                    Jess laughs cause she's losing her mind. And KJ texted yesterday something about the fact that you just can't get as much done in a day as you think that you can get done in a day. And that's my life right now.KJ:                                        03:44                    Before we talk about writing faster, which I think is doable and there are strategies and I can't wait to hear them. I just want to say that I'm having two struggles this week. And one is that - I just can't do as much in a day as I think I can. You'd think I'd know that by now, but I don't. And the other is that I also can't make all the people happy. So yeah, apparently I have learned nothing in my life because I'm still trying.Jess:                                     04:15                    Well your book was not called How to Make Everybody Happy, it's just how to be a happier parent. So how are we going to write faster? Someone give me the keys to this car. How do we write faster?Sarina:                                 04:59                    I came about this topic listening to lots of fiction authors (because that's mostly who I'm talking to during a week) talk about how to write faster. And every once in awhile, a so-called friend of mine will post, 'I wrote 11,000 words today.' And I will feel nothing but rage, because I have never once written 11,000 words in a day and never will and that's fine. But it really got me thinking about why is my pace, my pace? And what does it mean about my habits that has brought me here? And is there any way for me to increase that pace? So my average pace, like on a longterm basis, is about 1200 words a day. And that is up from about a thousand words a day. And so some people would look at my pace and say that I was flying, right, because 1200 words a day, you can on average write four books a year. But to someone else, that pace is like turtle pace and what the heck is wrong with me? So, this discussion is really more about writing faster for you and not becoming a speed demon. Because I don't actually want to write 11,000 words in a day. But anyway, more on that in a second.KJ:                                        06:22                    I was listening to someone else on a different podcast, say exactly that same thing - about the people that can write 11,000 words in a day or whatever. And what that person said is, 'I probably, maybe could write 11,000 words in a day. However, the final 9,000 of them I would just have to throw away the next day. So, the gain would be zero. And that was her process.Jess:                                     06:50                    I actually had a really good experience this week. I got more written in a day than I had in a long time. And ironically, our listeners will be just tickled to hear it was while I was traveling. But I figured out why - it wasn't just that I was trapped on an airplane for a cross-country trip (which part of that obviously it had to do with it). But I realized that my laptop, (normally when I write at home, my laptop is plugged into a monitor that mirrors my laptop) so that I've got this nice big monitor and I can have multiple documents up at once. Which is great because my laptop keyboard stinks. But what I realized was that the fact that my laptop computer keyboard was broken, freed me up from editing as I wrote. So what I did was I was just typing, typing, typing, knowing full well that the edit was going to be a heavy one. But all I was doing was getting the chapter structure out. And I wrote 5,000 words that day on planes and was it messy? Absolutely. But something about being freed from that impulse to edit as I went was really good for me. And that's not something I had tried recently.Sarina:                                 08:10                    I have so many thoughts. The first one is I want to find you a bluetooth keyboard and ship it to you FedEx. So a couple of years ago, my father (foolishly, I might add) challenged me to a typing competition. He was laboring under the delusion that he was faster at typing than I was. So we had to settle it of course, as one does. And I clocked out at 95 words a minute. Beating him handily. I don't remember how badly and to save his feelings will not say right now. So if I told you a minute ago that my average pace is about 1200 words a day and if you put those two things together, it might lead you to believe that I can work for 12.63 minutes a day and be finished. But of course, I don't work for 12.63 minutes a day. And so, that led me to ask myself, what am I doing with all of that other time? So you just made a point that some of your time is spent fixing the B. And it made me want the following: (which I do not have) a tool that if I were just going to sit down and write for a couple of hours and then if I could look back at a video of what that page looked like as I went, I am 100% sure that I will type a thing and fix it, and type a thing and fix it, and type a thing and fix it. Because when I'm in the document and I'm composing chapter seven or whatever, and I'm looking at chapter seven and I'm writing it and there's dialogue and there's speech tags and all this stuff, I am constantly tweaking. Like, 'Oh look, there's two paragraphs that both start with the word I, let's change it.' And I just used that word two paragraphs ago, let's fix it. And that is my method. I am a fix-it-as-you-go kind of writer, because I just detest having a giant, horrible, messy chapter that I have to go back and rip to shreds for two days after I've written it. So at first, in my little quest for how to write faster, I listened to a lot of good advice about how to dictate things. And I tried, and I failed so spectacularly, because it turns out that the first way that something comes out of my mouth is never the way that I want it to. And that my process as an author, did not lend itself to dictation. Because sure I can dictate a lot faster than I can type, but I don't actually want that output. And what comes out of my mouth on the first round is not what I want to see on the page when I'm done. So I spent all this time trying to figure out why I couldn't get a dictated product that I was happy with. And it turned out, software wasn't my problem, the equipment wasn't my problem, the fact that Dragon stopped supporting the Mackintosh product was not my problem. None of it was my problem, except that I don't ever use the first thing that comes out.Jess:                                     11:50                    You write more dialogue, I don't tend to write dialogue. But do you find that dictation is helpful for dialogue?Sarina:                                 11:58                    You know, there's something that's more helpful for it. And that's this - the first part of writing quickly or learning to improve your pace is to understand what's holding you back. So, there might be people who don't type 95 words a minute and who are paralyzed by the blank page and who actually need that moving dictation. The eyes off the page to get that work out faster. In order to solve the question of how do I personally increase my pace you have to find out which personality type you are in terms of how it gets onto the page. So I just articulated mine to you right now, but a year ago I could not do that because I didn't actually know what was holding me back. So, then I set about trying lots of other things that weren't dictation based. So there's this book that I discussed with KJ once called 2k to 10k (and of course we'll put the link for that in the show notes.) And this author has a very analytical mind. I can't remember how quickly she wants our 10k to come. I don't even remember if she was advocating for a one day 10k or not, but it doesn't really matter. Because she was using similar analytics to figure out what her process was. So in her book, one of the things she says you should try is to make a nice journal of how your writing is going. So, if you sit down at 8:00 AM for 90 minutes, you should write down what time of day it is and what day of the week it is and how many words you got. And then you should do the same thing every single time you write and then you will see a pattern. I believe she thought she was the best in the morning, but that turned out to be wrong, she was most efficient at night. So, by analyzing your own ability to get words on the page, you can learn a lot about how to not waste your time. Which seems obvious in review, but was really meaningful to me when I figured that out. And then another thing she does in this book is actually the tool and technique that saved me, which she calls pre-writing. And this is where all the acceleration happened for me. She gave it a name, pre-writing, for something that I was sometimes already doing. Which is - I'll have a day where I'm finishing up a scene, and it's a great scene, and I love how it came out, and I will turn the page because it's done and I'll still have time and I'll still have energy left and I won't know exactly what happens next. Like my outline might be good, I might know the next bit of conflict is that my characters are going to have an argument about a thing and I already know what's at stake, but I don't know maybe where they're having it or what other little thing needs to happen first or just the really granular bits. Like how does that chapter start and how do they get into the argument in the first place? So this is where pre-writing is really important for me. So I close out that document, because that's the document where I'm gonna change every sentence that I write, and I open up my notebook, and I just start short-handing what's gonna happen. Like we start the scene here, and there's the problem, and here's the solution, and wait, we get into an argument. Oh wait, it's about the dog, the dog does it. There's this discovery on the page that's so free.Jess:                                     15:42                    Wait, can I ask you a question though, because I thought, (especially since you tend to co-write) weren't you guys doing that as part of your planning process for the book anyway? Or was that something that you were doing on your individual chapters without sort of talking that much to each other since you had like a big, overarching outline?Sarina:                                 16:03                    Right, that's exactly it. You know what happens next conflict wise, but you don't know how the scene unfolds.KJ:                                        16:10                    Yeah, I do something like this, too. What it looks like is something like, okay they're in the car, maybe they're in a coffee shop, then I sort of drudge along, just hit return and start again, yeah they're at the bookstore. You know, he comes around, oh, nonfiction section, perfect. I mean it literally looks like that. And then the next day when I go to that it also percolates in your head and sort of starts to turn into a scene, or it does for me.Sarina:                                 16:49                    Yup, and also dialogue, as well. When you just start blurting out onto the page the things that they're going to say to each other, you don't have to write the blocking. So you can quickly get to the heart of what is accomplished via that dialogue, like what plot is unfolding as people interact. And you don't have to worry about being consistent with body language, or that everybody blinks too much, or everybody's staring at each other too much, or all these little things that you find later that are too overwhelming. It's just the dialogue lines, no punctuation, no nothing. And that's when you figure out what's really happening in the scene. And then you take this God-awful, ugly piece of note taking you just did and then you go into your little perfectionist document and you write the scene in a way that pleases you. I'm just far more likely to fix fewer things when I do it that way because I'm excited that I've just solved the problem of what's happening.KJ:                                        17:58                    I think I could write faster if I could also write shorter. I could write less if I was more disciplined about what you just said. Which is what do they need to say to each other, why is this here, why does this need to be here? Because you know, frequently I'll have those two people in the bookstore or whatever, and there's all kinds of clever things they could see,or talk about, or do. And if I would just focus on why they need to be there and if I only wrote in one clever thing, then later on I wouldn't have to take out five clever things and that would speed me up overall.Sarina:                                 18:39                    Yeah. And that's where organization comes into play, because you can stash those clever things someplace else. Like, if you really like your note taking system, if you're comfortable with it, then you can just sticky-note it somewhere that 'Hey, this funny joke, that book we saw on the shelf, actually maybe plays into a theme that you're trying to develop.' So those little clever things can get set aside to percolate later.KJ:                                        19:13                    That's sort of a different question of working faster, I guess. Right now we're just trying to talk about getting more words on the page while you're drafting. But getting the right words on the page is good, too.Sarina:                                 19:26                    And then that whole idea about time of day, I haven't had much luck identifying a particular time of day that I'm better at getting words onto the page. However, I have noticed that the time of day that I get them out to the page has a very direct result on how I feel about everything. So, if I'm able to produce work in the morning, then I'm invincible. And if I sort of avoid it all day and end up writing it at 10:30 at night, then I'm just like on the treadmill and it hurts. So, that's another part of habits and how you get those words out and when. So sometimes I will even do the pre-writing step the night before. Like I'm feeling okay about the work for that day and I kind of know what's happening and let me just sit down and spew it into this notebook and then I will open it up in the morning and everything is less terrifying.Jess:                                     20:29                    That's what I think would help me the most. Yesterday I wrote for 14 or 16 hours, but it was obscene. And the thing that kept me from stopping is that I know that getting back into the flow is my problem. So I need something to help me. So that when I sit down in the morning, or after a break or whatever, I'm not like, 'Okay, what was I doing? Where am I? What am I doing next?' And sometimes I'll highlight things in the document and then just write really quickly, 'Here's what you were thinking about next.' And that can help me overcome that little hump, but it's also just a mental roadblock. When you have a document that's as big as a book, it's really hard to sort of wrap your brain around sitting down and diving back in. But after about 15 minutes or so, you're like, 'Oh, okay, I'm back in. This is good.' But I would love to eliminate that 15 minutes at the beginning.Sarina:                                 21:24                    Totally. For me, sometimes it's not 15 minutes, it's like three hours. And part of the reason for the three hours is that we're always convincing ourselves of something. I think writers are so guilty of this. Like in order to dig a ditch, you don't have to go back outside in the morning and convince yourself why that ditch should be dug. You know, the shovel is right there. But, with authorship there's a lot of doubt that comes into the equation and some of that doubt is necessary. So I like to think of it as like an in-breath and an out-breath. There are days when you just need to shut your inner critic off and just get that scene onto the page because that is what we're doing today. And then, maybe the next day you actually have to reverse the process and you have to invite your inner critic to the table and re-look at that scene that you did yesterday and make sure you're still going in the right direction. And so that requires a lot of emotional control of your inner critic. And my inner critic is not so easily manipulated as that some days.Jess:                                     22:31                    Well, I'm in that place with the book where I have these wild vacillations between like, 'I've totally got this, it's going to be so easy, I'm on the downhill slope.' And then not even seconds later, the enormity of what a book is will hit me and I'm like, 'I don't know that I'm doing anymore.' It's this crazy emotional place and it's so funny to me that I can vacillate so quickly between the two, but there we are.KJ:                                        23:14                    One was one of the hosts of Marginally was saying that she had read Wendell Berry. He had written that every day of farming, he would wake up, and lay in bed dreading like, and then he'd get out there and 15 minutes later he'd be like, 'Oh yeah, because I love it.' And you know (as someone with this small farm) recognizing that everybody has that 15 minutes. I mean, I think ditch ditch diggers do,too. You know, they know why they have to dig the ditch, but they're still like, 'Oh geez, not the ditch again, the same ditch, why didn't I finish that ditch yesterday?' You know, I think everybody's like that. And then you get out there and you're like, 'Alright, you know, I'm in the flow, I can see the progress, the ditch is getting deeper or whatever. Ditch digging might not be the best comparison. Anyway, I think we all have that feeling of get the butt in the chair and getting things going.Jess:                                     25:10                    The good part about this part in the process is I can overcome that, 'Oh my gosh, I have no idea what I'm doing.' If I just take a breath and sit back and go, 'What are you talking about? You've got this, you're fine.' But there were times with my first book when I couldn't break out of that. So that's good, that's getting better.KJ:                                        26:42                    Well as long as we're just talking about trying to get the work done as opposed to getting it faster. I also had a moment this week where somebody else was trying to get me to do something and that person was in a hurry and needed this urgently. My fresh morning time had already been taken up by a doctor's appointment, so my day was already not going great and I was gonna concede. You know, I was going to do this thing. And then I was just like, 'Wait, wait.' And I was being angry at the person in my head and I said, 'Who is doing this to you? You or that other person?' And I had to admit it was me. While they wanted me to do that at 10 rather than 11, they weren't necessarily going to know. So, I firmly put my little butt in the chair and did my own work for that first hour and a half and then I did the thing that the other person was asking of me.Jess:                                     27:51                    I achieved something elusive earlier this week. I was having a really good day of writing and I achieved the elusive writer's high. I've never experienced runner's high, even after years of distance running that's never something I ever got to. But I did have writer's high the other day it was really lovely. And I put on some music and I kind of danced in my chair a little bit while I wrote. It was lovely. It exists.Sarina:                                 28:16                    Well, let's spend another moment on the day when you can't find your writer's high. I have days when I just don't feel close enough to my characters or my topic. And sometimes those are the nights when I won't read anything before I go to sleep. So, instead of being tense about it - there's this funny part from Cheers (and I'm totally dating myself), where Norman, the interior decorator, would tell people, 'I've programmed myself to dream about your space.' And I love that line so much and I actually feel like I can turn that on a little bit with fiction. Where I will go for a walk, or I'll take a drive, or everyone knows how wonderful the shower is for writing thoughts, but I will just think about my characters in an unforced way. Or I will look for pictures on Pinterest of the coffee shop, or the attic bedroom, or the resort where they might be staying. I'll just do something that's tangential to figuring out the scene without actually worrying about what happens next in the scene. So we're not stuck, we're marinating. You're honoring the cogitation that has to happen before you're actually ready to go on. And yeah, it's true, I won't be getting any words on the page at that time, but I'm also not going to take flight from the problem. So, if you can find a way to allow yourself to think about your topic without actually saying 'What happens, what happens next?' then sometimes wonderful things happen that way.KJ:                                        30:10                    I love that. We're not stuck, we're marinating. You're also just finding other ways to keep your butt in the chair, right?Sarina:                                 30:19                    Yeah, or even out of the chair.KJ:                                        30:21                    Or you know, keeping your head in the game, then. Something, come on, do something.Sarina:                                 30:25                    Yeah, definitely head in the game. Once I drew a picture of the floor plan of the bar owner in my story. I didn't actually need the floor plan. I just drew it because it kept me thinking about him in a way that was not confrontational to what chapter 11 was going to do.KJ:                                        30:50                    I love the idea of you like having these confrontational, mental... And you're so right, sometimes you just can't get them, you can't figure out why they would do what it is that you need them to do, or what they would do instead that still makes things move. And it is a confrontation.Sarina:                                 31:14                    Yup. And some books are faster than others, obviously. People who think that my writing pace is fast, should remember that I'm writing books in essentially two series, where the world building has been established in previous books and some of the characters are already known. I just wrote an email 10 minutes ago to my assistant asking her to go through six books and pull out every reference to the youngest brother in this family. And then to go deep diving for mentions of the deceased father, because he's going to become important. And I will just reread every line about those people. So that falls under the category of what cannot be rushed. So, it's amazing that there are people who can write 11,000 words in a day, but I would still posit that on novel that I want to read again and again has some parts that have to take a pause after those 11,000 words. Because reviewing your own work for theme and motif is something you can't rush, basically. I always need to go back and find like, 'Oh, look how many times I mentioned lost sheep.' So, being lost is a theme of this book, and the sheep is the motif, and where have I underutilized this image and what was I thinking? That kind of thing, it's lovely to write fast, but if you give yourself permission to have to go back and think about all these things, then you'll end up with something that you're really happy with whenever you do finally write the end.KJ:                                        33:03                    So I think when I talk about write faster, I would just like to get another couple hundred solid words a day. I would like to spend a little less time hovering over the keyboard and a little more time with my fingers moving. But not 11,000 words.Jess:                                     33:27                    I think a good marriage for me in a day is a little bit of time spent smoothing out stuff I've already written and just pounding out new stuff. But I can't do both for really long periods of time because it's different, mentally taxing tasks for me. You know, getting a ton of words on the page is tiring in one way. And editing stuff I've already written is tiring in a different way. And for some reason for me, if I do a little bit of both, I can last longer.KJ:                                        33:58                    I will just sort of point out to myself, that I've done NaNoWriMo. I have won NaNoWriMo and I'll just bask in the glory of that for a minute. And it is the book that eventually became The Chicken Sisters. So, I can write 1600 words in a day. I typically don't, but I could. So some of write faster might also be make more space. I was getting up early on days when, in a normal month, I might not get up early. I was pushing things aside that I might not have pushed aside. So, making the space - I guess that's not writing faster, that's just writing more.Jess:                                     34:45                    Well, there's a really fun activity that I used to do with my students for NaNoWriMo when I gave them space to do NaNoWriMo in November, obviously. There's a little workbook that they used to produce and I'm not entirely sure that they still do. And there's a big page at the beginning of the workbook and it's got a big picture of basically what looks like your no button, KJ. It's like a big like stop button. And you're supposed to pretend to hit it, because that's your inner editor. You're supposed to silence your inner editor and so we would actually do it for fun. We would put the page on the desk, and we'd all slam the desk and say, 'That's it.' Our inner editor, we've just shut it off, so that we can move forward without having to worry about going back and make everything perfect. And that allowed the students to let go of that perfectionism a little bit and just allow the words to flow more and to become part of the process, instead of part of the editor. So that was a fun thing.KJ:                                        35:41                    You touched on this, but do you separate your editing days and your writing days or your editing blocks and you're writing blocks? I've been in a deep editing space, cause I just turned in essentially the final edit of The Chicken Sisters and I'm having a hard time. In fact, instead of getting into deep writing on my new project (for a lot of reasons), but including the fact that I'm in editing mode, I'm going back over the probably first third to a half of the book that I already have, and making it match where I know I'm going. Whereas in in the past, when I've written things I have not gone back. I've just gone forward the way I knew I was going, and then gone back and fixed it. So how do you manage that editing versus writing space?Sarina:                                 36:35                    I go back a lot. I really am a big fan of going back to the beginning, and printing it out, and reading it, and scribbling in the margins, and then doing an edit even before I've hit the 50% Mark. And Elle Kennedy doesn't like to do that. She likes to write the whole thing and then go back and fix it, but I feel too out of control. It's like there's dishes in the sink kind of feeling. One way that that benefits me is that I just printed out a book that I had just finished and I had exactly four days to do the final revision and the result was totally as expected, which is that that first 25% did not require very much of me because I had already been there so many times. The second 25% was okay, the third 25% was a disaster, and the last quarter was great because I had already figured all my stuff out. And I was able to write the last quarter of the book, even if I hadn't fixed the 50 to 75% part yet, I knew what was there and it was all fresh.KJ:                                        37:45                    I think it's just too soon for me. I'm only on my second hopefully publishable novel (I've got some tucked away). So it's too soon for me to sort of say, 'Oh, this is how I do it.' But, some part of me doesn't want to spend too much time going back and polishing the first 25% because at least in the first book there were things that I needed to go back and change. I don't think you're polishing anyway. It's somewhere between polishing it and revising. I want to revise to get the plot consistent, and the character development consistent, and the things that I know are happening consistent, but I don't want to spend too much time on it because there's a pretty decent chance that somewhere the final third of the book, something will happen that will cause me to go 'Oh, yeah. I really got to go back and and insert this, that, or the other, or pull out this, that, or the other, because that has changed. So it's an interesting balance.Sarina:                                 38:50                    I still take that risk. I'll polish the heck out of things even if they're gonna get changed.KJ:                                        38:57                    You have permission. Well this was, I am going to write faster, or better, or more, or something.Jess:                                     39:08                    I always just benefit from hearing how strategic Sarina is in her thinking about her writing.KJ:                                        39:14                    I think it's just good to take some time and think strategically. So I love that. But let's switch gears, who's been reading?Jess:                                     39:23                    Actually, can I go first on the book? Because that's exactly what the book I've been listening to is about. So, I had very high expectations for Jodi Kantor and Meghan Twohey's book 'She Said'. And oh my gosh, it's so much better than even I thought it would be. And here's why I love it so much. Of course, I love the background stuff, you know part of the story of this is that they had to get to people like Ashley Judd and Gwyneth Paltrow without going through agents and publicists, the people who it's their job to protect these people. So they had to do a lot of that and there were things I was looking forward to reading in this book. For writers, this book is a masterclass in investigative journalism. And I'm not talking about like sweeping ideas, I'm talking about nuts and bolts. Here's how they kept this document secret in the New York Times system, where they keep work in progress. Here's how Megan Twohey handled someone who's answer on the telephone said one thing, but clearly meant another. It's brilliant. And they really take you into the room, they take you into the page one room, they take you into the meetings where they were. I'm talking about the tiny, minute details that could either make the story credible or make the story fall apart. And I learned a ton and I also just got that juicy behind-the-scenes dishing on the guts of investigative journalism. And I was just blown away by the book. Absolutely blown away by the book. And if you get a chance and you see it in the store, turn it over and look at the blurbs on the back. Cause frankly, that's one of the coolest things I've ever seen. Instead of having blurbs on the back, they have quotes from women about the Weinstein case, or Trump, or whoever. And it's attributed to She Said. It's so brilliant, it's just a fantastic book. Kudos to them, I'm so impressed. They just deserve for this book to be a runaway bestseller.Sarina:                                 41:38                    Sounds amazing.Jess:                                     41:39                    Yeah, it's just so good. Sarina, what have you been reading?Sarina:                                 41:45                    Well, I'm still in an editing hellscape of my own creation, but I have been flipping through this hilarious research book. Which is not meant to be hilarious, but it's called the 100 Deadly Skills by Clint Emerson, retired Navy SEAL. And it's the subtitle is The SEAL Operatives Guide to Eluding Pursuers, Evading Capture, and Surviving Any Dangerous Situation. And he is not kidding.Jess:                                     42:14                    This is like the last book I can picture you reading. I'm so intrigued.Sarina:                                 42:19                    I know, but it's for fiction naturally. So now I know how to bar myself in a hotel room.KJ:                                        42:43                    That's awesome, I love it. Well, I have not been reading. I actually have started something I'm excited about, but I'm gonna finish it before talking about it. So what I have to offer everyone instead, (and I'm actually really excited about this) I have found two fantastic new podcast, specifically for book recommendations. I can't believe I did not know about these, and maybe you guys did, but I am absolutely in love with, What Should I Read Next with Anne Bogle, who's also known as the Modern Mrs. Darcy. I want to be a guest on this podcast so bad, you guys. What she does is she has one guest and she asks them what they've enjoyed lately, what is not for them, and what kind of reads they want to to have on their bedside table, and then she gives them three recommendations after having this sort of glorious 40 minute long talk about what they like about books, and what they don't like about books. I love it, it's such fun to listen to. And on a similar note, I also came across the Get Booked podcast from Book Riot and this is two hosts and they don't have a guest. Instead, people write them in and they say something like, 'I have a really hard time finding the right thing to read on a plane. I need it to be distracting like maybe with dragons, but I really hate it when it involves, you know, the gender politics, what can I read...' These questions are so specific and then they launch into their book recommendations and it's so much fun to listen to.Jess:                                     44:21                    That's cool. That's how I use Twitter when I've got a student that has very specific interests, and a very specific reading level, and is a reluctant. I go to Twitter and I say, 'Okay, fifth grade reading level, basketball, a kid who's from central America, Go.' And then you know, I get all these cool recommendations. I love that.KJ:                                        44:41                    I believe, Jess, you said you have bookstore news. So instead of a fave indie bookstore this week, we're going to lay out some indie bookstore news for people.Jess:                                     45:05                    It's very cool. This is newly public news from Jenny Lawson. She wrote Furiously Happy and Let's Pretend This Never Happened and a fantastic coloring book for people when they're anxious. Anyway, she's just wonderful and she is opening a new bookstore in San Antonio. She signed her lease just recently. It's going to be called Nowhere Bookshop and she has secured the former head of the CEO of The Book People Bookshop in Austin, which is a fantastic bookshop, as the general manager of her bookshop. That will be opening goodness knows when, but either later this year or early next year. So that is huge news. San Antonio is going to have a new bookstore, and I believe also a bar, but don't quote me on that. It's gonna be a combination bookshop and other things. And that's just really exciting, especially since I have a date at a speaking engagement in San Antonio coming up. So I'm praying that she gets it done in time.KJ:                                        46:10                    Alright, well let's call it guys. We got places to be, we got words to write.Jess:                                     46:29                    Absolutely. Alright, everyone, until next week, keep your butts in the chair and your head in the game. This episode of #AmWriting with Jess and KJ was produced by Andrew Parilla. Our music, aptly titled unemployed Monday was written and performed by Max Cohen. Andrew and Max were paid for their services because everyone, even creatives should be paid. This is a public episode. Get access to private episodes at amwriting.substack.com/subscribe

We fucked up and lost count of the episode number again. This might be 127 or 125. Kenny an Pete will slander each other next week with the correct number. Future Hive Assemble.RundownLets Talk About IT Wentz four year, 128 extensionThe NFL said eight social justice organizations are receiving grants totaling nearly $2 million.https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/nfl/2019/06/04/nfl-says-8-social-justice-organizations-getting-grants/39545305/The grants are part of a $20 million commitment from the NFL and its teams to social justice organizations during the 2018 calendar year. The $20 million is comprised of grants to organizations from the NFL Foundation, social justice grants approved by the NFL owners-players working group, team and player contributions, and an ongoing financial commitment to the Players CoalitionBennett on Kap "If [white quarterbacks] were to take a knee with Kaepernick, that conversation would totally change," Bennett said during a Thursday discussion hosted by The Atlantic (h/t Tom Schad of USA Today). https://bleacherreport.com/articles/2838955-martellus-bennett-if-white-qb-took-a-knee-conversation-would-totally-change"If Tom Brady took a knee, white America would be like, 'Oh my God! What is this that Tom Brady's talking about?' They would start doing research and would join in the conversation. ... It would pique their interest. But since it's a black guy taking a knee, it's like, 'Alright, these guys, here he goes again. It's another one of these guys out there doing this.'"Foles returns to practice after miscarriage https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/nfl/2019/05/31/jaguars-qb-foles-credits-wife-for-his-return-to-practice/39534161/Is David Johnson the best RB? AP wants 2k LeVeon robbed 520k by two girls in Hollywood? https://bleacherreport.com/articles/2839682-leveon-bells-friends-allegedly-stole-520k-worth-of-jewelry-from-his-homeFree agent defensive lineman Muhammad Wilkerson was arrested and charged with DWI early Saturday morning, according to ABC 7 New York.McCoy signs with Panthers despite Ravens offering more guaranteed moneyShould the Lions pay Calin his 1 million? Kenny’s CFB SpotFree Reggie Bush and Pat Haden in scheme https://twitter.com/slmandel/status/1136439432720949248SEC lets school decide for alcoholhttps://bleacherreport.com/articles/2838892-sec-lifts-ban-on-stadium-wide-alcohol-sales-gives-schools-autonomy-to-decideTouchdown or Turnover Cardinals claim Desmon Harrison after cut by brownsJoe Staley back for two yearshttps://bleacherreport.com/articles/2839696-49ers-news-joe-staley-agrees-to-2-year-contract-extension-with-san-franciscoBowman returns to 9ers for retirement https://www.49ers.com/news/navorro-bowman-retires-from-nfl-as-a-member-of-the-49ersDuke Johnson wants trade stillhttps://bleacherreport.com/articles/2839415-browns-news-rb-duke-johnson-still-seeking-trade-says-he-feels-unwantedTrent Williams wants new deal https://bleacherreport.com/articles/2839408-redskins-rumors-lt-trent-williams-seeking-new-contract-not-attending-minicampSlay holding out of camp , Snacks Harrison too http://www.nfl.com/news/story/0ap3000001032594/article/darius-slay-aint-going-to-lions-mandatory-minicampPats believe Gronk will returnhttps://bleacherreport.com/articles/2839576-brs-mike-freeman-sources-believe-rob-gronkowski-will-rejoin-patriotsCyprien works out for Eagles and ColtsLions sign Jermaine Kearse https://www.profootballrumors.com/2019/06/lions-sign-jermaine-kearseSefrain Jenkins cut for personal issues, is Thomas back? Perryman is down weight Webster meets with Saints EJ Manuel to ACC Network TBT Player Face OFF Brooking vs Bulluck Better Bush vs DMC BustTake or Tangent Russ wants to play til 45https://bleacherreport.com/articles/2839231-seahawks-qb-russell-wilson-says-he-wants-to-play-in-nfl-until-hes-45-years-oldIs Gurley a bell cow? Rap says no "The days of Todd Gurley just being the straight-up, every-down bell cow are probably over, just based on his knee, his age, the position, the amount of carries he's had. It's probably not going to be like that, which by the way is maybe why the Rams drafted a running back in the third round, someone they really like a lot. This is a team that is clearly ready to spread the ball around."Odell misunderstood - Burleson said so on Lefkoe show 20:06https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ICD-KVymY84JUJU pulls up to prom and dances to fuck AB Packers coach tore Achilles https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/nfl/packers/2019/05/31/packers-matt-lafleur-torn-achilles/1298748001/Green Bay Packers head coach Matt LaFleur will be confined to a cart for the remaining organized team activity sessions and mandatory minicamp after rupturing an Achilles tendon playing basketball at Lambeau Field on Wednesday night, PackersNews.com confirmed.Burfict helping Raiders learn the team https://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2019/06/06/raiders-find-vontaze-burfict-a-huge-help-in-teaching-defense/Chris Long wins Good guy award from PFWAhttps://twitter.com/caplannfl/status/1135959980526489600?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1135959980526489600&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fbleacherreport.com%2Flos-angeles-chargersChargers less preseason https://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2019/06/03/anthony-lynn-hints-chargers-starters-will-play-even-less-this-preseason/Mcdowell getting sued http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2019/05/30/seahawks-sue-malik-mcdowell-for-not-repaying-signing-bonus/Evergreen Picks 2nd year breakout players who are yourshttps://bleacherreport.com/articles/2839212-2nd-year-nfl-players-positioned-for-breakout-seasons#slide0Comeback Players who are yourshttps://www.theringer.com/nfl/2019/6/5/18653368/nfl-veterans-bounce-back-2019Odds for No. 1 pick what do you think https://twitter.com/br_betting/status/1130565914351493120/photo/1?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1130565914351493120&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fbleacherreport.com%2Fnfl-draftHardknocks

We fucked up and lost count of the episode number again. This might be 127 or 125. Kenny an Pete will slander each other next week with the correct number. Future Hive Assemble. Rundown Lets Talk About IT Wentz four year, 128 extension The NFL said eight social justice organizations are receiving grants totaling nearly $2 million. https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/nfl/2019/06/04/nfl-says-8-social-justice-organizations-getting-grants/39545305/ The grants are part of a $20 million commitment from the NFL and its teams to social justice organizations during the 2018 calendar year. The $20 million is comprised of grants to organizations from the NFL Foundation, social justice grants approved by the NFL owners-players working group, team and player contributions, and an ongoing financial commitment to the Players Coalition Bennett on Kap "If [white quarterbacks] were to take a knee with Kaepernick, that conversation would totally change," Bennett said during a Thursday discussion hosted by The Atlantic (h/t Tom Schad of USA Today). https://bleacherreport.com/articles/2838955-martellus-bennett-if-white-qb-took-a-knee-conversation-would-totally-change "If Tom Brady took a knee, white America would be like, 'Oh my God! What is this that Tom Brady's talking about?' They would start doing research and would join in the conversation. ... It would pique their interest. But since it's a black guy taking a knee, it's like, 'Alright, these guys, here he goes again. It's another one of these guys out there doing this.'" Foles returns to practice after miscarriage https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/nfl/2019/05/31/jaguars-qb-foles-credits-wife-for-his-return-to-practice/39534161/ Is David Johnson the best RB? AP wants 2k LeVeon robbed 520k by two girls in Hollywood? https://bleacherreport.com/articles/2839682-leveon-bells-friends-allegedly-stole-520k-worth-of-jewelry-from-his-home Free agent defensive lineman Muhammad Wilkerson was arrested and charged with DWI early Saturday morning, according to ABC 7 New York. McCoy signs with Panthers despite Ravens offering more guaranteed money Should the Lions pay Calin his 1 million? Kenny’s CFB Spot Free Reggie Bush and Pat Haden in scheme https://twitter.com/slmandel/status/1136439432720949248 SEC lets school decide for alcohol https://bleacherreport.com/articles/2838892-sec-lifts-ban-on-stadium-wide-alcohol-sales-gives-schools-autonomy-to-decide Touchdown or Turnover Cardinals claim Desmon Harrison after cut by browns Joe Staley back for two years https://bleacherreport.com/articles/2839696-49ers-news-joe-staley-agrees-to-2-year-contract-extension-with-san-francisco Bowman returns to 9ers for retirement https://www.49ers.com/news/navorro-bowman-retires-from-nfl-as-a-member-of-the-49ers Duke Johnson wants trade still https://bleacherreport.com/articles/2839415-browns-news-rb-duke-johnson-still-seeking-trade-says-he-feels-unwanted Trent Williams wants new deal https://bleacherreport.com/articles/2839408-redskins-rumors-lt-trent-williams-seeking-new-contract-not-attending-minicamp Slay holding out of camp , Snacks Harrison too http://www.nfl.com/news/story/0ap3000001032594/article/darius-slay-aint-going-to-lions-mandatory-minicamp Pats believe Gronk will return https://bleacherreport.com/articles/2839576-brs-mike-freeman-sources-believe-rob-gronkowski-will-rejoin-patriots Cyprien works out for Eagles and Colts Lions sign Jermaine Kearse https://www.profootballrumors.com/2019/06/lions-sign-jermaine-kearse Sefrain Jenkins cut for personal issues, is Thomas back? Perryman is down weight Webster meets with Saints EJ Manuel to ACC Network TBT Player Face OFF Brooking vs Bulluck Better Bush vs DMC Bust Take or Tangent Russ wants to play til 45 https://bleacherreport.com/articles/2839231-seahawks-qb-russell-wilson-says-he-wants-to-play-in-nfl-until-hes-45-years-old Is Gurley a bell cow? Rap says no "The days of Todd Gurley just being the straight-up, every-down bell cow are probably over, just based on his knee, his age, the position, the amount of carries he's had. It's probably not going to be like that, which by the way is maybe why the Rams drafted a running back in the third round, someone they really like a lot. This is a team that is clearly ready to spread the ball around." Odell misunderstood - Burleson said so on Lefkoe show 20:06 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ICD-KVymY84 JUJU pulls up to prom and dances to fuck AB Packers coach tore Achilles https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/nfl/packers/2019/05/31/packers-matt-lafleur-torn-achilles/1298748001/ Green Bay Packers head coach Matt LaFleur will be confined to a cart for the remaining organized team activity sessions and mandatory minicamp after rupturing an Achilles tendon playing basketball at Lambeau Field on Wednesday night, PackersNews.com confirmed. Burfict helping Raiders learn the team https://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2019/06/06/raiders-find-vontaze-burfict-a-huge-help-in-teaching-defense/ Chris Long wins Good guy award from PFWA https://twitter.com/caplannfl/status/1135959980526489600?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1135959980526489600&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fbleacherreport.com%2Flos-angeles-chargers Chargers less preseason https://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2019/06/03/anthony-lynn-hints-chargers-starters-will-play-even-less-this-preseason/ Mcdowell getting sued http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2019/05/30/seahawks-sue-malik-mcdowell-for-not-repaying-signing-bonus/ Evergreen Picks 2nd year breakout players who are yours https://bleacherreport.com/articles/2839212-2nd-year-nfl-players-positioned-for-breakout-seasons#slide0 Comeback Players who are yours https://www.theringer.com/nfl/2019/6/5/18653368/nfl-veterans-bounce-back-2019 Odds for No. 1 pick what do you think https://twitter.com/br_betting/status/1130565914351493120/photo/1?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1130565914351493120&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fbleacherreport.com%2Fnfl-draft Hardknocks

WOW. Kwame performs his tune 'WOW' before covering Kendrick Lamar's 'Alright' for Like A Version.

"I'm so aware of the thoughts that are so potent in a moment and then, in the light of day, you're like, 'Alright, I was being a bit of a drama queen there, but it's all good, I'm over it.' But I went and immortalised it and now everyone who talks to be about that song gives me this look like I'm dying of a terminal disease ... but I think that is the nature of writing a record called Melodrama."

Click above to listen in iTunes... Our 3-day event and the powerful lesson it gave me... All right, how you doing everyone? This is Steve Larsen and you are listening to Sales Funnel Radio. Welcome to Sales Funnel Radio, where you'll learn marketing strategies to grow your online business using today's best internet sales funnels. And now, here's your host, Steve Larsen. All right, all right, all right. Hey, sorry it's been about a week since I actually podcasted, I've been crazy busy! We had an event here, Russell and I, it was actually really cool, I got to speak on his stage, which is super cool! Get up and speak and teach. It was actually his inner circle. We were kind of testing an event, we were trying to see how it ran, we were trying to see ... Even before we do big things we'll actually go to a test group, which I've been telling you guys to do lately before you actually go out and try to sell it, go through a little test group, which is actually what I've been doing with my dad. He's got a cool software he wrote that helps you trade futures and he wins like ... I can't publicly announce or declare that he wins 80 to 85% of the time but it might be near those ranges. Anyways, it works though! That's what we do, we go take a little test group and we did that here, recently, at the new office and it was three days long. About 15 minutes before, we're walking around, Russell and I are kind of in the back, there's an event room where everyone can go and hang out and we've got a spot for about 80 people. And Russell and I ... then on the other side there's all these locked doors, you gotta have keycards, and we're all official now, we're kind of laughing like "Crap, we're like a real business now!". And we're on the other side of the building and he and I are kind of hiding a little bit like phew, we've got the jitters a little bit, 'Alright, you ready for this, its three days." We're getting stoked. I was like, "you got everything you need?" And he said "Yeah, I think so, can you do X, Y, and Z for me?" And I said sure, and we're kinda going back and forth. And about 15 minutes before we walk out there he goes, "Hey, will you introduce me every day?" And I was like, "crap, I've never done that. Yeah, okay!". And I literally went to Google and I was like 'How to introduce somebody on stage' and I was like, what's the main goal? And I asked, "what do you want to have happen?" And he said "The biggest thing I want, I want there to be higher energy than what they currently are so that when I come in I can pick them up from where they are and keep going. It's easier for me to match them if they're at a higher level of energy than me walking on stage and they're all like 'bluuuh' with slumped shoulders." Anyways, I hope that makes sense. But he's like "would you introduce me?" And I'm like "Okay, sure." So, I went and I was like, Okay, I gotta tie it into a story somehow, is there something I can tell about him, what's something that's funny? And you gotta be careful, you don't want to make fun of your boss. I was like 'Alright man, I think I got it.' and I got up on stage and I told this story, and I've actually told it on this podcast here before so I actually probably won't, but at the end of it, what happened is this guy in the inner circle came up to me ... What's up, I know you're probably listening to this ... and he's like, "Dude I love your energy. It was so awesome to feel that, you got me so charged up for the day I'm brand new here, will you send me the voxxers that you send to Russell ... That was part of the story was that every single morning I vox Russell and I just go, "Woo yeah baby, woo its Monday we get to build funnels with Dirk!" and I start yelling, I'm like "Yeah, woo!". What other business do you get to do this with? Who else gets that excited over what they get to do? I don't know. This is a freaking cool industry that we're all in this together. And he's like "Will you send all those things to me?" and I said sure! I'm actually going to play you for them right here, he said "Hey I would love to have these things as my alarm clock." So if you guys want this, you totally can but literally what happens is every single day I vox Russell just like pumped, and it's only like three seconds long on every single one of them but that's all you need! It's all about staying in state and its all about pre framing your head top be able to handle what's about to happen, it's all about ... Anyway, super cool stuff! So while I was coming in today, I was like hey, you know what would be kind of funny is if I put those on my podcast so here they are! "Woo, Monday baby, yeah!" ... "It's Tuesday baby, yeah, woo! Get some!" ... "Woo! It's Wednesday baby! The tank!" All right, how was that? You guys, I am a goofball at heart and I don't care. I think when people start caring too much they get old and die. Hey, if you like that cool, if not, whatever. Its something that I do, Its just a little fun tradition I have with Russell and one of the inner circle wanted so I thought 'Hey, might as well put it on the podcast'. I learned something really valuable, and this is the reason I'm podcasting today. I should say that I relearned it, because I have learned this before, and it hit home so hard. I learned this, Russell gave me a course by Joe Polish, probably like six months ago now. And I went through and I started listening to it, and my gosh it was so good, and I started going through it and I was like 'this is incredible, I'm loving this.' And ... you guys are gonna be knocking on my door asking for the name of the course, I cannot remember it! I'd have to go find it. Anyway, so, at this event there was ... in the future I'm gonna be teaching probably about half of the event, so I'll teach a few sessions then Russell will get up and teach a few sessions, and we'll kinda tag team back and forth. On this one, I put together the actual workbook for it, he did most of the teaching of it so we could test it out. But there were a few parts he had me come up and teach on, and ... I'm holding the book right now, its called 'The Funnel Hackathon and for three days we build your funnels. Or you do. But you come in and we tell you, okay, now heres the next thing to do, build it. And we don't move on until you're done! Now heres the next thing to build, go build it. All right now heres where our heads are at when we do this, now you do it. Its hand holding the whole way through and at the end of it these guys are like "Oh my gosh, that was incredible, so awesome." And these are concepts and principles that Russell and I have been going back and forth on. Like, oh my gosh, think about this, think about this, think about this and its been really special to do that with him as he puts his new book together. What was interesting is I get to my sections and in between each session we have these little workshops where people execute what we were just teaching, and we do not move on until they have what we were just telling them to do, which was really helpful for them. To keep them accountable like that. There were several guys, I mean, I've been studying this stuff forever with them, right? I've actually been put in a place with Russell's funnels, I've been doing this stuff right and what was fascinating to me is to have ... some of these guys in the inner circle are making 100 million dollars, an obscene amount of money, right? Huge amounts of money. And you guys know my goals, you guys know that I'm, as of last year, making a grand a week, and I'm like 'yeah, that's awesome!' And you guys are following my story of how I've been pulling this thing off and that's been great, its been a whole lot of fun. But what was making me laugh was the questions that people were asking me, I was like "How is it that you don't know this and you're making that much money?" How is it that you are making 100 million dollars and I'm freaking out over a thousand dollars a week and I soon will be making 30 grand a month, that's my goal for this year and I think I can do it, I'm already on my way. Just so you guys know, a little accountability on that whole thing, I'm already at about two grand a week now and its starting to ... Anyway, it's been fun. I still have no ads going, I should probably do that. You guys are gonna laugh at me when I say that but its just another thing to do and there's a lot of crap going on. Anyway, this is what I ... and I'm not gonna lie, I started getting down on myself, like some of these guys are like 'How do I do this?' And I'm like ... It's because of this theory, or its because you put these together, or its because you did this, like how do you not know this? How do I know this? Is that what I'm supposed to be contributing to this world like, what the heck? How come ... Anyway, it didn't make me mad, but I was like crap, it kinda sucks. How is it that I'm able to teach this stuff and where is my hundred million dollars, know what I mean? And please know I'm not ... I don't feel like I'm a selfish individual, I believe in giving and giving and giving and that's why I have so many things built for you, that on my site I give away for free. These were all things that were starting to go through my head. Some lines from Joe Polish's class started to run through my head, I'm bringing it full circle now. In there he teaches that there is no relationship between being good and getting paid. So let that sink in a little bit. There's no relationship between being good and getting paid. You know those books like "Why A students work for C students"? Those students are good, but that's not how you get paid. Isn't that interesting? But a lot of entrepreneurs seem to think that and a lot of us seem to think that in general and I have that hit home right between the eyes again, right? I was telling my dad this and I was like, look, its so funny, when you eat humble pie you don't just have a slice, the whole pie gets thrown at your face, that's how humble pie works, and I was like crap, all right, huge lesson again, but there is no relationship between being good and getting paid. However, there is a huge relationship between being good at marketing and getting paid. Isn't that funny? I'm teaching marketing principles to these guys, I know it's not a know how about marketing in my situation, its more that I don't really have a product. I've got like a product that I don't drive traffic to. All right and that's what I've been making that money from. Like, man, I need to make a product! Why don't I have my own product yet? Just think about this, so he's saying, no relationship between being good and getting paid and there's a huge one between being good at marketing and getting paid. And he said, what's the difference between sales and marketing? Sales is what happens face to face, sales is what happens when you're in front of an individual, or when you're on the phone with them. Marketing though, is what gets them to your face... Marketing is what gets them to turn their path, everyone's in motion, and all you're doing is you're turning their motion and its turning them straight to you and then sales is what happens at that point but until then, sales, and marketing is not the same thing. There are some businesses that survive because they have a good product. But they're a terrible business right? Products and businesses are not the same thing. But people think that, just like funnels and business models are not the same thing. That's why I don't build funnels for brand new people, because they haven't proven their business. Funnel is not the business but sometimes people think they are. Anyway, I'm not trying to get sidetracked, but that really hit me home between the eyes again and I was like crap, massive humble pie again! Very frustrating for me to go through and actually relearn that. So I think I'm gonna go build a product and I've got an idea on what it is, and I'm gonna start pushing it forward again and what's funny its already in my plan to anyways, its just we've been so busy with getting ready for the event we just had, then actually doing the event, and then we got funnel hacking live, woo, that's in like a week! My life changed last time I went to the last funnel hacking live I had no money! I'll tell you guys that story another time, but the way I got there and how it all happened was really interesting and I got seated next to Russell it was very interesting and what qualified me to sit next to Russell was very interesting, I'll have to go through that sometime, but anyway, guys! All I want to do is point that back home to you guys and help me realize that its good to be good, but there's a lot of crappy products that get a lot of money. No relationship between being good and getting paid. Huge one between being good at marketing and getting paid. I'm just saying that as many times as I can so that I can push into your head that its more about how you market the stuff than it is about ... Its been funny too, as I build funnels. There's been a few funnels I built, I don't know if I'm allowed to say this, whatever. So you know Marcus Lemonis. I built a lot of funnels for his team after Russell was on his TV show, and he's like "Hey why don't you build a funnel for this company? Why don't you build a funnel for this company?" So I was like sweet, sweet, sweet! So I built like five funnels for this guy. Marcus is the man! Oh my gosh, he is so awesome, I have so much respect for that guy and what he's done. The problem that happened is that there were guys that didn't have the same epiphany that Marcus did. So they didn't know what we were doing and at the end of it we built these amazing funnels, totally immaculate, they looked fantastic! I mean they were some of the best looking funnels I have ever created and it was painful because Russell had a call with them and he's like 'Man I feel like we built you guys Ferrari's, we gave you the keys, and they're just sitting in your driveways, you've never even touched them before. Not because there's ingratitude from Marcus' side, it's that his team, the actual owners of the businesses, they didn't have the same epiphany. Like, what the heck am I supposed to do with this? I mean there's a lot of education behind what a funnel actually is. So that's where you have to be good at stuff but you can go too far by thinking 'it's all about the funnel, it's all about the funnel, it's all about the funnel'. There's marketing that happens too, its not just about making pages look good. That's what happened... Anyway, I've had a few of you guys ask that, that's why I'm telling that story, but anyway I should end this before I continue to ramble but, I just wanted you guys to know that ... anyway, get out there and make sweet products, make sure they're good, make sure they deliver, but understand that its ultimately not the thing that gets you paid, its how well you market it. Just like you always hear those guys like, 'I invented this cool thing but I don't know how to sell it, so it just sits on my shelf'. 'I invented the cure for cancer, but it just sits on my shelf'... Like, what? Oh my gosh... Anyways, guys, have a good one! Super excited to see you guys at funnel hacking live, please reach out to me, I've had a lot of you guys ask if you could take me out to lunch, and I do appreciate that but there's absolutely no way that I'll have time to do that while I'm there to help throw an event. I am an employee of clickfunnels still, you know what I mean? Anyways guys, talk to you later!  Thanks for listening to Sales Funnel Radio. Please remember to subscribe and leave feedback. Want to get one of today's best internet sales funnel for free? Go to salesfunnelbroker.com/freefunnels to download your prebuilt sales funnel today.

#96: Kicking Ass & Taking Names With Stacy A. Cross Jenn T Grace:              You are listening to the Personal Branding for the LGBTQ Professional Podcast, episode 96.   Introduction:              Welcome to the Personal Branding for the LGBTQ Professional Podcast; the podcast dedicated to helping LGBTQ professionals and business owners grow their business and careers through the power of leveraging their LGBTQ identities in their personal brand. You'll learn how to market your products and services both broadly, and within the LGBTQ community. You'll hear from incredible guests who are leveraging the power of their identity for good, as well as those who haven't yet started, and everyone in between. And now your host. She teaches straight people how to market to gay people, and gay people how to market themselves. Your professional lesbian, Jenn - with two N's - T Grace.   Jenn T Grace:              Hello and welcome to episode number 96 of the podcast. I am your host, Jenn T Grace, and as we near the end of October, as I promised I have another interview for you. Today's interview is with Stacy Cross, she is the founder of Comfort Killers, and this was probably one of the most high energy interviews that I have done in a very long time. So Stacy really got into a lot of mindset conversation, we talked a lot about personal branding, and how she has developed and created her personal brand over the last six months. You will walk away from this I believe inspired, but then also perhaps equally as exhausted because it was a really high energy conversation. So I really hope that you enjoy this. If you would like to see a transcript, or you would like links directly to anything that Stacy and I discussed, you can go to the blog at www.JennTGrace.com/96 for episode number 96. And if you would like to get in touch with Stacy or you have any n that you would like for me to hear, you can do so at pretty much Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn; all of those places I'm at Jenn T. Grace. Or if you'd like you can send me an email at Jenn@jenntgrace.com. Regardless of how you'd like to get in touch with me, please, please do. I’m happy to make an introduction to Stacy I'm happy to make, or if you just have general comments or feedback I always want to hear from you. It is never a wrong time to reach out so please, please do. And with that being said I'm going to cut the introduction short and get right into this conversation with Stacy.                                     So let's just start from the top, and let everyone know who you are, where you're located, what you do, and how you got to this place in time.   Stacy A Cross:             What, where, when, and how.   Jenn T Grace:              You name it, all of it.   Stacy A Cross:             Well thank you so much for having me on your podcast. I appreciate it greatly. I am Stacy A. Cross, and there is no E in my name, and I am currently living in Philadelphia, moved here roughly about three and a half years ago, been here since, ready to be nimble again and move on. I move with opportunity. I am the owner and founder of the company The Comfort Killers, and I know it sounds negative Jenn, but in this case two negatives does equal a positive. The comfort- to me being comfortable is such a negative word, and of course killers is a negative word. But the comfort killers is what we do, and we provide products, and solution, and content, and services to those seeking success through personal development, and I've been living it so the value is in my experience. And that's who I am, my mission is huge, my mission in life is to teach millions how to get uncomfortable, to think better, to live better, and to act better. And that's who I am in just a nutshell.   Jenn T Grace:              I love it. So how did you get to the place where you decided that you were going to go with Comfort Killers? All possible negativity aside, what was the impetus to say it's comfort that really is what's getting in people's way? What was your kind of revelation around that word specifically?   Stacy A Cross:             Definitely, because I believe that tradition and conventional wisdom led us to this comfortable life, right? We want to go to high school, get that great diploma, then take that diploma, go to college, get another diploma, then go off into the workforce, then of course get the picket fence with the home, get the kids, get the dog, get the car, and go to a couple baby showers in between, and be happy with a few vacations. That's a comfortable life. I wasn't even at that comfort level, but the revelation, the 'aha' moment in my life was realizing that I want so much more, but I don't know how to attain it because going through this comfortable path, I've been just getting this same type of result, these same outcomes. So what is it going to take? So I look for inspiration and motivation outside of me at one time, this external. So I was going to a seminar and on Valentine's Day in 2016 I went to one seminar, pumped everyone else up, and for me I just wasn't getting pumped up. I wasn't feeling it. And I was like, 'But I'm a motivated person already.' And then I realized you know what? I'm going to walk out of this seminar. I'm going to take a step back and walk out and I'm not going to feel guilty about it. I remember the day clearly because I did feel guilty about it, but I said, 'What can I do differently that I haven't been doing,' and that was one answer was get uncomfortable. Do what people won't do. Do the dirt, and that's what I've done, and I've built a company. So upon coming home from the seminar that day, I wrote so many articles, I created the company in one day. I started writing a Comfort Killers handbook which I finished in 24 hours, and then things just started happening, result-based things. And I realized, 'Wow doing the opposite of comfort really allowed me to grow in my space,' and I think more people should apply their lives to living an uncomfortable lifestyle.   Jenn T Grace:              Wow, I feel like you are saying so much with the time already, so we've been recording for like four minutes at this point. I feel like people can immediately get a sense of your energy level which is through the roof, and you're really motivated, and you're out to like kick ass and take names. Where do you see the direction and your ability to kind of be branding yourself with this? Because Comfort Killers is a really kind of perhaps polarizing type of statement for people who are stuck in their comfort zones. How are you finding other people who really just need maybe that kick in the ass to kind of get them going, or really have you be their personal motivator? Where are you finding those people? Are they reluctant to hear the phrase of 'Comfort Killer'? Do you find that you have to explain what comfort killing is? I know that's a lot of questions in one shot, but hit me.   Stacy A Cross:             I understand where you're going with this, and yes, in the beginning it was like, 'Okay well how am I going to explain this?' It's easy to naturally just say The Comfort Killers, I am Stacy Cross, and there is no 'E' in my name, but then there's got to be some explaining. Okay what is it that I really do? I want to motivate people, I want to teach people how to get uncomfortable. It's been a blessing so far where people are naturally drawn to this idea of change. They want to change, they're in a place that I could easily explain to them that I was in the same place, so it comes from my story, and what my story relates to is a sense of addiction. I was a gambler, I didn't even know it. Right? So I had to overcome that but thought I didn't want to go to an AA meeting, right? So- and I came from a place of procrastination. I've started and stopped so much times that it became known that if Stacy says something it's probably not going to be done. It takes a while to reverse that aspect. So when people arrive at my domain, when people arrive at my face, when people come to me or essentially I go to them, I have this big humongous story, this personal story that I've written that I believe is so relatable to any facet of anyone's life that's willing to change. But here's the deal, change doesn't come easily, right? The seeds have to be planted. So I only work with people that have planted these seeds and that are willing to take the next steps, because the next course of action definitely is an accountability action; you have to want it, you have to go for it. So how do I purposely drive myself to these people? I put it in my articles, my website, all that jazz. Or really when you're talking to me face-to-face, I don't give you back pats. I'm not in the game to make you feel good. Tony Robbins even turned me down from going to Business Mastery. He said I needed more credit. I understand it, here's the deal, I am not here to say everything that everyone already said, it's been said. If you could motivate yourself from that, that's fine, but the reason you came to me is because none of it worked.   Jenn T Grace:              I love all of that, and so I feel like it takes a really strong personality to be able to say, "Listen this is where I'm sharing my story, and it's not all roses. I was known for not actually following through with whatever it is." How are you leveraging that aspect in terms of maybe relating with the people that you're working with to say, "Listen you're coming from the same place that I came from, and now I'm going to be able to navigate you through this because I personally went through it." Because I think a lot of coaches out there, and strategists, and people who are counseling, and motivating; they don't have that real credible story behind them.   Stacy A Cross:             Right and I think it also goes with the niche. The people that I'm focused on are the people that- my story, right? So I say, okay if I had some addiction problem, I could probably help people overcome addiction let's say without taking more pills, without doing this, without going to AA meetings. I'm not giving health advice, I'm not trying to say, "Do this instead of doing this," I don't know their level of problems, but my goal is to leverage the motivation and the power within. I want to spark something inside that's already been there, but people- it's so filtered, the veil is over their face, they can't see. So when they come to me what I say is just the value is in my experience. And that hurt me for a while because you know I have friends that I've grown up with and I'm trying to tell them something, and I know that if Tony Robbins or Zig Zig or Jim Rohn, they tell them that same thing, they jump up. But since they know me, and since I'm their friend, they don't have that same type of action. And what I've done with that is just cut them off. So I'm known to cut people off, right if they're not on my same path. But in business when someone comes to me and they're not ready, I kind of cut them off. But here's the deal, I give them so much content, Jenn. I give so much free content through all my channels, and online, and I actually have my open calendar where people could click it and then call me for thirty minutes of call. So I'm willing to listen, I'm willing to see if the seeds are planted, and that's what's different than anyone else, where you could go to anyone else and they don't have that type of story. They're only really listening to your call and asking you for money at the end of it.   Jenn T Grace:              So how are you building your personal brand? Because like I said you already have such a distinctive personality, and a very motivating personality, you have a very kind of strong drawing the line in the sand way in which you communicate, which is 'I'm not pussyfooting around, I'm not going to deal with your bullshit. You're hiring me to help fix what hasn't worked for you.' And I know that you're saying that you're putting out a lot of content, so from a personal branding side of things, how has that process worked for you, and were you always kind of the- to some degree I guess in your face like no bullshit type of person? Or have you had to evolve that as you've been evolving kind of your personal brand?   Stacy A Cross:             The latter, I had to evolve that because I realized that time is limited, and I have to get a short sweet concise story. So what do I do to build my personal brand? In each of the avenues where you contact me in Twitter, in whatever the case may be, wherever you know about Stacy A. Cross, it's always Stacy A. Cross but there's no 'E' in my name. It's always that story that's driven behind it. So my idea is continue sharing the story but change the people, don't change the story. So it's cementing that story and confronting the realities of my story, which was the biggest part for me. Do I want to tell people I was addicted to gambling? Probably not, but it helps and it's a major part of my quest and my story. So with defining who I am, the brand Stacy A. Cross, and evolving into that, and it has taken awhile and it's shaped itself, and now I could say, 'Okay I'm ready to move to the next step as this brand, Stacy A. Cross.' Versus just as a company and the person behind the brand.   Jenn T Grace:              So now when you think about the long term- so you are Stacy A. Cross, with no 'E,' in addition to the found of Comfort Killers. Are you thinking long-term that it's important to you from a personal branding standpoint to really be focusing on building your name as a thought leader, as a content creator, as a content curator, and where does that leave Comfort Killers kind of in the wake of how quickly you're kind of moving through things right now?   Stacy A Cross:             That's a great question because sometimes I have to take a minute to strategize again, right? Because I want both to move simultaneously in the same direction, because without me there is no Comfort Killer. So how do I interject both the personal brand as well as that main scope of the company? And I believe that that's been the struggle, right? So I strategize probably once or twice a day if what I'm doing will outlive the Comfort Killers or will it move together symbiotically? And what I've found out is the easiest way for me to attack that is to keep tying in the value which is the experience within the company. So all my products, they range from me, they stem from me. I wish I had www.StacyACross.com and thought of that the minute I walked out of the seminar but I don't. I have The Comfort Killers because I had to get uncomfortable. So that- The Comfort Killers is Stacy essentially, and what I'm trying to do is move both together in alignment.   Jenn T Grace:              Interesting. Yeah I feel like there's all kinds of challenges- benefits and challenges that kind of come with all of what you're saying.   Stacy A Cross:             Yeah.   Jenn T Grace:              So as a just kind of side note, when I first was setting out to really actually define my personal brand, kind of put the stake in the ground of this is what I stand for, I was already doing what I was doing for years and years, and then finally I was like, well I just need to like really morph this into focusing on me as that personal brand and as that central point, regardless of what company, or contract, or wherever I'm working, and who I'm working for, or who's working with me, et cetera. When I decided that I was going to go for my name, the domain www.JennGrace.com just didn't exist which is why I ended up doing www.JennTGrace.com. It was not because I have any love for putting the T in, it was literally that the URL was not available.   Stacy A Cross:             Someone got uncomfortable before you did with www.JennGrace.com, they took it.   Jenn T Grace:              Yeah which is a bunch of bull. But so when you were looking for yours, was it because Stacy A. Cross didn't exist, or Stacy Cross, or some variation didn't exist that you just decided, 'I'm going to go with Comfort Killers.' Or was there some other factor that was involved in that decision?   Stacy A Cross:             And you know that's a good question. I did try to obtain Stacy Cross because that's my name, and of course that was gone to a photographer, which she's amazing, she does great work. And then but I always say she got uncomfortable before I did, and by the time I came around and got uncomfortable and said, 'You know what? I've got to build me up now,' Stacy A. Cross was available and I do own that domain. But here's the thing with The Comfort Killers, I always was kind of like I want this movement to take shape, but I want to be the leader of it, and I want to lead leaders, and I want to create more leaders. I don't need any followers. And so The Comfort Killers is such a tagline that will punch you in the face that says, 'Okay I want to be a comfort killer, how can I be down?' But now just transitioning into the Stacy A. Cross because people like my page more than they like The Comfort Killers' page, they identify with the person more than they identify with an entity. So now it's my calling to say how do I either tie the two in front, or just keep going with the tagline, but me being the first stop? And I understand that pivotal point that's going to come where it says Stacy A. Cross is bigger than The Comfort Killers.   Jenn T Grace:              Absolutely, that's kind of why I was asking thinking because you have a magnetic personality that people are going to be drawn to that, and it doesn't require explanation when someone’s introducing you, or you're being referred to somebody, or somehow there's a third party conversation happening about you. There's no explanation, it's just Stacy A. Cross, and then whatever number of descriptors might be included, versus Comfort Killers which does require a little explanation, but to the same point I still think that the name is really strong and I know when we were being introduced to each other I was like, 'What the hell is going on?' Like I have not met somebody that is so blunt, so kind of in your face, but in a down to earth type of way. Because I feel like there's a lot of people out there who are kind of screaming from the stage, and they're blunt, and this, that and the other, but yet they're not relatable, and I feel like you have a good way of blending both of those balances.   Stacy A Cross:             Thank you, thank you very much.   Jenn T Grace:              So thinking about personal branding, and somebody who might be listening to this, and we're talking about your brand is Stacy A. Cross, mine's Jenn T. Grace, like there's obviously the commonality there in and of itself. What would you say is like the number one- maybe the first step that somebody might be thinking like, 'Okay I have a business right now, I'm known for being the founder of this business, or the CEO of this business, but I really need to start making that pivotal change into really focusing on me as a personal brand.' In your experience, what would you say is that first kind of- maybe even just a baby step that people need to take to start figuring out what that might look like?   Stacy A Cross:             That's a great question. What I've done, and just to even get me to this point, is open conversation more about yourself, and kind of key in your actual things that tie your story together. And there could be four or five things because every one is important, and I think really over the three or four things, you have to know that you're important, that you have something to say. And the confidence that comes with that when you are the authority in your domain, in your space, then you are confident to project your story. So the first things that I've done is start opening my opinion about things. And not in a mean way, or not in anything, I just stood firm with who I was, and opened my opinion. So I just really opened the channels and started being me 100% of the time. What I've done to identify or what someone could do to identify their personal brand and to kind of have that stake in the ground that says, 'Okay this is me,' the first thing to do is get your domain- I mean tangible things, is get a domain name and come across as an authority in whatever field, or whatever industry, or whatever niche that you are a part of. Right? So what I've done is started talking about things that haven't been working in this personal development space, in self-improvement space, and I was very serious about it. I wasn't there to converse, I was there to tell and to show who I was through my arguments, or through my opinions, and that's really all it took. Now I'm the industry leader in that space of if you're talking about uncomfortable, if you're talking about discomfort, if you're talking about growth, you have Stacy A. Cross and her name, she'll know what to talk about.   Jenn T Grace:              What was your process for really just identifying like, 'this is my niche'? Like how did you really- like I know that we talked about how you came up with Comfort Killers and how you defined that, but like to come to the place to recognize like, 'this is my niche, this is my calling,' I feel like it's a process for a lot of people and there's an evolution for how to kind of come to terms with like, 'okay this is what I stand for.' Did you have any exercise that you went through? Did you have a coach who navigated you? Or did it just kind of- I don't know, hit you one day of, 'this is it.'   Stacy A Cross:             I think I am the outlier, okay? I used to be a rapper and so I was always good with words, and I never found out until now that I was this good with words. And I kind of put my path, and I looked into my path and what leading up to this, and I kind of noted some very pivotal times in my growing up, in my formative years, where people would say certain things and I never thought of it of nothing. But here's the deal, I didn't get a coach, I just believed in myself, and I know it's cliché but I did, and I said, 'You know what? I don't care. I really don't. I don't care who likes me, I don't care who loves me-' I do care who loves me but I don't care what anyone has to say about who this person is. So the process of me building that confidence up was really being serious in my art and my craft and who I was, and understanding that the level of criticism that you're going to get in any area is going to come because first they criticize you, and then they admire you. And I live to that, and I said, 'You know what? I'm willing to get criticized. I'm willing to put it all out on the line for who I am and what's discussed and anything I say.' So what I did, I had to step away from being an amateur, and I had to step away from being a guest here. No, I'm supposed to be here, and it was really a mindset change more than anything because we all have the words inside of us, we could really start talking right now, but it's that mindset switch to let you know that you are the authority, and not an amateur, and not a novice. Even if you're doing novice things at the same time. Because I came out of the struggle, I came out of the dirt, I believe that that's the time that we need to grow because we have the most to say at that time. But really when I stepped out as Stacy A. Cross, not just Stacy Cross, but Stacy A. Cross, I stepped out with authority because I believed I had authority to be here, because I believed that I'm important, and I just walked out. No coach, no navigation, but I did read a lot of books. I did have some mentors that they don't even know me, right? Because I feel like personal development is key because you need to take heed to the clues that was already left. So how does this speaker- let's say, I love The Rock, right? How come he jumps on live, or Facebook live, or any Twitter channel. What's his brand? The Rock, right? How come he has that authority when he speaks? What was the first authority? I started going back, I watched Oprah's first video. I watched Gary V's first video. These guys didn't have anyone cheering them on when their first thing- they were probably scared as hell but they knew they needed to do it, and they knew they needed to be there. So I watched people, I started minding the clues, and believing in myself, and coming out with authority when I spoke about any subject, not just personal growth.   Jenn T Grace:              Everything that you just- the way in which you said it, and what you just said is exactly like blowing up the idea of comfort. Literally everything that just came out of your mouth. So you're obviously very much on brand with what you're talking about. So what were the most pivotal books that you read, if you want to give me two, that really helped you kind of define and further refine your personal brand? Like what were the top two that you can think of.   Stacy A Cross:             Okay the first one would be Jack Canfield's 'The Success Principles because that one straight up had- because there's so many examples given in that book of being comfortable, and I was like, 'Oh my God that was me. That was me. Oh wow, okay people know about you.' And so the Jack Canfield's 'The Success Principles' I always talk about. Love the idea of the inner guidance system which I renamed- because I could do that, the Biological GPS. So I love that, and I love understanding more of it, so I go back to that book multiple times. And the second is 'The Master Key System.' And that has been- it's free on my website, The Comfort Killers, you could just type up. The only book you will ever need because I believe really that's it, and that taught me about the inner world, right? And that the within world defines the world without, and it taught me about the universal principles, and how things need to just work, and things are going to be working without you or not, you could just slide right in there and be a part of the universal laws. And I love that because it's more on the spiritual side and then Jack Canfield was more the hard cold truth about yeah, you bought the dog- you bought the dog, now you complain about the dog. So it's more that tangible practical 3D life. And then of course the Master Key to Success- the Master Key System was more that whole broad spiritual aspect of it, and that balance, and that love, you know? So those are my top two.   Jenn T Grace:              I love that you brought up both of those because I have had guests separately both mention- and it's driving me crazy actually trying to figure out who also recommended 'The Master Key System,' it's going to make me insane until I think of it, but I will. But I like the balance because you're talking in one direction of like tactics and the cold hard truth facts, and then on the other side you're talking about kind of the universe and how- and I have a quote on my wall that says, 'The universe conspires in your favor,' because it absolutely does. And so what degree do you think in your day-to-day that you're applying both kind of sides of this? Kind of the hard fact versus the softer spiritual. Are you- is there a balance daily? Does it kind of fluctuate? Does it depend on your mood? What does that look like for you?   Stacy A Cross:             Well you know in Delaware- I used to live in Delaware and the question will get answered. But I was living in Delaware and I was a heavy meditator, I was meditating, I was trying to do things to help me understand who I was, my higher self, and I was in it. I was in it all the way. And one day I think I meditated a little bit too much because I think I connected to the source, right? The motherland ship. I was there. So it scared the shit out of me. Goosebumps even to this day when I tell that story, and I only tell it in bits and pieces because I believe that that's the best way it can be shared. Just like Twitter. So here's the deal, I'm sitting in there thinking I'm meditating, kind of dozing off but I'm really not, I just went into a deep state of awareness and I couldn't open my eyes, and it was this whole big thing, and my ear was beeping, and it was these tones, and I couldn't- and I said, 'Get me out of here because I'm not ready,' and of course I did, I got out. But after that what happened in Delaware, was I looked up the word Delaware, and I realized there are two words, del and aware. Del of- and then aware. Of awareness. I got my peak state of awareness in Delaware. I will never shun that as a part of my growth because it made me so aware. Everything was beautiful at that point. I could look out and see a leaf, and the leaf would smile, and I was just so far gone. People were like, 'You are now gone,' and I was like, 'But no I'm really ready to start a business. I need to come back.' So what I do now is to keep both sides- because I'm very spiritual, so I muscle tense probably every day. In the shower, out the shower, upon waking, and I say thank you. And it's these little bit size piece of gratitude, bite size piece of awareness, bit size piece of consciousness, and appreciation of who I am and my higher self. And then you get the majority of the beast, right? Because all I have to do is that, give that bite size awareness, bit size love, and I'm already in motion. And then my rest of my day is this whole beautiful thing called business. But throughout the day it's all bite sized consciousness.   Jenn T Grace:              So number one, I feel like there are probably people who routinely meditate and practice mindfulness, and don't ever find that Holy Grail that you found. What would you say to the novice person who is listening to this, and not to say that the universe and kind of spirituality hasn't come up in the podcast before, but it's certainly not like a dominant theme in the podcast. So what would you say to somebody who's listening to this and they're thinking, 'This sounds interesting but I don't necessarily know where to start or what to do,' or they're absolutely petrified based on what you just said. So like what would you say?   Stacy A Cross:             Here's the deal- I was, but there's a sense of calm and love and unconditional love with you in everything, and connectivity knowing that you are everyone. There's a sense of that and I would never give that up. But if you're a novice just like I was, we all once were babies and we needed to crawl, so the deal is what I've done is I just jumped on YouTube- I jumped on YouTube and did guided meditations because I didn't really like that binaural sound coming in, it was too much too fast. So what I did was I just did a morning meditation which was ten minutes, and I started being more interested in it, and I started doing a guided meditation. I think if we force things it doesn't come. Like on that day where I didn't want to just go into a deep meditation, it just happened. It was at that perfect time. And I think everyone has that perfect time, but you have to plant the seeds now because you can't get to that point of awareness (Delaware) sitting in the couch petrified. You can't get to that one but you have to start somewhere. Open up YouTube, learn about your chakras. Learn about what the universe is trying to tell you because I think your personal story comes from your insight, comes from spiritual awareness. Because you have to be aware of who you are, and I think spirituality and going into that deep mindfulness of having those thoughts. You know how hard it is to not think, and that's what I was trying to overcome. I was like, 'You know what? I'm going to do it because I want to just master this thing.' And it was a game to me, and the universe loves playing games with you. So just be prepared to plant seeds now, take it one day at a time. It doesn't have to be three hours like my crazy ass was doing, but it could be five minutes of just total gratitude and just saying thanks, and just saying, 'I am aware, and I am here,' and start with some affirmations and make them real.   Jenn T Grace:              I love all of that. And so I am part of a Mastermind group, and I have a couple of them that I'm actually part of. Some are far more hardcore like the Jack Canfield, like we were saying just very much like hard fact. And then the one that I'm most active in now, there's ten of us, and it's very spiritually centric, and I had a really hard time acclimating to being in this room with these women. There's only one other woman out of the ten of us who was also on like the outside kind of looking in. And not to say that I have not been spiritual, because I have always been a very kind of inner reflective, very deep, very conscious of everything around me, but I would never have thought of it as being like spiritual. Although now of course, it makes far more sense. I'm just very nature centric I guess is the best way of phrasing it. And I go outside and I run almost every day, and I've been training for a marathon which my podcast listeners are all aware of because it's been such a struggle, but I find that I can find that clarity when I'm just outside running, and I'm kind of ignoring everything around me. I recently found a- actually I was introduced to a gentleman named Casey Carter, and his website I believe is called This Epic Life and he has a thirty day meditation- it's not called meditation for dummies, but that's basically how I'm interpreting it. Of here's just this meditation for the lay person, and I just recently started going through it just to like see, and see if I could calm my mind, and it is really, really hard. And I'm only on- I don't know, I might be like day six, and yet I can find that I can calm my mind when I'm moving, but there's something about stillness that I think is what scares the shit out of most people. I think it's the stillness that scares people, and I'm just still trying to figure out how to do it, it's not that it scares me at this point because I'm perfectly fine being alone with my thoughts, which I think a lot of people have a hard time just being alone with their thoughts. I think that's another one of the big things, but I feel like there's so much benefit to business as it relates to all this. So my question to you would be what do you think the biggest benefit that you gained as a result of just being more mindful, and kind of in tune with yourself and your surroundings?   Stacy A Cross:             I believe it's the decision making because I think that the right things always come to me, right? It's for me, it's understanding who I am to a level where if I know my decision making- that was a piece for me that was hard, right? I was always looking to someone else to decide something for me without knowing what I want. But it was just a struggle for me growing up, right? So I think now at the level where I am, knowing that everything for me is for me, and it wouldn't even come to my plate if it's not for me, but understanding what my needs are. Okay? The needs of the business, and being able to decide based on those needs, not this reactional traditional conventional way to decide things. But I mean I'm talking as little as should I have coffee, or should I have tea? Because I had a headache for the past two days, and I know you wanted more business minded, but this is how on a micro scale that I think of things now. I had a headache for the past two days in the morning, I drank coffee, now my body is telling me it doesn't like it, something is going on. Should I drink tea for a week just to test that out? Yes. And those level- and it goes from the micro just of doing those kinds of decision making all the way to should I invest in this- should I invest in this marketing strategy, this person, this coach for business because this A, B and C was the outcome, now my business mind is telling me that something either needs to be changed, what should it be? And it's because of this mindfulness knowing that I'm taking in key factors from who I am, and how I feel, that biological GPS that allows me to make better decisions- business decisions, personal decisions, life decisions much quicker than I used to make crazy 'rational' decisions.   Jenn T Grace:              So how do you think people go from whatever their status quo is in their comfort zone to understanding that you can rely on your gut or your intuition to guide you to a better, more rational decision, even though to some degree in people's minds that might be like a counterintuitive thought.   Stacy A Cross:             Yeah you know what, I always say listen- that's why I said 'rational' because I like irrational. I'm illogical, I shouldn't be here right now, Jenn. Okay? I started this business six months ago and I'm on Grant Cardone TV, they reached out to me, there's so much things happening. If was rational all I would say was, 'Okay I just want to start a business and that's all I'll still be doing.' But irrational thinking, and understanding that it takes some work- it definitely takes some work. Time is of the essence, time is our friend, and the reason why people don't get things done, or they say they don't have no time is because they don't know math, right? Because time is of the essence, truth. So I know I went a little off topic. You're going to have to guide me back because I totally forgot the question.   Jenn T Grace:              You know, I went off the rails with you and I don't remember what the question was.   Stacy A Cross:             I love it! That's what the universe does for us, because whatever it was, that's what needed to be said and we don't have to force anything. And I love that, and I love that this came up because whatever needs to happen always happens, and I believe this to be true.   Jenn T Grace:              I feel that way about people that I come across, introductions that I make, and I feel like I have had a road led with adversity in many, many, many ways, and LGBT is not even one of those factors of kind of the chaos of my past. And I feel like the only thing that gets you to the other side of that chaos is just saying to yourself, 'This is happening for a reason. I don't necessarily need to know what that reason is that this moment, but there is a reason why this is occurring to me right now.' And that I think to some degree can get you through a lot of personal hurdles, but I also think for business because there's a lot to be said about shifting, and adapting, and going in the direction that naturally feels like the best direction for you to go in, even if for all intents and purposes like on the surface, it does not make any sense to the outside.   Stacy A Cross:             Right, I agree. I agree with that 100%. When I first started business'ing I was like- okay I was getting tons of information, and how do I scan that information quickly and make a decision? Or how do I start a business- like how do I do this thing? Friends were saying, 'Do this, it's the marketing. It's this, you've got to get funnels, you've got to click them, you've got to do this,' and I was getting bombarded and it didn't feel right. And it wasn't until I just kind of looked outside and just allowed myself to identify where the needs were in business was when I really started moving, and aligning, and getting results. That's the biggest piece. But I do go through life wondering, asking, 'Okay I know that this is here for a purpose, don't know what the purpose is, but I'm ready for the lesson.' And that's really- and that's really it, and it guides me, and I trust myself. And I mean I think we should trust ourselves a little bit more in business too. Like make a mistake, it's okay. Like I think I did a tweet the other day, the entire sentence was fucked up- the grammar was bad. It's okay. Like it's okay to have a typo. I wrote a book in 24 hours, my eBook in 24 hours- which we don't count, right? I wrote it in 24 hours and there were so many typos in it. I didn't care, I did it and it felt right, and it felt good. And I think sometimes we just have to go, and when we feel that fear and everything inside of us telling us, 'Don't do it, don't go for it,' and that happens in a lot of conventional wisdom and tradition. That's why more people, they don't start businesses because it's so hard to think about it that they don't even actually do it. So my thing is just go for it, feel it, go for it, if it's right, do it.   Jenn T Grace:              And I think that the second piece of that is making it attainable. So if you have some crazy goal, or new business that you're about to start, or kind of a new evolution of your existing business, it's a matter of breaking it down into some kind of tangible baby steps that make it feel less overwhelming so you don't get caught in that frozen place of being paralyzed because you don't know the next step to take, because everything just seems so overwhelming and so daunting.   Stacy A Cross:             It does get that way. And my goal is big, I have big goals, scary goals, unattainable goals, I can't get to them and they scare me, they're monsters. It's on my shoulder, I wake up, I can't even breathe, it's holding me down, these goals are scary. I love big goals because I'd rather fail at a big goal than fail at a tiny puny ass goal, and not even change. Right? So my goal- I'm looking at the book and when you said marathon, I was like, 'Oh shit she just reminded me I've got to go too to run a marathon, and I just ran this morning.' And I'm doing it, and I've got to train for a whole year, and it's crazy, right? And I feel your pain, Jenn. But you already are a runner, I'm coming from just like- I don't even put the ink line up on the damn [Inaudible 00:41:53].   Jenn T Grace:              But guess what? If we go back- and my loyal listeners of this podcast I think have a good sense of the evolution, but if we go back to 2012 and 2013 when I just had- it was like a personal crisis I would call it. Like just a crisis of like what am I doing with my life? And I said, 'Screw this. Ef this, I am not taking anyone's shit anymore, and this is the new me.' And I started when I was running, and I couldn't run for like five seconds without wanting to die. Like it truly was that bad, I could not run for five seconds without feeling like death was setting in. And not to say that that doesn't happen now because it still does, but I think it's the process and the journey. So there's the whole cliché of like enjoy the journey, not the destination, or it's all about the journey and this, that and the other. And to a large degree that is totally the case because I look- my goal was first to be able to run a 5K which is 3.1 miles, and once I was able to do that which took me a while to get to, I was like, 'Alright now I'll do the 10K, and now I'll do the half marathon, and now I'm doing a marathon.' But it requires every single day to be doing something to further you toward that goal that people do not see. So every single day my ass is outside running whether it's inclement weather or not. So yesterday it was freezing, the day before it was raining, like there's always something, it's never just like nice weather, and you have to be out there every day. Nobody knows you're doing it, it's only you who knows that you're doing it because you have the end goal of- like for me the marathon is in January. This weekend I have to run seventeen miles which I have been dreading for the last two weeks. But it is what it is, I have no choice. And in January, on January 8th when I can post my accomplishment of like I finally did it, I ran this 26.2 mile race that I literally couldn't run more than five seconds without wanting to die a couple years ago, that is like the- finally the pinnacle of accomplishment because now people can see that that has happened. But they do not see the two or three years of training daily in the making that actually led to that. So if we apply that to a business lens, it's those day-to-day consistent actions that people are taking that they're not getting credit for, no one's seeing, no one's congratulating them on, that actually gets them to that place of having a successful business. But it takes forever to actually get to, so people have to be patient to some degree to recognize that it isn't an overnight success, and there is no such thing as an overnight success because every single person you ask who has had 'overnight success' will tell you that it took them ten years to get to.   Stacy A Cross:             Love that. I love it because yes, it's the dirt. Yes it's the work that no one shows on their Snapchat or on their videos or their documentary films about entrepreneurs. It is the work that comes in between. But here's the deal, just as you were saying that and I'm reading this book 'The Marathon' by Hal Higdon. 88 marathons, some crazy numbers, and he says more people- he took a survey. More people appreciate and respect the training versus the one day of accomplishment because the deal is- and that's the process, and that's what I'm trying to give out, the values and my experience. It's in this day-to-day action. We're going to get the value from what we're doing and what we're talking about even right now because ten years from now, this day, I'll be like, 'Holy shit, I did all of that that one day?' I already had three calls, Jenn, and I know you did too. Three calls. I went out this morning to run. I already read a piece of a book that I'm reading right now, 'Story Selling,' by Nick Nanton and J. W. Dicks. I've already written an article ready to go. I've already- you see it's all of these things but it's tomorrow, it starts it over with a reset button that you press.   Jenn T Grace:              Absolutely, and I think that that is what- it's like every day is truly a marathon of the amount of things that you have to get done, and there are people that don't want to put in that amount of legwork, and that's okay. So not everyone has to own a business, not everyone needs to be developing and growing their personal brand, and that's just a life decision that some people just aren't meant for it, and others are. And no matter where you fall on that spectrum- so if someone is listening to this and they're like, 'Oh hell no, I don't want to have to have made three phone calls, recorded two podcasts, meditated, gone for a run, had lunch with somebody all before like 1:00 in the afternoon,' then that's fine. There's no judgment in that and I think that that's probably the most important word here, is that there's no judgment in any person's decisions to go in any direction that they choose.   Stacy A Cross:             And I love that, but I'm going to just add the caveat. That same person that doesn't want to do that better not complain about their situation later on down the line.   Jenn T Grace:              Agreed. Totally agree, could not agree more with that.   Stacy A Cross:             Don't complain about not having, or not being able to get this, or the world's against you, or not having- I'm not saying your listeners, your listeners are probably wonderful, I believe they are, and they're loyal listeners. I'm talking about the- that's that polarized thing that I don't get, and that's what I give no back pass for, is saying that you have zero time because you have to take the kids to school, you have to walk the dog, and you don't want to do this stuff, but you're watching eighteen hours of the Walking Dead the entire weekend. Don't complain on Monday, don't complain on Monday that you don't have any time. That is all I'm saying.   Jenn T Grace:              I could not agree more, and I will comment on a good example of this, is that this past weekend- so I'm on a very strict training plan to get this marathon done, like there is no room for error at this given juncture in time. And there are plenty of times in the past where it's like, 'Yeah if I move this run it's not a big deal, I can switch this around.' Like right now there's literally no margin of error available. So this past weekend I was only supposed to do four miles which is very kind of simple at this point compared to what I have to be doing of like the seventeen on Saturday. But I checked in with my running buddy and said, "Hey how did your four miles go?" Because on Saturday morning my ass was up and out of my house by 7:30. Mind you I do have a wife, and we do have two children, both of which are very challenging due to mental health related issues, and I'm also running a business, I have something that I'm starting up, I have a ton of shit going on, and I was still able to get the four miles in, I just got up early, went out, did it, came back, and I felt amazing. I checked in with my running partner later that night and she had like fifteen excuses for why she wasn't able to get out and do it. And I'm like, 'Okay one major difference is that I have children and you don't.' That in and of itself makes it somewhat miraculous to get out of the house on a weekend morning without having like some kind of trouble. So I feel like- and there's not judgment to be had in that, but when you're not prepared for whatever it is that is coming. So whether we're talking about something like a physical marathon, or whether we're talking about the success of your business, or whether or not you win an award, or don't win an award, or get some kind of accolade that you've been waiting or; it's those very small decisions on a day-to-day basis that to me are the ones that have the most impact. So if you're making excuses for whatever reason, the excuses are going to be the reasons why you didn't get it done, because you're only making the excuse to yourself because no one else really cares generally speaking around you what your reason for not doing something is, they just see that you didn't do it and they don't really care why. It's you that you're fooling in the grand scheme of things.   Stacy A Cross:             If you want so much as one excuse and think about it, you've got a million, and they're plentiful. So yeah, I agree with that whole concept and I've trained- you don't even know what it's like to live in the house with me because it's brutal in the morning. I'm loud, I want everyone up, we're up and Adam, and you know what? It's changed everyone here, and I like to say that I was influential in that, and what business mind, and our decisions are better now, you know? So yeah, I love that, I appreciate that, and that's what I'm trying to bring value to. It's days like this, it's the training dates that you're doing, it's me going out for a marathon- I don't want to publicly say it because if I publicly say it- I'm going to say it right now.   Jenn T Grace:              Say it.   Stacy A Cross:             If I publicly say I'm going to run a marathon in a year from today- don't send this thing to my email in a year, don't do it. No but I will because I have the book, and I've been running, I've been training for it, but I am like where you were 2012, but that's something that I want to do on a personal achievement level but I know that it's an every day thing, it's a strategic thing, it's you've got to do it when you don't want to, when you feel bad, and I get bad cramps. I don't know about you, but my cramps come and I don't know what to do in the world. But I've trained myself to say that I don't have any pain, and I've been tricking my basal ganglia, I've been changing habits, I've been tricking myself when I feel bad to say, 'You know what? I feel the best in the world and I'm going to go out there,' and it's been amazing so far.   Jenn T Grace:              So as we're about to wrap up, number one, I kid you not I will follow up with you to see if you're training. Do not- you said it, it's in the universe, and now I'm on your ass. This is what I do.   Stacy A Cross:             I love it.   Jenn T Grace:              And number two, I feel like to some degree there's a lot of inspiration to be had for the fact that I know- and I know I had a lot of people in my audience reach out to me to say like how shocked in a way of like going from not being able to breathe running five seconds, to running for five and a half hours. And I feel like it's that type of inspiration- because we can look at elites, we can look at elite athletes, we can look at the Gary Vaynerchuks of the world, we can look at Fortune 500 CEO's and be like, 'Oh wow that's awesome that they're doing that,' but they're not relatable, and I think our conversation to some degree brings it down to a relatable level to say, 'If one of these two yahoo's can get this shit done, then I can get this done,' is how I see it. Like I truly am like, 'If Jenn and Stacy can do this, like you can totally do it too.' So I feel like there's a lot of I think inspiration that can be drawn from being able to honestly accomplish anything if you just break it down into manageable chunks.   Stacy A Cross:             Yes.   Jenn T Grace:              So my final I guess parting question would be is if you could tell the listeners one thing that you think would help them, that they might be able to implement today, what would that one thing be? And then as you're kind of wrapping up, feel free please tell people where they can find you, how you like to be contacted, and all that stuff.   Stacy A Cross:             Yeah. I would say get uncomfortable with your friends, family, job, everything. I mean cut people off that need to be cut off. If you really want to go on a path, and you have identified any negative pieces in your way, any negativity, anything that will hold you back, limitations, and I'm talking even within yourself; cut them off and figure out a way around it instantly. Because I had to do it. I had to change friends, change my number, I do not care anymore. You have to be very confident in that and you cannot be flaky because once you cut someone off you can't go back, and if you go back it better be to tell them how to do the same thing. The deal is I want you guys to be great, and I want you guys to get uncomfortable. There is so much importance with you. I want you, my friends, my comfort pillars, to go about the day knowing that you can conquer anything in your world, in your path, and if you can believe it, you can see it. Stop trying to see things before you can believe them. Believe them first and then I guarantee you it's going to be there right in front of your face, you can actually see it because the veil has been lifted. Ladies and gentlemen, you can find me anywhere because you're never there- no you are always there. I am on Twitter, Stacy A. Cross on everything, okay? Twitter, Snapchat. Like I said, www.StacyACross.com, but you know what? It's not updated and just because you told me, I'm going to update. Facebook, find me there, Stacy Annmarie Cross. I can't believe I did it but I'm telling you my entire governance. Stacy Annmarie Cross on Facebook, and of course the website, the headquarters, the foundation is www.TheComfortKillers.com. That's with 'The,' www.TheComfortKillers.com. You can find me everywhere and I am always here to leave my leaders, I do not like followers, so don't try to follow me on any of these social networks. My email is Stacy@thecomfortkillers.com.   Jenn T Grace:              And that is Stacy without an 'E.'   Stacy A Cross:             There is no 'E' in my name.   Jenn T Grace:              I love it. I have the same challenge with people spelling Jenn wrong, or calling me Jean, or I get a whole bunch of variations because I went off the reservation instead of having just one 'N,' so I get it, I totally get it. Anywho, I so appreciate you and so anyone who's listening to this and they want to find out- you know get all the information that you just talked about, it will be on the blog at www.JennTGrace.com/96, that is for episode number 96. So thank you again, I so appreciate your energy, and if anyone wants to connect with Stacy and would like me to be the one who helps make that happen, just please email me and I will help you do that.   Stacy A Cross:             Love that, thank you so much for having me. I appreciate that, and I'll see you in a year.   Jenn T Grace:              Oh you bet, I'm on it and listeners, please help me keep Stacy accountable to this, because I know I will. Don't you worry, I'm going to put a calendar reminder now.   Stacy A Cross:             Beautiful, thank you so much.   Jenn T Grace:              You are welcome, have a great day.   Stacy A Cross:             You too, bye.   Jenn T Grace:  Thank you for listening to today's podcast. If there are any links from today's show that you are interested in finding, save yourself a step and head on over to www.JennTGrace.com/thepodcast. And there you will find a backlog of all of the past podcast episodes including transcripts, links to articles, reviews, books, you name it. It is all there on the website for your convenience. Additionally if you would like to get in touch with me for any reason, you can head on over to the website and click the contact form, send me a message, you can find me on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter all at JennTGrace. And as always I really appreciate you as a listener, and I highly encourage you to reach out to me whenever you can. Have a great one, and I will talk to you in the next episode.

#94: Building a Stronger Queer Community with the Debt Free Guys Jenn T Grace:              You are listening to the Personal Branding for the LGBTQ Professional Podcast, episode 94.   Introduction:              Welcome to the Personal Branding for the LGBTQ Professional Podcast; the podcast dedicated to helping LGBTQ professionals and business owners grow their business and careers through the power of leveraging their LGBTQ identities in their personal brand. You'll learn how to market your products and services both broadly, and within the LGBTQ community. You'll hear from incredible guests who are leveraging the power of their identity for good, as well as those who haven't yet started, and everyone in between. And now your host. She teaches straight people how to market to gay people, and gay people how to market themselves. Your professional lesbian, Jenn - with two N's - T Grace.   Jenn T Grace:              Hello and welcome to episode number 94 of the podcast. I am your host, Jenn Grace, and today I have an interview for you with the Debt Free Guys, David and John. We really kind of cover a whole gamut of topics starting with a little bit about their background, but then kind of diving into some really actual specific strategies around the best way to launch your personal brand, and really kind of leverage your personal brand. And then of course we talk about some deeper conversations around what's next for the LGBTQ community specifically. So this has been a really good episode, I hope you enjoy it, and if you are looking for information for the episode itself, if you go to www.JennTGrace.com/94 for episode number 94, you will find all of the information that you need right there. As usual if you have any questions, comments, thoughts, feel free to reach out to them directly, reach out to me, however you want to do it. I am on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, you can also go to my website, I'm pretty much Jenn T Grace on every platform so feel free to reach out with any thoughts that you have, and enjoy the show.                                     Alright so I want to focus today just kind of talking about you and your stories. I think when we were talking I had said that a client of mine found something that you had written in relation to personal finance, and then I discovered you and I was like, 'Oh look, how fun.' And since you so clearly state that you're husbands, and business partners, and the Debt Free Guys, and you just kind of put it all out there, I just want to start with your story and just kind of have you give a background for the listeners, and just kind of explaining how you got to where you are, and then from there we can kind of just organically continue on the conversation.   David Auten:               Yeah so I'm David.   John Schneider:          I'm John.   David Auten:               And we are the Debt Free Guys. John and I are bloggers, authors, public speakers, we have a podcast called 'Queer Money' and our focus is helping our community, the queer community, live bigger and better lives by being money conscious. Our primary belief is that a strong queer community is a viable strong queer community when individually we are financially strong. It allows us to focus on helping not only the community, but doing work in service and finding ways that we can help change hearts and minds of individuals who may not feel that a queer life is the best life, or a life that adds value to the overall community. And that's kind of our focus more recently, we've really started talking a lot about this. We believe that as a queer community it's time for us to step up and help our larger community because they've done so much for us in helping us get the rights and privileges that we have today. And so we want to do that, but we also believe that we can't be distracted financially whether it's student loan debt, consumer debt, or just hating the job that we go to every day. So we want to help people, like I said, live bigger and better lives.   Jenn T Grace:              So how long have you been doing what you do, and what was the original kind of spark that made you say that this- because if you think about starting a blog, it's such a long road to really kind of get your audience built and all that kind of stuff. So what made you think like, 'We have this message that we want to share. How are we going to go out and do this, and then how are we going to monetize what we're doing?'   John Schneider:          Sure. So David and I got together about thirteen years ago, and about a year and a half after we were together we realized that between the two of us we had a total of $51,000 worth of credit card debt, and the irony is that we were both in financial services. We were helping other people with their money, but we obviously weren't helping ourselves. So we decided that we weren't living the lives that we wanted to live, we had got wrapped up in the clubbing scene, the partying scene, and this wasn't really the trajectory we wanted to go with our lives. So we decided that we need to pay off our debt, and we created a strategy to do so in three years, and ended up actually paying off our debt in two and a half years. And then shortly thereafter we moved from a basement apartment to buying a house in a high rise that overlooks the downtown Denver and the mountains. So our lives completely changed and so we felt both based on our professional experience and personal experience that we could maybe help others live better lives as well. So we wrote a book called '4: The Four Principles of Debt Free Life,' and that kind of started our journey as the Debt Free Guys. We published that about two years ago, but about a year prior to that was when we started to dabble into the blogging space and our first account was on- was it on Blogger? And we had several iterations since then. So we've probably been the Debt Free Guys and been blogging for about three years, our book was published two years ago, but it wasn't until last year that we went to FinCon '15 which was in North Carolina. FinCon is a personal finance blogger conference that kind of merges bloggers, and media, and banks and brokerage firms together to all kind of give everybody an opportunity to talk and to network. And when we were there, there were probably about 800 people in all spaces, and we realized that you've got your mommy bloggers, and you've got your dads, and you've got all sorts of different niches that are trying to help their particular followers live better lives by spending wisely, saving wisely. But there was nobody that was reaching out specifically to the queer community. And so David and I thought, 'Oh we're queer. We know these people, we are these people, and nobody's reaching out to us.' And like David said, we do think that in order for us to be a strong queer community, one of the pillars of that strong queer community is that we are financially strong as individuals. And so we thought, 'Wow, maybe we should start to nuance our message.' When we wrote the book and we were blogging before, we didn't hide that we were a gay couple, but we just weren't as I guess out about it as kind of a by-product of our message. Well now since for about a year we've been really targeting the queer community. That's how the Queer Money Podcast that we started in March came about, that was the impetus for that.   Jenn T Grace:              So when you decided to create the Queer Money Podcast, what made you choose going with Queer Money versus some other word that you could use in place of the- or acronym that you could have used in place of queer?   John Schneider:          So there were a couple reasons. One is I was starting to have trouble to say LGBTQA, and everything that we add to it. So it doesn't fall off my lips easily and I don't think the branding is really appealing. It looks inclusive but it kind of gets lost and muddled. Especially if you're not in the queer community, you kind of don't know what all those letters stand for. And the other thing is we have so many nuances of gender and sexual orientation that it started to feel- that we're starting to bifurcate everyone, put everybody in different silos. And we thought we want to talk to the entire community, we want to talk to all the LGBTQ people. So we thought that queer just kind of was the most inclusive word that we could come up with. We know that a lot of people don't like that word, but we think that we can change the definition of that.   Jenn T Grace:              May as well, right?   David Auten:               Right, and to be honest I like that word. I like the word queer. I know that for a lot of people in the past it has a connotation of being different, and being odd, or being less than. But I think that when we look at ourselves we are different, and it's something that we're proud of, and it's something that we wanted to bring into our podcast was the differences. When we look at the financial differences of what it's like for a gay couple who want to have children. What are the financial nuances around that? What are the financial nuances around a transgendered man or woman who's going through transition? What are their financial decisions that they have to make? And then maybe you look at other parts of our community and the financial decisions that we have to make around marriage. And for individuals who live in the 28 states where it's still legal for someone to fire you for being gay, there are financial decisions and choices that you have to make when it comes to wanting to get married. So we want to cover all of that in our podcast, and we are doing that, and we think that by identifying as queer it allows us all to be a part of this inclusive group where we're talking together about what we need financially.   Jenn T Grace:              So I think all of that makes such perfect sense. So did you think that when you started out with this that you would become I guess personal brands in your own way? Because you are branding yourselves so succinctly as the Debt Free Guys, and then having Queer Money, was that kind of an intentional thing that you set out to do, or did it kind of happen organically as you've just been doing this?   David Auten:               It's funny that you ask that question because I would love to say we're smart, but no all of a sudden it wasn't until a few months ago that we started to realize that Queer Money is becoming its own brand. We had worked for three years to make Debt Free Guys a brand, and then all of a sudden we're like- and oddly enough Queer Money is becoming a brand much more quickly. And so it's purely by accident but we'll totally take advantage of that.   Jenn T Grace:              May as well, right?   John Schneider:          When we originally sat down and talked about becoming the Debt Free Guys, we did have a conversation that lasted for several hours around who did we want to be? And our story at the time was that we were a gay couple who got out of debt and we wanted to share that with other people, but we decided to leave gay out of the title, and I think because we were trying to appeal to a mass audience, but with Queer Money we know exactly who it is that we're looking at and sharing conversations of success stories, and mistakes that we've made, and how as a community- like we've said before, can be financially strong.   David Auten:               That said though, we do own the domain name Debt Free Gays.   Jenn T Grace:              Nice.   David Auten:               We might change that someday.   Jenn T Grace:              That could be funny. Actually when I had skyped you as we were about to start I just typed in 'Gys,' I mean to say 'Guys' but I'm like, 'Oh I actually could go for 'Gays' too.' So it's funny that that works out well.   John Schneider:          You're not the first person who has done that and said that to us.   Jenn T Grace:              I feel like to a certain degree- so if you were the Debt Free Gays, right? So would there be some level of it sounding disparaging perhaps? Because if we think back to how queer, in so many ways you are part of that movement that's reclaiming the word queer, so it is something that means something more positive than previous connotations to it. What about 'the gays'? I feel like 'the gays' is something that you hear crazy right wing, completely opposed to anything LGBT related, say. But it would be interesting to see how Debt Free Gays would go. What do you think would happen?   David Auten:               I think that that's one of the things that's part of our purpose, is that we want to change the conversation that even our gay community is having. One of the things that John and I have found is that especially gay men in our community, there is this strong sense of wanting to show everyone how fabulous our lives are. And unfortunately for a lot of people, a fabulous life does not also equal a debt free life. They hock themselves into financial ruin trying to live a fabulous life. But we want to share with people that gays can still have that fabulous life that is coming through the media. You know you see this on TV, every time you see a gay couple on TV they seem to be fabulous.   John Schneider:          White upwardly mobile.   David Auten:               Right, exactly. So we want to keep that idea that you can have a fabulous life, but you can also do this in a very money conscious way, a way that will allow you to live that fabulous life throughout your whole life.   John Schneider:          Yeah I think it's ironic because we have straight friends who call us 'the gays,' and it's a term of endearment. But I do see media and certain demographics who refer to that disparagingly. What was weird too when we had the conversation about whether or not queer was a smart option to choose, I posted something linking to one of our Queer Money podcasts and I simply asked the question of, 'Can saying I'm gay get you fired?' I chose those words because I had 120 characters to use, and it was really interesting how quickly other people in the queer community came back and said, 'Transgender people can get fired and lesbians can get fired, so why are you excluding everybody?' I'm like, 'I didn't really mean to, I just only had 120 characters and I just went with that.'   David Auten:               So I think the words take on the meaning that we allow them to have, and if somebody wants to refer to me as gay or part of the gays, I'm fine with that. It took a long time to get here, I'll stay.   Jenn T Grace:              So what is interesting as you're talking, I think there's so many- when you're building a personal brand, you're putting yourself out there in many ways, and I think that what you're emphasizing is important for people who are listening who are part of the community, who are working on building a personal brand, that when you do decide to stick with one term versus another, that you are going to catch hell from some fraction of the LGBT community whether it's intentional or not. And I remember when I started with my tagline of 'I teach straight people how to market to gay people, and gay people how to market themselves,' I got a world of shit for that because I was saying gay and I wasn't saying LGBT, and I was saying, 'Listen if my marketing- if my primary audience are straight people, they don't know what LGBT stands for. It's my job to help teach them what that means.' And that's exactly what you're saying around the word queer which I think is super awesome. What you were just saying though, just I have a question here because I'm wondering if people bring this to you. I have been called out in rooms while I'm speaking or presenting on something when I'm talking about the disposable income of the LGBT community, or the buying power, or some flashy statistics of saying how great the LGBT community is from a consumer standpoint. But then there's a lot of data and studies that show that there is equal if not more poverty among people who are LGBT, and of course there's a lot of different variables on that. Do you find that people ever comment to you on that? Or are you addressing that issue kind of from a head on standpoint? Because it feels like you have the perfect platform to be helping people who may not be in the best socioeconomic status, get them there because this is what you do.   John Schneider:          Right, we have seen statistics, I think the most recent one was 2015 that the queer community has about close to a trillion dollars in buying power, but that's excluding taxes and saving for retirement. But what's interesting is the cost to raise a child from the age of birth to eighteen (not including college) is about $245,000, and the queer community obviously doesn't have as many children as the straight community does, but ironically we only tend to have about $6,000 more than our straight peers when it comes to saving for retirement or savings at all. So there's definitely a disparity there and we've heard a statistic that we're trying to verify, I've heard it several times just not found the source, that about 40% of the queer community is in the service industry, food service or bartending. And so that kind of puts us kind of behind the eight ball when it comes to planning, and being prepared for retirement and saving for other financial goals. So we are cognisant of that, nobody's called us out on it or asked questions about it, but we are trying to address that.   David Auten:               One of the other things that we have done a little bit of research on, and I think is indicative of to what has happened in our community, in the US so much of our personal net worth is tied up in the value of our homes whether you're in the gay community or straight community. And if you look at a lot of the people who are queer, they moved into areas, into cities, and specifically into neighborhoods that oftentimes in sixties, seventies and eighties, these were neighborhoods where they were less desirable, and that has completely changed. Those communities, those neighborhoods now are in many cases, they are some of the most desirable. I think of places like Castro or Chelsea in New York, even here in Denver Capitol Hill. And so a lot of individuals, although they did not earn a lot of money, they bought well in the sixties, seventies and eighties with their homes, and that has translated into a lot more net worth. So outward appearances I think for a lot of individuals is that we have- we're very well off because we are living in these communities, but I think that there's also statistics out there that show that as specifically as gay men, one statistic showed that a gay man will spend about $54,000 more on education, time and energy to equal the same pay as his straight white male counterpart. There's a lot of statistics out there that show that lesbian women and the family structures that they have, oftentimes they have more expenses but are earning less. There is this dichotomy in our community too I think that's even stronger than it is in the straight world, where we have some very, very, very high earning gay individuals, and that kind of throws off the average. So I think the average gets pulled up by individuals who are very high earners, but as John said that there is a significant number of individuals who are working in the service community, and they may not have access to be able to earn as much, or have not taken the time and effort to earn more in their lives   Jenn T Grace:              So I totally agree with everything that you're saying. I was just at a conference and they were talking about LGBT business owners, and basically the revenue numbers of LGBT business owners. And depending on how you want to play the statistics, if you're looking at the pie chart in one way you can say, 'Okay it looks like 70% of them are earning less than $100,000.' But then if you're looking at a different way of framing that is, 'Oh the average LGBT business owner is making $2 million because that 30% that's over the $100,000 is so enormous that it completely overpowers more of kind of what the reality looks like. So when we're talking about statistics and numbers, and you're focusing on educating people, I'm focusing on educating people, and we're to some degree focusing on educating the same people. Where are you finding the most people who are resonating with your message? Do you have statistics on that? Or not even like real data, but just kind of off the cuff. Is it more men like yourselves? Is it more women? Is it urban, suburban? Like is there any kind of breakdown and is there anything that you can attribute to why that fan base is following you?   John Schneider:          So we've done some market research a couple different ways and we find that our primary audience is gay men between the ages of 35 and 55, and their two primary concerns are number one, paying off debt whether student loan or credit card. And number two is saving for retirement. Why that's the case, I would think probably because we're gay men between the ages of 35 and 55 and we paid off credit card debt. But I also think it's about thirties and forties I think when people start to say, 'Alright well I didn't make as much as I thought I was going to make and I didn't save as much for retirement as I had hoped to at this point, so now it's time for me to get my act together. So I think that may be why that demographic is resonating with us. I also think while we've tried to reach out to the queer community, we haven't yet resonated or caught the attention of the other demographics within the queer community; lesbians and transgender people. But like David said we're definitely trying to do that. We think that people like you, and people like us, we have a platform and it's important for us to make sure that we're doing our best to try to lift all boats in the ocean, and not just focus on the white upwardly mobile gay people that we see on TV.   David Auten:               Right. I think that one of the other things is that you look at some of the other demographics, and I'm going to specifically look at racial demographics- down racial lines. Individuals who are African American and Hispanic are oftentimes raised in households where money is very scarce, so they're raised with that scarce mentality, and so talking about money is something so foreign to them that they may not be attracted to a message like ours. And so we're trying to break that down. We've had several guests on our show who are African American, who are moving in that right direction, have businesses that are trying to work in their community as well as being in the queer community, to raise awareness around being financially fit.   Jenn T Grace:              In terms of your- the structure of your podcast, have you proactively really sought out finding diverse people? Because I know for myself even getting people on my podcast, I try but yet a lot of times I still end up having lesbians on my podcast because that's who is a huge part of my audience. So I know that you said that that's kind of happening to you as well, just it's people who are part of your own demographic. Of course we all kind of gravitate toward people that are like us, it's just kind of human nature, so have you put together any type of strategy where you're thinking, 'Okay I'm really going to make a concerted effort to find more women, more people in the trans community, more people of color, or whatever it happens to be, or has it just been very kind of organic as you've gone through?   John Schneider:          It's been sort of both. We've had African American people and lesbians on our show, probably fewer lesbians than African Americans. We have reached out to several transgender people to have them come on our show. The way we typically get guests is either through networking on social media and actually real life which is kind of scary. But we hear people make comments or they say things in different meetings or events that we're at, and we think, 'Oh that could be interesting on our show.' We're not typically focused on their gender or their heritage, it's more that they've got an interesting story to tell and for the most part that organic approach has worked out for us, but we have made some strategic effort. Because we do- there are some questions, and if David and I aren't familiar with what it's like to be transgender, and our concern is what is the cost of transitioning? And can we help people who are considering transitioning prepare financially so that they can do so and not impact their retirement or affect too egregiously other financial goals.   Jenn T Grace:              Interesting.   David Auten:               I think that we do like to look at a holistic view of our community. So we are actively looking for individuals in our community that fit these various niches within the group. Like John said, we have actively pursued going out and trying to find someone who is transgender. We have actively gone out and looked for individuals who can carry on a valuable conversation around what it's like to be a queer youth who is homeless. So we are looking for that because we know that it isn't just individuals who are listening to our show that identify with that, but it's individuals who are listening to our show that want to hear, like John said those stories, and know what else is going on in our community. That makes us stronger when we realize our diversity, and we appreciate that diversity, and can support each other.   John Schneider:          Yeah I think a good example was when we had a show about- 'There Are Gays Richer than You' is what the title of the show was, and we had a lesbian on the show, she's a regular talk show host and a psychology professor, and she let us know- and this is our own fault for not being more aware, that 40% of homeless youth identify as queer. And we were like astounded by that so then that opened up another discussion. Like how can we identify these people and help them out with our platform? So that's why we started to seek out people who are helping and people who are a part of that demographic.   Jenn T Grace:              That's so awesome. So do you have any plans of not necessarily having a philanthropic arm to what you're doing, but more of just kind of the giving side? I'm sure you're already very much naturally doing that, but in terms of being able to take the education you're providing people, that kind of added step further for the people that might not be able to afford working with you one-on-one, or whatever that might look like?   John Schneider:          We have started doing that. We actually had an event in Philadelphia back in July, and the event was called Queer Money: Launching Your Success, and it was held at the William Way Foundation which is an organization that specifically caters to queer youth. And the desire of that event was to try to share with queer youth individuals in their community who have made a success of themselves; and success is all different kinds of definitions, it's not just financial, it's individuals who have built a life that they want. And so we want to continue with those events so that we can reach more queer youth and help them see that life does get better, and this is how it gets better. These are the people who have done it, and here are some examples, and you can use them as resources. So we have kind of a broad look at it right now with that. We aren't doing any individual one-on-one yet.   Jenn T Grace:              So what is your vision? Because I feel like what you're up to is so amazing. Are you trying to move into a space where the two of you become bigger, more well-known public speakers, and really kind of having more of these events that you can be doing? I'm just curious because I feel like it truly sounds like the sky is the limit because you're doing such good work.   David Auten:               Thank you.   John Schneider:          Thank you, appreciate that. Such a reputable source. So our main goal is to strengthen the queer community so that we can fight the fight for equality which is obviously not yet over, and so that we can then- like David said earlier, we can be more impactful or powerful contributors to the broader society. Strategically how we're doing that, we're not myopic in any particular way, but we're focusing on obviously the Queer Money Podcast, we are writing as well, and then we are public speaking. Right now the podcast has most of our focus, but hopefully we can broaden that out a little bit more as the podcast becomes more self-sustaining.   David Auten:               And when John mentioned that we are writing, it's not just writing at our site www.DebtFreeGuys.com. We are partnering with a number of other publications; Business Insider which is not known as a queer resource, but we work with them so that we can provide them with queer content. We also work with Huffington Post, Yahoo Finance, and a couple of other websites and publications that allow us to kind of reach a very broad audience. One of the other things that we are doing, and if anyone who is listening is a part of this community, we are right now working with local gay magazines and websites to provide them with syndicated content that will allow them to reach their local community, helping them build that strong financial foundation. So for example there's a magazine in the Midwest where we have content in that magazine, and then on their website which will highlight not only our focus on providing the queer community with financial tools, but also providing our podcast so they can listen to it there. And really the desire is to build kind of a grassroots effort among queer communities that let's focus on being financially strong, let's focus on being a support for our community, and the larger community in general.   John Schneider:          Yeah I think, as David's speaking, we're part of the queer community, but we're also part of the finance community. We've been in personal finance for 31 years, we've worked for big brokerage houses, and one of the things that David and I have noticed is that since June, 2015 the finance community seems to think that because same sex marriage passed, that there are no other issues that the queer community needs to deal with financially. And obviously as you know, that's not true. And so we're trying to- the reason why we're passionate about reaching out to those bigger- and working with those bigger publications is because we think that it's important, especially on their platforms, to show that there are nuances that are unique to our community, and this is how you can address them.   Jenn T Grace:              Okay so I have two completely different trains of thought happening right now, so I just wrote one down to come back to in a minute. But the first one is- so the people who are listening to our conversation right now are people who are trying to figure out how to go about starting a personal brand, or maybe adjusting the one they have, or just being more conscious about what they're doing. So what I think you just mentioned is so incredibly important is about being in publications that are more mainstream publications, where the LGBT community is a sampling of the rest of the world, so we are from all diverse backgrounds, you name it. So you're strategically working on being in those types of mainstream publications. So my question for you is around what was your- I don't even want to say strategy because I'm sure there wasn't actually a strategy at the time, but like what was that first article, or source, or magazine, or newspaper that you landed where you recognized like, 'Okay this is so what I have to be doing, is focusing on getting more of this.' And then what did it look like to actually try to get more of them? Because I know a lot of people who struggle with getting mainstream kind of publicity in a way, but you're obviously coming from a place of giving value, which I think is easier to do it when you're doing it from that direction. But what has that process looked like for you, and what might you share as a tip for someone listening to this who's also trying to figure that out themselves right now?   David Auten:               Sure so when we started Debt Free Guys and we started blogging we thought, 'Well we got out of debt, we've got a story to tell, people should just want us to write for them,' right? We thought Oprah was going to have us on her show. That's not how it works. And luckily it didn't work that way because our message has become much more clear, and our writing has gotten much more succinct and better. So I think in hindsight if we were to tell somebody the strategy to execute on, it would be to first start a blog. I have to tell you the first time we actually published something that actually had one of our names on it, wasn't just generically Debt Free Guys, it was scary. I walked around for like an hour before I actually posted it, but I knew it was something we had to do because when you put yourself out there, then you put yourself out there for the good and the bad, and I wasn't necessarily prepared for the bad. But so we wrote for about two years on our own blog, and then through the connections from blogging that we made on social media, we started to write for other blogs that may not be well-known to most people. But it helps get you out there and gets your comfortable with exposing yourself and your thoughts. And then the next catalyst to our success was we went to FinCon last year and we networked with a bunch of people. So whatever niche you're in, I would highly suggest finding your people, finding conferences of people who do what you do, and people who would support what you do, and we networked with a group of people who offered to syndicate our content, which was awesome. And so they were the first ones to get us on Yahoo Finance, and the first time we were on Yahoo Finance it was really weird. Basically what we did was we told our story of how we became the Debt Free Guys, and who we are, and we were pretty out and open about being a gay couple, and we were on the home page of Yahoo Finance all morning.   John Schneider:          We were doing cartwheels and we both had day jobs at the time so we had to be like focused on somebody else's work while we were also consumed with our own. And it was at that point we thought, 'Wow this is really something that we can do something with,' and that's when we started to research. We hadn't really paid attention that much, but that's when we started to research that since June 2015 nobody's really been talking about LGBT money issues, and we can really help these publications reach a different audience, and also reach an audience that needs to hear the message.   David Auten:               It was kind of funny that John talks about that first day we were on Yahoo Finance. I was sitting at my desk and around the cube comes- around the wall comes the guy who sat next to me and he says, "Hey come here." And I got up and I walked over to his desk and he goes, "This is a picture of you on Yahoo Finance." And I hadn't really been that out with people and sort of what I was doing, so that was a very fun experience. One of the other things that John and I would absolutely recommend if you're trying to grow your personal brand, and I think a lot of people kind of blow off Twitter, they think it's not worth it. Twitter is an amazing tool that allows you to connect with individuals who you may not be able to find otherwise at publications, at companies, at organizations where they would be hidden by or barriered by a number of walls for you to be able to get to them. So if you want to write for a particular publication, go out and see who on Twitter is a part of that organization. If you want to do public speaking for a particular school, go out and find who are the leaders that work with that school that are on Twitter. Start engaging with them in conversation. Don't ask right away, but just start engaging with them around what is it that they do, what is it that they want, what is valuable for them, and then you can introduce what you have that might be of value to them. One of the biggest pieces of advice that John and I ever got was don't ask for a handout, ask for a hand up. And that's very important. When you're going to a company, an organization or a school, and you want to work with them, you can't just say, "Hi I want-" and ask them. Just like with the sales process. We all want someone to kind of charm us, or we want someone to provide us with some sort of information that it gives them the invitation to sell to us. Well the same thing goes with our introductions to these organizations. We have something of value, you have something of value that they want. You truly believe this in your heart, that you have something of value that they want, you want to slowly introduce that to them, and Twitter is a great way to do that.   Jenn T Grace:              I think that's such valuable advice, and I'm sure you are both familiar with Gary Vaynerchuk and his whole- he's an acquired taste for sure, however I enjoy his very aggressive and go-getting personality. But his book- and I actually handed it out to people that work for me. 'Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook' exactly exemplifies what you're talking about where it's really all about giving, and giving, and giving, and when the timing is right, asking for whatever it is that you need. But we all- and I think that at least the three of us talking right now are all coming from such a place of service where we're genuinely trying to just help the LGBT community be stronger and better regardless of what shape that takes. But I think it's so natural for us to be constantly giving, and then asking when appropriate. But I don't necessarily know that everybody can kind of translate that mindset into kind of their day-to-day business where maybe they're in a service-based business since you were talking about service-based before, it's a lot harder to actually find I think that right balance.   David Auten:               I think that it's also kind of similar to when you want to go to your boss and ask for a raise. You can't go to your boss and just say, "Hey I want a raise." You've got to go with, "Well I did this, and I did this, and I did this, and I can do this for you, and I can do this for you. This is why I am worth X number of dollars or percent more." We have to do the same thing with the other organizations that we want to work with. We want to show them, 'This is what I've done for you, this is what I've done for you, this is why I'm valuable, why you should pay me to do something.'   Jenn T Grace:              That's exactly, exactly it. So you've obviously learned to build relationships with media, and publications, and really kind of take the long strategic road of connecting with people on Twitter. Have you found any value in any other social media platforms, or have any just kind of general tip that might be helpful for someone just starting out?   John Schneider:          I think it's important to find out where your audience is. Our audience, Debt Free Guys, Queer Money audience is on Facebook. But I know a lot of people in the finance community, especially the mommy bloggers, their community is on Pinterest. I know a lot of the media folks in our space, their biggest platform is LinkedIn. So I think you need to find out who it is you're trying to serve, and then make sure you have a presence there. It's not all about obviously just connecting and trying to grow your brand, but it's also about trying to serve, like you said, and we want to find out where the people are that you want to serve, and I think that's very important. It's easy to get distracted living in such a ferret society right now because there's so much social media, and somebody says, "Oh if you're not on Instagram you've been missing out." "If you're not on Pinterest you're missing out." And there was a time there when David and I were trying to be on everything and I think Gary Vaynerchuk is very good at figuring out how to appropriately be on everything, but our belief is that our audience isn't everywhere, and we can't be everywhere. So we primarily focus on Twitter and Facebook, but somebody else's audience and somebody else's business partners might be on different platforms. So our advice would be to find out where your people are and then be there.   Jenn T Grace:              And there is a known strategy which is Pat Flynn's strategy of be everywhere, but I would caution against that especially just starting out to really don't go half-assing every social media outlet. Focus on like two where your people actually are, and really kind of hit it out of the park there.   John Schneider:          Exactly, and we're actually going to see Pat next week.   David Auten:               Yeah, and you bring up a very good point there of half-assing it. You only have so much amount of time, especially if you are starting out and this is your side hustle. Or you're just starting out and you do have some financial backing but not a lot. You have a limited amount of time. So if you only are able to spend a limited amount of time, do it where you can hit a home run. And not everything you do is going to hit a home run, but do it where you can really, really be effective. So if you're trying to hit seven different social media platforms, there's no way you're going to hit seven home runs in a row, it's just impossible, it's not going to happen. Not even Pat Flynn can do that, not even Gary Vaynerchuk can do that. Not everything that they do is wildly successful. So focus on building that audience in one or two places and then you're going to be able to hit a home run there, and once you get consistently hitting home runs there, move on to somewhere else.   John Schneider:          Yeah I think what you want to do is try- you want to get a following and if you can get your 1,000 raving fans, then you're set for success, and it's easier to get those 1,000 folks following you if you're targeted, and it's easier to do that when you're on one or two platforms. Maybe when you get big enough and you have a social media staff and you want to be everywhere like Gary V, it's a little bit easier. But when you're just doing this in your kitchen it's a little bit harder so stay laser focused.   Jenn T Grace:              Absolutely. Oh I love the paths that we've gone down, and I know that we're getting close on time so this will be the last question that I ask you, and then you can shamelessly promote what you have going on. But this stemmed from something earlier that you were talking about, and the question is what do you see as the next kind of big fight or great fight for the LGBT community? We know that we have marriage equality, which yay to some degree, but at the same time we still don't have equal protections in the workplace. So there's a lot of kind of stuff that's still going on. From your standpoint- so I guess maybe it's a two part question. Like what do you think is the next fight that people are going to be going after? But secondly, what do you think your role in that is with the platform that you have?   David Auten:               Sure. I think John and I have had a little bit of discussion around this, and one of the things that we are very cognisant of right now is the differences from state to state, and that's one of the keys for us as individuals. I live in Colorado, you live in I think Connecticut?   Jenn T Grace:              Yes.   David Auten:               Is that right? Right, yeah and other people live in all these variety of other states. The laws that are affecting you as an individual, that will impact you the most are the ones that are at the state level. I think of individuals, and we've found this out recently, if you're a gay man or woman you can adopt a child in Florida.   John Schneider:          That law just changed, I was corrected. Until recently.   David Auten:               Right, but when you got married you were not allowed to adopt. So it's through our efforts as individuals going at the state level and saying, 'How can we make our laws more inclusive of all our community?' I think it's four states have laws that protect transgendered individuals in the workplace, we already said that 28 states have laws that allows an individual to be fired because they're gay. That's a state level issue, and when we can equalize things at the state level, then we're getting protections for everyone. And so that's one of our facets that we're fighting for now. We are going to be working at having individuals on the Queer Money Podcast that highlight those state level issues so that all of us can be aware of how different things are at the state level. It's very easy for us to say, "Oh well yeah, you live in the United States, you should be out." Well if you live in a small town in Arkansas and your life and your family is dependent upon the job that you have, and you don't want to move to a big city, or you can't afford to move to a big city, it may not be easy for you to be out. So we want to help try to change thinking at the state level right now.   Jenn T Grace:              I think that's so important. So I was just at a conference and I was on a panel with a couple of people from large corporations and we were talking about supplier diversity, and being an LGBT-owned business and how by announcing that you're an LGBT-owned business to a company that you want to do business with- so say you're in Michigan and you want to do business with Kellogg's, it's all well and good that you have now outed yourself to this company, but what ramifications does that have if you're in a remote town in Michigan where it's not acceptable for you to actually be out. So you're outing yourself for this business opportunity, but at the same time are you putting your personal safety potentially at risk. And there's this very interesting balance of when it's safe to be out and when it's not safe to be out, and I think that for people maybe- I'm not entirely sure about the climate in Colorado but I know in Connecticut it's far less of an issue here and it has been far less of an issue for a very long time. But I know that if you go to Tennessee for example, it's a totally, totally other story. So it almost seems that having people in places like myself, or even possibly you, where we're in better situations so we can advocate for different states to kind of get that same level of equality that obviously we're all searching for.   John Schneider:          Yeah Denver's pretty inclusive, we can hold our hands pretty much anywhere. But that's why I think it's incumbent upon us to spread that message. We're in the safe space, it's our responsibility, those who have more need to do more, and so it's incumbent upon us to use our platform and to use the safe space that we live in to make lives better for our brothers and sisters elsewhere.   Jenn T Grace:              Yeah you're public figures, you have no choice at this point.   David Auten:               And I think that's part of the reason why John and I make a concerted effort to reach out to some of those larger financial publications that are read by millions and millions of people across the country. We know that our article about being a gay couple and paying off our debt was read by individuals who live in small towns across America, and it's going to be the individuals who are reading that that are gay, that are going to be let's hope inspired by that to do the same, or to just feel comfortable about who they are. But it's also the individuals who are not who see that and say, "Yahoo Finance cares about gay people. That's interesting." Or "Business Insider cares about gay people. That's interesting." Or I should say 'queer.' They care about queer individuals. It just changes that message or that conversation in their head, and our whole- John and I have talked about this for a long time. Winning hearts and minds of individuals who are enemies when it comes to our lifestyle is one of the benefits that we have of being public figures, and we want to do that.   Jenn T Grace:              It's a responsibility, yeah absolutely. I love it, we're so on the same page on so many things, I love it. So for people who are listening and now they're interested, they want to get out of debt or they just want to learn more about you, where are all the ways in which they can find you?   John Schneider:          We are the Debt Free Guys, and so we're at www.DebtFreeGuys.com, and on Facebook and Twitter you can find us at Debt Free Guys. We have our book, '4: The Four Principles of a Debt Free Life' on www.Amazon.com and a couple other places, but I think Amazon is the easiest. And then like we suggested if it's not already apparent, our main focus right now is the Queer Money Podcast, which is on iTunes and Stitcher and Sound Cloud. We also have some of our videos for the podcast on YouTube at Debt Free Guys. So that's where our primary focus is right now, and we would love for anyone who listens to our podcast because of listening to your podcast to share with us any feedback; if they like anything, hate anything, if there's anything they want us to talk about, or anyone they think we need to reach out to, we would love to have that feedback.   Jenn T Grace:              Perfect, I like it. And for the listeners, your first and last names? I know you said your first names in the beginning but just for the sake of it.   John Schneider:          I'm John Schneider.   David Auten:               And I've David Auten.   Jenn T Grace:              Perfect. Beautiful! Well thank you so much for coming on the show, this will be out shortly, and of course all the stuff that we talked about, I'll make sure that I have links all in the show notes for the audience to just find this much easier. But thank you, this has been great, I really appreciate it.   John Schneider:          Absolutely and thank you for the opportunity. When you have links and whatnot, let us know and we'll absolutely flood our social media with it as well.   Jenn T Grace:              Beautiful, you bet. It should be out on- my plan is going to be the 29th, so September 29th.   John Schneider:          Okay so I'll put you on our event calendar on our website. And then a long time ago we had talked about having you on our podcast, so I'll send you some information, see if we can schedule that.   Jenn T Grace:              Yeah that would be awesome. Yeah, I would love to help in any way I can. It would be perfect.   John Schneider:          Great, awesome.   Jenn T Grace:              Well have a great rest of your day, I really appreciate it.   John Schneider:          Thanks you too, bye bye.   Jenn T Grace:  Thank you for listening to today's podcast. If there are any links from today's show that you are interested in finding, save yourself a step and head on over to www.JennTGrace.com/thepodcast. And there you will find a backlog of all of the past podcast episodes including transcripts, links to articles, reviews, books, you name it. It is all there on the website for your convenience. Additionally if you would like to get in touch with me for any reason, you can head on over to the website and click the contact form, send me a message, you can find me on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter all at JennTGrace. And as always I really appreciate you as a listener, and I highly encourage you to reach out to me whenever you can. Have a great one, and I will talk to you in the next episode.

#87 - How Lindsay Felderman Turned a Pile of Words Into an Inspirational Book  [Podcast] Jenn T Grace:             You are listening to the Personal Branding for the LGBTQ Professional Podcast, episode 87. Well hello and welcome to episode number 87 of the podcast. I am your host, Jenn Grace, and today I have a special interview for you. As you know for the last probably three months or so at this point, and for probably the next three months to come, I have had nonstop interviews. And I'm so excited to be back on the interview kick, and today I have Lindsay Felderman on, and she is the proud new author of the book, 'Walking through Walls. Finding the Courage to be Your True Self,' and I cannot be more excited to have Lindsay on because she shares her journey of writing and publishing her very first book. Her book talks about the coming out process, and a lot of really kind of amazing things in terms of just getting outside of your comfort zone, and really kind of pushing yourself to realize that you have a story to tell, and your story is important, and your story can impact the world. So it's super exciting to have Lindsay on, and even more so because she is one of the first graduates- or one of seven people who graduated from my spring session of the Purpose Driven Author's Academy, and she's the first of those seven to produce her book through the program. So I could not be any more excited as my second group of authors recently started on June 7th. So I'm in the summer session right now with seven new amazing authors. So it's really kind of cool to have Lindsay on who talks about her experience of writing the book, a little bit about her experience of publishing the book, and kind of the things that have been a little more of a pain versus things that were a little bit easier. So yeah, it's just- it was a really good conversation, and the moral of everything in what we talked about is it's really kind of about finding the courage to just be yourself, whether you are part of the LGBT community or not. So her book is already available on Amazon, which is super exciting, so you can go to Amazon and type in Lindsay Felderman or type in Walking Through Walls, and either way you should find Lindsay's book, and you can purchase it, and I've already read it so I'm excited for you to get your hands on it as well. So that is what I have for an introduction. I don't want to take up any more time, but I do want to let you know that if you want to see the transcript for today's show, if you want to have access to the links that Lindsay and I talk about, if you want a direct link to the Amazon page where you can find her book, you can go to www.JennTGrace.com/87 and that is for episode number 87. So enough of my blabbering on, let's just dive right into the interview with Lindsay. So yeah if you just want to start off by giving the listeners a quick kind of background of yourself, and then we'll get into all the good things about your book.   Lindsay Felderman:  Okay, I don't even know where to start with a background I guess. Yeah I'm Lindsay, I'm in my late twenties, I am gay and I wanted to write a book about my coming out story because I struggled with my identity for a long time, and I wanted to kind of just share that with the world and show them that it's okay to struggle. But at the end of the day you really should trust your gut and believe in yourself. Yeah.   Jenn T Grace:             So how long would you say you had been thinking about writing a book? Because I know when we first talked which was like six or eight months ago at this point when you were first thinking about this, that we were talking about how it feels like there's a lot of books out there for this topic, but in the way that you were thinking about it, it just didn't feel like anything was landing for what you were feeling. So how long has that been on your mind?   Lindsay Felderman:  I probably first started thinking about writing a book probably a little bit after college. When I graduated from college which was in 2006, so I guess like ten years ago- oh now that was high school, college was six years ago. Yeah okay so 2010 I graduated from college, and I don't know, soon after that. I'd been thinking about it, and then a few times I would actually go to like write it on my computer, and start writing, and I always for some reason just had this like inclination that what I had to say didn't really matter, and always ended up just like shutting my computer down and was like, 'Forget this, I don't know why I'm even thinking about doing that.' And then it wasn't until I guess last year, I went to this- I guess you could call it a seminar with Seth- I always mess up his last name.   Jenn T Grace:             Godin?   Lindsay Felderman:  Yes. My old boss called him 'Gahdin,' so then like it's in my head as 'Gahdin' but I know it's Godin, so every time I go to say it I like stutter. Anyway I went to a seminar with him, and it was called 'The Ruckusmaker's Seminar,' and basically it was just this whole thing where you were just bringing like a project, an idea that you wanted to make better, and like everybody kind of had the same theme of like making the world a little bit of a better place. So my old job actually sent me to it, which was kind of funny because I didn't really use it for that, which was probably- he doesn't need to know that. I mean I did, I did think about work, but I really was there like personally. People would ask me, "What do you want to do if you're unhappy at your job?" And I was like, "I don't know. I really want to help LGBTQ youth. I don't really know how to do that." At that point- had I started volunteering for GLSEN? Yeah I think I had already started volunteering for GLSEN, so I was doing that. But other than that I was really unsure what I wanted to do. So I just kind of talked to people all weekend about that, how I wasn't really super happy in my corporate marketing job, but I wanted to find something that I felt like I was helping people. And then Seth wrote a book called, 'Your Turn,' and it's just kind of basically just a bunch of passages just talking about all sorts of things about life, and I kind of was sitting there looking at the book on like a break, and I turned it to a page and there was a quote at the bottom and it said, 'The most important book you'll ever read in your life is the one you write yourself.' And I kind of just was like, 'You know what? I've been wanting to do that forever. I really need to stop messing around with it.' So we had to like break up into groups, and I was in with a couple of my friends, and I just was like, "I want to write a book." And they both were like, "Yes, you should, oh my gosh," and I had never really said it out loud or told anybody that I had wanted to, so that was like a really big moment for me when I realized like, 'Yeah I'm going to do this.' And then I actually went up to Seth to thank him for the seminar, and I told him, "I'm going to write a book." And he's like an accomplished author, he's written like twenty books, and I was so nervous to say it, and he just like looked me in the eye and he said, "Yes you will."   Jenn T Grace:             That's awesome.   Lindsay Felderman:  I don't know, from there that's when I was like, 'I've got to this. It's something that I really just need to do.'   Jenn T Grace:             That's awesome. Not everyone can say that Seth Godin said it right to their face that, "Yes you will." That's pretty impressive.   Lindsay Felderman:  It was cool, yeah.   Jenn T Grace:             So that's awesome. So in terms of like getting past that place of turning the computer off because you're like, 'I can't do this,' and being completely afraid; how did you get from that hump to actually starting to put words on paper? Because I know that when we finally connected, which wasn't until December, you had already had so much of it finished. So that's like a big kind of emotional and some kind of like mental roadblock type of hurdle that you had to get over. Do you have any specific ways that you feel like you got through that?   Lindsay Felderman:  I think a lot of it had to do with the confidence in myself that when I had first thought about writing it, I was only like 21 or 22, and you've read the book so you've seen I went through a lot after that. And I think I was finally in a place now to actually believe that what I was saying would matter, and that I kind of know what I'm talking about when- because I'd been through so many things versus just kind of writing about life. And I kind of got more of a vision too of what I wanted to do. When I first would go to write it I kind of just was like writing my thoughts on the world, and kind of how I felt, and I don't really think there was real purpose to it, and so just like over the years realizing my- focusing more on my vision, and then like going to Seth's thing was really like the catalyst because I said it out loud for the first time, I think that was a really huge thing, and I had some validation from my peers saying, "Yes you need to do that," and that was a really huge thing as well. So then at first in order to like kind of start, I started actually writing my blog which I've been horrible at doing this year because I've been focusing on the book, but writing a blog was super helpful too, just kind of like writing in chunks and having people respond to that. And then I just took my computer and started like writing, it kind of was like word vomit, it was literally just write down everything that you can think of that happened in your life, and why that's relevant, or why that would help somebody else. But I'm not going to lie, it was hard. Like every time I would go to do it, it was super emotional for me. I had to be in a spot where I could actually focus on it, and like really just focus on that. And I actually wrote a lot- because I travelled a lot for work, a lot of it I wrote on like planes because it was like easy to be able to just kind of like shut everything down, and there was nobody there to bother me, and I kind of just could like zone in. But I never felt like I could just go in for like twenty minute spurts and just kind of write, because I would- it just kind of lost the emotional feel for me, and it was too much. But it just was really just telling myself, 'Okay you've got to go do this,' and other people asking me about it. "How's your book going?" Or "What are you doing and what are you thinking about?" And I was kind of like, 'Oh yeah I've got to do that.' And I set a date for myself, I think that was helpful, so I told myself by my 27th birthday which was October 22nd, that I would have my rough draft finished. So when we talked in December, that is what I had done. I had just my rough draft and then I kind of didn't know what to do with it. And I had some peers from this thing that I met at Seth's, that I tried to kind of reach out and was like, "What do you think I should do?" But everybody's kind of going at a thousand miles per hour, so they didn't- we kind of talked through it, but it just got stagnant. But yeah I think the validation of just hearing, "Yes, you should do that," and having the confidence in myself that it matters, and saying it out loud. Saying something out loud and telling yourself you're going to do it is- you think that it kind of sounds silly, but when you actually say it or like write it down, it like changes your perception of what that actually means.   Jenn T Grace:             And how many people do you think you told? Obviously you told the people in that room that were there that day, but did you announce it on any social media that this is something you were going to do? Was it only close friends and family? Like to what degree did you put yourself out there to tell people- or declare this to the world that you were doing this?   Lindsay Felderman:  Right. I guess so initially it was just the people that I met that weekend, I came home and obviously told Sam. I was super emotional when I came home and told Sam. She like realized because I was just not happy in my other job, and she was like super happy to see that I was having something that I was really passionate to start working on. But then I didn't announce it on social media right away. I did tell like close friends and family kind of just like over that next month or so that that's what I was planning on doing. But in my blog a few times, I started to mention it. I didn't kind of just say, 'Hey I'm writing a book, this is what I'm doing.' I would say, 'I'm going to be working on a project,' or something along those lines that that's what I was doing. But I pretty much told anybody I saw in person that I was doing it. So it wasn't like I was hiding it per say, but I didn't really know- at that point in my early stages I didn't have the whole concept down yet, so I didn't- I don't think I actually fully announced it until after I started your class online, because then I was asking people for help. So that's I think the first time that I was kind of like, "Hey, I'm writing this book, I want your story, I want you to be involved." And that's kind of I think the first time I did it. I guess it was like January or February.   Jenn T Grace:             So now in looking at your story, part of- again we briefly touched on this, was the fact that you felt like there weren't enough coming out stories that kind of resonated with you, and I know that when you and I connected, I completely agreed with that because I'm like, "You know what, my coming out story isn't tragic, but it's certainly not fun or great." I don't think anybody's is. So have you found some kind of niche- or I don't even know if niche is the right phrase, but do you feel like what you've put together is really going to help that person who may not have the worst possible coming out story? To just kind of hear from you, and then also that process of reaching out to other people to say, "Hey can you share some of your thoughts?" Can you kind of describe what that process was like in terms of just reaching out to other people to add to what you were already writing? Because I can imagine that can be kind of a pain in the ass in some regards, but also adding good value to the end reader, which would be an LGBTQ youth.   Lindsay Felderman:  Yeah. So it was kind of a pain in the ass, and I actually got kind of the same almost reaction that I felt before even writing the book. A bunch of people said to me, "I could give you my story but there's really nothing to it, or it's not exciting, or there's nothing really that I can say." And I would explain to them it's like no, any coming out story is like a struggle. Like I have a very good friend of mine, her parents aren't really accepting of it, they don't really know that she's with her current girlfriend. They do know but they don't, it's kind of one of those things they just don't talk about. And she kept telling me, "I could give you my story but it's really not that much." And it's like, no that kind of thing matters. The fact that you struggled with your parents, like there's plenty of people struggling with their parents. Yeah like were you kicked out, or were you harmed, or were you severely bullied? Maybe not, but I think the family struggle is probably one of the biggest struggles that isn't talked about. The ones that are just, 'Here's my family and we struggle every day. And yeah we still have a relationship, but it isn't the really, really dramatic stories that we do hear about. I think the majority of us go through that as- you mentioned when I listened to the recording you gave me after you read my book, and you said something about your parents have to grieve the loss of what they thought, and I think that it's like really important, and I think a lot of parents like take a really long time to do that because you spend a lot of time thinking about who you are, and what you want, and when you finally take the step to say, "Hey, yeah I'm gay, or I'm this, or I'm that," or whatever to the outside world, it's like this relieving feeling for you, and it's so exciting, and it's new and it's fresh, and you finally feel like, 'Yes I'm showing myself to the world,' and you weren't showing that part of yourself to the rest of the world, so all of a sudden they feel like you're this new different person, where you feel that this is who you've been the whole time, you just weren't sharing that. And I think that more people really have those types of stories but aren't talking about it because they think that, 'I wasn't beat up, or I wasn't this, or I wasn't that,' and so it doesn't really matter, but every single- I think out of all my friends I have one friend that I can think of, that her parents were like excited when she came out. And it was like this weird thing, it was like a coo, "Oh yay, you're gay, that's so cool!" But like everybody else that I know has had some struggle, something going on where their parents were just not accepting, or they didn't want to hear it, or they just told them they didn't know what they were talking about. And I think especially for me, coming out so young and being told you don't know what you're talking about, was really hard for me. It really- like that's why I really started to question myself and have a lot of self-doubt because the people that raised me, and told me, "Hey you don't know what you're talking about, you're fifteen, you have no idea." It's like wait a minute, how do you know how I feel inside? Like this is not something that we're talking about, like I'm saying I'm dumb or something and you know that I'm smarter than that. It's like I'm telling you I'm attracted to females, I romantically want to be involved with females, and you're telling me that you know me so there's just no way that that's possible. That at that age did a lot of- I don't want to say damage, but almost damage to me in my confidence, in my feelings, and like I had a lot of doubt for a long time about who I was because I really trusted my parents, and I didn't expect that. And I think that a lot of people have that same type of thing, where I wish I had a book like this one, where I could have read and been like, 'Oh my gosh, you were doubting yourself too? Oh my gosh, you thought your parents knew everything and that was like earth shattering to you?' I think that would have been everything for me, and I started to realize that too when I started volunteering for GLSEN and I was speaking to some of the youth, and just in passing just explaining to them some of the things about myself, and why I was there, and just like little bursts of story and they would be like, "Oh my gosh, thank you so much for sharing. I feel so much better about X, Y, and Z. Or why my parents are being annoying, or not accepting." And that's why I was really like, I've got to write this. There's more people out there that I think need to hear it's okay to like have all this self-doubt, and it's okay to like have people not accept you, and it's okay to continue trying to figure out yourself, and not listening to the people that are just not willing to even understand what's going on. So that was a really long-winded answer.   Jenn T Grace:             No that was such a perfect, beautifully articulated answer. And for anyone who might be listening who doesn't know what GLSEN is, can you just kind of give a thirty second of what GLSEN does?   Lindsay Felderman:  Sure, so they are the Gay and Lesbian Straight Education Network, and they basically are the ones that started GSAs in school, so Gay Straight Alliances, and have done a lot of work over the years in really just helping gay youth feel comfortable, and have resources and outlets for them in schools in order to be themselves. And I actually didn't even know about GLSEN until later because of Sam, she worked for Teach for America and then met through GLSEN. But that's over there. They basically started the GSAs in schools, they spent a lot of time with LGBTQ youth, and making sure that they feel confident in themselves, or even as something as serious as the trans bathroom issues that are going on, they work on- I don't exactly know how they do it, but they work to try to get legislation changed. For me it was just volunteering, you worked with youth in the schools, and we'd have meetings, and just kind of talk about like all sorts of issues surrounding the LGBTQ youth, or being queer in high school.   Jenn T Grace:             Perfect. And so for those listening who keep hearing you reference Sam, that is indeed your fiancé, so we want to make sure people know that.   Lindsay Felderman:  Oh yes, that is my fiancé.   Jenn T Grace:             Yes. So if we're talking about just kind of how you started to volunteer with GLSEN, and really started to interact with other young LGBTQ people, did- I guess if you could turn back time and you had an opportunity to have recognized that they were a resource to you, do you think to some degree- because I feel fortunate that I've actually read your entire book before it's published, and I obviously now have a really good handle on your story, but the fact that you had a- that you came out twice. And I wonder how many people have had that type of experience. And have you had- have you talked to others through GLSEN or any of the other work that you're doing and found that that has happened to other people as well?   Lindsay Felderman:  I have obviously talked about it. I don't think I've met anyone specifically that has done it the way that I have. I think the more stories that I've heard is somebody comes out as gay, and then they later realize they're actually trans. So I think for our generation, especially for me when I was in high school, it was like you were gay or straight, there wasn't all these other letters. There wasn't all these other identities, or these things that you could associate with or feel that you were. So it was like if you don't feel straight then you're gay. And I think so for a lot of people in my generation they kind of would come out, 'Okay I'm obviously gay,' and then as these letters have been progressing, and all these identities and people really saying hey, it isn't just black and white like that, there's a lot more going on. And as people started to associate with other identities, I think that's kind of the- I would say double coming out story. But I have not heard of anybody that came out in high school, decided to pretend they were completely straight, and then come back out again. It was definitely an interesting one. I felt so dumb when I was 21. I was like, 'Seriously? You were fifteen, you knew exactly what you wanted, and then like you have to do this all over again.' It was stressful to say the least.   Jenn T Grace:             Yeah, I can feel the stress and the angst in your writing, and so hopefully- well we haven't even said the name of the book, so I would love for people to know the name of the book, and then I feel like we have a good synopsis of what it's about, but maybe give a synopsis as well so that way people who are listening to this can actually go read your story, and really kind of get this- it's not like an opposing view at all, but I feel like your take on it is very unique, and I think for anyone who might be saying- and mind you my audience is mostly LGBT people listening, so it's not like we're talking to a completely unknown audience. But I feel like a lot of people nowadays are saying, 'Well why do we have to talk about this? Why does this matter? It's 2016, we have marriage equality, this, that and the other,' and to me it's a very short-sighted type of view on things. So I feel like you're kind of shedding some light on things that people are absolutely going through right now, like in present day. But yeah can you just say the name of the book, and just a brief kind of description of what it entails.   Lindsay Felderman:  Sure so the name of my book is 'Walking through Walls: Finding the Courage to be Your True Self.' I can't believe I just tripped over that. And it is just a- the whole background of the book is my coming out story, which as we said I came out twice, and then what I did is I took stories of others that represent all the LGBTQ letters, and intertwined them into my book. Just asked them a bunch of questions, and they responded to them about pretty much anything that has to do with coming out. And I totally get what you're saying about it's 2016, and why do we need to talk about it, and let's just everybody kind of be equal, but the issue is we're not, and I think that we can't brush all of that under the rug. And even though we have a lot of milestones, and I will honestly say that I did not think that I would be able to get married when I came out in high school. Like I remember- I think it was Massachusetts passed something and I was like, 'Wow that's crazy,' and I never thought that like that was going to be able to be a thing. You know, like it would be like, 'Hey I'm actually getting married in 2017 and I'm literally getting married, not just having the ceremony to say that I'm married,' and that kind of thing. And I think as much progress as we're making, there's still so many issues that need to be talked about, and I think if we just kind of pretend that they're not there, that- I don't know, I just think they need to be talked about, and I think they need to be validated, and in order to truly be equal with everybody and be accepted, we need to have everybody actually be accepted, which is just not the case. I mean you can turn on the news for five minutes any day, or go on Facebook, and there's just so much hate, and so much ignorance. And even people that are my age, I'm like shocked the ignorance when it comes to like the LGBT community, and the misconceptions, and thinking that people are just- somebody who they're just not. And it's like I think it's just- the fight has been fighting, and people have been fighting, and we've won a bunch of battles, but I still think there's a huge war that we're still up against. And for everybody in the community, and specifically with trans people right now, I mean just the bathroom laws. Like that's just ridiculous. Like the things that I hear people say to me about those like, 'Oh well they can do something in the bathroom. I don't want them with my child.' It's like are you serious? Like any guy can walk in the bathroom and like hurt your little girl if they want to, or little boy. Like it has nothing to do with your identity, how you identify who you are. Like no, they're just shitty people, like stop. And I think that kind of thing just needs to be talked about, because the amount of ignorance I think is really the biggest battle that we need to fight. I mean I literally wrote an article yesterday too, about a boy who identifies as a girl, out in Alaska so she was competing in a track event, and I guess like demolished all the other girls. And somebody wrote an article like, 'See world, you made your bed, now you need to lie in it. You can't complain that this girl decimated the other girls when she was born a male.' And it's just like seriously? You just don't understand. And so I think this type of thing does need to be talked about. We can't just pretend that we're equal and say, 'Hey we're equal.'   Jenn T Grace:             Yeah, I cannot agree more. Have you seen the thing on- the Save Sarah that's a Go Fund Me campaign that's happening right now? And I feel fortunate that this episode is going to air within like a week of us recording it versus a lot of times I have like months delay. But the seventeen year old gay girl in- I think she's in Austin, Texas, who was sent away to a Christian boarding facility that's one of those pray the gay away type of places, and she's basically trapped, and her family is doing nothing so she has a cousin who's trying to kind of help her get through it, and they're raising money for her legal fees. And it's like, okay it is June 8th as we're recording this, it will be out next week, but this is happening on June 8th in 2016, that we have children who are being forced into places that are already deemed not helpful by many, many governing medical bodies, saying that this does not help and it actually causes more harm than good. So it just kind of continues to prove that books like yours, and books like anybody who want to write about LGBT and about coming out, or anything like this, it just kind of continues to prove that there's such a need for it because this stuff is not going away, and it's not going away as fast as we would like it to.   Lindsay Felderman:  And that kind of thing blows my mind. I didn't get sent to like a Christian camp, but just the same kind of mindset. 'You're not gay, you're not gay, what are you talking about?' It's just ridiculous to me. I mean one of the people that contributed to my book I met through my blog, I followed their blog, they followed mine and I posted that I wanted to write this and they submitted their story, and they're in their fifties, they're bisexual, they're married to a man, and she writes about how in her fifties she still realizes she thought that that would just go away, and it doesn't go away. Like I know for a fact that if I'd ended up marrying the guy that I'd been dating in college, or some other guy, like I would still be feeling the way that I felt when I was fifteen right now, and into the rest of my life. It just doesn't go away, and you can't pretend that it's just going to go away. I think that's probably the biggest thing too for me, is I want people to see like hey I tried to be somebody that I didn't want to be. I gave it more of an effort than I think that I probably should have. But I spent four years with a guy that- I loved him, I really did, that's the thing. He is still very angry with me, but I truly did love him, and we were best friends, but I wasn't romantically in love with him. I wasn't sexually attracted to him, and I could have stayed miserable, and stayed with him, and it would have been really bad for both us because we wouldn't have had the life that we should be living because I was hiding behind this wall of me, and I was a miserable human being. Like so miserable, I was very angry, I would get like little things that would happen, I would flip out, and it was just not me, but it was because I was holding so much angst in all the time, and nobody knew about it. It wasn't like only a few people knew, and I was talking to them on the side or whatever, and they helped me get through it. It's like I literally cut out every person in my life that knew that I was gay when I graduated from high school, slowly throughout my freshman year in college. It wasn't like a one and done, it was like I went to college, I didn't tell anybody there that I was gay or that I had been dating girls in high school, because they met me and I was dating my current boyfriend who I call Max in the book. I keep going to say his name and I don't want to do that to him. So anyway, there was no reason for me to talk about it, and then I just kind of let it be, and interestingly enough where I went to college there were people there that I went to high school with but they didn't really talk about it. I think one person that I wasn't friends with of course, because that's always what happens, the people that don't know you out you to other people, told one of my college friends, and it happened to be one of my Christian God-loving college friends, and she almost- she freaked out and I said to her, "I don't know what she's talking about. I'm with Max," and she was like, "I know, I told her she was crazy." In my head I'm like, 'No she's not, I did date girls all throughout high school, and they all knew it.' And so I started to just kind of get rid of it, and I didn't even talk about it like, "Oh yeah I dated girls." It was like, "No that never happened." Like I literally was like I took the delete button and pretended that whole part of my life just didn't exist. And so that pain and that struggle of thinking all the time like that didn't exist- and for my mom, and my boyfriend, it was a very hot topic for both of them because when he started dating me, everyone was like, "Why are you dating the lesbian? She's gay, what are you doing?" So he would get really angry, and even when I told him that I was gay, he freaked out and was like, "No you're not." Because we were best friends prior to us dating, and my mom, same thing. So it was just this hot button that I just never spoke about to anybody, and I didn't see anybody that knew it, and I moved down to Florida and so just nobody knew. And so it was like okay, I just literally went as far back into the closet as I possibly could, and it was just not good, and it didn't go away, and I didn't feel- I still felt that same way that I did when I was fifteen years old, and I think that- I don't even know what response I was responding to, but I want people to understand that it's like not going to go away. If you're feeling a certain way, you need to trust yourself because nobody is going to understand how you're feeling, and you don't want to be that miserable person. Like you could be something so much better. Where I couldn't bring anything to the world- I had nothing to offer because I was just so miserable, so caught up in hiding myself, so caught up in self-loathing. Gosh the self-hate that I had towards myself was bad, and anything gay that came up; stories, or people, it was just I had to- I couldn't take it. Like I said, I stopped talking to everybody, all my friends that knew. It was hard, I don't know why I did that to myself. And I don't want anyone else to do that to themselves which is why I wrote the book.   Jenn T Grace:             Yeah, it's such a perfect way of phrasing why you did what you did. So tell us how you came up with the title, because it's an interesting take on the typical coming out type of book. So 'Walking through Walls,' how- what sparked that?   Lindsay Felderman:  So initially actually, this weekend that I had with Seth Godin, right? Godin? I'm going to say it right. I'm just going to call him Seth. Anyway so that weekend literally was like the biggest catalyst for me. But everybody that was there kind of got like a nametag with a little catchphrase about themselves, so there was eighty or so people there, and each person had this little catchphrase and mine was I walk through walls. And I can't remember other people's to give a good example, but everybody- was something about what they were doing. So my friend works with Lululemon and something hers was about like I help- something with yoga, and every person's thing made sense for them. And for me I think they gave it to me because I worked at a software company, and so I'm not sure if they weren't sure what I did, and so it was kind of like firewalls or whatever.   Jenn T Grace:             Oh yeah.   Lindsay Felderman:  But I'm in marketing so I had nothing to do with the IT thing. So I felt very much a fraud when I was there that weekend because I really didn't know what I was doing there, I didn't really know how I could help my business- my old job there, and I had this thing where I walk through walls. And everyone is doing these amazing things helping children, and creating these like amazing businesses, they all give back to like communities, and I was just like blown away by the amount of people that were there and the work that they were doing, and I just felt very much like I don't belong here. But the whole thing is I walk through walls, and I started- as the weekend went on and I was talking to more people, and kind of telling them what I really wanted to do, they all kind of felt like the walk through walls tagline actually fit me because they were like, "You walk through kind of like these barriers, or you walk through these different ideas of who you are, and what you want to do." So I really actually started to resonate with that towards the end of the weekend, where at the beginning of the weekend I felt very like, 'Oh crap, what does this thing on my nametag? What am I going to talk about? I don't know what to do.' And by the end of it I was like, okay I really like the idea of I walk through walls because a wall is a very permanent fixture, a barrier to wherever you want to go. If there's a wall you can't walk through it, right? You have to find some sort of a door. But what I like about it, and what I ended up kind of playing it into is the whole idea of when you're queer or part of this community is you have to come out of the closet, and it's very cliché, it's like okay everyone's coming out, right? But for me I feel like I spent so much time building walls around myself to hide who I truly was, that at the end of the day I had to break down these walls. I had to actually almost physically walk through these walls that I'd built around myself of how I thought of myself, and I think that that is truly what it is. It's not about opening a door, opening a door is really easy. It's really easy to walk up to a door, hey somebody built this door and it's opening, and you can just walk through it. Where I think the majority of us, and I don't want to speak for everybody in the community, but it's much harder than that. It's not easy to come out, and a lot of times some people have to come out all the time. Like you have to constantly kind of just tell people- when you meet somebody, you like name drop that you have a fiancé that's a girl, or your wife, or whoever. And walking through walls to me spoke much more strongly about what I had to do, just breaking down those barriers that I'd built, took so many years building, to just say, 'Okay this is going to be who I am. I'm choosing to build these walls, and I'm going to do this, and how I'm going to live my life.' And then I realized these walls are trapping who I am, and I need to break them down, and walking through them is the only way that I'm going to be able to be truly happy.   Jenn T Grace:             I like it.   Lindsay Felderman:  Yeah, that's kind of it.   Jenn T Grace:             So what do you think in terms of- so if somebody's listening to this, and they're thinking, 'Wow I feel like I can resonate with her because I totally have sat at my desk and started to write, and then said no I have nothing to write.' Or kind of that stop and start. For somebody listening, what do you think that one piece of wisdom might be to push them out of their comfort zone, and have them just actually say, 'You know what? I am doing this.' Do you have any words of wisdom on that?   Lindsay Felderman:  Yeah I think first probably it would be good to just write in short bursts, and not about anything in particular. Like when I first started to like really write, I just would write almost like word vomit, just like what I was feeling, what I was doing that day. Almost like journals, but not. It's just writing, like you just need to get in the habit of writing and like letting your emotions and your thoughts, putting them down on paper. And then I was blogging, and I would share what I was writing for people, and you've just got to do it really. It's like one of those things where it's like, 'What's the great trick?' And like the great trick is just sitting down and writing. Like it's just taking that time and saying- and it doesn't need to be like you're sharing it with the world, but getting in the habit of writing and kind of just like doing what- figuring out what your writing style is too. I think for me the biggest thing too, I always was told I was a bad writer, so I really struggled throughout high school and college, in like English classes they were just like, "Yeah you don't really have great writing skills." And even in my work, my jobs, I had bosses tell me- my last job, he told me multiple times that I didn't know how to write, and it really like shattered my confidence. Like seriously? What are you talking about? And I worked really hard at kind of just like fixing it in business and whatever, but for me it was like you know what? I'm not listening to how you want me to write anymore, I'm going to write the way that I want to write, and I'm going to put it out there, and if people resonate with it, then okay, and they started to. So- but I just think the biggest thing is one, you have to believe in yourself, you really just have to believe that what you are going to say matters. And two you've just got to start writing. You literally just have to- whatever it is. I don't care if you write, 'Hi my name is Lindsay' five times on a piece of paper. Like you just need to understand that it's okay that you can actually do that. You have to have- starting to actually write, and believing that you can do it is like the two biggest things that you have to do. Because I still look at the proof that I have of my book, like when I get the actual book I don't even know what I'm going to do, but like looking at that- there are so many words in it. I still can't believe like I wrote all those words, but you just have to continue to like every day, wake up, 'Alright what am I going to write today?' And it doesn't have to be every day, it wasn't every day for me, but just doing it. Like Seth actually that weekend, he talked about- I can't remember what the name of the author was, but he said he woke up every morning at 6:00 AM, and he wrote from 6:00 until like- I don't know, 12:00 or 1:00 PM every day, and he wrote hundreds of books because he sat down and he did it every day. And that's the kind of thing- if you want to become something, you have to work at it, and you have to sit down, and you have to do it. And that's the biggest thing. And then finding somebody that supports you, I think too. So as soon as I started telling people, like really my fiancé Sam, she was like, "Wow that's amazing that you want to do that." I think she kind of didn't believe me that I was going to do it. Not so much that she didn't think I could, but she was just like, "That's a big thing to do." But having her support, and just like the support of my family saying, "Yeah you need to do that," I think- and I talk about that in the book too. Like as your coming out story- like just finding somebody that's supportive in your life is super important regardless. Whether it's you're writing a book, whether it's you want to become an astronaut or scientist, or whatever you want to do, you just need to find people that support your dreams and are positive. Because if you bring people into your life that don't believe that you can do what you know you can do, they're just going to bring you down, and there's no point in having those types of people in your life. So it's find somebody that's supportive, sit down and write, and just do whatever- you do whatever you want to do. There's just so many things you can do in this world, and you have to follow your dreams, and you can do it is what I would say.   Jenn T Grace:             I love it.   Lindsay Felderman:  Anybody can do it.   Jenn T Grace:             So speaking of anyone can do it, I totally agree. I think anyone if they focus and they sit down to do it, they totally can. So after the writing part, where do you feel like it was the second most challenging? Because obviously the writing- like you can't pussyfoot around that, there's just- it is what it is. But where were those other types of roadblocks, or perceived roadblocks where you were like, 'What the hell is going on here?' Did you have those moments where you were just kind of stressed out because of certain logistical things? Or what did that look like?   Lindsay Felderman:  So the logistical things- I guess initially they did. So basically I wrote my book, and then it sat in a Word document, I didn't know what to do. And I can't even begin to describe to you how I think like the universe works, but because I volunteer for- because I met Sam, because she worked for Teach for America, because I then found out about GLSEN, volunteered for GLSEN, because I chose to go to one like random Wednesday night at a business thing, walked by your booth, and I didn't have time to stop because I was leaving, I saw Jenn T. Grace, Professional Lesbian, looked it up on my way home and was like, 'Wow this lady is pretty cool.' Started following you on like social media, responded to you- whatever, got on your email list, and then like two months later got an email from you saying, 'Do you want to tell your story in 2016?' It's like, 'Wait what? Yes, yes I do. I literally wanted to pick up the phone right now, call you and be like, 'I absolutely want to tell my story. Like how did you know? Did you just send this to me?' It was so crazy. But so the biggest thing definitely is the writing, that sucks, but then the logistical thing was scary because I didn't know what I could do. I didn't know anybody in publishing, I didn't know do I just send my book to all these specific publishers? I had friends saying, 'Okay look up LGBTQ publishers, and reach out to them.' And that just all seemed really daunting and scary and I was like, 'I don't really know what to do with this.' And then meeting you, and your class really helped with all that, like I could self-publish through Amazon, great that takes all that away, I don't care what anyone else has to say. No that was fine, but then I think the editing part of the book, and going back and just having to re-read what you wrote is like really, really hard. Especially when it's something like the book that I wrote, where it's emotional and every time I read what I wrote about whatever chapter it is, like it brings me back into that moment of that pure raw emotion, and it's hard to kind of put yourself back in those moments I think sometimes, because it was really emotional. So I think just- I think I remember saying in your class one time I said, "I haven't read it in a while," because it took so much out of me to read it, and to have to go back, and figure out does this make sense? And then I had to go back and do like kind of the so what's at the end of the book- or end of each chapter because I kind of realized I just kind of moved on and I didn't really explain like why that was important. So just all that part is just- I feel like once you do it you feel really accomplished that you wrote it, you put all these words on paper, but you're only really halfway there. Like there's so much other things that go into it, and you want to just be like, 'This is a book, put it on the shelf, this is a book,' but you have to do so much more to get it to be- like I'm literally 99% of the way there. I literally just have to fix some formatting and the way that I fixed the quotes, and make it so it fits so that Amazon will say that my file looks good, and then I'm good. And it's just like I have to do it, but it's just getting there. Picking all the little details, and understanding, and yeah.   Jenn T Grace:             And you have a cover now, right? So I believe I saw your cover. Because when I saw the proof it was just plain white, which was like mysterious.   Lindsay Felderman:  Oh that's a piece of my cover actually, that's not even the whole thing.   Jenn T Grace:             Beautiful.   Lindsay Felderman:  The one that you saw on Instagram- or Facebook?   Jenn T Grace:             Yeah.   Lindsay Felderman:  Yeah it's a piece of it.   Jenn T Grace:             I like it. So when- so somebody listening to this, when should they expect your book to be available for purchase? They will be listening to this as of Thursday, June 16th this will be live.   Lindsay Felderman:  I am hoping that it will be published- I don't- once you hit the big- I should just ask you. When you hit the big publish button, like what's the waiting period on Amazon? Is it just like- do they need to like approve it? Or is it just like, 'Hey you're good.'   Jenn T Grace:             It's within like 24 hours that it's available for other people to buy.   Lindsay Felderman:  So yeah, I'm hoping either today or tomorrow I fix those little formatting issues, and then like I'm hitting publish.   Jenn T Grace:             Nice.   Lindsay Felderman:  So we're pretty much there. I would say by the time this podcast airs, you'll be able to buy it on Amazon.   Jenn T Grace:             Good, good. Now there is- you're having to be held to it because now there are thousands of people listening and may want to purchase, which I totally think they should. This was fantastic. I so appreciate you jumping on, and sharing your process, and hopefully inspiring some other people to share their stories too. If somebody wants to contact you directly, what is your- either your blog website, or where you are on social media? How would you prefer people to get in touch with you?   Lindsay Felderman:  Honestly I'll give out all my- I guess ways of contact because I know everybody is kind of different in the way they want to contact. So if you want to go to my website it's just www.LindsayFelderman.com, and there's like a form on there that you can submit and it goes directly to my email. My Instagram is LFelderman so you can find me there, I'm not private so you can follow me, or send me a message, or whatever you want to do. And then my Twitter, which I'm not going to lie I don't really use all that often, is LFelderman22. So those are probably the easiest ways to get in contact with me, all of them are hooked up with my email so I'll get it- and it's email that I actually check, so I'll see whatever you send.   Jenn T Grace:             Or go to Amazon and type in either your name or Walking through Walls, and your book should come up and be available for purchase. And of course if people do buy the book, I certainly want to know. So if anyone listening to this, if you buy it, please let me know about it so that way we can make sure Lindsay knows it came through here. And then of course leave a review. I feel like reviews are always important, even if you only have a couple, it's really helpful to have some reviews because I have no doubt that your story will help change lives, which is kind of the end goal that we're both going for, which is just so amazing and so awesome. So thank you again for your time, I really appreciate it.   Lindsay Felderman:  Thank you Jenn, I really appreciate it more than you know.

The 6 Steps to using Content Marketing to create your Personal Brand Intro:                          Welcome to the Gay Business and Marketing Made Easy Podcast, where you'll learn how to do business with and market to the LGBT community in an authentic and transparent way. We're talking about an $884 billion lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community. We'll help you grow your business, gain market share, and impact your bottom line. And now your host; she teaches straight people how to market to gay people, and gay people how to market themselves. Your professional lesbian, Jenn- with two N's, T. Grace.   Well hello and welcome to episode number 78 of the Gay Business and Marketing Made Easy Podcast. I am your host, Jenn Grace, and today we are going to talk about personal branding, content marketing, and being an author all in six simple steps. So content marketing, personal branding, authorship are completely intertwined in what I want to talk about today. You don't have to have one to do the other, there's no kind of contingency on any of them. But what I want to provide to you today are basically six steps into providing a framework for all of this to make sense. So I want to talk about taking an inventory of what you've already done, strategically coming up with some kind of content plan, mind mapping your ideas, putting those ideas into an outline, planning and scheduling your time, and then getting it done. So that is what we're going to talk about in today's episode, I hope you enjoy it.                                     The last couple of episodes that I've been sharing with you have been around planning to become an author in 2016, and talking about confidence, and the most recent episode we talked about the five fears that new LGBT authors have and how to conquer them basically. So I'm kind of going along the theme of authorship in this episode, however it's much bigger than that, and what I mean by that is that the topic of today's podcast is around content marketing, and it stemmed from my second week's class with the authors that I'm working with right now. So as I mentioned in the last podcast, they are working with me from February 1st through April 30th, and each week we're going through a lot of information almost to probably an overwhelming degree for a lot of them. But we're trying to cover a lot so they can ultimately have a book at the end of the ninety days that we have together. And one of the things that I was talking with them about in the last week is about taking an inventory of the content that they have, and how they can basically apply that to potentially their book and telling their story. So as I was thinking about that, I was thinking how can I share this information, and not really what I talked about in the author program itself, but kind of how can I share information around content marketing bigger and more broadly? So basically what I want to cover is content marketing kind of from a big picture level, and how you can use that in your business. So in building your personal brand really. So one of the things that I have been doing for a really long time is working with businesses around content marketing specifically. And content marketing is a little bit of a buzzword and kind of has been a buzzword for a couple of years now I would say. But really when we're talking about content marketing, it's around blogging, and podcasting, and writing for other people's blogs, guest posting, putting out newsletters, and being on other people's podcasts as being interviewed there, and doing videos, and all these types of things that basically are content that you're putting out to the universe. So if you're building your personal brand, you have to find what you stand for. So if we're looking at- and this all kind of ties together in terms of authorship. So as part of your personal brand, you could absolutely be an author. You don't have to be, but being an author is certainly going to help you catapult your personal brand.                                     So if we're talking about content marketing as it relates to personal branding, and really building your personal brand, it's really a matter of identifying what it is that you want to talk about. What is your niche? And of course starting with the obvious of what's your business? So what is it that you do? I know that there's a lot of business owners listening to this, so it could vary. You could be an accountant, you could be a financial advisor, you could be a consultant, you could be a motivational speaker; there's just a bunch of things that you could be doing. And I know for myself that when I started off my business, I've been in business since 2004, but it's absolutely morphed and changed shape a variety of times over the years. And this most recent iteration of my business being a professional lesbian began in November of 2012. So I'm going into the fourth year here, and in doing so everything I've done to this point has really been around content marketing. And I don't necessarily- I wish I could say that this was really intentional in the beginning, but it really wasn't intentional until probably about a year, maybe a year and a half in, where I realized that your personal brand stands for so much more. So if you are beginning your kind of personal brand journey now, you can be looking to get a domain name that has your name as the domain name. So for me I have www.JennTGrace.com. And a side note, a funny little fun fact is that I could not get www.JennGrace.com. So I had to throw the 'T' in there to make sure that I could get something as close to my name as I could. And it is my name obviously, but I really would have preferred Jenn Grace, and not sounding so formal with the 'T,' but alas I wanted to make sure my brand all matched, therefore I had to go with the Jenn T Grace on everything. So that's kind of how that happened. But I would encourage you to make sure you have your domain name. I know that most of the people that I work with right now already have it. There are times- I'm actually working with a client right now who cannot get her name no matter how hard we tried. We even tried to negotiate with the person who owns it via GoDaddy and they're not willing to give it up even though they're not using it. So there's a lot of variables with that kind of stuff. But you can do- depending on what you're doing, like if you're trying to build a platform for speaking you could do- put 'Speaks' at the end of it. So I could do www.JennGraceSpeaks.com for example. Or you can do JennGraceAuthor. There's a lot of different variables, but you really want to try to get as close to your name as possible and make it simple for people to find.                                     So that's just kind of a small simple tip in terms of having a home base if you will to drive people to. So if you have your website and it's not your name, that's fine too. If it's your business name, and you want to start putting out content, then as long as you have a place to bring people back to, that's the end goal. You don't want to be posting all of your blog posts just on LinkedIn but not on your own website. You want to make sure that you're driving people from social media, from the interwebs to your website so you can work on getting people to subscribe to what you're doing and all that kind of stuff.                                     As I had said I was not completely intentional about it when I began. I really began wanting to do this podcast, so I was having a couple of conversations in one day with some really amazing people and thought, 'Wow they have such brilliance to share. I need people to be a fly on the wall to listen to this conversation and hear their great wisdom.' And it was shortly thereafter that day I was like, 'That's what I need to do. I need to do a podcast so I can interview people, and I can talk about these really interesting things, and really just allow people to kind of see the inside look at all of what makes these LGBT leaders and allies amazing people. So it did start off with just a podcast and then I realized, 'Alright so if I'm going to do a podcast, I'm definitely going to have to do some blogging here,' and then the blogging turned into writing a book, and the book turned into creating videos, and it all kind of transpired from there. But one of the things- and this was what I wanted to talk to you about today is really just trying to take an inventory of all of the things that you've done in the past that could tie into your personal brand. So if you're looking at your career path. So you may have had three businesses by now. Just because business number one doesn't have anything to do with business number three, the common denominator there is still you, and you being the brand. So if you may have worked for an insurance company, and happen to be a rock star, and you got a whole bunch of awards for what you were doing, but now you are running a fitness empire. Yes, the two of those things have nothing to do with one another in any way, shape, or form, but the common piece there is you. So how can you leverage the fact that you were an award winning insurance agent maybe, and now you're an award winning fitness guru. So it's a matter of trying to find ways to marry the two of those, and the first place to start is by creating a list of all of the awards that you've ever received based on what jobs you held, what roles you were in, what business you happened to own at the time, and all of that kind of stuff.                                     From there what I would recommend is gathering articles. So I guess we can say that was number one. Number one is what are the awards that you've won, and gathering all that stuff. So number two would be looking at any articles that you've been featured in. So thinking about articles in the newspaper, or a magazine whether it's industry specific, or whether it's a national magazine, or a local newspaper versus national paper; going in and trying to find all of those places that have either focused on you specifically, or they have mentioned you, and start that list. So now you have two lists going.                                     So the third one would be is blog posts. So where- if you have guest posted on other people's blogs, where has that been? Do you have a concrete list of all the places that you've contributed? Make a list of that. Same thing with podcasts. So if you've been interviewed on other people's podcasts, write it down, get it in a list. So at this point- so we're basically looking at a variety ways, a half dozen ways of gathering places that you've- taking an inventory of all these different places that you've been published, or you've been talked about, or the awards you won, the articles, the blog posts, the podcasts, all these different places. This is all kind of the foundation for what could be a content marketing strategy. So a strategy- it has to have a strategy behind it. You can just start saying how great you are on social media, or how great you are on your website, and only doing that. So it's just one piece of the puzzle is getting the inventory of this stuff.                                     The other thing I would say in terms of taking inventory is reviewing your website copy; so any of the writing that's on your website whether it's the 'About' page, or maybe it's a 'Services' page, or your 'Home' page. Grabbing all of that information too, and just reviewing it and seeing what type of content you have there, is there opportunity for you to weave in some of the other things that we talked about? Is there a way for you to weave in articles, or blog posts, or podcasts and make them very natural in part of that conversation? So reviewing your website, reviewing your blog content. So are you getting the most mileage out of your blog content? That is a huge, huge question for so many people. Or are you getting the most mileage out of past newsletters? Are your past newsletters currently blog posts? Or are blog posts into newsletters? So if you're going to create a piece of content, find a way to use that piece of content in 1,000 different ways. There are so many different ways that you can use it, may as well leverage all of it. So to me, if I'm going to work with a client and I'm going to convince them that they need to spend their precious resources on sitting down and spending two hours on writing a piece of content, and they're a very busy CEO that needs to be focused on sales calls and all kinds of stuff, and that two hours of time is really valuable to them. I'm not going to just say, "Hey thank you for writing this 600-800 word piece of blog content," posting it on the blog, and then just leaving it at that. It's far more than that. It's looking at that blog content and saying, okay how can we re-purpose this? Can we pitch this to a publication as some kind of guest post? Could we talk to other people in our space and say, 'Hey I have this interesting information, is this something you want to put on your post?' Or oh the newsletter is going to come up in a couple of weeks, can we put this information in the newsletter? Of course all of these different scenarios you have to modify the language a little bit, but the substance and the meat of that information remains the same. So if you're talking about a specific topic, maybe the intro and the outro of that topic change a little bit based on the audience, and where it's going, and if it's an article versus a newsletter versus a blog post. In looking at it that way, yeah we're going to have to change the content a little bit to make sure that it resonates with the audience. So yeah we'll have to change the content a little bit to make sure it resonates with the audience, but ultimately it's re-purposing that one blog post that you may have spent two hours on, and putting it in six, seven, eight different places to really start to gather and create more traffic to your website, and ultimately the hope would be to convert leads once people get to your website. So convincing them that they should pick up the phone and call you, or to download something, or reach out to you.                                     So another piece of this is thinking about the strategy for your content. So I just said it's kind of like step one. So step one is basically taking an inventory. So step two is more of what- how can I strategically use this information? So we just talked about how you can use your website content, your blog content, newsletters, podcasts, all that kind of stuff is intertwined, and really kind of in harmony to drive your end goal. But in terms of a strategy, one of the things that I did- and I know a lot of authors who are doing this now, is when I started writing on my blog in November of 2012, it was really starting off with the podcast, but when I started writing I knew I was going to use the information at some point somewhere else. And again I didn't really- I wasn't coming from a personal branding side of things. I wasn't trying to figure out how to build my personal brand. All my goal at the time was to help educate people, and it's still a huge, huge part of my goal is to educate people on LGBT stuff. But I knew as I was writing these blog posts that I would do something with them eventually, and it wasn't fully thought out, but in hindsight, and something you could learn, is that if you say, "My end goal is to have a book by the end of 2016. And I write to my blog twice a week," maybe it's once a week, maybe it's once every two weeks, maybe it's once a month. Whatever the frequency is, so you can put that content together each week as you go throughout the year so by the time you get to the end of the year, you have all of the content available, you basically just have to marry it all together into something that creates a book. So if you're talking about one topic that goes in with the second topic, you're going to have to create- going in and adding paragraphs and making sure that the flow is right, and making sure that the chapters flow well. But the beauty is that you would have all of that information to work with rather than sitting there in November saying, "Crap I said in 2016 I'm going to write a book, and now I have to write 30,000 words. So it's a matter of really thinking strategically; instead of having to write 30,000 words at once, how can I write thirty blog posts that are 1,000 words each and marry them together into a book by the end of the year? So it's really thinking from a big strategic level of how to do that. So as I mentioned in my first book which is, 'But You Don't Look Gay,' and it's The Six Steps to Creating a Successful LGBT Marketing Strategy. What I did is when I first started, the first half of that book really is a lot of information about who the community is, the buying power of the community, some of the bigger marketing tips of understanding why people use the rainbow in their marketing, giving some data, and that kind of stuff. All of that information was taken from past blog posts. And again, I didn't have the strategy at first for how I was doing this, so it was completely disjointed when I started working with it, but the content was all there. So I probably had I would say 15,000 words to work with probably at the very least, and I was able to move things around, and really just bridge these thoughts together, but it was a little more cumbersome because when I was writing it to begin with, I wasn't writing it with an end goal of, 'I'm going to put this in a book.' However probably midway through 2013, I guess maybe it was even in early 2013, I had the thought of creating a series of blog posts that all tied together in one topic, which happens to be the six steps. So I think when I was doing it I had created five steps. So it was what are the five steps to creating a really good strategy? And I would write it saying, "Okay so this week we're going to talk about step one of five," and I would write a blog post about it, sometimes it's 600 words, sometimes it's 1,000 words, and then I would say, "Come back next week and we'll get into number two. And then we'll get into number three." So it was a series that lasted over the course of five weeks, and that one- that information is the second half of that first book. So it was so easy because I had already written it with a natural flow from chapter to chapter essentially. So because I had that in mind of, 'I'm going to make a book, like this is definitely going to be the foundation of my book,' it was really, really easy to take those blog posts that really already flowed well together, and putting them in the second half of that book.                                     So going a little bit further along, I created my second book in 2014, and that one is, 'No Wait, You Do Look Gay,' and it's The Seven Mistakes that Prevent People from Being Able to Sell to the Community. And that one was very artfully crafted over the course of probably ten months, maybe a little bit longer, of here's all the things that I want to include in this book, and oh by the way I have six months of blog content that I have to come up with. Let me make sure it's both. So in essence, somebody could go to my website and go through every blog post I've ever written, which is over 400 at this point, it's probably closer to 450, which would be a total pain in the ass of having to go in, and try to find things, and sometimes it's logically setting up for the next thing to read, but most of the time not, and not intentionally, just how the website's structured. Or you could just buy the book for $10 and make it easy on yourself, and have it laid out beautifully for you.                                     So I guess the thing that the book has that the blog posts don't have is there's additional content and context for building the business case, and building the business case for this book itself. So from that standpoint, this is something that anybody can do. So I know that I've been talking about authorship, and really becoming an author in 2016, but you can totally be tag-teaming this approach. You could be working on a content marketing strategy, and working on a book at the exact same time, and using that same information in both places. And of course for- I don't know if it's an ethical reason, I don't even know what to call it. You don't want it to be completely identical. So I made sure that when I was writing both of the books that I'm adding a little more information in the book because I want people to feel like they're getting a value from it. In the grand scheme of things, you can probably figure out 85% of it on the website itself without ever having to get the book, but again it's the convenience and the ease of having the book to look at, and to guide you through the process.                                     So if you already have content, and going back to that inventory of taking an inventory of where you've been seen, but then also things that you've produced, there's probably a good chance that you have the foundation- a big foundation of being able to put a book together in a relatively short period of time, because you already have a lot of it, you just have to start putting it together like a puzzle. So in terms of the content marketing strategy- So there's taking the inventory, and then there's having a strategy for what you're going to do with that information. And the content marketing might flow into a book, maybe you don't want to write a book, and that's fine too. I think that a lot of people have it in mind that they can sit and just spend an hour and write 600 words for a blog post, and that doesn't have to do anything else, and there's absolutely nothing wrong with that.                                     So if you do want to go down the road of creating a book, and again this is probably applicable if you're just trying to figure out a content marketing strategy. The third step would be figuring out basically what your outline would look like. So if we think, 'Hey we started at the top, we took an inventory of everything we have, and now we have these stacks of stuff that we can use and they're all over here on this side of the desk, and now we are strategically looking at what we want to do with this information whether it's just producing on the blog- I guess podcast too, on the blog or podcast, or producing a book with this information eventually. The next piece would be coming up with an outline. So even if you don't want to write a book, it still would be in your best interest to have some kind of road map, or some kind of outline to follow, which could be part of the overall strategy. But having some tactical road map that basically says, 'Okay on Tuesdays I'm going to write communication tips, and on Fridays I'm going to write marketing tips. And every other week I'm going to do an interview.' So that way you at least have an outline for what you're trying to accomplish. And I use those examples because when I started my blog I was writing twice a week, and I'm not going to lie, it was a lot of work. But now four years later I have 450 blog posts that are just kind of out there in the universe, and when someone goes to Google and they're looking for something around LGBT and marketing, a lot of times I'm the one that shows up because I have so much information out there for it. But you can save yourself a lot of time and headache if you come up with an outline. So I was doing my Communications Tuesdays, and every Tuesday I would write something about a faux pas that people say or do, or a term that you might not want to use, or one you would prefer to use. And then on Fridays it was very tactical and marketing driven. So what's a step to launching a successful strategy? What's step one? What's step two? And those were always on Fridays.                                     So if we're looking at it from that standpoint, you can take route one, or route A, whatever we want to call it, and say, 'Alright I'm just going to focus on getting content out there. I'm not trying to do a book.' So pick a day of the week that you want to release your blog, podcast, whatever it happens to be, and pick a theme, and then go from there. And they don't have to tie together, but if you want to figure out how to use this for a book down the road, actually put together an outline of a book. So you don't have to have any of it written, don't get stressed out about, 'Oh I don't even know what I would write.' Just start putting together an outline of your thoughts, and from there you can totally create this outline that turns into your roadmap of, okay chapter one has to be on general high level who the LGBT community is. Chapter two can go into the more nitty gritty details of the LGBT community. Maybe it talks about the 'L' of the community. Chapter three talks about the 'G' of the community. Chapter four, the 'B.' Chapter five, the 'T.' Chapter six, okay now you know all this information, why is it important? I guess really think through what people ask you the most about, what are those common questions? What is your process and your methodology for how you walk a client through whatever product or service it is that you sell? Because that's really going to be the framework of what could be your outline to your book, and also an outline as part of your content marketing strategy.                                     You may be listening to this and thinking, 'I have never written an outline for anything, let alone a book.' So what I could recommend doing is mind mapping your ideas. Mind mapping is really just grabbing a piece of paper, writing down your central idea in the center of it, and then just branching off, drawing lines that come out from that center that are different pieces of information or topics around your business that you would want to talk about. And if you just go to Google and type in 'mind maps,' there are tons and tons and tons of information, and pictures, and how to's of actually creating a mind map. But it's really simple. Grab a piece of paper, write in the middle 'LGBT marketing,' and from there what are all the pieces that people would need to know about LGBT marketing? It could be the same thing for financial advisors. So if you're an advisor and you're listening to this, circle financial advisor, that's who you are, you're in the center of it. Who are the clients you work with? What are the questions they ask? Where are you doing business? All of the things that could be beneficial to your end customer to hear. Or maybe your end customer- maybe you're not trying to get customers, maybe you have a different goal of your book. But regardless, starting with the mind map, and then from the mind map you can create an outline because then you can start grouping things together. So even though it might look like a big, crazy, chaotic mess of information on a page, you might look at it kind of high level and say, 'Alright for some reason there's a lot of chatter about marketing tactics. Let me just grab all of those and put them aside in one place.' Or 'There's a lot of chatter about words that you shouldn't say. Let me put all those on this side of the page.' And then eventually it becomes really clear, 'Oh wow, there's actually a story arc here, there's a structure here. I couldn't see the forest through the trees before to see that there's a structure, but there's totally a structure.' So really from that mind map stage it's a matter of creating- it's going back to the outline. So you either create the outline first, or you use a mind map to help you create the outline. So those are kind of like steps three and four kind of combined.                                     And then from there you just plan and schedule your time of essentially how you're going to get it done. So if you decide that, 'Hey my outline has enough for fourteen chapters, I'm going to try to write 1,000 words each for each of these fourteen chapters. So now we have 14,000 words.' That's great but how are you going to do that? Are you going to block out time on your calendar? Are you going to reserve certain days of the week to focus on your writing? Are you going to write say every morning from 8:00 to 8:30, and when 8:30 hits, the buzzer goes off, you're done? Are you going to do it for four hours on a Friday? Are you going to focus one day a month? There's a million different ways you can do this, you just have to do it with what works best for you. For me it used to be focusing on writing for a little bit every day. I used to do usually between 8:00 and 9:00 AM, I would do my writing. And then once that was up, I was done, and I moved on. And now I really morphed into- by the time I get to the place where I want to write something, I have it in my mind pretty concretely, and it's just a matter of getting it out of my head and on paper. So I wrote a blog post- one of the January blog posts, I ended up writing it in like 21 minutes, and I do time myself just to see, whereas when I first started this about four years ago, that easily could have been something that took me three hours to do. So of course you basically- you get better as you go through. And it takes a while, there's a lot of process involved, but it's a matter of scheduling it and make time for it.                                     And then of course the last step would be if you're going to schedule it and make time for it, then you have to actually do the work, that's the big piece. So you actually have to get it done. So that could be just using a Word document, that could be getting a product like Scrivener, which is a product specifically for writing whether it's blog posts, books, whatever it happens to be. It's a really helpful tool, I happen to love it. I'll make sure I include a link in the show notes for that, and just as a side note the link for today's show would be www.JennTGrace.com/78 for episode number 78.                                     So yeah, so I know I just kind of spewed out a lot of information all at once, and maybe it didn't come out- I'm thinking as I'm talking it became more clear as I went along, but it's really what we're talking about, is the six steps to creating a content marketing plan that could eventually evolve into a book. Or the six steps to creating a book that could evolve into a content marketing plan. So it's really just those six steps of taking an inventory, creating a strategy, outlining and then mind mapping, or mind mapping and then outlining depending on what your process is. Planning and scheduling, and then getting it done.                                     So yeah, that I'm sure I have raised far more questions than I have answered, but I hope that today's episode gives you at least a little bit of a framework of how you can use content marketing in your business, how you can use it as part of your personal brand, how you can have that evolve into being an author by the end of 2016 if that's what you're trying to do, or if you're listening to this podcast and it's 2017, it's all still applicable. Everything I'm talking about is totally an evergreen topic, meaning this is something that you can do regardless of when in a period of time this happens to be that you're listening to it. So for anyone listening to this, I would strongly encourage you to reach out, whether you leave a comment in the blog post that this podcast is on, whether you comment on it in LinkedIn, send me a tweet, send me a note on Facebook; wherever you happen to be, I probably am too, and I would love to hear your thoughts on this because I really am thinking I would like to go into more detail on content marketing from a really big picture level, and just helping give you kind of that step by step advice. I am currently working with a fair amount of really large companies who I'm helping with their content marketing strategy, and it's something that I really love doing. And to be perfectly honest, I've never really marketed it. Like it's not something- like to me I'm teaching straight people how to market to gay people, and gay people how to market themselves. That is my tagline, I'm still sticking entirely true to that, but because my business is built on content marketing, I do have a lot of companies that reach out to me to say, "Hey, how did you do that? How did you build it? Can you build it for us?" And of course I would love to build it for them, because as long as it has some tie into what we're talking about in terms of the LGBT market, then it's a win-win for everybody, and that's kind of how I prefer to do things.                                     So anyway, if you want to reach out to me on social media, by all means please do. If you want to contact me, you can do so on my website. And if I threw out things that are not clear to you, please email me and ask for clarification, and I can certainly do a follow-up episode about this. And yeah, we can kind of go from there.                                     So I hope you enjoyed today's episode, and we will talk in episode number 79. Talk to you soon.                                     Thank you for listening to today's podcast. If there are any links from today's show that you are interested in finding, save yourself a step and head on over to www.JennTGrace.com/thepodcast. And there you will find a backlog of all of the past podcast episodes including transcripts, links to articles, reviews, books, you name it. It is all there on the website for your convenience. Additionally if you would like to get in touch with me for any reason, you can head on over to the website and click the contact form, send me a message, you can find me on Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter all at Jenn T Grace. And as always, I really appreciate you as a listener, and I highly encourage you to reach out to me whenever you can. Have a great one, and I will talk to you in the next episode.   [End of Audio 00:34:35]