Podcasts about that ceo

About 15 years ago, frustrated by his inability to persuade his leaders at the time to use real language when communicating financial results, Apella's Andrew Brown tried to find other firms that offered inspiration. Depressingly, he could only really find one. But what a one! This CEO of a rising star of the FTSE250 (which would eventually become a FTSE50) had that year opened his CEO statement by saying that "it had been a difficult year which would require explanation and context, but he recognised that too many readers don't get beyond para three so here is a helpful list of six things you really need to know." It was so refreshing.  A couple of years later he described the previous 12 months as “the year of the chameleon: quite useful in that they eat insects, but challenging and a bit fickle”. One year he said that high on his list of worries was the firm not achieving specific financial ratios but second was having a garage full of stuffed toys if a marketing campaign failed. Third, was his wife getting pregnant. He's also compared results to baked potatoes, pavlovas and seedless watermelons. He also liked quoting Dickens every now and again. That CEO was Henry Engelhardt. He co-founded Admiral Insurance Group and now joins us on The Little Questions podcast alongside Apella Advisors partners Andrew Brown and Jenny Scott.  You can get in touch by emailing podcast@apellaadvisors.com and please consider leaving us a review. Find out more at apellaadvisors.com. Andrew Brown, formerly Director of Communications and Public affairs at Ageas Insurance, Andrew has more than ten years' experience leading the corporate affairs functions for global, listed, multifaceted firms across a range of regulated and unregulated sectors. He has considerable experience in issues, crisis and change management as well as reputation sentiment analysis and insight. Formerly Director of Communications at Drax Group plc and Group Corporate Affairs Director at Regus plc. Email: acb@apellaadvisors.com Jenny Scott, former Executive Director of Communications at the Bank of England and co-lead for Bank wide strategy. Advisor to the Governor, sat on the Bank's executive committee and risk committee. Formerly economics and politics correspondent for the BBC and presenter of the Daily Politics. Trustee of Pro Bono Economics. Email: jjs@apellaadvisors.com This podcast is produced by The Podcast Coach.

PROMOTE YOU VS PROMOTE YOUR GUEST When interviewing others on your podcast, it can become difficult to tell your story and promote your business. On this episode, we discuss 3 ways to monetize your podcast interviews. CHALLENGE WITH INTERVIEWS Using interviews is a great way to create content on your podcast, because when you create an interview, you don't have to do a lot of the heavy lifting. When you create an interview, you simply need to ask some great questions of your guest and then be a great listener. Allow your guests to tell great stories. It's a super convenient and easy way to create great podcast episodes. The challenge with podcast interviews is finding a way to highlight your expertise and demonstrate your authority on the podcast episode while making your guests look great. Dave Jackson over at the School of Podcasting says, "If you want to grow your influence and authority, do a solo episode. If you want to grow your network, do an interview episode." I prefer to combine the two and do both formats. Occasionally, I'll do solo episodes. Occasionally, I'll do interview episodes. INTERVIEWS CAN BE EFFECTIVE But I don't think those interview episodes need to just be a write-off where you can't demonstrate your expertise and authority in your space while also making your guests look great. It is a benefit to you when you make the guest the star. You benefit by association with the guest. When you make your guest look great, you look great in return. You look great by association. When you interview amazing people on your show, you benefit just by being associated with those great people. But you can't only rely on making the guest look great to drive your business. When Oscar came to me for coaching, he had a great podcast. He is an expert in listening. Oscar Trimboli hosts the podcast Deep Listening - Impact Beyond Words. That's also the name of his book, which is fantastic. During our initial call Oscar said, "I have a podcast. I love doing it. But it's not doing anything to grow my business." Can you relate to that? So many coaches tell me they struggle to attract clients with their podcast. I listened to an episode of Oscar's podcast. He did a great job interviewing his guests because Oscar is a great listener. Of course, he does a great job interviewing. The problem was there was nowhere in the episode where Oscar told me what he did or how I could work with him, And that's the challenge. 3-STEP PROCESS How do you create space for yourself to demonstrate your expertise and authority while making your guests the star and making your guests look great? Create space for yourself by teaching a little bit before you get into the interview. I use a 3-step process. First, record the interview first. Sit down with your guest. Have a fantastic conversation. Make your guest look great during that conversation. Then when the interview is over, record an introduction to the interview. It might last 5 or 10 minutes where you demonstrate your expertise and authority on the subject matter. This introduction could be a broader topic. AN INTERVIEW EXAMPLE On last week's episode, I interviewed Kimberly Crowe. She is an expert when it comes to speaking to sell. Kimberly runs Podapalooza and Speaker's Playhouse. She's fantastic. If you didn't check out the last episode, go back and listen to Episode 469 with Kimberly Crowe "Speaking to Sell". It's amazing. Kimberly does a great interview on speaking to sell. Then I do a little teaching on speaking in general and the different kind of stages you could land for speaking gigs. My teaching a little broader than what Kimberly talks about. I use her as a small micro example of the bigger topic I teach on the episode. You might teach on something and use your interview as a case study for what you just taught. Take 5 to 10 minutes before the interview begins to demonstrate your expertise and your authority before you get into the interview. Once you get your teaching done, you can allow your guests to shine. You've already done your work and heavy lifting. The teaching allows you to make yourself the authority and the expert in your space. The teaching directs people to your call to action, getting them to your lead magnet, getting them to on your email list. Do that all up front before you get into the interview. Now the interview can still allow you to grow your network. It can still allow you to create great relationships with your guests. But it also allows you to demonstrate your expertise and authority in each and every episode. So what are the 3 big ways you can use interviews to monetize and grow your business? AUDIENCE TO CLIENTS The first way to monetize interviews is to monetize your audience. Turn your audience into clients. Sell your own stuff. When you get great guests on your show, demonstrate what it is that you have to offer, and lead your listeners to doing business with you. I discovered 6 reasons your podcasts don't make money, and the very first reason is you don't have anything to sell. If you don't have anything to sell, it's difficult for you to make money. NO SPONSORS A lot of podcasters come to me and they say, "Erik, I wanna generate some revenue with my podcast." I say, "Fantastic. How do you wanna do that?" And they say, "I want to sell ads and sponsorships." That is the worst way you could monetize your podcast. You do not want to clutter up your show with ads and sponsors. There are four reasons ads and sponsorships are bad for your podcast. LARGE AUDIENCE First, ads require a very large audience. Over 5,000 downloads per episode is usually what it takes to land a sponsor for your show or sell advertising. This threshold is especially true if you're working with the larger ad agencies. They want podcasts that are over that 5,000 downloads per episode in order to be in that stratosphere to sell ads and sponsors for your show. According to podcast audio host Libsyn, only 7% of all podcasts on Libsyn achieve that number. That means 93% of all podcasts on Libsyn don't hit the 5,000 download per episode number. It's very hard to sell ads and sponsors when you're not over that number. So, the 93% of us that aren't over that number need to find Some other way to monetize. That would be selling your own stuff. TOO MUCH TIME The second reason that podcasts, suffer when it comes to ads and sponsors is that selling ads requires a lot of time and energy to get out and sell an ad or a sponsor. Let's look at radio. A radio station has a staff of 15 or 20, each working 40 hours a week to sell advertising on the radio station. You don't have that kind of time. And then once you sell the ad or the sponsor, you then have to go do it again and again and again. Even if you sell them for a quarter or for a year, you still have to go out and do it again. If you create your own stuff and you sell listeners into a recurring revenue model like a membership, then you sell them once and you're making money over and over again. When you create a course, you do the work once and it generates revenue over and over again without you having to do the work again. And it's much easier to sell a course than it is to sell advertising and sponsorships. TOO MUCH CLUTTER The third reason that ads and sponsors are bad for your podcast is because it clutters up your show. Studies of traditional media, television and radio show people are fleeing traditional media. They want to get away from all of the commercials on radio. People are running toward podcasting because there isn't the quantity of ads and sponsors that you find on traditional media. I was listening to Brendon Burchard's podcast the other day. I love Brendon's content, but my finger started to get sore from fast forwarding through all the commercials. His podcast had probably four minutes at the beginning, another four minutes in the middle, and another four minutes at the end. I had to fast forward through all of them, because it clutters up the content. I just want to listen to the show. That's why I enjoy podcasting. I can get away from the deluge of ads and sponsors. Now if Brendon were just selling his programs, I wouldn't have a problem. His programs are great. I've invested in many of his programs. But, I don't need to hear ads about Kajabi and all the other stuff that he has in there. 12 minutes of commercials doesn't make for an enjoyable experience. THE CEILING Finally, ads put a limit on the amount of revenue you can generate. That makes it bad for your podcast. All of that work you put into creating great content and all of the work you put into selling a sponsor, only to limit the amount of revenue you can generate. Even look at Brendon. It is one of the biggest podcasts in the business spectrum, and he has twelve commercials on his podcast. Twelve is overload, and he's only got 12. How much money can you possibly make on an annual basis if it's limiting your inventory? You have a ceiling on the amount of revenue you can generate. SELL YOUR STUFF So instead of ads and sponsors, market your own stuff. Use your podcast as a marketing tool for your products and services. If you're going to advertise anything, advertise your stuff. Or at least an affiliate product so you're getting paid every time a product sells. CURRENT CLIENTS To use interviews to turn your audience into clients and generate revenue, interview current clients. Interview clients who have already gone through the transformation that you offer. Have a conversation with current clients about where they were, the transformation they experienced, and where they are today. You talk about the transformation you offer, and then invite your listeners to come experience that same transformation by becoming your client. Shane and Jocelyn Sams host the Flip Lifestyle podcast. It is mostly Shane now. Jocelyn in there occasionally. The 2 of them are a husband and wife team. They run the Flip Lifestyle membership. I believe the Flip Lifestyle podcast is now transitioning into the Make Money Online podcast. He changes it every now and then. On the podcast, Shane typically interviews current members of the Flip Lifestyle community. They talk about where the guest was when they started building their membership. Shane asks the guest about their experience and transformation going through the Flip Lifestyle community. They talk about what did they discovered, what they learned, the things they implemented, their transformation, and finally where they are today. He talks about all of these great individuals who create these fantastic memberships and make a ton of money online. Then he invites his listeners to come and join the community. It's a pretty simple process. Turn listeners into clients by interviewing current clients and demonstrating the transformation those current clients have experienced. It's a great way to turn your interviews into revenue. Interview current clients and show your audience the transformation you offer. Invite the audience to come and work with you. That is the first way to monetize podcast interviews. Monetize your audience. INTERVIEW POTENTIAL CLIENTS The second way to monetize podcast interviews is to turn your guests into clients. Interview potential guests. If you do strategy calls or discovery calls for your coaching business, this is a fantastic way to turn those calls into interviews and convert clients. Instead of just doing a generic interview on your podcast, invite prospects to be on your podcast. Give them a free coaching session. That coaching session is your strategy session or your discovery call, and it allows you to start building the relationship with your guests to turn them into a clients. How often do you struggle with getting people on your strategy call or on your discovery call? When you invite people to be a guest on your podcast, the perception of the sales call fades away. OPEN DOORS Zoë Routh is an expert on people stuff. She helps businesses break down the silos, so different departments work better together. When Zoë came to me, we talked about her podcast and how she could make it more effective. I asked Zoë how many downloads she was getting. She said, "I have no idea." I said, "Really? You don't know what your downloads are? I thought we were all obsessed about our downloads." Zoë said, "Yeah. I'm not really worried about it. That's not how I use my podcast." She expanded on that a bit. Zoë continued, "I use my podcast just to open doors to potential clients who wouldn't normally take my call." In her consulting business, Zoë works with high level CEOs to help them restructure their business. They break down the walls of the silos, and help departments work better together. Zoë told me, "A lot of times, those CEOs are busy and don't have time to take my call or meet for coffee for a sales pitch. So instead, I call and I invite them to be a guest on my podcast." She said, "It makes it a lot easier to get past the gatekeeper. It makes it a lot easier to have a conversation with that CEO, and it makes it a lot easier to start building a relationship with that individual. So I use the interviews as a way to open doors to potential clients." I thought that was absolutely brilliant. BUILD RELATIONSHIPS Now, Zoë has the opportunity to have a conversation with the CEO when she invites that CEO on the podcast as the guest. Next, she has a conversation with the CEO on a pre-call. Then she has the interview with the CEO, so she's on for a third time having that conversation. Finally when the episode is ready to publish, Zoë has a fourth conversation with the CEO. On this call, she explains to them how the episode is published, how they might share it, and how they might benefit from it. At this point, she's had four conversations with that CEO before they ever even start talking about doing business together. She's building the relationship. By the time she's done with that fourth call, they are ready to talk about working together. Now they know each other. They have a bit of a rapport going on. That CEO is much more likely to have that conversation and take that meeting with Zoë than they were if it were just a cold call. She uses her in her interviews to turn guests into clients. And here's the benefit. When you do it this way, it also accomplishes that first way to monetize by turning listeners into clients. When you interview a potential client, and you give them that coaching call or that discovery call or that clarity call, it also shows your listeners what is possible by working with you. It shows listeners what it's like to sit down and have a discovery call with you. When you invite listeners to a discovery call, they understand how it works and what it looks like. Show listeners what's possible by interviewing potential clients. INTERVIEW PARTNERS Finally, the third way to monetize your podcast interviews is to interview joint venture partners. Interview partners who can put you in front of your ideal target listener, and interview partners who have great opportunities for your audience. Interviewing partners will help you generate affiliate income by marketing what your JV partner has to offer. But, it also gives you a platform and a stage to swap with that joint venture partner so they can put you on their stage and give you an opportunity to make your offer to their audience. You win twice. YOUR JV PACKAGE Marc Mawhinney is the host of Natural Born Coaches podcast. It's a great podcast. He was my coach for awhile, and he's fantastic. Marc also runs the Coaching Jungle. It's a Facebook group of about 25,000 members.  To generate revenue with his interviews. Marc does a really unique joint venture program. It's called the flat fee JV. He charges joint venture partners a flat fee. When you typically work with a joint venture partner, you get a commission from everything that sells through your affiliate link. You interview JV partners on your show. They make an offer through your affiliate link. Whenever somebody buys through that affiliate link, you get a commission. It's pretty cut and dry. Nobody loses in that situation. When people buy, you get paid. If people don't buy, you don't get paid. When people buy, your JV partner wins because people enroll. If people don't buy, your JV partner doesn't lose because they are not out any money. That's how a typical joint venture partnership works. FLAT FEE JV With Marc's flat fee JV, people pay him one flat fee. In that flat fee, you get an entire package. The flat fee JV package includes an interview on his podcast. He hosts a webinar for his entire community featuring you. You are allowed to post in his Coaching Jungle Facebook group. Plus, Marc does a few Facebook live videos with you in the Facebook group, and you're included in his daily email. It's all in a complete package. You get it for all for one flat fee. So you pay him, you get all of that marketing, and he only gets paid the flat fee. You keep all revenue generated. The downside to Marc is that there's no increase in affiliate commissions. He doesn't make more the more people buy. He just delivers on his promise, and he gets one flat fee. So, his revenue is capped, but there's also a floor. He doesn't make any more. He doesn't make any less. It's pretty steady income. On the JV partner side, there's a risk that people don't buy anything and you're out your flat fee. But, there's also an upside that if people buy more than what the flat fee cost you, you keep all of it. It is a great upside, but it's also a great way to leverage interviews to help joint venture partners and to help make money. Now, you can do the flat fee JV like Marc does. Or, you can do a traditional joint venture partnership where you interview partners. Whenever somebody buys, you make a a commission. TRADITIONAL JV PARTNERSHIP Sadie and Sausha over at Meathead Test Kitchen do this. I help them launch their podcast. They talk about all the stuff they love in health and fitness On the podcast, they direct people to their website to buy all of the stuff they talk about. On their website are all the affiliate links to buy all of the great stuff they talk about. This is a great way to leverage partnerships to generate revenue through interviews as well. Sadie and Sausha interview health experts and people who've invented things in the health and fitness industry. They interview those experts about their products and services. Finally, Sadie and Sausha offer those products and services on their website through their affiliate link, and they make great money there. YOUR STAGE It's just one way to leverage partnerships. It also gives you that stage. When you're talking to somebody about putting you in front of their audience so you can attract your ideal clients, you now have a stage you can put them on. You can put partners on your stage in front of your audience, your stage being your podcast. Get them exposure to your audience. You both win. This is a great way to leverage podcast interviews to grow partnerships and monetize your podcast interviews. THE THREE WAYS Those are your 3 ways to monetize podcast interviews. The first is you can turn your audience into clients. The second way is turn your guests into clients. And the third way is to interview partners and generate, revenue through commissions and affiliate fees. So, get in there and refine your interviews. Refine the way you conduct interviews. Set up that little, space at the beginning. Leave space for yourself to demonstrate your expertise and your authority in your space so you get people to understand how you are the expert before you get into the interview. Demonstrating your authority at the beginning will allow you to shine the spotlight on your guest, and make them look great without having to figure out how to weasel your way in and make yourself look great. Just get in there and show them what you do. EXPERIMENT Select your favorite way to leverage your interviews for revenue and get started with it this week. You may need to Experiment with 1 or 2 of these to see what works, to see which ones you like. Monetizing your audience might take a little longer than monetizing your guests. But when you monetize your audience, you have more than one person in your audience that could become a client. When you're monetizing your guest, it's just the one person sitting across from you that could become a client. However, that one person sitting across from you might become a client much faster than the audience will become a client. The audience is a little further away in terms of relationship. It's going to take longer to nurture them and move them along to be your client. So one comes with speed, figure out which one you want. It's quality or quantity. Experiment, and see what works. The the biggest thing I can recommend is that you get started today. This week when you're creating your next interview episode, decide how you want to monetize that interview. Start doing one of these 3 strategies. You'll start generating revenue In the right way, in a in a powerful way. Just get started and take some action. NEXT WEEK... MINDSET Next week on the show, we will talk to Merri-jo Hillaker about mindset. Where are you in your mindset? I know that little voice inside your head creeps in and starts talking about all of the things that could go wrong. The voice tells you why you're not the right person to do it. We all struggle with that little voice in our head. We're gonna help you beat that back next week. Merri-jo Hillaker has some great tips for us when it comes to mindset and achieving all that we want to achieve.   If you don't have a mentor who can take your hand and walk you every step of the way, go to www.PodcastTalentCoach.com/apply, click the button and apply to have a chat with me. We will develop your plan and see how I can help and support you to achieve your podcast goals.

Guest Bios Show Transcript https://youtu.be/CaDhqixI0jsExposing abuse and corruption can be a thankless job. Powerful figures doing wrong often deny and attack those exposing them. And their supporters often join suit—attacking the messenger, rather than holding their leader accountable. This edition of The Roys Report features a very personal talk from Restore Conference founder and journalist, Julie Roys, delivered at the recent event this past October. It's centered on one question: why continue reporting, advocating, and shining a light when doing so comes at such a high personal cost? Journalists like Julie often ask this question—and so do many abuse survivor advocates, whistleblowers, and allies. The work can be grueling, and the pay off at times seems minimal. But in this talk, Julie shares not just her own struggles, but also the convictions she's gained over years of exposing abuse and corruption. If you're struggling to keep fighting for truth and justice, this talk will not just encourage, but inspire you to keep going. Guests Julie Roys Julie Roys is a veteran investigative reporter and founder of The Roys Report. Julie previously hosted a national talk show on the Moody Radio Network, called Up for Debate. She also has worked as a TV reporter for a CBS affiliate in Fort Wayne, Indiana, and as a newswriter for WGN-TV and Fox 32 Chicago. Julie's work has also appeared in Christianity Today, Religion News Service, The Federalist, and The Christian Post. She and her husband, Neal, live in the Chicago area and have three children and two grandchildren.  Show Transcript SPEAKERSJulie Roys Julie Roys  00:04Exposing abuse and corruption can be a thankless job. Those doing wrong often deny and attack those exposing them. And their supporters often join suit, attacking the messenger rather than holding their leader accountable. So why continue reporting and advocating and shining a light? Welcome to The Roys Report, a podcast dedicated to reporting the truth and restoring the church. I’m Julie Roys. And the question of why not quit is one of those questions I’ve asked myself repeatedly over the years. And I know it’s not one that just journalists ask; many abuse survivor advocates, whistleblowers and allies do too. The work can be grueling and the payoff at times can seem minimal, so why not quit? Why keep fighting Goliath when the odds continually seem stacked in our opponent’s favor?   Julie Roys  00:52 What you’re about to hear is a very personal talk I gave at the 2023 RESTORE conference. The past 18 months have been especially hard for me. And there have been times when I’ve struggled profoundly with whether I can stay in this work without it deforming my soul. If you’re a survivor, or whistleblower or an ally, or maybe all of the above, you’ve probably experienced some of the same struggles. You may be struggling today. In this talk. I don’t pretend to have all the answers. I’m still processing a lot of this stuff myself. But what I do is share my journey and why ,despite the difficulties, which are many and real, I’m not quitting. You’ll hear my talk in just a minute.   Julie Roys  00:52 But first, I’d like to thank the sponsors of this podcast, Judson University, and Marquardt of Barrington. If you’re looking for a top ranked Christian University, providing a caring community and an excellent college experience. Judson University is for you. Judson is located on 90 acres, just 40 miles west of Chicago in Elgin, Illinois. The school offers more than 60 majors, great leadership opportunities and strong financial aid. Plus, you can take classes online as well as in person. Judson University is shaping lives that shaped the world. For more information, just go to JUDSONU.EDU. Also, if you’re looking for a quality new or used car, I highly recommend my friends at Marquardt of Barrington. Marquardt is a Buick GMC dealership where you can expect honesty, integrity, and transparency. That’s because the owners there Dan and Curt Marquardt, are men of integrity. To check them out, just go to BUYACAR123.COM.   Julie Roys  02:37 Well, again, here’s the talk I gave a RESTORE 2023 on why not quit? Well, at the first RESTORE conference in 2019, I announced from this stage that we were experiencing an unmistakable move of God to purify his church. James MacDonald had just been exposed as the bully and hypocrite that he was and removed from Harvest Bible Chapel. Bill Hybels was exposed as a sexual predator, and people were finally believing the women, and revelations about Jerry Falwell, Jr. were just beginning to come out. And then donors alleging fraud won a massive $37 million dollar settlement from Gospel for Asia. Clearly God was cleaning house right? And over the next few years, the revelations just kept coming. Jerry Falwell, Jr, resigned from Liberty University amid shocking allegations of sexual and financial misconduct. Ravi Zacharias was shown to be a serial sexual predator, and RZIM was shut down. Hillsong began to implode beginning with Carl Lentz and his sexual misconduct going all the way to Brian Houston, and his sexual misconduct. And then I reported probably the biggest investigation I’ve ever done. I reported on John MacArthur, the supposed greatest expositor of the 20th century, that he had a pattern of shaming abuse victims and protecting their abusers. With story after story after story, the evil infecting the evangelical industrial complex, was being exposed and routed out. And probably more than any other time in my life, I felt like I was right in the middle of this remarkable thing that God was doing. Well, then I experience the most virulent backlash I have ever experienced. An army of YouTubers loyal to John MacArthur just kept hitting. They couldn’t go after the facts of my stories, so they went after me. And I became the poster child of the angry feminist proponent of CRT, wokism –  it didn’t matter whether I adhere to any of these things. They republished it anyway. And John MacArthur, despite everything I’d reported on him, he didn’t get canceled. He went and spoke at the Getty’s Sing conference. At the G3 conference, the Puritans conference. Sure, his reputation has been tarnished a bit. But those loyal dug in.   Well, then some anonymous Twitter accounts loyal to John MacArthur found some objectionable content in a book that I wrote in 2017. And soon I wasn’t just facing backlash from John MacArthur and those loyal to him, but from my own tribe, and from the survivor community. And people were hurt, and they were confused. And like I said, yesterday, some of that criticism was valid and deserved, and I didn’t get the power differential and someone a relationship with somebody that had been in a ministry that I had led, and that was my own responsibility. And I had assigned fault where it didn’t belong, where I should have taken responsibility. But some of the criticism was cruel. And it was patently false. And it was shockingly personal. And if you’ve never been in the midst of a public controversy like that, it’s kind of hard to explain. But it is a unique kind of awful. At least when you’re a private person and people talk about you, they have the decency to do it behind your back. But when you’re a public person, they do it in front of your family and your children and your friends and thousands and thousands of other people. And it was traumatic for me, I know it was even traumatic for some of you. And then perhaps smelling blood in the water, Protestia, a so-called discernment blog, lacking hardly any journalistic integrity, announced that they had a story that was going to expose me as a fraud. And on a Friday, they tweeted, were blocked but someone tag at reached Julie Roys, and give her a heads up in our next article about her revealing some of her shenanigans is really, really gonna sting. And then they published this video:   07:05 I said at the very at the very beginning, that we have some more information coming out about Julie Roys that I’m hoping to have out to you by Monday but suffice it to say it’s going to blow up the facade of Julie Roys as an ethical investigative journalist. We have some information about some very unethical, I would say immoral, but certainly unethical., things that Julie Roys has been caught saying and doing and promoting that we’re going to be releasing this information, hopefully by Monday. So, stay tuned to Protestia.com for that information. I want to thank you all again for joining me tonight on this live stream.   Julie Roys  08:06 So that came out on a Friday, so I had the whole weekend. I’m on pins and needles a whole weekend and I’m like what awful thing did I just do? I have no idea what I just did. So, I’m waiting for this to come out and on Monday Protestia published this menacing tweet. Apparently the story had been delayed a day. But will come out the next morning. Yet on Tuesday instead of publishing their big expose on me Protestia had to publish a retraction saying they almost got conned by an abuse survivor. Of course, they’ve got conned because they went forward with all of these allegations on Friday. Apparently a woman had fabricated some emails that she said were from me. And in these emails, I allegedly said that she should go forward with 300 allegations against a well-known Christian figure whether they were true or false. And sadly, Protestia didn’t do the very basics, the number one thing that you do when someone’s accused, is you go to the accused, and you ask for their side of the story. They didn’t do that until Tuesday, when they started to recognize some things might be going wrong. And they had accepted these fabricated emails as fact for about three days and went forward with those, again, libelous, and slanderous allegations,. The experience was unnerving, especially in the middle of what I was dealing with. But it wasn’t the last hoax I faced either. Someone close to James McDonald came after me with wild allegations that I covered up a child sex abuse scandal at Harvest Bible Chapel when I was investigating it. Nothing could have been further from the truth. Yet, some survivor advocates picked up that story as well and they began tweeting and retweeting it. And I had to track down a story that was three years old and find the emails and the texts and go back to the primary sources and publish my own story, showing that these allegations were false. And whatever momentum that I had going into all of this was completely eradicated. I was just trying to keep my head above water. Emotionally, I was spinning. It was so, so tough.   Julie Roys  10:21 And then people started talking about whether or not I was going to quit. In fact, I got a call from a colleague of mine, and was actually the only journalist who called me in the midst of this. And he said, Julie, I am watching what’s going on online. And he’s like, are you all right? And it was really sweet. And I don’t even know what I said. I was playing blubbering something. But it was a sweet call. But at the end of the call, he’s like, hope you don’t take this the wrong way, but if you do resign, can I have the interview? I was a little taken aback, but then I got a call from a former blogger, who I got to know really well through an investigation. And he gave me permission to share what I’m going to share with you. But he just asked that I call him by his first name, his first name, Scott. And so, he said something very similar. He said, Julie, I’m watching what’s happening to you on Twitter right now. And I just have to tell you as your friend, like, this is painful. He’s like, You don’t owe me an explanation. I know you. I know your character. But don’t take this the wrong way. But have you thought about quitting? And he’s like, I love you and I care about you, and I’ve actually jotted down some reasons that I think you should consider. And would you be willing to just hear me out on this? And I love Scott. I respect Scott. And I knew the heart that he was saying this was, so I said, Sure. Scott, go ahead. Tell me what you think. And he said, one, I noticed that you’re taking all this friendly fire. See, usually, my accusers are the defenders of whatever church leader it is, that’s  caught in the crosshairs of some investigation. But now, my accusers were my own tribe. It was people, some people from the survivor community. And let me just preface what Scott said, by saying, I have found that the survivor community and the people in this room, that some of you have been some of the most gracious people that I know. And the love that I was shown from some of you was so touching. And I have so much respect for survivors. Because survivors have been through hell, and they’ve come out with this beauty. So many of you. And so, it really was a small segment of the survivor community that was really being nasty. But he said, Julie, given the way that you’ve been treated by your own tribe, why would you keep reporting their stories? And I know some of you know what that feels like. Because you’ve tried to help with something. And you stepped out and you’ve messed up in some way and the backlash, and what happened to you when you did that, made you feel like I don’t even want to do that again. Like why try? And that’s how I felt a little bit at that point.   Julie Roys  13:22 But then he said, secondly, maybe your work to expose abuse and corruption is done. And by this, he didn’t mean there weren’t any more abusers out there or anymore corruption. What he was saying is that there’s a pattern. In fact, there’s so much of a pattern, you just see it playing out again and again, and again. It’s like Wade Mullens said in his book, something’s not right. They’re all using the same playbook. They all use the same tactics. He’s like, have you thought that maybe, just maybe, those who have ears to hear have heard and the rest won’t ever listen to it anyway. But lastly, and this is the one that really kind of hit home. And he said, Julie, do you ever wonder in what ways reporting on all of these vile things in the church and living in this constant pressure cooker is molding you and forming you into someone that you don’t want to be? And then he quoted Friedrich Nietzsche, who said, Whoever battles monsters should see to it in the process, that he does not become a monster himself. And when you look long into the abyss, the Abyss also looks back at you. And then Scott recalled ways that when he was blogging, that he’d start to see how this was affecting him negatively. That’s part of the reason he stopped doing it. And he said, Julie,  don’t take this as a confrontation. I’m not saying that I see this in you yet. But when I read some of the comments sometimes at your website, that’s when I begin to see it. He’s like, It’s like Grace is disappearing. And friend, you know the verse in the passage in Corinthians, If I speak with the tongues of angels, but have not love, I am nothing but a resounding gong and a clanging cymbal or in my situation, if I expose every predator pastor and defend every vulnerable victim, but have not love, I am nothing. And I know again, my experience is unique in some ways, but it’s not. Also, some of you have been reporting, maybe not as a journalist, but in other ways have been trying to expose abuse and corruption in the church for far longer than I have. Some of you that have spoken at this conference have suffered far worse than I could even imagine,  for standing up for the truth. And you may not be journalists, although there’s some in this room. But you’re bloggers and podcasters and whistleblowers, lawyers, pastors, allies, advocates. And you may today profoundly feel betrayed by those that you expected to support you. A sense of futility about the work that you’re doing. And there are moments when you feel like your work, or advocacy is molding you into someone that you don’t want to be. And you may be wondering, is it worth it? Should I just get out of the trenches? Should I stop doing this and maybe just go to Colorado and hike mountains every day?   Julie Roys  16:39 I have wrestled with all these things profoundly. And I don’t speak today as someone who has all the answers. I am in process like a lot of you. But I do feel like God has spoken to me with some resolution on some of these things. And I just want to share with you kind of what God’s been saying to me, in the hopes that it’ll help you as you wrestle through some of these things as well.   Julie Roys  17:05 So let me talk about the first issue that Scott raised, and that’s betrayal. I mean, why report or advocate or serve or pastor on people who may at any point turn on you? First, let me say, it goes both ways. I’ve been hurt by some survivor advocates, some of them innocently, some of them maliciously. But I’ve hurt some people in this room. I’ve had to ask forgiveness for some people in this room. And they’ve had to show me grace. And so, in some ways, there’s really nothing unique about this. If you’re working with people, we’re going to disappoint each other, right? We’re going to let each other down, we’re going to have to ask for forgiveness, we’re going to have to extend grace. But this is I think the question itself had an assumption in it, and that is that I’m doing what I’m doing for survivors. And I love survivors. I love you guys, and I consider myself now after some of the stuff I’ve been through, one of them too; absolutely love you guys.   Julie Roys  18:20 But this is what I told Scott, or at least what I was thinking at the time, I can’t remember if I told him. But I’m not doing this for survivors. Maybe as a secondary reason, yes. But I don’t think any of us can stay in the work that we’re doing long term if we’re primarily doing it for people. Because when you’re doing it for people, your eyes are always on the worthiness of a person. And we’re pretty darn fallible. In the long term, if that’s what we do, we’re gonna end up very bitter and angry and burned out. The primary reason I’m doing what I’m doing, and I would suggest that all of us should be doing whatever work it is, as an act of worship to God. We’re serving God. And you’ve probably heard the story of Mother Teresa, where she was with a journalist in Calcutta. And he saw her cleaning out this infected wound that was this maggot infested. And he said, “I wouldn't do what you’re doing for a million dollars. And she shot right back, I wouldn’t either. She got that when she served the person on the street, she was serving Jesus. And so, whenever we’re serving whatever capacity it is, we are serving Jesus. I would also say that I do believe God called me to this work.   Julie Roys  19:45 I never would have imagined five years ago that I would be doing what I’m doing today. It was the furthest thing from my imagination. And I bet for some of you in this room 5 years ago, 10 years ago, 15 years ago, you never would have imagined you would be here either, or you never would have imagined the set of circumstances that put you in this room right now. And I’m guessing that if you look back over the ,5, 10, 15, however many years it’s been, if you look carefully, you can see the hand of God in your life, putting you where you are right now. It is not the road you would have chosen, but it’s the road that God worked redemptively in.   Julie Roys  20:31 Five years ago, I was a radio host on the Moody Bible Institute, Moody Radio Network. I’d just written a book, I was getting booked at these women’s conferences, ironically, one at Harvest Bible Chapel. I was getting booked on all these radio programs, I was on my way to becoming, God forbid, a Christian celebrity. But then I learned about corruption and abuse at the Moody Bible Institute. And I was the one person who not only had the inside information, but I also had the training and the skills to know what to do with that to expose it. And so, it didn’t take too long before it became a matter of conscience where I felt like if I didn’t say something, that I would be disobeying God. And some of you know exactly what I’m talking about, because you’ve sat in that situation before, where you’ve known that to stay quiet is to disobey God. But you have absolutely no guarantee that if you speak out, that it’s going to go well for you. In fact, you’re pretty darn sure that if you do speak out, it’s gonna go a lot worse. And that’s what happened for me. I got fired from Moody Bible Institute. Ironically, they also pressured the top three executives to resign that I had reported on. But I had broken the silent rule, which is, you never speak about these things publicly. I was actually told by a board member on the phone, that the reason they fired me is because the interim president told them that I had signed an NDA. And I will never forget the shock in his voice  when I told him that several years before when they had moved me from full time to part time that they had given me an NDA, and I fought it with everything I was worth. There was absolutely no way that as a journalist, I would sign something that resigned me to silence, absolutely no way. And he immediately said, Oh, I gotta go and hung up. And despite the fact that they had absolutely no grounds for firing me, I was completely blacklisted in the evangelical industrial complex. And many of you know what that is like too. I knew it would happen, just wasn’t, I had been in it for about 10 years. So, I knew how the game worked.   Julie Roys  23:02 And I thought when I got fired, this would be a great thing. I’ll have more time with my kids, and now my grandkids. But then survivors from Harvest Bible Chapel came to me begging me to hear their stories and do what I had done at Moody for Harvest. And then survivors from Mark Driscoll’s church came and said, “Would you please listen to us and report on what’s happening here? And then Steve Baughman gave me a copy of his book, Cover Up in the Kingdom. And he said, Julie, I’ve been reporting for years about how Ravi Zacharias is a fraud, but nobody will listen to me because I’m an atheist, but they’ll listen to you because you’re one of them. And God brought me story after story after story. And every single time I didn’t hear like the audible voice of God, but I felt very much that he was saying, keep reporting. And so that’s what I’ve tried to do. And ironically, God took the one thing that I thought would end my career, blowing the whistle on the Moody Bible Institute, and he used it to launch The Roys Report. And he used hurting people that I got to know in my reporting on Harvest and Willow Creek to start this conference. And I just see his hand working redemptively in all things. And I bet some of you like I said, if you look back over your life, and even this chapter, you might be able to see God’s hand working redemptively. Maybe not yet. Some of you I know, because I’ve talked to you and it’s like, you’re hanging by a thread right now. And you can’t even believe that the things that have happened to you at the hands of people you loved, and you trusted, and you thought were members of the kingdom and you were all working on the same team, did you what they did. And I would just encourage you for whatever mustard seed of faith that you have, hang on to Jesus. Just hang on. Because I also know that there’s others of you today that you never would have believed, you never would have believed 10 years ago that you would be where you are today. You never would have believed you’d be able to heal. You never would have believed with what you went through, that you would have the confidence and the courage that you have today that you will be as healed as you are. And I just want to remind you, that’s not just because you’re amazing. A lot of you are amazing. And you’re an incredible inspiration to me, and you have been through far more than I ever will go through and ever dream of going through, I would just encourage you to see the way that God has been working in your life doing what he said he would do, that he began a good work in you will carry it on to completion to the day of Christ Jesus.   Julie Roys  25:57 I don’t think it’s trite, that what God did in the Old Testament with Joseph that he still does today. That he takes the evil that was done against us, and he works it for good. And if he’s calling you to a certain work, I would just encourage you to do it with all your might, as unto the Lord. And I’m not going to quit because of the pushback. I think it comes with the territory. In fact, I had an editor once who said Julia, if you’re not getting any hate mail, then you’re probably just not saying anything.   Julie Roys  26:38 But what about the second reason that Scott mentioned? The seeming futility of fighting this evil that seems to have worked itself through the entire dough of evangelicalism and within the church, and you seem to be fighting this giant that is so incredibly massive, and all the people with power are propping it up. And quite frankly, we don’t have very much. In fact, in comparison, we’re just gnats; we’re like so small. You know, last night we heard from Jason and Lorie Adams Brown. And if you know their story, you know that they blew the whistle on Andy Wood, who had been at Echo church because of the spiritual abuse that they received at his hands. Despite the fact that they blew the whistle on him, and I had the privilege of reporting their story, Saddleback Church went ahead and hired him, and he is now the successor for Rick Warren at Saddleback Church.   Julie Roys  27:42 But it was so encouraging to hear from them how their courage and their speaking out, cause other people who had been similarly abused by some of the same people to come to them, and talk to them about the abuse. And for them to say how they got their voice back because that’s what abusers do. They take away your voice. And to reclaim your voice is a very important thing. It is empowering. And then they talked about how another story that came to me because I published that first story was stories about how Andy Wood and Echo Church had stolen these vulnerable congregations that own these multimillion-dollar buildings and had tried to steal those buildings. And a major Baptist leader went on the record with me talking about his experience of Andy Wood trying to steal numerous churches. And that never would have come out had they not spoken.   Julie Roys  28:42 I also recently produced a podcast with Emily Hyland, who’s at this conference. And Emily was a victim of abuse by Dane Ortlund, who’s a pastor in this area. And Emily told me that after we published the podcast, now she’s beginning to hear from other people who have similarly been abused by Dane Ortlund, and now they’re beginning to get their voice and they’re thinking of going on the record. And just a little bit ago, I published the story about Churchome. This is this West Coast church pastored by celebrity pastor Judah Smith, and the first piece that I did on Churchome was about this woman who had been raped by one of their pastors. And they even did an independent investigation and found out that there’s credible evidence, in fact beyond a reasonable doubt that her allegation was true. So, they pressured him, and he resigned from the church and three years later, they hired him back over her objections. And literally the same day, I started getting emails and texts and different things from women who had similarly been abused at that church and wanted to go forward with their story and I was able to do a three-part series on what Churchome had done. And right now, I can’t tell you what the story is because I haven’t published it yet. But I have a big one. And it’s due to another person at Churchome, seeing what we just reported. And now that person came forward and gave me a bunch of information. And that’s how it happens. Every single time with story after story after story. It’s like this little fire starts here, and then it spreads here, and then here, here, and soon the whole hillside is ablaze. And friends, that’s how movements happen. That’s how they grow. But it takes time, and it takes perseverance.   Julie Roys  30:34 At the first RESTORE, I said that this unmistakable move of God that it was not a sprint, it’s a marathon. Now, at that point, I thought we were in like mile 9 or 10. The more I’ve done this now I’m thinking we’re on four or five, we may be on two or three. And I hate to break that news to you. But I really do. People have compared this current state of the church to the Catholic church before the Reformation. I actually think that’s a fair comparison. It is that corrupt. It is that widespread. Do you know how long the Reformation took? Historians date it from 1517 to 1648. Friends that is 131 years. How about slavery? Let’s just look at England. It took William Wilberforce fighting passionately, so much so that his own health suffered greatly for two decades to abolish slavery in England, because friends, that’s how institutionalized evil and that is what we are dealing with institutionalized evil. That’s how it’s dismantled. So, do I get discouraged? 100%. I’m human. Are there days when it’s hard to persevere? But I believe the corruption in the church is the most serious threat to this country. And most Christians don’t even know it. That’s the shocking thing. Most Christians aren’t even aware of it. And you say, Well, how can I say that? How many times have we heard the hope of the world is Jesus and his means of rescuing the world is thank you, the church. And we’re supposed to be the salt of the earth. We’re supposed to be a light on the hill, and we are Sodom and Gomorrah. And yet, what are most all the Christian leaders doing right now? What are they talking about? They’re talking about all the sin out there. Right? They’re talking about everything that’s bad out there in the world. Like they have a moral platform to stand on. And they’re not talking about the sin in their own house, none of them. And unless we deal with the sin in our own house, there’s no way, there’s no way that we’re going to reform this country. And it certainly isn’t by electing some politician.   Julie Roys  33:21 But I would encourage you, and this is what I see happen a lot, is that people get really excited about a story that touches them personally. And thank God because every time I report a new story, there are people who are totally unaware that this is going on, and they become aware. But then what happens is they move on with their life. And I’m not saying that you shouldn’t move on with your life. Dear Lord, if all of us lived in, I’ve got a weird call. I get that. I got a weird personality too. I make mugs. Actually. I have people make them for me, but the biggest insults I get I actually enjoy that at times. I’m just kind of weird that way. But I’m just there is an element to which we can’t all live in that intensity, and I get that. But what I’m saying is, don’t just move on and forget there’s other people stuck. Don’t just move on. Keep your love for the church and for the mission and for the restoration of this thing that Jesus died for and that he loves. And don’t forget that if not you, who? So, am I going to quit because the progress is slow and hard? No. I’m going to keep in mind one of my favorite verses First Corinthians 15:58. Therefore my dear brothers and sisters, do not lose heart. Stand firm. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, knowing that your labor in the Lord is not in vain.   Julie Roys  35:07 And now I’m going to address the most concerning issue that Scott raised. And that is what if in the process of fighting the monster, you become the monster? Last year Christian therapist and trauma expert Dr. Diane Langberg, said from the stage that the way that you recognize a wolf is you don’t become one. Some people took offense at that, because they said, listen, we’re not all going to become pedophiles. We’re not all rapists, we’re not like on that level. And they’re right. It takes a certain level of pathology to do something like that. And most people, quite frankly, aren’t there, thank God. That said, that’s not what Diane was saying. What Diane was saying is that every single one of us, every single one of us has a sin nature. And if we don’t keep that in check, we can succumb to a lot of the same things as the people I report on. I would be lying if I said that I didn’t have some of the vices of the people I report on because I do. I struggle with anger, bitterness, contempt, self-pity, that’s a big one, pride. And the more I uncover and the more that I see innocent people abused by these people, the more difficult it becomes to deal with some of those vices. It can become a death spiral. And the spiritual death that we see in other people can become our spiritual death. Dr. Lambert writes about this in her devotional book called In Our Lives First. And this is a book that I’ve read twice, devotionally over the past 18 months. I’ll probably read it again over the next year because this is something that I constantly need to be reminded of. And she writes, those of us who work with such deaths must be extremely careful not to catch the diseases that surround us. We must be careful not to assume that catching such diseases is hard to do. Working with sin, suffering and evil can easily numb the heart. Numbness leads to death, if left alone. She also writes, counselors, though this is true of investigative reporters, it’s true of pastors, it’s true of Survivor advocates, many others. We are handling toxic things, and we have toxins in our own hearts, and it is not hard to either be destroyed by the work or to destroy those who come to us for help. So, what do we do? Do we quit working in the trenches? Lori Anne suggested that some people should quit. I’m not going to argue with Lori Anne. Maybe I tweak it a little bit. Let me just speak to those of you who like me grew up in a home where personal responsibility and duty was a big thing. Any of you? okay. And so sometimes those of us who grew up in these homes tend to do things because we feel like we have to, and we have a sense of responsibility and duty. And we can be destroying ourselves and destroying the relationships with those we love the most. Yet we keep doing it because we think we have to. Am I right? Can I get an Amen? Now, right? I don’t think God is honored when we destroy ourselves. And I tell you what, he’s certainly not honored, when eventually that turns into harm for others, because eventually that’s what happens. So, if that’s you, and that’s happening, you know, maybe you don’t need to have a frontline role. Maybe you can just step back for a season. Maybe you can support some people that are out there. You know, maybe you can adjust your role or maybe you do take a little bit of a break. Or maybe you do go to Colorado for three weeks and hike mountains. But is there a way? Is there a way to remain in work that exposes us to the vilest, the vilest things that happen in this world, yet instead of destroying us, it actually aids in our own sanctification? Sanctification, just a theological word for the process of becoming like Jesus.   Julie Roys  39:53 I grew up in the holiness movement. You may not know what that means. That’s okay. But in the holiness movement, we talked a lot about sanctification. And we talked a lot about a second work of the Holy Spirit, kind of like charismatics talk about a baptism of the Holy Spirit, except the manifestation within the holiness movement isn’t tongues, the manifestation is power over sin in your life. And we weren’t against tongues. Speak in tongues? Absolutely. Just like Paul said, I wish you all were like me. Just if it doesn’t lead to your sanctification, what good is it? That’s the point is that we become like Jesus, right? Diane Langberg writes a lot about sanctification. She doesn’t urge counselors to quit their work. Instead, she implores them to pursue Jesus. She writes, we have not heard God clearly if we fail to understand that one of the requirements for our work is that God’s sanctifying work must go on continually in us as well. If it does not, while we may appear for a time to be doing his work, eventually what is true will be made manifest. That we have not for the sake of others, meant to the sanctification process ourselves, we will damage his world, His people and His name, may it never be so.   Julie Roys  41:17 One of the great tragedies of the epidemic of abuse and corruption in the evangelic church is that it is pushing people away from Jesus. And many because of the hurt that they’ve experienced are beginning to deconstruct their faith. And I’m not dissing deconstruction. Many of us need to go back and reevaluate a lot of the beliefs that we took in and begin to think about those and we need a safe place to do that in. We need people who are safe people to do that with, we need safe people. We need to be safe people. And I’d be lying if I didn’t say that what I have been exposed to hasn’t caused me to doubt my faith. In fact, the hardest question for me has been does Christianity, does it make people worse? Or does it make people better? Because I’ve seen some really devout Christians who have incredible grip of Scripture, incredible grip of theology much better than I do. And yet they are some of the most wicked people I have ever known in my life. And I tell you what I’ve become convinced of, I’ve concluded that Christianity, divorce from a vibrant relationship with Jesus Christ and reduced to a theological system, a moralistic system, or God forbid, a political one is absolutely heinous. And it does make people into monsters.   Julie Roys  43:06 But I believe a vibrant relationship with Jesus Christ is not only helpful in helping us deal with the vilest thing of this world, it is 100% essential. I know my relationship with Jesus has sustained me over the past 18 months. I remember several weeks before last year’s RESTORE conference, and I was a mess, and Dr. Diane Langberg got on a zoom call with me for about 90 minutes. And she was so loving, and so gracious, which I’m sure is not hard for you to imagine. And she was Jesus to me. And I remember saying to her, Diane, the hardest part about this whole thing to me is that I’ve been accused of these awful things, and I can’t say anything. I remember having a very close friend who said, Julie, if you step down from that conference, everybody’s going to assume that everything that was said about you is true. And Diane said to me, she said, Julie, this is an opportunity for you to enter into Christ’s sufferings. And initially, I thought about that very much in a martyr sort of way. Because if you’ve been wronged in some way, it’s really really easy to get a martyr complex. Super easy. But it hasn’t been like that.   Julie Roys  44:43 So, I had a very profound experience with a spiritual coach mentor about, I don’t know, seven or eight months ago where we were just doing some breathing exercises because I was kind of worked up. It’s hard to imagine I know. And while we’re in the process of this, she said, just experience the Lord’s compassion. And that morning, I had read about Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane. And I began imagining being in the garden of Gethsemane with Jesus. I have a pretty vivid imagination. So, I’m there and I’m looking at his face and I see just incredible pain on his face. And it strikes me he’s just been betrayed by one of his 12 closest companions. And one of his three closest friends is going to deny him three times. And I felt betrayed by people who are frankly kind to strangers. I don’t really even know any more. And then Jesus is literally sweating, beads of blood. I had gone through some emotional trauma; I’ve never done that. And then Jesus is thinking about this in the night before he’s going on the cross. I began thinking of this, he’s going to be tortured to death the next day. I have never in my life been tortured for my faith. I read Miriam’s book, and I was devastated. What that woman has gone through, and she has overcome. I am in awe of her. Jesus suffered. The immensity of His suffering began to hit me. And I in that moment, finally didn’t feel sorry for myself. And somehow, in that whole process, I felt more unified with Jesus than I’d ever felt before. And there was this oneness, and somehow now what I had gone through had meaning and that made all the difference in the world. I’ve also been thinking about the fact that Jesus died for his enemies. I have enemies now. I don’t think I had enemies before I started reporting. Like I people didn’t like me. But enemies. I mean, somebody really bent on your destruction like that, actually schemes about it. I have those now. Some of you have those now. I’m having a tough enough time forgiving them. Dying for them? Man. And here’s where it gets tough because Jesus says we’re supposed to have the same attitude that he had.   Julie Roys  47:29 I was challenged by a friend several years ago, to just read through the Old Testament, and read about every single time that a prophet brings a word of judgment to people. It took me several months, but I went ahead and did it. And something dawned on me. Every time that God gave a prophet a harsh word to say to his people, it was never because he wanted to destroy them. We see this in the story of Jonah, right? You all know the story. Jonah is told to go to the Ninevites. Nineveh is the capital of the Assyrian bloodthirsty, hostile people, the enemies of the Israelites. And what does he do? He goes to Tarsus gets on a ship and they go out to the Mediterranean. The big storm comes they throw him overboard, fish swallow them, he’s in the fish three days, vomited up on dry land, and he says, Okay, fine, I’ll go to Nineveh, goes to Nineveh for three days. He tells the Ninevites that in 40 days, God’s going to destroy you. And then the Ninevites do a most remarkable thing. They actually repent and God has mercy on them. But Jonah, what does he do? He becomes despondent. He says to the Lord, oh, Lord, is this not what I said when I was in my country? That is why I made haste to flee to Tarsus, for I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love unrelenting from disaster. Therefore,  oh Lord, please take my life for me. For it is better for me to die than to live. Jonah had become every bit as hard-hearted as the people that he hated. And if that can happen to a prophet of God, it can happen to me, can happen to any one of us.   Julie Roys  49:29 So, this is kind of a heart check for us. This heart check for me, I began to think about this. Like what if John MacArthur repented? It’s hard to imagine. The man’s never apologized that I know of. That’s what I’m told from everybody near him. But let’s imagine he did. What if John MacArthur went to Eileen Gray, and he said, Eileen, I’m so sorry. When your husband tried to suffocate your daughter and the abuse was so brutal in your home that you came to the church, you came to us for help. And instead of helping you, we told you to drop that protective order that you would have gotten against him to protect, not you, but your children. And in front of the entire church, I, the shepherd shamed and excommunicated you simply for trying to protect your children. And years later, years later when it came out that he had sexually abused your children and was convicted by court, and you know how hard it is to be convicted in California of child abuse? And they sent him to prison? I still maligned you, and I protected your abuser. Oh, Eileen, I am so sorry. I have sinned against you. I’ve sinned against my church; will you forgive me? Or what if he went to Wendy Gray and, Wendy, when you came to me, or when your father came to me when you were just a teenager, and he confessed to my face, that he had sexually molested you, and I kept him on staff another three years and I wrote you that handwritten note telling you to forgive your father? That was wrong, that was a sin against you. And years later, decades later, when that action of mine had devastated your life, and you simply came to me because you wanted support going to the elders of the church, where your father was still pastoring. And at this point, you knew that he was a serial abuser, he was abusing many people because that’s what pedophiles do. Instead of coming with you instead of supporting you, instead of repenting for what I did, I said in an email to you, why has this become such an obsession for you? That devastated you. That was my fault. I am so sorry. Will you forgive me for that? Do I want John MacArthur to receive grace? Do I want him to repent? or would I rather him see his maker and try and make that excuse to him? Honestly? It’s a little bit of a struggle. But I thought about that. Imagine if John MacArthur repented? I mean, really repented? Can you imagine the ripple effect that would have? How many pastors that would affect in this church? Can you imagine what that would do? Unbelievable what would happen if John MacArthur repented. Would I rejoice at that? You bet I’d rejoice at that. That could be the start of revival in this church. That’s what we need to see – is pastors repenting.   Julie Roys  53:09 But I tell you what, that is not natural for me. I tell you what’s natural for me. When somebody hurts me, I want them to hurt in the same way that they hurt me. Can I get an amen? That’s human nature, isn’t it? The only reason that I have any grace in my heart is because of Jesus Christ. Because I wouldn’t have it without him. And without him, I would become a monster, I am convinced of it. And that’s why one of many reasons why I need Jesus. But now I’m going to say something a little bit controversial. I’ve also found that I need Christian community. And I know some of you have been so burned by your Christian community, and I don’t blame you for not wanting to darken the doors of the church. Three and a half years ago, we lost a church, or we left the church that I thought we would be in the rest of our lives. I thought it was different. I loved that church dearly. I loved the people in it. But the last straw for us was when they covered up sex abuse. And at that point, we just couldn’t trust the leadership anymore. And for two years, we went from church to church to church to church, and it was unbelievably depressing. And I won’t go into all the reasons it was depressing. I think you all know. But two weeks before everything blew up in my life when this whole controversy hit last year. Two weeks before that a professional colleague invited me to his house church. And here’s what’s kind of ironic, that professional call I happen to be the CEO of Christianity Today. Now, if you know anything about my past, which you may not, I have not had a great relationship with Christianity Today. That CEO, though, has since publicly apologized for some of the stuff that CT did to me under his predecessor. But two weeks before this happened, I was like, Great, yeah, I’ll try anything at this point. So, my husband and I went to the church, the house church. And it was great, we loved it. I was like, this is really super. Between week one and week two, everything in my world blew up, and I had to resign from the conference. And I remember walking into that house church with people I knew two weeks. And I wasn’t really planning on sharing this. But somebody noticed something I had said, and then when we were in small groups, they said something, and I just, and I’m bawling in front of people I don’t even know, hardly. But over the past 18 months, that’s become my Christian community. And I was invited into a women’s cohort. And that became a support for me. And the leader of the women’s cohort said, “Julie, do you have a prayer team? And I said, Well, I used to have a prayer team, but it’s kind of fizzled. And I don’t honestly even have the strength to put one together. And she says, I’ll do it for you. And so, once a month, we have this really sweet prayer time with a small group of people. And they’ve been some of the best times for me, and I honestly shudder to think of where I would be right now, if for the past 18 months, I had done that in isolation. And so, I’m so grateful for Christians in my life, who have been the hands and the feet of Jesus to me and who have loved me. And I don’t know. I can’t speak to your situation. I know some of you feel like you’re in a wasteland. And I know you feel like all the churches in your area are bad. And I don’t, I’m not even going to argue with you. I would just encourage you to not give up, to not give up. And to keep hoping, keep pressing into Jesus keep looking for Christian community. And I don’t know how God will meet that in your life. But I just trust he will because that’s just God’s nature. And I don’t know how long the wasteland will be, but it won’t last forever.   Julie Roys  57:40 So, we’re going to close this conference the way we close every single RESTORE conference, and that’s with communion. And Paul Lundquist, who is a local pastor who has been a dear friend of this ministry, and so supportive of what we’re doing is going to come and lead us in communion where we celebrate not just our oneness with Christ, but our oneness together as his body. So, Paul, would you come?   Julie Roys  58:05 Well, I hope you’ve been encouraged by what you just heard. And I wish you could have been there to experience communion together with those dear and beautiful souls at the RESTORE conference. That is a memory I will not soon forget. And I hope you’ll make it a point to join us at the next RESTORE conference, which we’ll be announcing soon. Also, I want to mention that the videos of these talks are all available at my YouTube channel. And we’re not charging anything for those. We just really want as many people as possible to benefit from these RESTORE conference talks. But friends, I’m sure you’re aware that producing these podcasts and videos is not cheap. So, if you appreciate this content and you’re able to help, would you please consider donating to The Roys Report, especially as you’re considering your end of the year donations, please remember us and the work that we do. We’re running a bit in the red this year so your gifts are especially critical, so we can continue podcasting and reporting at the same level. To donate just go to JULIEROYS.COM/DONATE. Also, just a quick reminder to subscribe to The Roys Report on Apple podcasts, Google podcasts, Spotify, or YouTube. That way you’ll never miss an episode. And while you’re at it, I’d really appreciate it if you’d help us spread the word about the podcast by leaving a review. And then please share the podcast on social media so more people can hear about this great content. Again, thanks so much for joining me today. Hope you were blessed and encouraged. Read more

“That CEO makes over a million dollars year!"Well, chances are that CEO might be getting underpaid for their efforts. In today's episode your host, Swim Karim, draws a harder line in the sand when it comes to the high CEO pay of many nonprofits by taking a look at the CEO pay of the top 10 revenue-producing charities in the United States and comparing that to the CEO pay of the top 10 nonprofit medical institutions across the country.For today's news segment we revisit a previous story regarding the closing of a @tenthousandvillages store out of Fort Collins, CO. In today's #NonprofitHorrorStory segment, we feature a story about the many ways feeble compensation of nonprofit workers can compare to their respective board members. Let's just say a private plane is involved.Listen on Apple Podcast here: https://bit.ly/Ep11TheNonprofitInsiderAppleListenListen on Spotify Podcast here: https://bit.ly/Ep11TheNonprofitInsiderPodcastSource: https://www.forbes.com/lists/top-charities/?sh=4f5056765f50https://www.propublica.org/article/st-jude-hoards-billions-while-many-of-its-families-drain-their-savingshttps://www.erieri.com/blog/post/top-10-highest-paid-ceos-at-nonprofits-2021Have a Nonprofit Horror Story you want Swim to read on the show? Email me at TheNonprofitInsiderPodcast@gmail.com for a Nonprofit Horror Story Guideline sheet today!If you're anything like me you like a nice evening tea in the evening after a long day. Visit Art of Tea for 10% off your next purchase of tea and tea accessories today, right here: https://artoftea.go2cloud.org/SHC

Headlines California is trying to pass the FAST Recovery ACT that would raise the minimum wage in that state to $22.00 per hour. McDonalds CEO has slammed the act saying it all but impossible to run small family run businesses paying people that much. That CEO made 7.4 million last year. The great Cindy Williams has passed away at 74. Sarah Michelle Geller revealed she had to give up many movie roles because of scheduling conflicts with Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Missed out on Fight Club, American Beauty, The Wedding Planner & Gangs of New York. Flavor Flav has said he used to spend $2,600 a day on crack cocaine during the height of his drug addiction. Equates to nearly a million dollars a year. Random Question The one where we ask each other some Share & Tell Something you have found that you want the world to know about – TV/Film/Book/Restaurant/etc. End on a positive note/positive message. Something positive you heard, or a news story, or a message, or a kindness you witnessed

A few months ago, my family and I plus about 20,000 other people went to see a live comedy event. What made it so unusual was that none of the 20,000 of us had our smart devices available. Instead, those devices were locked away in magnetic pouches required by the venue. The result? We, and everyone we talked to, agreed that the tech-free show was a superior experience. Simply put, we connected better with the comedian—who we had paid to see—and felt less distracted by cameras and the lights of the smart devices we had not paid to see. On the drive home I decided to get in touch with the CEO of the company to have a conversation about the psychology behind the product. That CEO, who is named Graham Dugoni, was happy to meet and gave a great interview as you'll hear. His company called Yondr (https://www.overyondr.com/) has been gaining popularity at live events with both the attendees and artists. It's even being used successfully at schools to the benefit of teachers and students. Yondr's motto, “Be here now,” is on-point and may even be a tip of the hat to the brilliant thinking of Ram Dass. Graham is very philosophical and thoughtful and we talk about how he came up with the idea for Yondr as well as the costs that unwanted technology has had on our attention spans. So, listen in as Graham and I have a lively conversation about our attention and how to temporarily shut down unwanted technology.

Show Notes:(1:56) Creating a Family-First Culture(4:05) Environment for Openness(6:27) Growing as a CEO(8:00) Advice for Creating an Open Door Policy(12:28) Misconception with Family-First Model(15:54) Autonomy in the Family-First Environment(18:25) The Importance of Diversity(21:07) Encouraging Communication(28:53) How Family Culture Impacts Client EngagementLinks:Shawn BlackJim RobinsonQuotes:“You have to do that in the interview process. You gotta get them open. You gotta…as they interview you, you started on the sales pitch and you trying to sell the idea for them working for you versus asking more questions of them.” Jim Robinson, (3:08)“That CEO thing just means I'm responsible to them. Not for them. I got to screw some things up, but I am responsible to them. That means [I've] got to do my very best to make sure we're continually growing and have a place for them to call home.” Jim Robinson, (7:49)”[The family-first model is about] respect and dignity, caring, loving, learn to love, learn to be loved, accept love from others. That's really, really what we all want anyway. Why not give that?” Jim Robinson, (10:05)”Family can be complicated. We prefer it not to be. So we simplify the family model and we just say, treat them like you treat your great-grandmother: dignity and respect, collaborate, ask opinions…” Jim Robinson, (19:37)“Practice quality service, treat them like you'd treat your great grandmother: dignity and respect [at] all times and ask, what else can you do for them?” Jim Robinson, (31:55)

Dave Rose and his team build custom revenue engines for companies around the world. He is the author of Overcoming the 15 Categories of Rejection. Rejection is a common occurrence that we all encounter in our lives. In this episode, we'll talk with Dave about rejection and how we can overcome it.     The Journey to Writing His Book   Dave was asked to speak to an audience about rejection. Dave thought, “No problem.” He jumped online, looking for the categories of rejection, and couldn't find anything. So he went to the library. The librarian searched on her computer and couldn't find anything. She asked another employee for help and they all started searching through the drawers that still used the Dewey Decimal System. They couldn't find anything.   Dave happened to be advised at the University of North Texas. He asked some of the professors there, but none of them knew anything either. “Nobody [had] ever categorized rejection,” he explained. “It just hadn't happened. There are lots of books around persuasion, and great books about overcoming being told no and rejection, [or] being more powerful with these kinds of skills, but no one had ever categorized [it].”   Dave continued, “Fast forward 10 years of studying in 22 countries to be able to say I'd categorized rejection and named the categories and helped people overcome [them]. I had no idea that was going to be how the book came about. But that's what's happened and it's changing people's lives.”   Categories of Rejection   In our interview, Dave shared some of the categories of rejection from his book.   Mind Blocks   Dave said this category was hard to identify. Most people understand a monetary block; they understand that they can't buy a $50 million house without that much money. But people miss mind blocks as a source of rejection. Dave explained that this mind block “stops people from even trying.”   He gave the example of asking me to borrow my car when he knew I'd say no. When people know what the answer will be, or think they know, they won't even ask.   “There [are] mind blocks in the audience's mind,” Dave continued. “This has been the most powerful [thing] where we help CEOs and companies change mind blocks [of their audience].”   Decision Makers   The next category is decision-makers. “Most people aren't even talking to the right [person],” Dave explained. “They're walking away rejected, they're trying to get somewhere in life and their trajectory is dampened. And they weren't even dealing with the right decision-makers. That was something that was overlooked for a while as an actual category of rejections. . . . It's like you're asking mom to borrow the car on Friday night but you know it's dad's decision, or you're asking dad and it's mom's decision.”   Likeability    Likeability is the third category of rejection. Before the book came out, Dave was speaking about it and taking questions. A woman said to him, “Love is a category. Did you get that?” Dave said, “Well actually . . . love is not a category.” She said, “If you don't say love is a category, then you've never figured it out.” Dave said, “Well, we figured that the third category of objection is likeability.” He asked her “Have you ever loved someone?” She responded, “Well, yes.” He asked, “Have you hated that person?” She said, “Yes.” Dave told her, “You [see] how that's on a scale. So we call it likeability on a scale. [You can go from] maybe in the neutral middle, to love, [to] hate, however you want to look at it, but likability is a category of rejection that encompasses love.”   Goal Shot or Close   Another important category is the goal shot or the close. This is “asking for what you want,” Dave said. “Most people think they're rejected, but they never really try to get what they want.” They might say, “I didn't become a doctor (or a lawyer, accountant, dentist, etc.) because I didn't have the money for school.”   Dave continued, “So there's a combination of money [and a] combination of a mental block. There might have been a combination of not asking for what you wanted. You can analyze a situation and find multiple categories of rejection impacting a situation. When you study it, you can start to remove those categories of rejection and get a lot more in life, and it just works for sales, for leaders, for a relationship, [etc.].”   How These Categories Can Benefit Entrepreneurs   In our sales efforts, one of these categories might be an obstacle to overcome in order to motivate someone to buy our product. There are also other ways these categories can benefit us. “Sometimes [the benefits are] not so obvious . . . report, culture, morale, employee relations, using it for how people interact and work together. Oftentimes they're hitting up against one another.”   Sometimes in companies, we have one team for one aspect and another time for a different one. We might think that one of the teams does this specific thing and someone from that team can't go into the other team. “That's a communication and rejection issue,” Dave said.    “Helping people understand how to communicate and how to get what they need from one another and overcome the rejections with one another and the teams . . . is very transmogrifying for a business. You find that it starts to impact the short term, the morale, and then you're gonna impact culture, and you can get a consistent, repeatable process in there.” - Dave Rose   Being Proud of Our Passions   One day, Dave was talking to a rock star speaker who'd heard Dave speak. This person said to Dave, “When I'm asked on a plane what I do, it's sexy. I just tell them “I help companies build rock stars,” [and] I love that. I just thought it's hot, but what you do isn't sexy. You build revenue engines and the customer experience.”   When Dave heard this, it hurt. He said, “For a couple [of] weeks, it hurt, and then I realized . . . but we sell millions of dollars worth of stuff every year. I mean it works. . . . My passion is building revenue engines, and that's not really sexy. And if [I] just say that . . . it's kind of confusing to people in a way. [But] I don't care anymore. My passion is to build revenue engines. . . . I don't make any apologies for that anymore.”   Dave is doing the thing his target audience wants the most: he's helping CEOs make more money. Someone else's passion may look more exciting or sound more interesting, but as Dave has learned, we don't have to feel bad about what we are passionate about.   Jumping on Tectonic Shifts and Breakthroughs   Here are a few examples of people or companies who had great breakthroughs or jumped on big tectonic shifts early to leverage them.   Elon Musk    When I asked Dave who he thinks the best digital monetizer is, he said Elon Musk. Dave compared Musk to Donald Trump, saying, “Donald Trump has a potential of notoriety and big ideas and an audience. And you take Elon, and he does it right. He does it right, and I'm not subscribing to any political side [or] ideology one way or another, I'm just saying there's a little bit of a similarity to me in terms of the platforms they have and what they can do, and comparing them, Elon takes this to another level from the digital side, and [he's] a master.”   Elon Musk is a great example of someone who has jumped onto tectonic shifts early and leveraged them. There's a great story about Elon Musk I told in a previous episode that is very relevant here. When the internet was very young, he went to one of the CEOs of one of the top yellow page companies, and he tried to sell them on a deal. Musk wanted to put the yellow pages online, and the CEO of that company took his huge, thick yellow pages, and threw it at Musk and said, “Do you think you're ever going to replace this with the internet?”    This is one of many situations where Elon Musk was rejected by someone who could not see his vision for leveraging tectonic shifts. But Elon went on to create something even bigger and more successful than the Yellow Pages.   Netflix   There's a legend that a similar thing happened with Netflix and Blockbuster. Netflix apparently asked to meet with the CEO of Blockbuster, and the Blockbuster CEO said, “What's a Netflix?” Obviously, they never made a deal, but it's the same question as with the yellow pages: What would have happened if they had made a deal? Blockbuster could have so easily been the digital streaming platform. They had all the resources. They had connections. It would have been so easy for them to do it, and they didn't take advantage of that tectonic shift. It destroyed and put that company out of business.   It's easy in hindsight to look back and see who ended up on top. However, it's not just what those big companies are doing wrong, but it's the opportunity that it presents for people like us. A lot of times people like us think there isn't a way for us to compete with those well-established, well-funded, and huge brands, the behemoths that are out there. We give up and are rejected before we even try. But all we have to do is find that tectonic shift, that disruption, that almost by definition the big companies are not going to quickly and effectively adapt to. We need to jump on that and build our business around that. That's our best strategy to leapfrog well-funded and established businesses.   Flamin' Hot Cheetos   Dave and I also discussed how breakthroughs can come from anyone. Dave said, “You need to set your company up to believe that it can come from anyone. Sounds like some sort of Fantasyland [to] make that happen, but you can do that with the right system. That's what leaders need to work on, creating a system that anybody here can make something amazing happen.”   The idea for Flamin' Hot Cheetos came from Richard Montañez who was working as a janitor for the company. A broken machine produced a batch of plain Cheetos, and he took them home. He put chili powder on them and tested them out on his family. When they liked them, he pitched the idea to a CEO over the phone and two weeks later presented it to the executive suite. Montañez ended up becoming an executive inside the corporation (Source: newsweek.com).   That CEO was wise enough to not reject a great idea or its messenger because someone with a lower position came up with the idea.   Key Takeaways   Thank you so much Dave for sharing your stories and knowledge with us today. Here are some of my key takeaways from this episode:   Sometimes our journeys will take us in unexpected directions, as with Dave's book. As he did, we can turn the unexpected into something great. Mind blocks happen when people don't even try to ask for what they want.  We must make sure we are asking the right decision-makers. Likeability is a scale that encompasses love.  There can be a combination of categories of rejection impacting a story. This is why it is important to identify each of them so we can overcome each of them.  When we're facing competition from large, well-established companies, we can often leverage tectonic shifts more quickly than they can, and that may present an opportunity to leapfrog the competition. We should set up our companies so that anybody can make something amazing happen.   Connect with Dave   If you enjoyed this interview and want to learn more about Dave or connect with him, you can find him on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidmrose/, you can learn about his book at https://15cor.com/ and you can learn about his consulting services at https://www.clevelglobal.com/.    Want to be a Better Digital Monetizer?   Did you like today's episode? Then please follow these channels to receive free digital monetization content:   Get a free Monetization Assessment of your business Subscribe to the free Monetization eMagazine. Subscribe to the Monetization Nation YouTube channel. Subscribe to the Monetization Nation podcast on Apple Podcast, Google Podcasts, Spotify, or Stitcher.  Follow Monetization Nation on Instagram and Twitter.   Share Your Story  How has overcoming rejection helped you and your business? Please join our private Monetization Nation Facebook group and share your insights with other digital monetizers.   Read at: https://monetizationnation.com/blog/123-how-to-overcome-rejection/ 

Lately, most pieces of macroeconomic data seem to fall into a “good news/bad news” category.For example, unemployment is near a 60 year low. That’s good news. But as unemployment has gotten low, new job growth has slowed. That’s bad news, as a slowdown that goes too far could tip over into higher unemployment and a slowing economy.Housing data has looked pretty good, but also shows signs of a slowdown. So do many pieces of industrial production data. One corporate CEO, while on an earnings season conference call, even went as far as to say it was one of the most unusual periods in all his time in business. That CEO is the head of CSX (CSX), one of America’s publicly-traded railroad companies.Railroads have been tied to America’s economy for over 150 years. Today, railroads are less about passenger travel and more about shipping goods across the country. Railroads measure their growth by the number of railcars being shipped. A good year for corn may mean more railcar demand in Nebraska. A poor year may mean less. When the overall numbers are rising, the economy is likely booming. When the numbers are falling, it may be contracting. Right now, the numbers suggest a contraction. Yet the economy is growing. Some of the explanation is that much of the economy is growing in a digital sense—we have more goods and services traded online than those that require shipment by railcar.Yet some goods will always need to be shipped, and railroads provide the most efficient way to do so. As part of an oligopoly with heavy government regulations to ensure profitability, the railroads are a sound buy whenever they’re trading out of favor.Not sure the best way to get started? Follow these simple steps to hit the ground running... Step #1 - Get These FREE Reports:Big Book Of Chart Patterns: https://www.tradingtips.com/book-of-chart-patterns/The Ultimate Stock Trading Toolbox: https://www.tradingtips.com/ultimate-toolbox/ 10 Great Stocks Under $10: https://www.tradingtips.com/10-great-stocks-to-buy-under-10/7 Cheap & Good Stocks: https://reports.tradingtips.com/7-cheap-stocks Step #2 - Join Our Premium Advisories:The Next Superstock: https://www.tradingtips.com/3-disruptorsTriple Digit Returns: https://reports.tradingtips.com/pot-mania/Step #3 - Connect With The Community:Trading Tips Official Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/tradingtipsdotcom/

Is your agency having difficulty standing out? Want to get attention from strategic accounts or high profile clients? Looking for better ways to improve client retention? Getting prospects' trust, recognition, and loyalty doesn't have to be complicated. Giving the right gift to the right person at the right time is a gesture that goes noticed and rewarded. In this episode, we'll cover: How to send gifts your clients want to receive. 4 things you should never gift. #1 group of people to give to (hint: it's not the prospect). Bonus: When not to send gifts. Today, I talked to John Ruhlin, founder of RuhlinGroup, an expert gift-giving agency. He also, quite literally, wrote the book on giving gifts. This is my favorite books of all time (which is really saying a lot since I rarely read!) Giftology: The Art and Science of Using Gifts to Cut Through the Noise, Increase Referrals, and Strengthen Retention is John's book, and he's on the show to share strategies in order to score big clients, build business, and gain trust with clients. How to Send Gifts That Your Clients Want to Receive What gift does that CEO of the company that your agency has been chasing really want? Great question! You should go figure that out. John talked about the time he wanted to connect with Cameron Herold (yes, that Cameron Herold,) so John called Cameron's assistant and asked for his shirt size. What did he do next? He went to Cameron's favorite store — Brooks Brothers — and purchased shirts, jackets, pants, and all kinds of Brook's Brothers swag. Then, he literally outfitted Cameron's entire hotel room in Brook's Brothers stuff and made it look like a showroom. Cameron was so impressed at the thought and consideration behind the gift that he agreed to a meeting with John. It's not about the gift itself, but rather the meaningful gesture. So, next time you're looking to impress a client with a gift, don't just purchase something expensive for them — purchase something that they love and add an element of surprise. 4 Things You Should Never Send to Clients Sending gifts is a great way to win over clients, increase referrals, and build critical relationships, but some gifts may be doing more harm than good. John talked about 4 things that you should never send to clients. Branded Swag: Sending clients that cool branded gear you have is doing way more harm than it is good. Sure, every marketing book ever tells you that you literally need to brand everything, but gifts are supposed to be about the recipient, not you. Apple Products: Do you want to send that prospect an iPad? John wants you to know something before you do — everyone has an iPad! Don't send clients swag that they're just going to end up regifting. Food: John has two reasons that you shouldn't give clients food: (You only get one impression. If you send clients something like a paring knife, they're going to use it a bunch of time throughout their life. Each time they use it, they're going to think about you. Once they eat that food, you're irrelevant. There are too many diets! Is your client Paleo? Gluten-free? Jewish? There are too many diets, allergies, and restrictions. Giving food as a gift is risky. Gift Cards: Do you know what gift cards say? I'm too lazy to get to know you! John teased that he actually had 10 gifts that he thinks are bad gift ideas. Get them all here. #1 Group of People To Gift To Let's say you want to nurture a relationship with a CEO with gifting. Should you send your gift to him? Not according to John. You should send a gift to his wife, kid(s), pet(s), or assistant(s) instead. You want to make everyone around him a sales advocate. Think about it. That CEO gets tons of gifts all the time, but his wife or his assistant doesn't reap the same benefits. A $1 investment in his wife is like $200 investment in him. Bonus: When Not to Send Gifts! Don't let your gift sit next to 500 other gifts. There's a reason John never sends gifts on Christmas, birthdays, anniversaries. No matter how great your gift is, you don't want to be competing with 50 other people. Suddenly the gift you poured your heart into is now lame. Also, don't send someone a gift after a referral. You just boiled your entire relationship down to a monetary value. Send them gifts when they aren't expecting them — not when they are - and add an element of surprise. Remember the scene in Christmas Vacation where Clark bring his boss a gift? Unimpressed and ungrateful, his boss tells him to add it to the stack with all the others. Ask yourself what gift would provide unexpected thought and creativity... then execute. Don't be a Clark! Movie image courtesy of Warner Bros. Entertainment Related:  How to Retain More Agency Clients & Increase Recurring Revenue 

If you have ever struggled taking action because fear stopped you, this episode is for you. I brought back one of my favorite guests, Elliot Roe. He has taught me so much about overcoming my own fears that I wanted to bring him back to share a visualization exercise for processing your fear. Listen to hear us discuss how pro athletes deal with fear, hypnotherapy for fear, why we have fear and how to risk everything and be ‘all in’. If you enjoy Risk Everyday, please take time to leave a review. Show Notes: [01:42] Well, what happens if I do go all in completely. First, let me say like I'm smiling right now. It to hear that you know it hugs and you started to see those changes. [04:02] And if you're only half putting yourself half committing to the relationship or you can feel that you're holding back you might feel that you're protecting yourself in some way. So oh I'm safe if the partner does something wrong. But the reality is if you're not committing fully they're much more likely to do something wrong and probably going to prove yourself right. That CEO was right it was only worth me putting in half effort because he's run off or whatever else has happened. [07:43] So first off there's no one who has no fear. I wouldn't have a job if these people were perfect you know they're working with me to try and fine tune and optimize anyway. So even the best in the world recognize that there are things I can improve in their mindset. And you know often there are relatively big issues that can be improved so it can really take you there and performance to the next level. [16:37] So we need to be able to say what are you going to do if you're in a bad position. How does your training kick in if you're on the ground and your opponents on top of you. What do you do next how do you stay calm. How do you turn it back to your advantage. [23:21] What I found so interesting in the hypnotherapy session that we heard was that there is so much deeply rooted some Kupp subconscious stuff that is occurring under the surface. And so I am curious because I am really excited to talk about primed mind. So what's the difference for people who are kind of just getting into this or are just Anangu what visualization can do in hypnotherapy in the difference. Can you talk a little bit about the difference between a visualization in the prime mind and then hypnotherapy is really getting in deep. [36:44] And the one thing that I've noticed more than anything else is everyone else is just human. Everyone wants to be treated with respect. Everyone is just generally people are just nice and they don't want to be hero worshipped and I just join I just try and speak to everyone as if they're my friend and hope that they will be and in most cases if you speak to people like you're their equal but you respect them and you like them any speak to the same way. [40:17] Think about the feeling you get when the fear comes up. So for some people it's a tightening of the chest for others as a sickness in their stomach or a headache or whatever it is for you then think through your life and think about the moments you felt that way around a similar subject. And gradually these memories will come out and just write them down so I'm 15 years old and someone rejected me some 12 and this happened and you'll start to get an idea of why these things are particular triggers for you. Five Minute Visualization for Overcoming Fear [50:00]  

Teaching: Who do you think you are? Are you identified with your body, your mind, or yourself? How does the I fit with the body and mind? We need to find out by probing experientially, not by thinking really hard. The image of a conglomeration of merchants with a CEO in charge. That CEO is the I. While that sense of there being a CEO or I is real, the referent, upon probing, is nowhere to be found and thus unreal. This sense of CEO or I is that which feels it is the agent or the observer in meditation or reacts to praise or criticism in everyday life. Meditation: mindfulness of the mind via awareness of awareness. Let your eyes be open, and rest gaze evenly. For a while, just be present, without doing focusing on any object. Let your interest converge on what’s left over, that most intimate knowing. Simply rest in the flow of awareness of awareness. For the oscillation, 1) inversion –withdraw from all appearances into the luminosity of awareness itself and 2) release –release into space of non-objectivity. Ensure that the breath flows effortlessly—i.e., not arousing and releasing the breath. Now, invert deeply on 1) your sense of being the agent of this meditation, 2) who is this meditator, and 3) who is the observer. If an appearance comes to mind, is it really I or is it empty like a mirage? Release the oscillation, and let awareness come to the center, resting in its own place, knowing itself. Q1. In settling the mind, there is a fuzzy TV channel running 3m before me. Rumination has reduced to 4 topics and seem to be arising from the I rather than the TV. Are there different levels?
Q2. In awareness of awareness, I’m not clear about what releasing means? And oscillation? 
Q3. In awareness of awareness, I get it when I’m practicing with you in the group sessions, but back in my room, there’s no traction.
Q4. In awareness of awareness, is the oscillation experientially similar to tonglen? 
Q5. Javana are mental events that arise from and dissolve back into substrate consciousness whereas mental appearances like thoughts and images dissolve into the substrate. Are mental appearances different from javana? Aren’t javana also appearances to the mind? 
Q6. In awareness of awareness, I get the same experience during the oscillation, but when we release the oscillation, it feels different, like coming home. Why do exercises like the oscillation or sending awareness in different directions? Meditation starts at 16:38 * Note part of the recording was taken from video camera due to system issues …