Podcast appearances and mentions of lisa heffernan

Lisa Heffernan, author and editor of Grown and Flown, joins Wendy Snyder, in for Bob Sirott, to talk about every parent’s hardest part of being a parent: watching their child leave the nest. While it may be difficult, the flipside of helping a child get on their path provides growth for the parents and valuable […]

On this week's episode of Nina's Got Good News, host Nina B. Clarke is joined by her Good News VIP Guest of the Week, Lisa Heffernan! Lisa is a New York Times bestselling author, and the co-founder of Grown & Flown, an online resource that helps parents and families navigate high school, college admissions, college life, becoming “empty-nesters” and more. Nina and Lisa discuss the challenges that come with a child leaving for college, and how to properly navigate that transition as a parent. They discuss the college admissions process, how to handle becoming an empty-nester, advice for how to discuss adult topics with your teens, and much more! ——————— This week's episode of Nina's Got Good News is brought to you by MASA Chips! MASA are classic tortilla chips handmade with only three natural ingredients— organic corn, grass fed tallow, and sea salt. Visit them online at masachips.com, and use code GOODNEWS at checkout for 20% off your purchase. ——————— Follow Nina on Instagram: www.instagram.com/ninabclarke/ Visit Nina's blog: www.ninabradleyclarke.com Visit Nina's LTK shop: https://www.shopltk.com/explore/NinaBClarke Visit the Grown & Flown website: https://grownandflown.com Follow Grown & Flown on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/grownandflown/ Connect with Grown & Flown on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/grownandflown Get their book, “Grown and Flown: How to Support Your Teen, Stay Close as a Family, and Raise Independent Adults”: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1250188946/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&linkCode=sl1&tag=groandflo0b-20&linkId=1f77cb9085a0cc2db52d8999da82363b&language=en_US Learn more about Grown & Flown's “College Admissions” service: https://college-admissions-grown-and-flown.mykajabi.com Read Pew Research Center's study, “Parents, Young Adult Children and the Transition to Adulthood”: https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2024/01/25/parents-young-adult-children-and-the-transition-to-adulthood/

This podcast will focus on raising independent teens so that they can become young adults who can take care of themselves and make good, wise choices on their own. What skills do they need? What must they learn? Dr. Robyn Silverman interviews Lisa Heffernan from Grown and Flown on the How to Talk to Kids about Anything podcast. The post How To Parent Teens so that They Become Independent, Grown, & Flown with Lisa Heffernan appeared first on Dr Drobyn Silverman.

Parenting website juggernaut Grown and Flown is a household name. With almost 300K dedicated parents in their private Facebook group and over 700K instagram followers, founders Lisa Heffernan and Mary Dell Harrington have created a community for parents where vulnerability and veracity reign. Add their commitment to having college admissions veterans contribute critical and insightful advice to their site, and we knew that we wanted to learn more about the G&F mission and movement.  Lisa was generous to offer her time and simply talk. Sharing reflections from her own educational experiences to how she navigated the process with her own children to what's happening in college admissions now, this is a rich, must-hear conversation. From one company making an impact to another, we are appreciative of her heart, mind and time. Enjoy!!

Lisa Heffernan, co-founder of Grown & Flown, joins Wendy Snyder (in for Bob Sirott) to give some advice to parents with kids leaving for college. She also talks about normalizing homesickness and how it’s easier to stay in touch with kids today because of the advances in technology.

I wanted to offer you the advice and very creative teachings today of Becky Blades – she founded and sold an award-winning communications firm, she's basically run from the board room to the home room, she's an artist herself, and she's an inspiring and highly creative author of two books; Her first book, Do Your Laundry or You'll Die Alone, Advice Your Mom Would Give if She Thought You Were Listening, which she wrote and illustrated, was named a Best Books of 2014 and one of the Top 100 Indie Releases by Kirkus Reviews. It received the prestigious Kirkus Starred Review and was an Amazon best seller for six consecutive years. Now she's written another wonderfully illustrated book (her own drawings and illustrations) entitled Start More Than You Can Finish. And I wanted it to be a real fresh-er-up-er for those of you wilting in the heat of the summer or fending off one more winter storm – dependent on your hemisphere. And the Next Big Idea Club  has selected it as one of  “the most essential nonfiction books of the year." She calls herself a bad cook, a hopeful gardener, a passionate tree hugger and a licensed private pilot – and I'm delighted not only to have her on SelfWork...  but to call her a friend. Advertisers Link:  Have you been putting off getting help? BetterHelp, the #1 online therapy provider, has a special offer for you now! Vital Links: My TEDx talk that today has earned 72,000 views! You can hear more about this and many other topics by listening to my podcast, The Selfwork Podcast.  Subscribe to my website and receive my weekly newsletter including a blog post and podcast! If you'd like to join my FaceBook closed group, then click here and answer the membership questions! Welcome! My book entitled Perfectly Hidden Depression is available here! Its message is specifically for those with a struggle with strong perfectionism which acts to mask underlying emotional pain. But the many self-help techniques described can be used by everyone who chooses to begin to address emotions long hidden away that are clouding and sabotaging your current life. And it's available in paperback, eBook or as an audiobook! And there's another way to send me a message! You can record by clicking below and ask your question or make a comment. You'll have 90 seconds to do so and that time goes quickly. By recording, you're giving SelfWork (and me) permission to use your voice on the podcast. I'll look forward to hearing from you! Episode Transcript This is SelfWork. And I'm Dr. Margaret Rutherford At SelfWork. We'll discuss psychological and emotional issues common in today's world and what to do about them. I'm Dr. Margaret and SelfWork is a podcast dedicated to you, taking just a few minutes today for your own selfwork. Speaker 2: Hello and welcome or welcome back to SelfWork. I'm Dr. Margaret Rutherford, and I'm so excited about bringing you a friend of mine and someone that I truly, truly admire. Becky Blades. I wanted to offer you the advice and very creative teachings of Becky today. Not only has she founded and sold an award-winning communications firm, she's basically run from the boardroom to the homeroom. She's an artist herself, and she's an inspiring and highly creative author of two books. Now, the first one was, do Your Laundry or You'll Die Alone, subtitle being Advice Your Mom Would Give If She Thought You Were Listing. She not only wrote and illustrated that book, it was named a Best book of 2014 and one of the Top 100 Indie Releases by Kirkus Reviews. And it received the prestigious Kirkus starred Review and was an Amazon bestseller for six consecutive years. Speaker 2: That is a long time. Now, she's written another wonderfully illustrated book. Again, her own drawings and illustrations entitled Start More Than You Can Finish. And I thoroughly enjoyed it. I wanted it to be a real fresher upper for those of you who are wilting in this heat of the summer, or if you're in another hemisphere, fending off one more winter storm. Her point in this book is that we can get so afraid of failing, we don't start and starting is so important. In fact, she advocates being a startist. And this book also has high praise. It's been named a Must Read by the Next Big Idea Club, which by the way, the members of that club are Malcolm Gladwell, Adam Grant, Susan Kane, and Daniel Pink, not bad company. And they call it one of the most essential non-fiction books of the year. It is truly inspiring. Speaker 2: She calls herself a bad cook, a hopeful gardener, a passionate tree hugger, and a licensed private pilot. And I'm delighted not only to have her on SelfWork, but I'm lucky enough, like I said, to call her a friend. Before we hear Becky's interview, let's hear from BetterHelp. So many people start or go back to therapy when their kids are starting school. And that's not too long from now. So everyone's starting something new. I'd recommend calling very early for a therapist in your locale, but with better help. You don't have to worry about that. They're ready to see you when you are ready to be seen. Speaker 2: I recently heard a fascinating reframe for the idea of asking for help. Maybe you view asking for help as something someone does who's falling apart or who isn't strong. So consider this. What if asking for help means that you won't let anything get in your way of solving an issue, finding out an answer or discovering a better direction? Asking for help is much more about your determination to recognize what needs your attention or what is getting in your way of having the life you want better help. The number one online therapy provider makes reaching out about as easy as it can get. Within 48 hours, you'll have a professional licensed therapist with whom you can text, email, or talk with to guide you. And you're not having to comb through therapist websites or drive to appointments. It's convenient, inexpensive, and readily available. Now you can find a therapist that fits your needs with better help. And if you use the code or link Betterhelp.com/self work, you get 10% off your first month of sessions. So just do it. You'll be glad you did. That. Link again is better help.com/selfwork to get 10% off your first month of surfaces. Speaker 2: And now I'm delighted, absolutely delighted to introduce you if you don't already know her. To Becky Blades. I was trying to remember when you and I met, was it at a midlife bloggers Speaker 3: Associated? It was at, it was at BlogHer that in San Jose. Speaker 2: That's right. Yeah, that's right. Speaker 3: And it was my first one. Do did you go to a lot of those? No, Speaker 2: I think I went to two. I went to the one there. I went to one in Chicago, I think, and then I went to that one I didn't go to anymore. Speaker 3: And who invited me were Mary Speaker 2: Mary Dell Harrington, and Mary Speaker 3: Darrell Harrington and Lisa Heffernan. And I had just put out that first book. And I, you know, gosh, I am, I'm, you know, everybody I met there was so nice. And I just have still loved maintaining those relationships. Speaker 2: Listen, I was so glad that I took the time to read all of your book because I just laughed and I smiled and I teared up a couple of times and you had me from the very beginning. Your artwork is just incredible. A line is a dot that wasn't, this is what you say, a line is a dot that wasn't afraid to get started. I mean, that's like, Speaker 3: I loved that. Yeah. And a dot can be a splatter. I mean, dots don't need to be neat, perfect little dots. They can be little cuddles. Speaker 2: I didn't remember that until it, then I refreshed my memory and I wrote it that you are also, you're an author, but you're an an artist and you're, you're, you really love combining those things. And can you, why don't you tell SelfWork listeners a little bit about you? Speaker 3: Okay. Yeah. I had a career in public relations, which came out of a degree in journalism. And so I've always liked writing. I didn't like being poor. So journalism wasn't, you know, the job that I wanted out out of school. I grew up poor. So I, I chose to find a way to make money in an, the agency business, the journalism public relations agency business. There were a lot of opportunities for creativity. So I started my own firm in when I was 30. Wow. And ran that for 13 years. And then when I, kind of parenting was at a, at a pitch that I wanted to be home and in, in my creative space at home more too, sold the business and started building what what we now call a portfolio lifestyle. So I had the business oh, I like Speaker 2: That name. I've never heard this Speaker 3: . Yeah. And, and, and then I had the, I had an art studio and I remember  - to kind of jump over to this book  - when I one time my soon after I sold the business, my daughters were talking, they came home from school and they wanted it an identity for me. 'Cause you know, kids talk what your mother do, you know, what does your mom do? So my youngest said, "Mom, what are you, are you an artist? Are you a business person?" And I said, "Honey, why do those labels matter?" And her sister from the other room said, "She's a startist" . 'cause I was starting some other businesses and you know, they got confused by how I dress different days. So, so during that time, I, I went through my first and second midlife crisis. First that empty nest crisis that, you know, and have been such a great expert on my first book was do Your Laundry or You'll Die Alone. Speaker 3: And that was the subject line of the email I sent my daughter of all these journal entries with advice that I was kind of afraid to give her in person. So after she left for college, I sent it all to her. And, and then, you know, after that, I'm, I, I don't mind saying I'm 64 now. And those, these past 10 years of being kind of all, you know, almost the entire time empty, nested has given me the chance to really see how what I love and what I, who I love spending time with. And I've realized it's, it's people like you who when they think they wanna do a podcast, they'll just haul off and start it, or people have ideas and act on them. So Speaker 2: No, and the, the name of this book is Start More Than You Can Finish. And, and I so agreed with it. I, one of the things that I say to patients all the time is, it doesn't matter where you go, it's that you go Exactly. Just go, just make a choice. Just go. And I, I was just humming along with your book Thinking , I agree. . Speaker 3: And it's been fun to think about the mental health aspects, of course, you know, to, to make the case for something that seems as contrarian as this notion of start more than you can finish, you know, kind of in defiance of what our parents may have said. But the mental health aspects of creativity, we're learning more and more as you know about how creativity makes us flourish and thrive and, and the and then we have other things we can talk about, anxiety, depression as I studied the neuroscience of it, I, I decided, you know, I discovered hidden benefits that I didn't know I had been partaking in. Speaker 2: Wow. What are those? Speaker 3: Well, starting with self-discovery, self-esteem, getting out of anxiety and depression. I'll, I'll tell you a story that I haven't, it didn't make it in the book and I haven't told many people because it seems like kind of a downer, and we wanted the book to be upbeat. But part of my catalyst for writing the book was I was taking art lessons to domestic violence shelters. I did this for a few years. I, I didn't call it art therapy. Now they did because mm-hmm. All art is therapy, but I'm not a, I'm not a licensed therapist. Mm-Hmm. or an art therapist. But what I discovered in my time with those amazing women is that the thing that, that spectrum of creativity, I used to think it was started with, oh, oh, I'm not creative, and ended with, oh, I can start anything on a dime. Speaker 3: Well, the spectrum really starts way over in a place where we feel totally powerless. Totally. devoid of even knowing what we like. Right. What gives us joy, what our idea of beauty is, and our inability to make a decision. So this book is about starting, it's taking that first step, like you said, it's not where you go, it's that you go. And the example is, in the very first class, these women, all of them could not even make that first initial decision. I, I would kind of lay out a little project, very simple. I had all these enticing art supplies, but they literally needed my permission to choose a color. Like, what should I start with purple? Yes. Purple would be a great place to start. They had lost, I mean, they had literally had mm-hmm. the creativity beaten out of them because creativity is, it's trusting our own ideas and owning them, and then also having the, the courage to experiment and say, okay, you know, what? If purple doesn't work well, when we're terrified, when we're traumatized, when we're stuck, I don't think we have the courage to know that the stakes aren't that high. You know, if I choose color, if I choose purple and I don't like it, I can paint over it. Sure, of course. Or as I said, I'll give you another piece of paper . Speaker 2: That's a great point. It's that shutting down of, of risk of any, even, even how what, even no matter how tiny the risk, or seemingly tiny, it's not seemingly, it's not tiny to them. It's like, oh, right. I'm gonna make a choice and it's gonna be out here for other people to see. And yeah, it's right. But, you know, I, and you may Speaker 3: Not know, you know, I think when we're beaten down, we don't know what the risks are. There's this free floating sense of, I'm taking a chance, I'm doing something I haven't didn't do yesterday. So what might happen, because, you know, life doesn't treat us rationally. And for those women who had been, you know, abused, they, they had been abused for much less things than making a wrong color decision. Right. So the healing so to, you know, get back to your first big question was the, the ancillary benefits of acting on our ideas and following that creative process are things we don't even know we need, I think. And, and yet I could really see it dramatically with those, those women who, and this was another really fun thing, is that they came out of that so fast, so joyfully really, that just a few weeks, you know, just, you just give that affirmation that Yeah, purple would be great, and that looks great, and you know what, this other color might work too. And then they start with the self, with their own self-talk. And I mean, they just, those, those stays and those shelters aren't that long. So I only got to see 'em for a short period of time, but it was, it was fast and miraculous. Speaker 2: That's incredible. You know, I got my start in this business by volunteering at a domestic shelter. Oh. Speaker 3: So you get it. Speaker 2: Love so much so, so, so much. Anyway. Mm-hmm. , you know, I, I'm gonna quote you again. It's not that finishing isn't vital and great, but not finishing is not failure. And I, I love that because you know, how many times have I heard the phrase, well, that didn't work out like, that says something bad about me. I mean, you asked in the book to, to make a list of, you know, the things we've started and didn't finish. And to make, I mean, my first two marriages came to mind immediately, Speaker 3: , Speaker 2: I finished them, but Speaker 2: Not in, not in the way that I thought I was going to. And, and I mean, I carried those around with such shame for so long mm-hmm. that that wasn't okay. And and it's not ideal, perhaps, but it, you know, I learned something along the way. And then, but I, I love the fact that in the book, you also take time to say, all right, stop reading or, you know, whatever. And, and let's apply this. Let's, what can you do? Mm-Hmm. , what can you do with, with your, and you have four stages, you imagine, think, decide, and act. Which, you know, I, I think when people, a lot of people hear the word well, just imagine, just imagine mm-hmm. mm-hmm. , that feels like real shaky ground to just imagine. Mm. Speaker 3: Mm-Hmm. Mm-Hmm. mm-hmm. . And if we imagine and some people are really good at that part mm-hmm. , but some people, that is the toughest part because they imagine very small. They only imagine with the reality that they can touch and hold Right. Then. some people are great imagining and they imagine backwards, you know, they only pull from what they've already been able to do. So what, what I do with those four steps was research and find out how to do them better to, to start better and start more. So imagining it really comes down to imagining more and bigger the, the more we noodle and think about how things might be a future reality, which we're all gonna have, you know, we're gonna have a future anyway. Yeah. Speaker 2: Speaker 3: . So why not imagine it in all the, and it's all, its glorious colors and possibilities. Speaker 2: You know, I'm, I'm thinking about your work on Dreams with Start. I love that book. That, that's a great word. You, you, you should thank your daughter , because it says to write down your dreams, but then you very quickly said, but I don't have enough something. I don't have enough. Mm-Hmm. time. I don't have enough money, I don't have enough talent. I don't how whatever it is that you convince yourself to, to stop dreaming. Speaker 3: Exactly. It's, it's the, the answer to the question. The answer to the question. Why haven't you started that thing? And I asked actual people, art students of mine create very creative people after they told me something they wanted to do, I asked them why they hadn't started. And the answer was always, I don't have enough blank. They, they would word the answer many different ways. Sure. It could be confidence, like, I don't think I can do it. You don't have enough confidence. Right. enough permission, enough validation, you know, space and permission could be just from your family to think that you could take the time away for yourself. Mm-Hmm. to do that. I call that enough permission. You know, and, and obviously money and time are the big ones. Sure. Speaker 3: But we do have enough to start those things. That was the big learning. I think the big aha in the research was if you've started anything, like you probably didn't know that you'd be doing a podcast for this long pss I can, I've decided I can never do a podcast. I . So respect the ability to all the skills that come into this. But when you started your first one a start only thinks, thinks mostly about how I will start it, how I will do the first step. Yeah. And that is the healthy way. If you think your finish, if your finish was to get it produced and get it picked up by a big syndicate, you would not think you had enough of whatever to do that. And Speaker 2: I was determined to do at least eight podcasts because I was told in my class that that was the average number of podcasts that people do before they finish before they start Speaker 3: Really? Eight. Eight. Wow. Speaker 2: Eight. And so when I got to nine, I thought, oh, why ? Speaker 3: See, there you go. And what if you hadn't known those numbers? That's fascinating. Yeah. Speaker 2: Yeah. So I I just, the support you give in the book and the humor and the asking people to look at themselves, I you know, you, you sort of break down these four parts, the imagine, think, decide, and act, and you you said, thinking brings ideas to life, not overthinking. What do you mean by that? Speaker 3: Not overthinking? Well, you may be familiar with, you know, all the research that mm-hmm. says that when we, that we are programmed, how would you state it? That we are, we are engineered for security as, as species, we're engineered for survival. So there's an, a natural avoidance to risk, which is healthy. Mm-Hmm. . So if we let ourselves to think, think too long, so we go to that imagining place and we're very successful and imagine something wonderful, then the next step is we think about it. We think about how that future state looks into reality. How would we do it? Where would we start? How long will it take? Who do I need to, you know, kinda warn about this? Sure. In that it is that process where we talk ourselves out of it, and we really do a number on ourselves be, and the more perfectionist a person is, the better or worse they, they do that part. So I, you know, I say imagine more, think less. Because the truth is that even if you plan, if you're thinking involves this elaborate detailed plan, the minute you start something, that plan changes. I, Speaker 2: I wrote that reality, Speaker 3: Circled it. Reality is a big old truth pill. And we cannot, we cannot predict it. Speaker 2: Mm-Hmm. No, we cannot. So like I have that in red, circled in red plans change as soon as you start. And you also talked, there was a section that I, I maybe 'cause of my theater experience, but you talked about how they're tenets of improv improvisation that are really important for start. Mm-Hmm. and I, I've done a little bit of improvisation, and it is, it's not easy . 'cause One of these things that you brought up, you, you know, you have to just say yes and yes. And it's a rule of agreement. And then you Oh, don't tell. There are no mistakes. And you stay in the moment, like you said it, it's like somebody can just start, an audience member will say, okay, we're gonna talk about diaries and cowboys. Speaker 3: Yeah. Speaker 2: Somebody has to start something about a diary and a cowboy. And it may not make any sense. It is like, you have no idea where they're going, but you, you, you say something and you bring along. And then, oh, and then there was a, there was another cowboy, but he had a black horse, but he wanted a white. I mean, it's just, it's, it's, yeah. Then the story evolves. And so it's, I I loved that. Maybe, I don't know, is it an analogy, a metaphor that this Speaker 3: Yeah. Speaker 2: Creation is like improv. Speaker 3: And you know, the best quote I heard in my interviews with those people is it's about what we do, but mostly it's about what we do with what we did. So that first step, again, the stakes are reduced. You just gotta do something. It's throwing the mud on the wall. It's on an improv stage. There are like five actors, somebody has to say the first thing mm-hmm. , that takes courage. But really the hardest job is the person that says the second thing. Sure. . Or maybe it's easiest because then you have something to respond to. So we need to give ourselves something to respond to, to really flesh out our ideas. And I mean, I also learned that all kind of comedy really works like that because, you know, finding out what makes other people laugh is an exploration. You think, oh, this might make me laugh, but you don't know. 'cause You're hearing it on your, in your own head. So Exactly. My husband's taken to doing open mic nights. And Speaker 2: That's brave. That, Speaker 3: That is brave. It's also brave to be in the audience of those because it's, it's usually young men who who have, have lost their mothers laughing at them. So they're, you know, they don't know what's funny, but they're willing to, at, at late night climb on a stage and tell jokes and for taste. But what happens is that's how, that's how comedy's worked out. And even the, even the best joke writers, you know, go on stage over and over again before they will go lifetime Yeah. And tweak this and try that and shorten this. And, and that's, you know, that is the creative process. It's iterative, it's exploratory, it's curiosity. And I mean, I think mental health wise, I too believe when you, when you, when I am mentally healthy, I am my most curious Exactly. When we're shut down, we're, we're not curious. Speaker 2: But it's also an external energy. It's, it's going energy from internal traveling externally. When you're curious because you are either, whether it's how you make a good glass of iced tea. I'm sitting here looking at my i d or whether it's gosh, I, you know, I'm interested in what those green books are behind her. You know, it's, it's, you are, you're engaging with something. Maybe it's an idea or a person or a thing that's not, but you are, you, your focus is outward. Speaker 3: Yeah. I never thought of that, that way. That's, that makes sense. Which is a Speaker 2: Antidote to depression for sure. Hmm. And in many ways, anxiety, because you have to be in the moment. You have to be, whereas anxiety puts you into the future. Hmm. So what, tell me what you learned about yourself in, in writing this book. Speaker 3: Oh gosh. I learned that the very beginning of the research was learning that all of my unfinished business, and I'm doing air quotes visually here was were treasures. And that when I, you know, we rarely let ourselves dig back into the things that didn't go forward. You know, even things I didn't consider failures or unfinished, I just forgot about them. Mm-Hmm. . I just saw the link to how they made me who I am. And the big finishes in my life, the big finishes always had some roots and some unfinished business from, I found my college art supplies. As when you're, when you write and make art, you have all these records back there. Now, you may not have, in other types of curiosity, in other types of creativity like gardening or cooking, you may forget those things you tried. And so I think what I learned is I need to memorialize and celebrate my starts more. Speaker 3: And I do now. The, the rationale for this book was to to help other people that don't act on their ideas and make those people more fun companions, in a way. . And I had, and one of the things I found is after I sold my business, people were saying to me like, what are you, what have you, what are you doing now? What have you finished lately? They didn't use those words, but I could hear that people thought I had a lot of plates spinning. I do have a lot of plates spinning. That's something I'm good at. I'm good at starting things and, you know, maybe I could be the world expert because I have all the failures, and now they're documented. I do probably have a d d there are maybe not the, I Speaker 2: Was just about to ask you about that. Mm-Hmm. Speaker 3: . Yeah. but I no longer, I do not let people shame me about things that I started that are in a pause button. Mm-Hmm. , you know, because when we, like, the, the big lovely lesson or gift I hope this book gives people is that there is every benefit and very low price to, to trying something and setting it aside for another day for trying it and finding out, Hey, I don't really like that. I have a couple of big things I could have totally not what Speaker 2: I thought it would be, or would've Speaker 3: , or I scratch that itch and I'm good. And oh, what a, just a, it's just a glorious way to live. And that's how I wanna live the rest of my life. And I wanna do it with people who feel the same way and are not, and, and, you know, that feed off of me and I feed off of them. So after my first book, you, you may have experienced this too. People will come to you who have the same kind of dreams. Maybe they wanna start a practice, start a podcast, start a book, and they'll say, you know, I have, "I saw your book. I, I, you know, I think I could write a book like that." And so I would say, "Oh gosh, you should1"  You know, advice is personal. Everybody could write an advice book and about one in 10, and, and this bears out in other research, about one in 10 people will actually act on an idea that's even fully formulated. Speaker 3: And, and I would try to help them. And, and you could just see that they ditch the others that were not gonna act on it. They had taken it as far as they wanted to go, and there was not a whole lot you could do for them. So that's what I wanna change. They had, they had, you know, is that mindset that says I can't start it unless I have made room in my life mm-hmm. to be an author. I can't start a book unless I've made room in my life to add a writing practice, find a publisher, whatever they think writing a book is. Yeah. And, you know, so Speaker 2: And it's funny, I, I had lunch with someone that was interested in the TEDx process and was asking me about it. And she's starting to write a book and, and, or she wants to. And she was asking me all about that. And this is a very I, I feel like I'm having the same conversation twice this morning or this afternoon, Uhhuh because she is kind of at that place of, well, I don't know how I'm gonna make room for it. I wanna do it. And I have had this idea for a long time, but, and I looked at her and I said, "you know, start this afternoon."  You know, make, did you Speaker 3: Good for you. I Speaker 2: Said, if you've got 10 minutes, just take 10 minutes. Speaker 3: Exactly. Speaker 2: Just start jotting down some ideas and you don't have to what's the word I'm looking for? You know, you, you don't have to corral the time or say, okay, I'm gonna have gonna do this in on it. It's like, if you just put some consistent energy into it, it, it's gonna grow. It's just a, it's just exactly watering the idea every now and then so that it, it has, it can sustain you with time away from it. But you also, when you get back to it, you go, oh, oh, I hadn't thought about that. And Speaker 3: Exactly. Speaker 2: It, it's, it's, it's kind of refreshing. It's, it's like having a, starting a conversation and realizing the more you have it, the more you really value it. Mm-Hmm. . Mm-Hmm. And that's adding something. So Speaker 3: It's like such sort the Nik effect which I wrote about a little. Speaker 2: Yes. I had never heard of that. Speaker 3: I mean, it's just that, it's just what you said. Once you make it real, once you tell your brain, we're gonna do this, or I have a problem if, if we accept it and don't say like, those nine out of 10 people said, I'm probably not gonna do this. If you're one of the ones that said, "Okay, I'm writing a book" -  whatever you declare as starting maybe that's writing your first two sentences, our brain tells us, our brain gets the message that they're on the job. Yeah. And subconsciously we are homing devices to pieces of information, to problem solving help, to meeting people. You know, you meet somebody and you think, oh, like, did they just say something about a book? Are they an author? You know, we are, we're, we wonder, we think there's new information coming out, we're just zeroed into it. Sure. And that we, you know, that happens all the time in our lives. And that effect it's also responsible for the thing that happens after we're done with something. Like we're done studying for tests. We take the test, it's over, and all that information just dumps out more . Yes. Speaker 2: It just goes away. Speaker 3: Well consider the opposite of that true for something that we've started and we haven't finished. So if you, if you take that fall smallest first step, declare it started, the world gives us a bling bag full of gifts. And that's, that's really why I say that the more we start the better and the, even if we start things that are very short term and finish 'em, start a limerick, start a, a soup , things that we, but declare that muscle in ourselves that says, you know, just like it was your instinct to say, start this afternoon. Very few people would say that, but it's that instinct that gets our ideas out and flowing. Mm-Hmm. , Speaker 2: I, I just, I, I really felt very supported. And I, I think if, if you're interested in this and you, you wanna get Becky's book, it is, it is, it is an, it's not, it's not a hard read at all. What is, what is compelling about it to me is that it does go against so much of what many of us are taught that mm-hmm. You know, you don't wanna start something and not finish it because, you know, that means that you're wasting time or you're wasting energy. Mm-Hmm. shame yourself for that. And, and rather than saying, well, what did I learn when I started that I learned this. And so when I start the next thing, I may start it a little differently, or I may, I don't know. I mean, it just gives you information. One of the things that I, I have people say to me all the time when they're trying to make changes, they'll say, well, this isn't really a big deal, but I go, wait, wait, wait. Yes. It's, it's a big deal. . Speaker 3: Yeah. What you're just Speaker 2: About to say is a big deal. Yeah. Speaker 3: And, and you know, a clarification on the finish start more than you can finish. What, and you, because you brought up di divorces in that example of something that wasn't finished or could have been called failure mm-hmm. , because what's the finish? What, what I'd like to say, it doesn't make a very pithy title, but start more than you can finish just exactly as you plan to everything has its finish. But great Speaker 2: Point. What Speaker 3: We don't start because we don't think we can finish as planned. If somebody said, "You're gonna have eight years with a person who you love for six of them, and you learn all these things for each other from each other" you know, maybe you can make that decision to not start because you didn't like that finish. But that's not how things work. And relationships are very creative undertaking. So in many ways, a relationship is a very good example. Yeah. a courageous creative start. So anyway, it's not, it's not don't finish. Finishing is always the end game. We wouldn't, you know, you don't start something you don't want to finish, but it, it's just a, it's just trying to trick that. Because I think when our parents said, "Don't start more than you can finish, don't bite off more than you could chew," they did not make us finish more. They only made us start less. Speaker 2: Right. Speaker 3: They just didn't wanna mess left out . Speaker 2: Right, right. Wow. I wonder how you think this affects the newer, the younger generations. This don't start because they, you know, one of the things that I read a lot about, and then I have a 28 year old, so I'm somewhat in touch with what's hopefully in touch with what's in his world, is that they have not, there's been so much comparison with what other people have started around the world where I knew maybe somebody in Little Rock, you know, in Arkansas, and I was in Pine Bluff and oh, well, you know, I, I didn't know what somebody was doing in Bangkok or, or Toronto or California. I knew my little group of friends and that was it. And, and yet, so maybe some of this don't start anxiety is also about, well, what am I spo, you know, how do I compare what I'm starting to, what somebody else is starting or mm-hmm. , whatever Speaker 3: The biggest learning I had about that and this generation, and remember this was, this book was pretty much done when Covid hit. And the data then on business starts, particularly by young people, was on a 25 year decline. Really. And the research showed that that really came from how we're raising our kids. We no longer say, "Yes, Joey, you can have a lemonade stand. I don't have time to help you, but go for it". No, now we are, we are over parenting. We are trying to get kids in the, in the right schools. So my kids didn't do a lemonade stand after they were four because they were on club soccer teams because, or the debate team, because maybe they could get a scholarship. It was we have very structured instead of free range childhoods. Right. So how do you, you know, it just, it's a subliminal message that there's not time for your ideas. 'cause You have to follow society's schedule. Mm-Hmm. Speaker 2: mm-hmm. . Speaker 3: That's my hunch. And I think it's tragic. So, but then now there have to, and, and then Covid necessitated this boom in business starts because a business start is also, you know, your son starting a freelance business because he has to in Covid. Now, you know, it, it remains to be seen whether those starts will be sustained or whether they were just out of necessity. But that is a good, that is a reason for this rally cry, is that our kids are gonna need to start whole careers for themselves. Mm-Hmm. , I mean, we know things aren't going back the way they were. So that statistic, energy and confidence needs to be nurtured. And they've, they've gotta reduce their risks of trying something, not liking it and then trying something else. It's Speaker 2: Pulling on your face. I mean, you know, it's just, oh, well this didn't work out quite as way, I thought. Yeah, Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly. And then again, start something else. , so mm-hmm. . Yeah. Well, I I love your book again. It's called Start More Than You Can Finish. I created Permission Slip to unleash your Best Ideas. The art is absolutely delightful in it. Oh, I'm so glad. I'm as to the enjoyment and pleasure of the book. You know, I told you that I couldn't, I I didn't want to interview you ne last week because I had not had a chance to actually read all of it. And I was so glad that I took the time. I'm too, I just had this real excitement about it. And I, and I hope self work listeners will check it out and and see what it holds for you. And Becky, I couldn't thank you more for being on self work. Thank you so very much. Speaker 3: It was so fun to reconnect. Thank you, Dr. Margaret. Speaker 2: You betcha. Speaker 2: I know you enjoyed that interview. Isn't Becky absolutely fantastic?. I wanna remind you that we now have episode transcripts at the end of every episode of Self Work. I don't know why I haven't done that in the past. It's really been far easier to do do it than I imagined. And so I apologize in many ways to those of you who may struggle with hearing like I do because I have tinnitus. And if I can find a way to add in other episode transcripts, I will. But at least for now, each episode of Self-Work has its own episode transcript. I also wanna remind those of you who maybe haven't subscribed to my website@drmargaretrutherford.com, you can get a free ebook called The Seven Commandments of Good Therapy. But most importantly, you get one weekly newsletter from me, just one, and it offers to you both my weekly blog posts, which some of you may be interested in reading. Speaker 2: I write one still every week, or sometimes we revamp an old one to bring it up to speed and make it applicable to today. And then of course, this podcast and any other news or information that I think you might be interested in, love to have you join, you can subscribe at the website. So now the subscription or the subscribe now is basically embedded when you scroll through the website. It's much easier than it was and I hope far less irritating. But I'd love to have you as a member of my newsletter, thank you to those of you who've listened to my TEDx talk as I record this. We are right at 63,000 views and wow, that's incredible. So keep 'em coming if you can. If you haven't watched I'd so appreciate you going to YouTube, Dr. Margaret Rutherford and TEDx, and you'll get the talk. Or you can go to my Instagram page and you'll see it in the links. That's instagram.com/dr. Margaret Rutherford. Thanks so much for being here. Again, my immense gratitude to you, and I hope this in every episode is helpful to you. Please take care of yourself, your family, and your community. I'm Dr. Margaret, and this has been self work.    

As kids get older, the parenting community shifts dramatically. Gone are the days of baby groups and adult-supervised play dates. To fill the hole, Lisa Heffernan co-founded Grown & Flown, which has become the largest online community for parents of teens and young adults. Listen to her hard-earned wisdom.Show Notes:Grown and Flown College Admissions - 7 day free trialGrown and Flown Free NewsletterGrown and Flown Parents Facebook Group Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Listen in, as the Mamas dive into the big blue sea with Middle Grade (ages 8-12) seafaring fiction. Margie chases down her white whale while Heather dives for train treasure. That's right, we're in vacay mode over at the Two Lit Mamas podcast. Grab your snorkel and join the fun! Book Chat:Arch of Bone by Jane YollenTreasure Tracks by S.A. Rodriguez Pick 6: The Mamas' Vacay Reads 1.     My Name is Red by Orham Pamuk2.     A Passion for Killing by Barbara Nadel3.     Turkish Delight Mystery Series by Mehmet Murat Somer4.     The Woman in the Library by Sulari Gentill 5.     Saving Winslow by Sharon Creech6.     Grown & Flown by Lisa Heffernan and Mary Dell Harringtonwww.twolitmamas.com 

Special guest: Lisa Heffernan. This podcast will focus on raising independent teens so that they can become young adults who can take care of themselves and make good, wise choices on their own. What skills do they need? What must they learn? Dr. Robyn Silverman interviews Lisa Heffernan from Grown and Flown on the How to Talk to Kids about Anything podcast. The post How to Parent Teens to Become Young Adults Who Have Grown & Flown with Lisa Heffernan appeared first on drrobynsilverman.com.

Special guest: Lisa Heffernan. This podcast will focus on raising independent teens so that they can become young adults who can take care of themselves and make good, wise choices on their own. What skills do they need? What must they learn? Dr. Robyn Silverman interviews Lisa Heffernan from Grown and Flown on the How to Talk to Kids about Anything podcast. The post How to Parent Teens to Become Young Adults Who Have Grown & Flown with Lisa Heffernan appeared first on drrobynsilverman.com.

Join Rev. Emily E. Ewing (they) and Rev. Kay Rohloff (she) and special guest Rev. Lisa Heffernan (she) to explore new and nerdy connections to the scripture for the 18th Sunday after Pentecost, also known as Lectionary 26 or Proper 21, which falls on September 26th this year, including our deep dive into inclusion and exclusion! The scripture we refer to for this episode can be found here. We talked about prayer, which you can explore more in our Easter 7 deep dive. The Whoopi Goldberg movie Kay references is A Knight in Camelot. CN: We include examples of ableism and exclusion in the deep dive & we talk about the Olympic gymnastics abuse investigations when discussing the Gospel reading. Check us out on Facebook & Twitter at @NerdsAtChurch to connect! --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/nerdsatchurch/message

We talk about everything from This weekends movies and television to How to deal with your kids growing up and leaving with Lisa Heffernan from Grown and Flown. We talk Chicago history with the Urban Historian Sherman "Dilla" Thomas and Chicago's top doc Dr. Allison Arwady gives us a Covid update and tells us how she went undercover at Lolla just to make sure people were checking vax cards. And Chris Spagnola from The Milk Stop Cafe in La Grange tells us why Wendy Snyder has a drink named after her at his place.

Caytha Jentis is a successful, independent comedy writer/producer/director who started filmmaking in-between driving carpools in suburban New Jersey as a mother of two. Her stories are character-driven, heightened-reality comedies. Caytha has an MFA in screenwriting from UCLA. She has many credits to her name, including Bad Parents which is currently running on HBO, Apple TV and other platforms. Her most recent film, Pooling to Paradise, is what we discuss, among many other topics. Caytha put her dream career, the one she has now, aside for 10 years when her children were younger. Hear Caytha discuss everything to do with writing, directing, and producing after taking a career break. In this episode, special shoutouts to Lesley Jane Seymour at 21:20 and Lisa Heffernan & Mary Dell Harrington of Grown & Flown at 25:09. https://www.foxmeadowfilms.com/

Parenting is a 24-hour gig you don’t get paid for but at least it’s priceless!!! This solo-podcast is sure to boost your happiness and create a more blissful family life. We discuss things like:   *Putting yourself first and being selfish  *Being an open-book role model  *Letting your kids be a little bit naughty  *Discussing sad and tragic stories *Encouraging them to talk to strangers and handle dangerous tools *Leaving your kids is good for the soul *Allowing them to fail, fall, stumble, and suffer without rescuing them   Listen to hear this and so much more.       SHOW NOTE LINKS: Essay- 24 Ways to Be the Happiest and Greatest Parent- A Counterintuitive List   Lisa Heffernan on Dear Family, the Podcast   Grown and Flown Book    Rachel’s Essay on Sharenting   Rachel’s Podcast on Sharenting       CONNECT WITH US! *Dear Family, Podcast Page *Write Now Rachel Website *Rachel's Blog @Medium *Rachel’s Twitter *Facebook *Instagram   PLEASE JOIN: *Dear Family Members, the Private Facebook Group     WAYS TO HELP THE PODCAST: *PLEASE Leave a 5-Star Review and ***Listen and Subscribe via iTunes!!!  ***Listen and Subscribe via Stitcher!!! ***Listen and Subscribe via Spotify!!!   Thank you! Your support means the world to me. Wishing you love, happiness, and good mental health always.

Tracy Hargen is a born and bred Southern girl. Even though she did a stint in New York and New Jersey after meeting her Yankee husband, she currently lives in Georgia. She finds it hilarious when her gigantic Harlequin Great Dane and her tiny black and white Chinese Crested run through her office when she’s on an important client call.    Tracy has worked in Corporate America for over 30 years, but her passions are writing and removing the shame and stigma around mental health issues. Look for her work on GrownandFlown.com, The Mighty.com, LoveWhatMatters.com and in the books “You Do You!” and “Grown and Flown.”    Will, Tracy’s youngest son, always seemed happy and involved in school activities. When he asked, “Mom, can we talk?” she stopped and listened, ultimately helping him get out of the darkness of depression and feel the light again. Tracy is a soon-to-be empty-nester once again when Will, who moved home after graduating college in May, begins a consulting job in Boston.    Tracy reminds us all that we don’t always know what is behind happy faces and when your child asks for help, stop everything, and listen without judgment. It’s important! SHOW NOTE LINKS:   Tracy Hargen’s Instagram   Tracy on Twitter   Tracy on Facebook   “Mom Can We Talk” Essay on Grown & Flown   Don’t Give Up Signs   Dear Family, Podcast Interview with Lisa Heffernan from Grown and Flown    CONNECT WITH US! *Dear Family, Podcast Page *Write Now Rachel Website *Rachel's Blog @Medium *Rachel’s Twitter *Facebook *Instagram   PLEASE JOIN: ***Dear Family Members, the Private Facebook Group   WAYS TO HELP THE PODCAST: *PLEASE Leave a 5-Star Review ***Listen and Subscribe via iTunes!!!  ***Listen and Subscribe via Stitcher!!! ***Listen and Subscribe via Spotify!!!   Thank you! Your support means the world to me. Wishing you love, happiness, and good mental health always.  

If you’re a parent living in an empty — or almost empty — nest, this episode is for you. Lisa Heffernan, co-founder of Grown and Flown, has made it her life’s work to support parents during what can be an extremely difficult transition.   In the midst of guiding their own kids through this crazy transition, Lisa and her biz partner, Mary Dell Harrington, launched what has become the largest website and Facebook group for parents of fifteen to twenty-five year olds, earning them a spot on People Magazine’s 25 Women Changing the World in 2017.   Now they’ve compiled new takeaways and fresh insights from all that they’ve learned into a handy, must-have guide.   Get the Grown and Flown book today!   Grown and Flown is a one-stop resource for parenting teenagers, leading up to—and through—high school and those first years of independence. It covers everything from the monumental (how to let your kids go) to the mundane (how to shop for a dorm room). Organized by topic—such as academics, anxiety and mental health, college life—it features a combination of stories, advice from professionals, and practical sidebars.   Get the audio version of Grown and Flown for FREE! If you’re a fan of audio books like I am, you are definitely going to love this offer! Get a free month of Audible — and FREE audiobook download — at AudibleTrial.com/fortythrive.   Mentioned in this episode:   The Gift of Failure: How to Step Back and Let Your Child Succeed   Meet 100 People: A How-To Guide to the Career and Life Edge Everyone’s Missing   Under Pressure: Confronting the Epidemic of Stress and Anxiety in Girls   Untangled: Guiding Teenage Girls Through the Seven Transitions into Adulthood   Find Grown and Flown on:   Facebook Instagram Twitter  

Melissa and Sabrina welcome authors Mary Dell Harrington and Lisa Heffernan from the wildly successful blog, book and parenting website "Grown and Flown" where they cover a range of issues on raising teens to young adults.  They are also joined by the always hilarious comedian and fellow podcaster, Heather McDonald from Juicy Scoop. Tune in as they discuss all things about parenting during the Pandemic. See omnystudio.com/policies/listener for privacy information.

The Grown & Flown community is something I have been a part of for years. Mary Dell Harrington and Lisa Heffernan has done an incredible job of building this community and have published a book that needs to adorn the shelf of any parent of teens, or young adults. It is a handbook and reference guide that answers all those parenting questions that stop us in our tracks, or simply make us think, "Is anyone else having SAT and ACT prep anxiety like my kid?" or "Are any of you struggling with anxiety with your teen?"In this episode we talk about:5:07 How did Grown & Flown got started9:00 The formation of the FB Group and community14:30 Top topics for teens and young adults and how you bring in experts to discuss17:40 The powerful stories of the community helping others 24:1 How do your kids view you since your book launch and the success of G & F28:21 The importance of mentors along the way32:16 What advice would you give your 30 year old selfPurchase your copy of the Grown and Flown book: How to support your teen, stay close as a family, and raise independent adults.Here is a link to the Grown and Flown FB GroupClick here to go to the Bitty Birdie Design website - handmade fabric goodiesSubscribe here to the Fearlessly Facing Fifty PodcastRate and Review the podcast - and mention this episode to be entered in a drawing to receive the Grown and Flown book written by Mary Dell Harrington and Lisa Heffernan.To rate and review from you iPhone or iPad:On your iOS mobile device, launch Apple's Podcast app.Tap the Search tab in the lower right corner of the screen.Enter the name of the podcast you want to rate or review. ...Tap the Reviews tab, then tap “Write a Review” at the bottom of the screen.

Teens are having a tough time right now. Milestones like prom and graduation went virtual or got canceled. So did classes, college campus visits, driver’s ed, and hangouts with friends. “This is a very painful experience for them,” says Lisa Heffernan, co-founder of Grown & Flown, the #1 website for parents of teens and young adults. Lisa also co-authored the book, Grown and Flown: How to Support Your Teen, Stay Close as a Family, and Raise Independent Adults. She says parents need to show extra understanding and sympathy towards their teens right now, and acknowledge that their frustration and anger with quarantines are entirely rational responses to the crisis we’re all living through. Lisa joins us to share practical advice on how to help high schoolers and college kids live, learn, and succeed – emotionally and academically – in our new reality. Listen to this episode to learn: -The importance of modeling and suggesting constructive solutions to teens’ problems -How the coronavirus has impacted the college admissions process, including tests like the SAT, ACT, and AP exams -Will more kids decide to take a gap year this year? -How parents should treat their college-age children who are living back at home -How to break through and communicate with a teen who isn’t adhering to social distancing rules (gounding won’t work anymore!) -Resources to help teens and college students find virtual internship and job opportunities -Ways to encourage teens to keep healthy friendships and relationships in the era of Covid-19 For more information, visit www.grownandflown.com.

Lisa Heffernan has an MBA from the MIT Sloan School of Management. She is a New York Times bestselling author who has worked as a financial trader and as former vice-president at Goldman Sachs.   When her son went off to college she burst into tears in the produce aisle and came to the conclusion there was very little support for soon-to-be empty-nester parents like herself. Lisa understood high school and college are when kids are making some of the most consequential decisions in their lives and that parenting never ends. She partnered with a fellow mom and friend, Mary Dell Harrington to create “Grown and Flown” a Facebook community. Grown and Flown is now the biggest and most vibrant online destination of its kind, made up of countless thankful parents of teens and college-age kids who are looking for information, insight, and support. Over 500 writers, doctors, psychologists, teachers, college counselors, college professors, and even a college president have graced “Grown and Flown” with their personal stories or expert advice. Lisa and Mary Dell compiled all the intel they’ve learned over the years to co-author a book by the same name, “Grown and Flown: How to Support Your Teen, Stay Close as a Family, and Raise Independent Adults.” I speak for myself when I say with my own junior in high school, the book has already proven helpful and I’ve been recommending it to all my parent friends left and right. Lisa is enjoying her empty nest with her husband while continuing to build on the solid relationships she developed with her adult children who have grown up to be happy and healthy and not just flown but soared. She feels so lucky to be a parent in the 21st century.   SHOW NOTE LINKS: "Grown and Flown" Facebook Page “Grown and Flown” Book Guide to "Grown and Flown"- Pages to Bookmark   CONNECT WITH US! *Dear Family, Podcast Page *Write Now Rachel Website *Rachel's Blog @Medium *Rachel’s Twitter *Facebook *Instagram   PLEASE JOIN: ***Dear Family Members, the Private Facebook Group   WAYS TO HELP THE PODCAST: *PLEASE Leave a 5-Star Review and: ***Listen and Subscribe via iTunes!!!  ***Listen and Subscribe via Stitcher!!! ***Listen and Subscribe via Spotify!!!   Thank you! Your support means the world to me. Wishing you love, happiness, and good mental health always.

Do you have a son or daughter in college or one heading that way? Are you wondering how to support your teen, maintain a close relationship, or how to navigate being an empty nester?Garth and Dara each have daughters in college who recently went back to school after the holiday break. They talk about the challenges of this and get advice.In this informative episode with Mary Dell Harrington, co-founder of the website, Grown and Flown, and the community Grown and Flown Parents, Garth and Dara gets tips we can all use to help us as our kids grow up.Read more about this in the book, Grown & Flown: How to Support Your Teen, Stay Close as a Family, and Raise Independent Adults, co-authored by Mary Dell Harrington and Lisa Heffernan.Links:Grown and Flown (website)Grown and Flown Parents Facebook GroupGrown & Flown: How to Support Your Teen, Stay Close as a Family, and Raise Independent Adults (Amazon)You can learn more about Garth and Dara on their websites and on social media:Garth’s website: https://www.napkinnotes.com/Dara’s website: https://www.crazyperfectlife.com/Garth’s Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/napkinnotes/Dara’s Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/crazyperfectlife/Garth’s Instagram Page: https://www.instagram.com/napkinnotesdad/Dara’s Instagram Page: https://www.instagram.com/crazyperflife/

Lisa Heffernan, co-founder and author of Grown & Flown, shares her vast knowledge on parenting during the late-teens and even early 20s. Our Kids may be more grown up, but it doesn’t mean parents don’t still have an important role to play!

Writers need a page, a profile and a whole lot of patience and persistence to even feel like we’re close to getting Facebook “right.”The question first appeared, as these things do, in the #AmWriting Facebook group. A book is coming! I’m on Facebook (obviously), but do I need an author page in addition to my profile? Why—and what should I do with one once I’ve got one? Our answer is yes, but of course it doesn’t stop there. In this episode, we talk the ins and outs of Facebook for writers of all kinds, with a primer on the basics and then a few ninja-level tips from Sarina.Episode links and a transcript follow—but first, a preview of the #WritersTopFive that will be dropping into #AmWriting supporter inboxes on Monday, November 4, 2019: Top 5 Things You Don’t Need to Be a “Real” Writer. We’d love your support, and we hope you’ll love our Top 5s. Join in for 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 PODCASTThe #AmWriting Facebook GroupGrown and Flown on FacebookRon Lieber’s Author Facebook PageSarina’s Facebook PageSarendipity (Sarina’s Facebook Fan Group)Jess’s Facebook PageKJ’s Facebook Page, which she didn’t even remember existed but will now tend as directed by Sarina.ManyChat#AmReading (Watching, Listening)Jess: Home, Run Away, Harlan Coben (also mentioned, Tell No One)KJ: Kitchens of the Great Midwest, J. Ryan StradalSarina: Ninth House, Leigh Bardugo#FaveIndieBookstoreGibson’s, Concord NHThis 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 NeONBRAND 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                    Hello listeners, KJ here. If you’re in with us every week, you’re what I like to call “people of the book.’ And some of us book people discover somewhere along the way that not only we writers, we’re people with a gift for encouraging other writers. For some of us, that comes out in small ways, but for others it’s a calling and an opportunity to build a career doing work you love. Our sponsor, Author Accelerator, provides book coaching to authors (like me) but also needs and trains book coaches. If that’s got your ears perked up, head to https://www.authoraccelerator.com and click on “become a book coach.” Is it recording?Jess:                                     00:02                    Now it's recording, go ahead.KJ:                                        00:45                    This is the part where I stare blankly at the microphone like I don't remember what I was supposed to be doing.Jess:                                     00:45                    Alright, let's start over.KJ:                                        00:45                    Awkward pause, I'm going to rustle some papers.Jess:                                     00:45                    Okay.KJ:                                        00:54                    Now one, two, three. Hey all, I'm KJ Dell'Antonia and this is #AmWriting. #AmWriting is your podcast, your weekly podcast, our podcast, about writing all the things. Fiction, nonfiction, pitches, proposals, essays you know what? All the things, except poetry. None of us do that. But we did have a poet on once. I dunno, I just was thinking that the other day like, wait a minute, it's not quite all the things. Alright, back to the regularly scheduled introduction. #AmWriting is the podcast about sitting down and getting your work, whatever it is, done.Jess:                                     01:40                    KJ, before I introduce myself, speaking of the intro changing up, we got an email this week from someone who said, 'Wait, you changed the pattern at the beginning of the episode and I don't know what to do with that.' It was very, very funny.KJ:                                        01:54                    I love that people go back and listen to all the episodes. It brings me incredible joy.Jess:                                     01:58                    Yes, it does. I am Jess Lahey, I'm the author of the Gift of Failure and a forthcoming book about preventing substance abuse in kids. And I write at various places including the New York Times, Washington Post and the Atlantic.Sarina:                                 02:13                    And I'm Sarina Bowen, the author of 30 plus contemporary romance novels. And you can find more of me at sarinabowen.com.KJ:                                        02:22                    And I am KJ Dell'Antonia, a novelist and also the author of the nonfiction book How to Be a Happier Parent, first novel will be out next summer, more to come I hope. You'll sometimes still find my work at the New York Times and in a variety of other places. So that's it, that's who we are. We know some things and today our plan is to talk about what we know about Facebook. But before we do, I just want to thank everyone who has gone in and subscribed to our weekly emails that come out every week about the podcast. That is a new thing that we're doing and I love that people are finding it useful. Every week we send you little something about what the episode is, all the links, and a way to see a transcript, which is pretty cool. And also huge shout out and thanks to those of you who have signed up to support the podcast and get our weekly top fives for writers. It's huge, we feel so grateful and excited that you guys want to support us, and want to be a part of it, and want to get our top fives, which we're having a great time doing. So you know, thanks to everyone for that. And if you're looking to do either of those things, head over to amwritingpodcast.com and you'll find all the links there.Jess:                                     03:42                    Alright, let's do it. You said our topic is Facebook. What do you mean about this Facebook thing?KJ:                                        03:54                    Well, it's a great place to put up pictures of your kids and offend all your relatives on your political views. But as a writer, people have questions like, 'Should you have an author page and a personal page? Should you do everything from your personal page? How has this evolved over the years? And I have wrestled with it. Sarina has come to some pretty good terms with it and I'll just also throw out there that back in 2013 when I started with the Times, they actually said to me, 'We do not want to create a Facebook page for the Motherlode blog, which doesn't exist anymore anyway. So just use your own. It was one of the best gifts that they gave me. I don't think it was actually the right choice for them, but well, and here and today I'm sitting here with no author page, but the AmWriting page and everything I do professionally ends up on my personal page and I'm not sure that's where I should be.Jess:                                     05:01                    I'm a mess. Sarina, you go cause you've got a whole thing. You use it beautifully.Sarina:                                 05:07                    Well, thank you. But we have to talk about vocabulary for a second. Because people have a profile, not a page. And we just want to be careful to use that vocabulary correctly because if listeners go and try to untangle our suggestions, they might run into a little trouble. So every person, like the way that we would define a person has the right under the Facebook terms of service, to have one profile. So, if you use a pseudonym for your writing, you may find yourself in the awkward position of trying to fake it to Facebook that you can have two profiles. And yeah, so that's a good time. But the profile is the main way that most people look at Facebook, you login with your profile. Now a page, you can have as many pages as you want. A page is meant to be representing something that's not a person. Like a brand or a business or it can be a person, like a personality. So I have a profile under Sarina White Bowen, it's three words. And then I have a Sarina Bowen page. And pages and profiles have different things that they can do, they're not identical in their functionality. And that's why we get into these tricky discussions because the way that pages and profiles behave is not identical and that's where some of the weird fun comes in.Jess:                                     06:54                    Well and honestly that's where most of my apathy/confusion lies. Mainly because for me, my profile, Jessica Lahey. Actually, I think my profile is Jessica Potts Lahey because my maiden name is Potts. So that's my personal profile, the thing I originally signed up for Facebook with. That has long since gone out the window as a private, personal thing. Like I get 30 friend requests a day and I accept some and don't. But most of them are people I don't even know. I've just long since given up the ghost on that. But it is how I keep in touch with childhood friends and high school acquaintances and things like that. Then I also have a page as Jessica Lahey and that was something my publisher wanted and it was important to them. But see, here's the problem - if you're accepting any old person out there to your profile, and I'm posting things to my page and to my profile and honestly, there's a lot of overlap between the two. I wish I'd been more strategic about this from the beginning. And I somehow had a profile that was really just personal stuff and then shuttled everyone else over to my page, like put up kind of some kind of like, 'No, I will not friend you, but here's my page.' I wish I'd been more strategic about that, but I didn't and so now I have a mess. I have, two things, neither of which is personal, and both kind of get duplicate posts.Sarina:                                 08:28                    Well, I could make you feel better by telling you that we're all in the same mess, honestly. Because Facebook has treated the two things differently over time. So, it used to be that in the glory days of 2010 you could make a page and even if you'd gotten this right from the very first day...Jess:                                     08:53                    If I could have seen the future...Sarina:                                 08:55                    Well, that's the thing. You would have still not been able to do it exactly right because the behavior that would have been optimized at the time would have changed. So back in the glory days, you could've made that page that you were just talking about and kept your profile private and you could have posted the things you were writing and thinking about it on this page and people would see it and they would interact with you and your page would grow, and grow, and grow. And you might have like 30,000 followers. However, Facebook has very much become a pay to play platform and now they would want you to pay every time you put up a post on your page that you wanted more than say 5% of your followers to see. So the fact that when you share meaningful things on your profile, at least there's some chance that the people who are connected to you will see it. So it's not entirely clear to me that you wouldn't be a very sad owner of a highly followed page by this point. But everybody who relies upon Facebook to push content into the world has been increasingly unhappy with their results because it's not just that Facebook wants your money (and they absolutely do want it), but also just the number of pages in the world grew at such an exponential rate that they can't actually show everybody all the stuff that they're following anymore. Like if you liked your dentist's office in 2013, then you know, the odds of you actually seeing a post from the dentist are really bad. Like the pages who you might actually see are the people who have been out there working it so hard since the very beginning, with a nice pace of content release, and a good interaction that...it's very few pages that are still getting that kind of play. You mentioned that you get a lot of friend requests. Facebook actually caps the number of friends you can have at 5,000.Jess:                                     11:05                    Early on I think it was like 2000 or something. But yeah, it's definitely 5,000. I'm getting close and that worries me. Because what if someone I really want to follow, that's why I don't accept all of them or even real people...KJ:                                        11:19                    People don't know you didn't accept them. And probably most of their goals is just to follow you, which is what happens if someone puts in a friend request and you say no, they end up following you.Jess:                                     11:32                    That's right. Yeah, I forgot about that.KJ:                                        11:35                    At least you've got that going for you.Sarina:                                 11:36                    So, another factor is that now Messenger is tied in with the people you're friends with on Facebook. So I have stopped accepting friend requests completely, unless of course I met the person.KJ:                                        11:51                    Unless it's your friend.Sarina:                                 11:53                    Or, but I got some friend requests after that retreat we went to in Maine and I accepted those. But I don't accept random requests anymore because I've discovered it's just a way for readers to bug me. Like when is such and such a thing coming out and you know, there just aren't enough hours in the day for me to do a good job answering those messages.Jess:                                     12:16                    Actually, I'm so glad you said that because that has been a source of anxiety and frustration for me in that the number of direct messages I'm getting via various apps has gone through the roof and it's a lot of people asking very personal questions about their own children. I got one the other day and she sent me this long, long, long message about what she's going through with her child. And she wrote the word please and she sent a picture of herself with her child.KJ:                                        12:48                    I wish you could auto reply from Messenger. Because if you had that that said, 'I'm sorry, I can't...' I suppose you could just type one. Okay, we're going to get back to how everyone should use Facebook in a second, but just to solve this particular problem with which I am somewhat familiar, type something up, and imagine yourself as your assistant. 'I'm sorry, Mrs. Lahey can't respond to all.' And you know you're gonna feel like a jerk, but Mrs. Lahey can't respond personally to everyone and that leaves you the freedom to do it. To take a step back, we have people on our Facebook group page, which is a whole other thing, and is a great tool for various kinds of authors, particularly I think in nonfiction. Someone was saying, 'Here I am and my first book is coming out and should I create an author page?' And there are reasons to say yes to that, I think.Sarina:                                 14:07                    Yes, there are. One of the reasons you might need an author page is if you want to advertise something, you can't advertise from a profile, you have to advertise from a page. So, the main reason that the Sarina Bowen author page continues to grow a following is because of paid advertising. And when you use paid advertising you collect likes sort of by accident. So you should never run the kind of ad that just gets likes because that's pointless. But if you have something to advertise like 'Look, this is my new book. Here is the link at Apple books.' Then that is something I advertise and the page does grow its following that way. So I would say that if you have even a 20% chance of ever wanting to advertise something, you should set up that author page. But then you should not obsess about how many followers it has. You should post only often enough so that it looks like the lights are on. And you don't need to worry about it. It needs to be set up so that there's somewhere people can find this kind of information, like the link to join your newsletter, and the link for your own personal webpage. So you need to be listed there because a lot of people will use Facebook as like a global directory. So you need to be find-able, but you do not need to obsess about how many people are following you there. So you can really put it as one of those things on your Sunday promo calendar where you're like, 'Oh, time to stop by the neighborhood of my Facebook page and maybe update something. You know, a book I'm reading or an article I put out this week.'Jess:                                     16:05                    I use it for my speaking calendar, too. Like you know, 'Oh I'm going to be in the next week or month or whatever I'm going to be in so-and-so.' One thing I would like to add is that so early on in my promotion plan for Gift of Failure, my publisher very much wanted me to have a Facebook page because one of the things they did during my pub week was that I added my publisher as an administrator to my Facebook page and they posted a couple of ads. So that was wonderful and helpful.KJ:                                        16:37                    That's really nice. I have not heard of a publisher doing that, which just means I haven't heard of it. I advertised my book personally a couple of times. But I actually did it from the #AmWriting page, I think, because we have a page and I don't remember if I have a page.Jess:                                     17:00                    I think they did two or three ads just during pub week itself. And that was nice. They wanted to know as part of my original, the fact that I had one was what interested them. So I don't think they actually care that much about my followers. Who knows. Anyway, I want to make sure that was in there.KJ:                                        17:22                    When you pay to place a Facebook ad from your page, that has nothing to do with how many followers your page has. It goes to that subset of people that you hopefully carefully create within the Facebook ad maker.Sarina:                                 17:40                    That's right. The ad engine is a vast thing. There are entire podcasts about the Facebook ad engine. So, we won't cover that today but it does give you access to basically everyone on Facebook and Instagram.Jess:                                     17:58                    And you can target very carefully and all that sort of thing?Sarina:                                 18:00                    Yes, sort of carefully. But yes.Jess:                                     18:03                    Okay. Anything else here?Sarina:                                 18:06                    I do have a page and I do have a group, cause you mentioned groups, and groups are lovely and for a couple of reasons. One is that they gel with what Mark Zuckerberg claims to be his new idea for what Facebook should be, which is groups of like-minded people talking to each other. So I actually have a fan group on Facebook.Jess:                                     18:41                    I belong and I love it. I love your fan group and it is so much fun to go in there and look at what's being posted. I love your fan group.Sarina:                                 18:51                    It's called Sarendipity and I'm deeply uncomfortable with the idea of having a fandom. I don't like to use the word fan, I'm not saying that I don't use it, but I don't really want to be that person. It's kind of like there's always a party that I'm hosting and I have to show up, you know. But what happens is that people tend to go there to talk about things that come up in my books and it really takes the pressure off of me. So in May, I had this book where one of the characters, who was known as lobster shorts, that was his avatar on an app. And one of the central conceits of the book is that the other person in the book doesn't know that lobster shorts is really his neighbor. So they have this whole conversation and I swear there are still people posting various lobster clothing in my group, you know, five months later I'm still seeing, look at this lobster shirt I found. So that's super fun because then the discussion doesn't have to be about whether or not you liked the book or what I'm having for lunch. It's like a commonality. This thing that we've all found funny and here's a little more of it. So my group is full of posts about apples because of one of my series.Jess:                                     20:21                    Your group also, I have to say, there was one thread that was posted by one of your fans and it was a question and it was, 'How did you discover Sarina Bowen?' And it was one of the most and incredibly fascinating look at how readers find authors. Some of them were, 'I discovered her through Elle Kennedy, I was an Elle Kennedy reader.' Some were, 'Amazon recommended Sarina because I read X'. It was fascinating and it was a wealth of information about how people stumble upon new authors. I loved reading that thread.Sarina:                                 20:56                    You're right, that was fascinating. But you also said that I didn't post it. There are lots of authors who do ask that question, who are able to ask questions about themselves without wanting to jump off something high. And, but I can't, it's just not me to do that. There's also other romance authors who posts like Towel Tuesday. And so on Tuesday there'll be some photo of a guy in a towel and the other romance readers are like, 'Ooh, good one.'KJ:                                        21:23                    I thought it was going to be the author and a towel. That's brave.Sarina:                                 21:29                    Well now you're really scaring me. That's not me either. And I really struggle with what is my role in that group. And there are so many ways to do it. And if you are a person, as an author, who is comfortable hosting that kind of party all the time, then the group is probably your greatest asset.KJ:                                        21:54                    Alternatively, if you are a person who, as an author, wants to generally answer those kinds of questions that Jess is getting by Messenger, who has a nonfiction platform, which is self-help or that kind of thing you could create... Yeah. Ron Lieber does it really well, that's what you were going to say.Jess:                                     22:26                    No, I was going to say Grown and Flown, Lisa Heffernan and Mary Dell Harrington, they do that incredibly well. They use those questions as fodder for posts on their massive, massive group for Grown and Flown.KJ:                                        22:42                    Right, but they started out as a group and a blog and only later became a book. I guess what I'm saying is if you are Lori Gottlieb, or you, or Ron Lieber, you could use Facebook to start a group in which people discuss the topic of your book. But, I think that there would be a pretty high maintenance requirement there. I mean, at a certain point it would probably become somewhat self sustaining, but for a while I feel like it would be really demanding that you find and put up questions, and respond to things, and keep track. I think that'd be a pretty big time investment, but it might be a worthwhile one.Jess:                                     23:30                    It would be a big investment.KJ:                                        23:31                    I'm not suggesting you do it, this is a general. Let me just say, I don't think that's you, you need to write books. But there might be people for whom it would be a great strategy. For example, the author of Quiet, Susan Cain has said, 'I thought about writing another book and then I realized, no, my mission is to keep talking about this one.' She does it in a different forum. But if that's where you are, if your mission for the next few years is to talk about the topic of your nonfiction probably. Then that could be good.Jess:                                     24:15                    As a speaker, I have to say, reader questions are incredible fodder for either articles, new chapters, blog posts, things to talk about on stage. I have this sort of wealth of stories and many of them came from readers who wrote me, or posted, or messaged, or whatever and said, 'Here's what's going on and here's how I've used the things you wrote about.' So that can be an incredibly valuable thing and if you want to mine that for all it's worth, a little bit of effort could pay off big time.KJ:                                        24:47                    Right. All right, so we got the basics. You've probably already got your profile. Certainly there's no one in our Facebook group asking questions about how to use Facebook that doesn't already have a profile. You're gonna need a page, but you don't need to do anything more there besides keep the lights on. You could contemplate a group, you need to think about how you use Messenger, and what else? What am I missing in terms of the basics?Sarina:                                 25:14                    Well, we definitely covered the basics, but I could give you a couple of ninja level things. So my page has an auto-responder that is hosted by a service called ManyChat. So if you go to the Sarina Bowen page and you hit the button there to send a message, you will immediately get a reply from a bot and it says something like, 'Hello. And then insert first name of person. Thank you for reaching out. The best place to find information about upcoming Sarina Bowen books is this link right here.'Jess:                                     26:09                    Brilliant.KJ:                                        26:13                    That's for Messenger messages or postsSarina:                                 26:17                    Messenger, but it's Messenger to the page, not the profile. So it also says, 'And if you are a man who just wants to chat or show me your photo, you will not like my response.'KJ:                                        26:35                    Even if you're wearing a towel. Especially if you're wearing a towel.Jess:                                     26:39                    I do like that when I get messages like that, like gross, disgusting, stuff like that. Often for example, in Instagram it will shield it from your view. And so in order to see whatever picture someone has sent you, you have to actually click on it. And I have decided not to click on a few things that I receive via the messaging part of Instagram.Sarina:                                 27:05                    Weirdly, the what to blur out trigger is really strange, though. Because I click on them all the time and it's usually like just a photo of a book on a table and it's like my book, you know. So that's one thing that you can hook up. Now, this is the ninja super top secret thing is that also ManyChat, will collect the identities of everyone who ever messages you.Jess:                                     27:34                    To what end, Sarina? To what end?Sarina:                                 27:40                    I will tell you. A page can also always message whomever has messaged the page before. So if you run a contest where to enter the contest, you send the page a message, then ManyChat can retain that list of hundreds of people and then randomly messaged them when you decide. So I could right now just blanket message, all the whatever thousand people who've ever messaged my page before with, 'Hey, guess what? I have a new book.'.Jess:                                     28:16                    Oh my gosh, you're so brilliant.Sarina:                                 28:17                    I don't actually use it, though. Because I find that people are very confused about whether I'm messaging them personally this way. Like it's not common enough a thing to break down that wall. And I don't actually want people to think that I'm messaging them. So, it's not a useful tool for me, but it does exist. And the other Ninja level thing is about the page itself and how nobody sees them anymore. So I do keep track. My page has either 14 or 17,000 followers. I can't remember right now. And the average post is seen by like 1200 people. So it's less than 10%. But if I didn't do certain things, then it would drop even further because the Facebook algorithm looks carefully at each post to decide if it's going to love you or not. So if you're always posting Amazon links then it hates that. But if you're always posting to your own website, it hates that less. And if you're posting text with no links or pictures at all, it loves that because that seems really genuine to Facebook. Like if you just have a haiku to share or something.Jess:                                     29:53                    Is that why people started doing that thing where they started posting in the first comment instead of in the post itself?Sarina:                                 29:59                    The link? Yeah, the link in the comments. Yeah. I'm not sure. I think Facebook caught onto that immediately, though.KJ:                                        30:05                    So, interesting, completely random side note, Facebook doesn't want you to sell animals anymore. And of course Facebook is actually the largest place to advertise horses. So our barn manager, I just turned her on to go ahead and put a picture, but you put the link or you put the ad in the comments. Because if you put an ad they throw it off and it's got to do with puppy mills and that kind of thing, which I'm totally supportive of. But Facebook killed all the sites upon which people once sold horses and they have not yet been replaced with anything. And it's a problem. But, that does still work to some extent I think. The link in the comments.Sarina:                                 30:57                    Okay, well this is how I handle it. A page can also have what are called top fans. That is Facebook's word for it. So if you turn this feature on to your page, you might have to have a certain number of followers, I don't know what it is. You turn on the top fan badge and then Facebook will actually track for you who it considers to be your top fans. I believe I have, I don't know, a couple hundred of them. And top fan badges are earned by commenting on things and liking things. So I actually run a giveaway like once a month we pick a random top fan and they get to have a prize of their choosing and the prizes are a signed book shipped anywhere, an item from the Sarina Bowen swag store, or a bad, but flattering poem in your honor.Jess:                                     31:56                    While we're on the topic and because I have helped you with some of this in the past and I have had to deal with it myself, when you run these sorts of things and you say shipped anywhere, just keep in mind how much it costs to ship to Australia. Just keep it in mind. Just think about it when you do it.KJ:                                        32:14                    There's a reason people do U.S. only and apologies to those who can't participate, but whoa.Sarina:                                 32:23                    Yeah, one book to Australia is $22.50 and yesterday I shipped a box to France for $57 50. Ouch., right?KJ:                                        32:35                    Groups have a similar thing to the top fan, which is the conversation starters.Jess:                                     32:40                    Yeah, I love that. And there's also like a visual storyteller. We have it in our group and, according to our group, I'm an administrator, but I'm also a visual storyteller because I post a lot of pictures to our group.KJ:                                        32:53                    Well, no prizes for you. I'm sorry.Sarina:                                 32:55                    Well, the point of giving prizes to top fans is to give an incentive to comment. If you were to go look at my page right now (and I have no idea what the last thing we posted), but you'll see like 'Can't wait' and just people chiming in and the chiming in tells the Facebook algorithm that that piece of content is valuable or interesting. So Facebook will give it a little more love. I mean there are days when it feels like my entire job is to try to outwit the Facebook algorithm and not everybody needs to think like this or operate like this, but it's quite the rabbit hole.Jess:                                     33:37                    Well, and we've talked about this in the past, is that certain social media platforms are great for certain things. And for me it's Twitter and for you it's Facebook. And we've talked about this in the past and partially it's a self-perpetuating thing. But when Sarina goes on my webpage (which I let her do from time to time and look at where my traffic's coming from) you know, mine's coming from Twitter and hers overwhelmingly comes from Facebook. So if you know that the genre that you write in is Facebook oriented, then this is really helpful information. For me, I'm trying to figure out how to best use Facebook. And it may be different for nonfiction authors, but I think when you know that that's where your fans are it's worth spending a little bit extra time and effort, as you do, to engage that audience. It's all about decision making.Sarina:                                 34:27                    And in order to remove some of the emotion from it. So yesterday I got very depressed because I have a book launch coming up and I realized just how much I hate launching. Like it's a kind of a popularity contest that I don't really want to enter. I don't enjoy that week of share me, share me, love me, buy me. So one of the ways that I get around this is that every two months I take note of where the growth in my social media following is happening. So I'll just note the totals of how many followers are on the page, how many people in the group, how many on Instagram, how many on BookBub and how many on my newsletter list. Not because I'm obsessed with the totals, but because I want to know which thing is growing the fastest?KJ:                                        35:23                    Where should you invest your time?Sarina:                                 35:25                    Right? Where is the heat? So that I don't obsess about my Facebook page if that's not obsessable this week.KJ:                                        35:34                    Well, my loose take on what Facebook is good for is nonfiction of the kind that I have written and that Jess writes, parenting stuff, family oriented stuff, self-help style stuff. Basically, probably nonfiction with more of a female audience. I don't know what I mean, Facebook is definitely both genders. Does it skew female? Do we know?Jess:                                     36:07                    I don't know, but I do know that parenting stuff, at least from my perspective, does incredibly well on Facebook. And then the added bonus is that some of the outfits I write for like the New York Times and the Atlantic and Washington Post have very active Facebook pages. And when they post my stuff to Facebook, holy moly, the shares for those articles go through the roof. And then of course other Facebook pages pick up those articles. And I'm very lucky in that some of my more evergreen content the Atlantic will repost from time to time, thus revitalizing an article I wrote four years ago, which is lovely. Yeah. So from that perspective it's really useful.KJ:                                        36:47                    Well, I often think of it is Twitter for serious nonfiction, Facebook for lighter nonfiction, Instagram for fiction. But I think that is just a gross, gross oversimplification as evidenced by the fact that Sarina makes a really good use of Facebook. And Facebook's ads for fiction, especially independently published fiction, are kind of I think without parallel. And there's no barrier to entry like there is on Instagram. You can't advertise on Instagram. You can't even link on Instagram. You can't advertise either, can you? Am I right, Sarina?Sarina:                                 37:23                    You could advertise on Instagram.KJ:                                        37:25                    Oh you can still advertise, okay. Alright, fine. Well, this is good. Okay.Jess:                                     37:31                    This is really helpful.KJ:                                        37:32                    We've laid out some useful basics, given me some ideas. I hope we've given some of the rest of you guys ideas. Oh my gosh. Books.Jess:                                     37:56                    Yeah, do we want to talk about what we've been reading? I have a new author that I've recently discovered that's fun to read. You know there are certain really popular authors that are sort of are in the periphery of your awareness and yet you never actually listened to them. I finally listened to a Harlan Coben book recently. So I listened to Harlan Coben because a narrator that I really, really enjoy - Steven Weber, he played one half of the duo on the show Wings in the 80s, and he's still out there doing some great stuff. He's an audio book narrator and I happen to love his audio narration voice. You can click not only on authors in a lot of apps, but you can click on the narrator, too. So if you really like a narrator, try other things they've narrated. And that's what I did. And I've been listening to a Harlan Coben book. I listened to one called Home that was kind of interesting, but now I'm listening to one called Run Away (it's two separate words). I think it's his newest one. The opening was so beautifully done - and what's really fun about Harlan Coben is that he's funny without trying to be comic. Like he's just a witty writer and it's really fun in a way that I don't get to read a lot. And so he's highly prolific. There's tons out there. He has series. He has stand alones and so it's nice to have a new author to be able to dip into and learn new things from. So that's Harlan Coben Run Away so far I'm loving it. Home was really, really interesting. I like that one, too.Sarina:                                 39:32                    Well, Jess, I love Harlan Coben. And there's a lot to learn there, also. One of his novels (my favorite one) was made into a movie in French.Jess:                                     39:49                    What's the book?Sarina:                                 39:51                    I'm trying to figure that out right now. Tell No One. It's a wonderful novel.Jess:                                     39:56                    I actually originally heard about him because Stephen King talks about him a lot. I think they're buds or something or he just really likes his work, but I just never occurred to me to listen to any of his books or read any of his books. But I'm glad I am.Sarina:                 &#

Late adolescence (that time between the end of high school and when kids are successfully launched into their independent lives) is challenging for them as well as the adults who love them. Lisa and Mary join Laura to provide some right-on-time advice, and discuss Grown and Flown, their new guide for parents. Originally aired with Host Laura Zarrow on October 30, 2019 on SiriusXM's Business Radio Powered by The Wharton School, Channel 132. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Jordana and Shannon talk with Lisa Heffernan, one of the creators of the wildly successful website Grown and Flown. They tackle the challenges of how to raise independent children and then discuss what happens when those children leave home. Lots of travel and sex? Or maybe depression? Results may vary! Grown doesn’t have to mean flown, as the ladies discuss with Gram. And Shannon shares getting into a verbal skirmish with behavior police in a movie theater.   Music:  "Voicemail" by Khronos Beats "Study Session No Melody" by MellowSTU "Lo-Fi Afternoon" by Marscott "Jet Setter" by MellowSTU "Best I Can" by Jasmine Jordan (ft. Habit Blcx)

Teenage transitions are not for the faint of heart. While they may not come with a manual, we got the next best thing with Lisa Heffernan and Mary Dell Harrington. They are moms, friends, and creators of Grown & Flown, a website turned into book for parents with teenagers. They started a website when their children were in high school. They offer resources and help for tweens, teens and college-aged daughters and sons. They dish their best advice on the show. Follow the journey on Instagram: @theholdernessfamily Thank you for being here! Would you consider leaving a review? We also love feedback: holdermesspodcast@gmail.com Join our Facebook family: www.facebook.com/theholdernessfamily Find us on YouTube: www.youtube.com/theholdernessfamily About the Holderness Family
: Penn, Kim, Lola, and Penn Charles Holderness create original music, parodies, and Vlogs for YouTube and Facebook to poke fun of themselves and celebrate the absurdity in circumstances most families face in their day to day life. They published "Christmas Jammies" in December 2013 and life hasn't been the same. Since then, their popular parodies, "All About That Baste", "Baby Got Class," and original music "Snow Day" have received national news coverage. Penn, the Dad, took a chance and left his job as a news anchor to join his wife Kim, the Mom, at their video production and digital marketing company, Greenroom Communications, LLC. Lola and Penn Charles are always happy, respectful and eat all of their vegetables (that last sentence is a lie).  Produced and Engineered by Trujillo Media

Lisa Heffernan and Mary Dell Harrington are the co-founders of Grown and Flown, are writers, moms, and friends. They created Grown and Flown when each of their youngest kids were in high school and their oldest kids were in college. Their new book, GROWN and FLOWN: How to Support Your Teen, Stay Close as a Family, and Raise Independent Adults (Flatiron Books; September 3, 2019), is the one-stop resource for parenting and “launching” teens and young adults. For more information on the book, blog, Facebook group, and more, visit: www.grownandflown.com

Lisa Heffernan and Mary Dell Harrington are the coauthors of Grown & Flown: How to Support Your Teen, Stay Close as a Family, and Raise Independent Adults. They are also the co-creators of Grown & Flown, the number one community site for parents with teens and college students, reaching millions of parents every month. They started their community when they saw how few resources there were for parents of no-longer-little-kids. Their book continues this tradition by addressing some of the most challenging, exciting, heartbreaking, and consequential years of parenting with essays and input from experts and parents alike. Our talk was super helpful to me as it came right before my oldest son went off to boarding school. Best tips: make the bed first, write a goodbye letter, plan some bonding activities in the aftermath of drop-off. 

Finally, your kid is off to college. Your time parenting is done... right? Lisa Heffernan of Grown and Flown joins Sue and Steph to talk about just how false that idea is, and how to best parent those who have only technically left the nest. Make find out more about Agnes Scott College by checking out SUMMIT.agnesscott.edu!

Laura and Sarah reminisce about their pre-college days and the admissions process. Our guest is author and expert Lisa Heffernan, who just released a book, Grown and Flown: How to Support Your Teen, Stay Close as a Family, and Raise Independent Adults. In Q&A, we answer a question related to daycare costs. Lola - visit mylola.com and enter discount code Bestof for 40% off your first order! Better Help - get 10% off your first month with discount code bestof. Get started at betterhelp.com/bestof!

Kids don't usually seek to lose their dependence on us as parents- and why should they? Doesn’t a grilled cheese taste so much better when Mom makes it?  So it’s up to us to teach our kids independence, and that means showing them how an ATM works sometime before they leave for college. How do we start the nest-leaving process early and often? Our guest is Lisa Heffernan, co-creator of the parenting-older-kids website Grown and Flown. She and Lisa Heffernan are the co-authors of the new book Grown and Flown: How to Support Your Teen, Stay Close as a Family, and Raise Independent Adults. Lisa says yes, we should start preparing our kids now to survive without us— but she’s not arguing for tough love as the only answer, whether our kids are three or twenty-three. “Being involved in your kid’s life does NOT make you a helicopter parent,” Lisa says. "It makes you a loving, supportive parent.”  It’s often harder, longer, and more complicated to make our kids do something than to just do it for them. But this week we’re going to find a moment, allow a bit of extra time, and walk our kids through a task they are eminently capable of doing for themselves. The pride they’ll feel— even if the results are imperfect— will be worth celebrating.  Here are links to some other writing on the topic that we discuss in this episode:  Melissa Deuter for Psychology Today: 5 Steps to Help Your Teen Leave the Nest Rachel Martin for Your Teen Mag: The Perfect Present: Fostering Teen Independence Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I had such a great discussion with Lisa Heffernan, co-author of the brand-new book out this week called “Grown and Flown: How to Support Your Teen, Stay Close as a Family, and Raise Independent Adults.” This is one of those episodes that is not grief-specific. I was so glad to talk to Lisa about her new book because so often I hear from widowed parents that one of their challenges isn't really related to grief at all – it's that they find themselves in a new role as the “only parent” for their kids, and they need to handle everything alone. So, I figure the more information and insights we can get, the better, in terms of helping us with this job. Our discussion is also relevant, however, for your friends who are not widowed parents – so please share with them it you find it helpful. Some topics Lisa and I cover in our discussion include: What parents most want to know about raising their kids during the older teen / young adult years; How parents can tend to feel isolated when their kids get older and face problems that can be more difficult to discuss with other parents than little-kid problems; Signs you might be overparenting your teen or young adult; The four main things your child needs to know to manage their health when they're living away for the first time; Four key academic lessons that your teen should learn before college; Tips for getting through the 11th grade; Tips for parents to stay sane during the college search and application process; Tips for college drop off day; Ways to support struggling college students without taking over; and What surprises Lisa most about the late teen / early adult years. I hope you enjoy my discussion with Lisa Heffernan of Grown and Flown.

Lisa Heffernan gives advice for parenting adult kids, Zadith Malave explains how to find Mr. Right, Rebecca Rosenberg tells the story of Baby Doe Tabor, Kate Eichhorn discusses the effect of social media on kids, Dionna Hancock-Johnson teaches how to be successful no matter what, Jeff and Cole discuss this summer's best movies.

In Episode 102, I'm chatting with Lisa Heffernan, the co-founder of Grown and Flown, the popular website, blog and Facebook group with nearly 120,000 members. We talk about the brand new book that she has co-authored with Mary Dell Harrington, called Grown And Flown, How To Support Your Teen, Stay Close As Family, And Raise Independent Adults, which draws upon the expert advice they've curated over the years. Just as their tagline suggests, "Parenting Never Ends." Kids need different types of support from their parents when they've left home and parents need to make big adjustments, as well. We discuss some common issues faced by parents with "grown" kids.

If you’re a parent living in an empty — or almost empty — nest, this episode is for you. Lisa Heffernan, co-founder of Grown and Flown, has made it her life's work to support parents during what can be an extremely difficult transition.   In the midst of guiding their own kids through this crazy transition, Lisa and her biz partner, Mary Dell Harrington, launched what has become the largest website and Facebook group for parents of fifteen to twenty-five year olds, earning them a spot on People Magazine's 25 Women Changing the World in 2017.   Now they’ve compiled new takeaways and fresh insights from all that they’ve learned into a handy, must-have guide.   Get the Grown and Flown book today!   Grown and Flown is a one-stop resource for parenting teenagers, leading up to—and through—high school and those first years of independence. It covers everything from the monumental (how to let your kids go) to the mundane (how to shop for a dorm room). Organized by topic—such as academics, anxiety and mental health, college life—it features a combination of stories, advice from professionals, and practical sidebars.   Get the audio version of Grown and Flown for FREE! If you're a fan of audio books like I am, you are definitely going to love this offer! Get a free month of Audible -- and FREE audiobook download -- at AudibleTrial.com/fortythrive.   Mentioned in this episode:   The Gift of Failure: How to Step Back and Let Your Child Succeed   Meet 100 People: A How-To Guide to the Career and Life Edge Everyone's Missing   Under Pressure: Confronting the Epidemic of Stress and Anxiety in Girls   Untangled: Guiding Teenage Girls Through the Seven Transitions into Adulthood   Find Grown and Flown on:   Facebook Instagram Twitter  

Bobbi reveals her favorite new money related books, and how to decide if they are right for you. This month’s picks include The Startup Squad by Brian Weisfeld and Nicole Kear, Grown and Flown: How to support your teen, stay close as a family and raise independent adults which is by Mary Dell Harrington and Lisa Heffernan, And then finally The Essential First-Time Home Buyers book: How to buy a house, Get a Mortgage and Close a Real Estate deal by Judy Dutton and Realtor.com editors. Have you tried Blinkist? Read or listen to entire books in about 15 minutes - kind of like this podcast - with the Blinkist App. Try it for free and support this show by going to http://bobbirebell.com/blinkist For more information, visit the show notes at https://www.bobbirebell.com/podcast/august2019books

We work harder than you think, calling doesn't always look conventional, and other things your church leaders wish you knew. Throughout the past year of interviews, I asked people extra questions and this one drew the most passionate response by far: "What do you wish people knew about your job?" On this Music and the Church episode, Darrell St. Romain, Deanna Witkowski, Pr. Lisa Heffernan, Anita Smallin, J. J. Wright, Chelsea Chen, and Anny Stevens-Gleason share what they wish people knew about their ministries in the church. Here are the previous episodes that featured today's guests: Chelsea Chen on Artist Residencies and Concert Series in the ChurchPr. Lisa Heffernan on Welcoming People with Disabilities in Church Music MinistryAnita Smallin on "A Noisy Church Is a Living Church"Darrell St. Romain on Congregational Singing at MassAnny Stevens-Gleason on Getting Youth Invested in Music MinistryDeanna Witkowski on Congregational SingingJ. J. Wright on Leading the Notre Dame Folk Choir Enjoying this podcast episode? Click here to find other Music and the Church episodes, or subscribe to the show wherever you listen to podcasts. Resources Mentioned on This Episode: "Ten Things This Youth Minister Wants You to Know" by Anita SmallinThe Business of Being a Writer by Jane Friedman"The Canticle of Turning"Frogs Without Legs Can't Hear by David W. Anderson and Paul Hill What do YOU wish people knew about your ministry in the church?

We believe that people all people are made in the image of God. Full stop. So, when we are talking about how to make our churches more inclusive, we aren’t talking about welcoming people even though they have disabilities (or even though they are children, as we talked about in last month's episode). The goal is making our programs better reflect our theology. The goal is living out our beliefs about what it means to be human, and what it means to love and serve God in community with our siblings in Christ.  About Pr. Lisa Heffernan Pastor Lisa Heffernan pastors in South Dakota in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in American. She also serves on the ELCA Disabilities Ministry Team. Enjoying this podcast episode? Click here to find other Music and the Church episodes, or subscribe to the show wherever you listen to podcasts. Resources We Mentioned "Why Americans Go (and Don’t Go) to Religious Services," from the Pew Research ForumLast month's Music and the Church episode with Anita Smallin, which covers similar theological areas in relationship to welcoming children in church services Favorite Quotes from the Conversation “We were raised with the idea that it takes all kinds of people to make our world. We all have a place, we all are important, whatever our gifts and abilities may be. And not the perspective of, even though you have a disability, you’re important. No, you are important in the fullness that you are.” — Pastor Lisa Heffernan “If we believe in a God that embraces all people, we then are called to embrace one another in the name of Christ, and to find ways to make our worshipping communities, all our communities, as ‘accessible’ as possible, so that all can fully participate, because all are beloved children of God.” — Pastor Lisa Heffernan "The longer our churches stay inaccessible — whatever that looks like — the fewer people we are going to have hear the gospel. And what’s our mission here? We’re not a social club, we’re a church, and our call is to share the gospel. How do we best do that?" — Pastor Lisa Heffernan Share This Podcast If you enjoy this podcast, please consider sharing it with your friends who love church music. It's the best way for them to find the show!

E68 Best Advice for Relaunchers Special Holiday Compilation Episode Combining the "Best Piece of Advice" from 14 episodes of "3, 2, 1, iRelaunch," you'll hear from guests including NBC's TODAY show financial editor, Jean Chatzsky; former editor-in-chief of Cosmopolitan, Kate White; Ladders Founder and CEO, Marc Cenedella; "The Lawyer Whisperer," Julie Brush; authors of The Ambition Decisions, Elizabeth Wallace and Hana Schank, co-founder of "Grown and Flown," Lisa Heffernan; and many more. Be sure to listen to the full podcast content from each of these special guests in previous episodes.

This week we’re talking with Lisa Heffernan, co-founder of the website Grown & Flown, all about not only choosing a college (what to ask on tours!!), but how to help your child once they’re actually at college. She also tells us what question her website gets the most about kids and college! And of course, our Bytes of the Week, including some amazing new help for filling out the FAFSA application for college financial aid. This Week's Links: Lisa Heffernan http://bit.ly/2QYofOK Grown & Flown http://bit.ly/2R3LpTN Common Data Set http://bit.ly/2R47KRt The Bowery Boys Podcast http://bit.ly/2R6jtiv Bowery Boys Movie Club http://bit.ly/2R1ZEZk Lenovo Smart Display https://go.magik.ly/ml/fuza/ JBL LinkView https://go.magik.ly/ml/fuz8/ FAFSA app http://bit.ly/2OTHibG Frank app http://bit.ly/2R0zs1k Thanks for listening! Please let us know if you have any questions or topics that you'd like us to tackle. And we would appreciate a great rating and review on iTunes!! http://bit.ly/14K7YED

Lisa Heffernan, co-founder with Mary Dell Harrington of "Grown and Flown," and best-selling author of “Goldman Sachs : The Culture of Success,” joins Carol to discuss her varied career path and the motivations that led to her professional decisions (here’s a hint: sometimes the answers come to you – you just have to listen). A mother of three, Lisa describes her decision to be a “stay-at-home mom” and what she wishes she’d known at the time. You’ll also hear about Grown and Flown’s participation in the UT Austin “Foundation Scholars” program to help first-generation college students. https://grownandflown.com/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P24UAxg5VYA

How to choose the right college? If approaching that question feels daunting, don’t miss this surprising, practical, deeply comforting episode. In Episode 121 of Edit Your Life, Asha interviews Lisa Heffernan, co-founder of Grown & Flown, a blog about parenting 15-25 year old kids through high school, college, and beyond. Asha and Lisa talk big-picture-to-nitty-gritty about the elusive notion of “college fit,” what really brings kids success (hint: it's not the college's reputation or pedigree), how to let go of baggage about where kids “should” go to college, how to support your kids without taking over, and more. + + + + + Every week, Edit Your Life shares practical ideas for decluttering your home, schedule, and mental space without getting bogged down by perfection. Hosts Christine Koh and Asha Dornfest are award-winning bloggers and the co-authors of MINIMALIST PARENTING and won the 2017 Iris Award for Podcast Of The Year. Share: #edityourlifeshow Show notes: edityourlifeshow.com Facebook: facebook.com/edityourlifeshow Email: edityourlifeshow@gmail.com