Ep 416: Be Better at Instagram: 5 Things You Can Do Today with Chelsea Peitz
AJV (00:02):
Hey, welcome everybody. This is AJ Vaden, one of your co-hosts on the Influential Personal Brand podcast. Get excited. ’cause Today we’re gonna be talking about all the things that we actually need to know, that sometimes we get so annoyed that we have to know, which is social media and it’s a, it’s a love hate relationship for many of us with social media. But we’re gonna deep dive today into, in Instagram, and I will give a formal introduction of my awesome guest in just a minute. But Chelsea is here today to do a deep dive with us on Instagram. So let me tell you why you need to stick around for this episode Before I introduce Chelsea to you. Number one, if you are questioning whether or not you should be on social media, that’s probably a good episode for you.
AJV (00:51):
Specifically if you are an entrepreneur, small business owner, solopreneur, anyone who is a reputation based, word of mouth, highly referral based business. If you’re asking yourself, do I really need to, well, what if I hate it? Do I still have to? This is probably good, worthwhile content to help sway your decision one way or the other. The second is if your preferred platform of choice is Instagram, do not skip this episode. Do not fast forward. Do not stop early. This was curated and built because of the amount of inquiries and questions on video content, the algorithm. What do we need to know? What should we be doing? And quite honestly, a lot of these are tips and ideas that you probably have never thought of before. So first category, you’re not sure if you really wanna keep going down this path of social media.
AJV (01:45):
Yeah, you should listen. Number two, Instagram is your chosen platform. This was an episode specifically designed for you, so don’t skip ahead. So with that now I get to introduce a new friend of mine Chelsea Pietz. And she was referred to me from another guest that we had on the show. So if you haven’t checked out Phil Treadwell’s episode, go check that out. But this is also a really special thing because we actually have lots of friends in common that we didn’t even put together when I first got introduced to you. And then this is what I love about the world we live in, is that you know so many people that you don’t even know, you know, until you’re like, oh, wait, like I follow you. I was just watching your course, or I just heard this episode you were on, and it’s this really cool world that we get to live in, however frustrating it can be sometimes.
AJV (02:38):
So let me give all of you a quick formal introduction of Chelsea and then we’ll jump right in. So Chelsea is an influential figure in real estate marketing coaching. She’s has more than a decade of experience doing all kinds of awesome things in the real estate industry but specifically being a trailblazer when it comes to the real estate. And then anything to do with that mortgage. Just anything in that world when it comes to social me, social media, being on video, creating content for people in that industry. She’s also a keynote speaker. She’s also renowned in the neuroscience behind effective social media Video Connections, which is a lot of what we’re gonna talk about today. She has authored a book which is called talking in Pictures. She has one has her own awesome podcast episodes all over the place. That’s one of the things that got introduced to her as you sent me the episode that you were on for Social Media Marketing World, right? Yeah. And all of these podcasts. So she’s a podcast guest, all these amazing shows. And today she gets to be a guest on our show. So we’re so excited to have you with hands-on tactical experience. You’re doing it, you’re talking about it, you’re writing about it, and now you’re gonna talk to our audience. So Chelsea, welcome to the show.
CP (04:00):
Oh my gosh, I’m so excited. First of all, I need you to be my hype woman everywhere I go. That was like the most incredible podcast,
AJV (04:44):
You know, I love that and I’m so, so, so glad that you started with that because I think for most of us, the reason we have this love hate relationship with social media is one, social media has got a bad rap, right? And it’s like, it’s like everything else in the world, though. It can be used for good and it can be used for bad as is life. But if you choose to use it for good, and you choose to create valuable content for an audience that you feel really called to serve, like you can do so much good. Yeah, there’s a lot of bad, but there’s a lot of good. And today we’re gonna focus on the good parts. And you know, I I am one of those people who has a love-hate relationship with it because, because I think what happens is people get hit up all the time with this is how you make it successful, and this is how you go viral.
AJV (05:36):
And I just wanna put it out there. You do not have to go viral to make a difference, right? You do not have to have millions of followers to make life-changing impact. And I think that’s the exhausting part of, you know, you feel like you have to run this machine, and it’s like, no, you don’t. So I love you said, it’s like you get to make the rules for how you do it, and there are best practices and tips, but quite honestly, pick what works for you, use that, but it doesn’t matter if you’ve got one follower or a million, like you’re doing this because you feel like you have content that can be helpful. And if we stay focused on that, the rest takes care of itself. Right?
CP (06:14):
I love that. I, I I feel like that is the entire theme and message of this entire podcast. Say it louder for the people in the back, aj. Absolutely. There is a massive difference between someone who is an influencer and someone who is influential. Ah-Huh. And I always talk about views versus value. Views do not equal value. And there’s so many meaningful metrics that we will never, ever be able to measure. I know that the people who are listening to you will have an aha moment listening to one of your podcasts. Are you able to measure that? Well, not unless they actually tell you about it. So there’s a lot of things that are immeasurable, which I also call the humanness of social media. And that’s what I’m really passionate about because I’m sort of a, I didn’t realize I was a rule breaker because I, I consider myself a rule follower. I’m like a high D rule follower. But it just wasn’t working for me. And I found it really wasn’t working for a lot of other people too. And I felt boxed in. I didn’t feel like it was sustainable. To your point, you read a blog, you go to a conference, you watch a YouTube video, and every single person is telling you something different. Well, which one is it? What do we do post every day? Post once a week? And so it becomes very overwhelming very quickly. Yeah.
AJV (07:27):
And I think the other thing that’s so overwhelming is then you do all of the things that are recommended or taught and then the algorithm changes and PO there goes all that work you did
CP (08:14):
That is
AJV (08:15):
Constantly untrackable. You’re
CP (08:17):
Right. It’s untrackable constantly changing, but we’re gonna talk about it today and I’m, I’m going to bring some clarity and simplification so that you can actually apply this and understand that it’s not working against you. And in fact, if you do the right things, it’s going to be working for you. And one of the things I remember from almost 24 years ago now, I became a, a real estate agent 23 years ago. My broker would always ask me the same question when I came into the office every day. And the question was, how many people did you talk to today,
CP (09:00):
And you also had to have someone’s phone number. You had to have their email, they had to answer their phone. You had to mail them something or go see them in person. And now the beauty of social media is you still can create those real human connections. You just can happen to share your story and your expertise and your thought leadership at scale while you’re sleeping. And so one of the things that I love to demystify is the algorithm. And yes, the algorithm is a little bit different on every single platform, but by and large, it is about the same specifically on Instagram. So we’ll talk about that one today. Believe it or not, there are actually separate algorithms for separate formats. And we’re not going to confuse anyone. There’s no need to even know about that. I just wanna let you know that there is a separate algorithm for stories.
CP (09:46):
There’s a separate algorithm for reels and everything else. What you do need to know is what is the platform looking for? And the good news, it’s the same thing your community of humans is looking for. And I call it simply less contenting, more commenting, having more meaningful conversations with people with intention and thoughtfulness. These would be people that you’ve worked with before and perhaps you want to continue working with them in the future. It could be a referral partner, it could be another small business in your particular area or hometown, anyone that you want to build brand awareness with. And that you can see a benefit that if you continue to create video content or written content, that that content could help a stranger feel like they already know you before they meet you. And so the algorithm is heavily driven by your conversations, your comments, your direct messages.
CP (10:48):
Direct messages are huge on Instagram and they have been for a while. So here’s the great thing. Who you talk to matters. And if you ask me, and I’m actually a full-time content creator, I would prefer to talk to people versus creating videos all day. I love talking to people and I love having those connections. And I love doing it specifically through Instagram stories because you’re getting this peek into someone’s life where I call it their sacred spaces. You are in my home, you’re in my office. You might be on a vacation with me. And you also see my co-stars, my dogs, my kiddo, my husband
CP (11:41):
And here’s what happens When I send you a direct message, aj, the algorithm wakes up and it takes notice because the algorithm is just a a, a data set, it’s just a software. And the ultimate goal of any platform is to keep you on it. Mm-Hmm.
CP (12:38):
If I go in there and it’s not with an intention, I am down the rabbit hole. Uhhuh
AJV (13:58):
I mean, that last line, you need to like have that on a poster somewhere where it’s like, it’s like, just like in real offline life,
CP (14:40):
Yeah. And you don’t have to make content all the time. So that content stress, and I know we’re gonna talk about content overwhelm today. How many of you would rather talk to someone that you enjoy speaking to or potentially making their day and having them feel seen and remembered and thought of? And you can do that while you’re having your coffee or your tea in the morning from bed because you don’t even have to make a video in order to send someone a direct message. You can even send them a voice message so they can hear the tonality in your voice if you’re wishing them a great day or a happy birthday or congratulations or whatever the message may be. And that is so much easier than having to drive and go see people. Yeah. I can talk to 30 people in less than 30 minutes if I want to on Instagram.
CP (15:22):
And because you’re a heavy engager, because you’re a good community member in the eyes of Instagram. And I’m also bringing people back because they have to open that notification. So I am bringing people back. And so what happens is this ecosystem where I don’t post every day. I never have. I post once a week in the feed. I know that’s gonna be shocking for a lot of people, but I’m a heavy engager and it fuels my community and it also brings me joy. And guess what? The algorithm is very happy with that. Because your most important content is your conversations.
AJV (16:00):
Hmm. Most important content conversations. Tweet that. Or it’s not even called that anymore. I forget,
CP (16:07):
Is it a something, an X, X,
AJV (16:09):
X X? No. Who knows what’s happening over there. We’re not talking about them today. It’s so helpful. That’s so insightful. I love that. Like, that is so simple. It may not be the answer everyone’s looking for. It’s like, oh, so that’s my problem. I only get on once once a month. Okay. but it’s, but it’s so simple, which, and that’s what we’re trying to do, is just go like, what are the simple things that you can do? What do you, what do you need to know so that you can time block it and put it in your schedule, just like you do with email and all the other, you know, communication formats we have. So, okay. So I love that. I love that. So now let’s talk about the next big topic, which, okay, knowing that we’ve got some, some sort of action plan to compliment the algorithm. The next big question we wanna tackle here is, well, what, what is the one thing or the one or two things that entrepreneurs should be doing today to help build their personal brands using Instagram specifically? So what do you got for us? What should we be doing?
CP (17:10):
Absolutely. This is something that may not seem as sexy as making a reel, but it’s so critically important because the foundation of how you show up your personal brand experience on Instagram matters. And one of the most important things that I always start with when I’m auditing a client’s profile or their account, is we don’t start with content. We start with the engagement, proactive engagement, which we just talked about. Then we move into, are you searchable? Can people find you? And when they find you, what do they see? What’s the experience they have of of you and your brand and what you do? Can they even tell what you do and how you can help them? And by the way, this happens in seconds if that. So we need to focus first on your profile. And I’m gonna give you some really tactical tips and some how to use some homework, if you will, for the listeners, because I bet there’s at least one thing, if not more, on this list that you haven’t done that will absolutely help you get found by the right audience, get followed by them on the first visit. So let’s dive into a little bit. I’m
AJV (18:24):
Pulling up my Instagram profile right now. This is like a, a mentoring session right now. It’s, I’m pulling up my profile. I’m gonna check my boxes. Okay, I’m ready.
CP (18:34):
Okay. So the very first thing that you need to know is how your profile actually works in your favor. A lot of people think it’s just a place that you can go and you can set up your information one time and that’s it. When in reality it’s just like a website that lives on the internet except it lives in Instagram. And we at a basic level understand how a website and how Google searches work, there is a website, it’s a place where people can find out information and how do we find them? You go to Google, you do a search, you ask it a question with some keywords, and then it says, Hey, these websites have similar keywords. This might be what you’re looking for, obviously an oversimplification. But just to keep it really, really, really basic like that. The same thing happens on Instagram.
CP (19:18):
Instagram is a search engine. Every social media platform is a search engine. Think YouTube. Mm-Hmm.
CP (20:21):
And underneath that is another field that’s called the name field. Let me go slowly through this. The fields of username and the one underneath your profile called name, those are the only searchable fields of your entire profile. So if you wanna get found, you need to make sure that you have optimized those two key areas. And I’ll give you a couple of tips on what you might wanna put in there. Well, first of all, you need your, your first and last name. That’s your personal brand. If this is representing a corporation or a company, then it would make sense to have your company or your brand’s name. If it is a solopreneur, an entrepreneur, a personal brand, it needs to have first and last, not just first, not just last. And it certainly doesn’t wanna be something obtuse like Jeep Lover 22, because then I definitely won’t find you when I’m typing in your name and your personal brand.
CP (21:21):
As you know, AJ is so critically important that we want people who are referring you. We want to easily find you. ’cause We’re not gonna stick around and keep searching. Mm-Hmm.
CP (22:16):
You might have author or whatever types of products that you want to be found for. So name or brand, name some kind of keyword that is going to tell people what you are offering or what you wanna be found for. If you’re location specific, I do recommend a city. And last but not least you know, you can also have some of those industry terms. And I wanna just take a moment to say, jargon is very challenging when it comes to those internal language that we often use. For example, if you’re a mortgage, you might call yourself a loan officer, but you shorten that to lo and no consumers are going to be searching for the the lo
CP (23:12):
There’s no rules of how you should craft this bio. It’s super short. So they make it brief. We love that. Get to the point, but be clear about who you help and how you help them so that when somebody lands here and skims mm-hmm.
CP (24:07):
Mm-Hmm.
AJV (25:22):
Yeah. I love that. And I think that, you know, it’s so similar to, like, we talked about this a lot with like LinkedIn, it’s no different here, right? It’s like all the
CP (25:29):
Same.
AJV (25:30):
It’s all the same, but you gotta know the little things. And so, so here I have a question. So what if you know, ’cause this kind of goes in with another question we were gonna talk about, which is, should you have your own personal account and then one for your business? Like, I mean, I wanna like, you know, you know, do all the fun vacation picks, but then I have all my business content. Like how do you manage those? And so before you answer that, because I am super curious to hear your thoughts, what if you are, you know, the, the face of a business per se? So like, I’ll use mug mine for example. So I’ve got my name. Would it also be good to put my business’s name next to my name? Mm-Hmm.
CP (26:12):
I would it without looking at it, I don’t have it in front of me, but I would have your username be your first and last name. Yep. And then in that name field you could have AJ and then like a little space and then Brand Builders group or whatever company or information you want in there. And then the bio itself, yes. You can also please insert keywords. It’s not going to be searchable by Instagram standards, but here’s the thing. Every ai, every software is looking at overarching themes. I think of it like a, ’cause I have a 10 year old who’s in fifth grade. So we do a lot of homework together. And I always tell ’em, you know, it’s okay if you just, you know, don’t s smash it on this, you know, spelling test. It’s not gonna ruin your whole grade for the year.
AJV (27:25):
Yeah. So my last question on this, so in your opinion, would it be better to put like AJ Vaden, you know, little Space Brand Builders Group or AJ Vaden Little Space helping entrepreneurs build personal brands?
CP (27:42):
Okay. I would put the, the message or what you’re doing in the actual bio one, because there’s probably not gonna be enough space for it. But also think about what people are searching, helping. Probably not a lot of people searching for helping, right? Yeah. That actual word. But if somebody refers me to Brand Builders Group, I’m searching for that direct. I know this because I did
AJV (28:21):
Yeah. So I think a lot of that too is, you know, one I love free coaching advice, but then also I think a lot of people, it’s like you, what I find all the time is that we have so many of our audience members at Brand Builders Group, they get caught up in being in the catchy word phrase, Hey, I want it to be like cutesy and I want it to be like this. And it’s like, no, be clear. Just be very clear. Right? But it’s like we get caught up in the marketing lingo Yes. Versus, you know, just what are people typing in? Right.
CP (28:52):
And I’m laughing because I’m not, I am one of those people. I’m very transparent. I love a good little rhyming marketing slogan. I understand that. And you are so right. It needs to be clear. It needs to be concise, and it needs to be succinct. Absolutely.
AJV (29:07):
Yeah. So good. This is great. Okay, so personal profile, business profile. Do we need two accounts? Like really? Okay,
CP (29:15):
This is a, this is a question I get every single time, every podcast, every webinar, every time I’m speaking. And I love this question because this question really aligns with, with my message, which is, you know, your human first and whatever you’re, you’re selling or service, you know, it is second. And at the end of the day, we are human beings behind the screen, right? So the reason that we got started on these two accounts, we can, we can thank Facebook for that because Facebook made us have these business pages. And so we all got business pages and now everybody has a business page. And guess what? The reach and engagement is abysmal unless you pay for it. Hmm. That might be why they’re keeping bus business pages around. And then invariably what happens is, every time I coach somebody that has two accounts, okay, they say, oh my gosh, I’ve got this one business account.
CP (30:04):
And so I put business stuff over there. I put my just listeds my just sold or my definitions of the day or anything that is professional and businessy, but it really doesn’t get much engagement and it’s kind of crickets over there. And so now I kind of resent it and I don’t even wanna post over there. So then I go to Canva, which I love and adore, and I just pull a template and I post it over there. And guess what? I’m in this vicious circle of not being able to get any engagement and then feeling the pressure of having to also post to that account. Now, there are many times where an individual may wanna keep something completely separate. You decide what works for you. If you have children that you don’t wanna share your children on social media, absolutely have a private account for family and friends.
CP (30:51):
Just know that I would recommend having a secondary account that is public because you do want people to find you, you do want to grow that way. And that is absolutely perfectly fine to have two, oftentimes I think two accounts is twice the work, depending on what your goals are. If you’re trying to grow. Two, it’s a lot of work. I also consider one human, one brand, one account. Mm-Hmm.
CP (31:40):
There’s a difference between personal and private. Private is whatever you decided to be. It could be the vacation pics. It could be showing your family but personal is your face, your voice, your perspective created from your lived experiences. And that is the only original content on the planet.
CP (32:36):
I usually just say, unless there’s extenuating circumstances, have one account and make your content a hundred percent human. There’s no 80 20 anymore. You can have a hundred percent business content and still humanize it. Or you could have no business content
AJV (33:27):
CP (33:29):
Yeah, absolutely. I
AJV (33:30):
Love that. But I think I love that. And I, I completely agree, like agree, we completely are on the same page here. The idea of trying to manage two accounts feels so much work. I mean, it feels like so much work because it is
CP (33:47):
Mm-Hmm.
AJV (33:50):
Really, I think more importantly, it’s like people don’t fall in love with businesses. They fall in love with people. They fall in love with founders. They fall in love with the person who had the idea for the business, and they fall in love with the story and what it’s about and who it’s for. But nobody falls in love with a logo. Right? They may fall in love with the products because the products serve a need that they have, right? And so totally agree with that, and I love that. So you, you actually just talked about this when you mentioned lurking with love. It’s like, if you’re scrolling quickly, like we’re making instantaneous judgment calls decisions on, is this the type of person I wanna follow content I wanna check out is it, is this someone that I want more of and more from?
AJV (34:34):
And a lot of that has to do with video content, right? And so one of the things that we had kinda outlined is something that we thought would be worthwhile for this conversation today is, well, if we know that it’s that important, and we know that the, you know, typically algorithm favors video, just generally speaking why do we have such a hard time with it? And I can just speak for the community that I get to serve at Brand Builders group and our own team. It’s like, I’ll be having a conversation with someone just like this, and it’s mind blowingly good. And I’m like, we gotta get that on camera. So I pause and I get my phone and I ask the question again, and then it’s like, deer in the headlights, crickets. And they’re like, wait, what, what were we saying?
AJV (35:17):
And it’s like all of their like personality and their amazing ideas just fluttered away into who knows where. And there’s this immense amount of video insecurity. It’s, I don’t like the way I look on video. They, they are not themselves, like their personality, their, even their words just fall apart as they look at this red dot, or in my case, a green dot and five computer. And so why does that happen and how can we overcome it? Like how do we get better at creating better video specifically for short form content, right? Because we’re not trying to put 30 minute videos up, or 10 minute or even five minutes, right? We’re talking about short short. So how do we get better at this? Oh,
CP (36:05):
Video insecurity is something that I know well and it, I know it well because it was me. I
CP (36:50):
Mm-Hmm. If I had kind of looked at some of the things. And so I’ve really, really honed in on what I call the the cringe factor or the ick, you know, why do we have the ick when we are watching our recorded selves? And what’s really interesting is that it comes down to a mismatch, right? It’s a misalignment of seeing the recorded self and, and who we are in, in the real life. And you just mentioned this, where we can be having a conversation and then all of a sudden the camera comes on and we feel as though we have to deliver a persona or a scripted performance or sound a certain way. And then when you add in that, oftentimes when you’re framing yourself in a small video like your phone, you’re not moving very much, right? And you’re not moving your hands or your body if you’re scripting, which by the way, I love scripting.
CP (37:42):
Not saying not to script, but I spend a lot of time working on making it sound human and making sure that the warmth cues in my face don’t dissipate. Hmm. And this is a lot of your beginning, I’m gonna give you a beginner’s tip, but some advanced tips is the reason that you don’t like what you’re seeing is that mismatch is because you don’t have any body movement. You’re probably not using your hands. You may have written down some scripts and your brain is trying to remember bullet point number three because you don’t wanna rerecord or you don’t wanna make a mistake, but your face and your mouth is on the intro. Yeah. And so all of a sudden
CP (38:26):
Yeah. It’s a very challenging to write in a conversational friendly tone. And what happens is we’re reading in our brains and our brain’s really focusing on one thing at a time. So if you’re reading your face is probably not emoting. And if you’ve ever memorized a speech, I know I have, I’m sure you have too. It’s the hardest thing. I do not recommend it. It’s really hard to be able to memorize something, read it in your mind, and e mote and move your body and all of those things at the same time. So those are some of the reasons for our video. Ick. The answer is one that’s very simple. Ask yourself this question. If you feel a limiting belief creep in. I don’t like how I look. I don’t like how I sound. I’m not hair and makeup ready. Oh, I don’t have time to write a script.
CP (39:17):
I just feel like I’m not very good at this. Whatever that limiting belief may be, because there is a long list, ask yourself this one question, what would you do in real life? And this is the, the question I ask almost everyone who is struggling with social media. And so it works in so many capacities. Like, okay, I can’t stand how I look. Okay, so imagine I’m going to visit a client and we’re at Starbucks and we’re having a coffee, and I’ve got my first p ss l of the season, and I’m so excited and they ask me a question and I know the answer. But instead, I dive under the table and I’ve left the lattes and my clients sitting there wondering if I’m okay bending over saying, are you okay down there? And I’m like, I’m totally fine. I just have this thing where I can’t look at people when I talk to them.
CP (40:04):
What would you do in real life? We would never do that. Right? And so when we ask ourselves this question, or, you know, people say, should I, should I dmm somebody a copy and paste sales script? Okay, well, what would you do in real life? You go to a wonderful conference, you’re meeting someone, would you throw your cards in their face and give them that exact word for word copy, paste message, and then leave and go home and say, I can’t believe it. I didn’t get any new business. And I even gave them my cards. Even the new ones with the new logo, I don’t understand it. Of course not, of course not even the private thing when people are like, well, I like to keep business and personal separate. Okay, but what would you do in real life? You meet a client. Do you talk about anything but business?
CP (40:49):
If they ask you, oh my gosh, do you have dogs? And your eyes glaze over and you’re giving them stats and data? Yeah. And they’re like, okay, no. ’cause, So it’s important to ask what would you do in real life? And that’s how you can kind of work through, through those, those limiting beliefs and, and say, okay, does this make sense? Would I do that? Probably not. Okay. And then we kind of peel back those limiting beliefs and then can get into sort of the tactics, which we’ll talk about of really, you know, now that you’re gonna get on video, what are some tactics you can do to make that video better so that you do feel better about the performance, about the finished product, and also get some engagement. ’cause There’s nothing worse than making content and keep being consistent, and you’re posting it and like nothing’s happening. Right? I understand it’s discouraging. So we’ll talk about those tips as
AJV (41:35):
Well. I love that. And I, as you were talking, I, I remember somebody giving me this tip one time, and it’s been a long time since I’ve used it, because I don’t have video in security. It’s probably, I probably need to have a little bit more video in security. I a little more
AJV (42:17):
So ask the person to step right above or right under the camera and talk to them, position the camera in a way that the person who you’re talking to, you’re talking to a person, not a camera. Now if you’re filming yourself, and we, this is something we talk a lot about, but hopefully you have an ideal, you know, customer avatar, right? You have this person that’s like, this is who I’m making this content for. So it’s, you know, whoever that person is, but have a picture of a person and cover it. Like, you can, like, just tape it on your computer screen right below where the little camera is. So you’re not looking at yourself, but you’re looking at a picture of the person, right? And it’s like, Google some images, give them a name like build out who they are. Like, but you gotta know that this, you’re talking to a real life human.
AJV (43:07):
Like, these are not mysterious accounts. These are people. And so talk to a person. And I remember that was years ago. I haven’t done it in a long time, but I may bring it back. I may bring it back because I, I think so much of what you said is like, what would you do in real life? In real life? You don’t talk to a camera, you talk to a person. Mm-Hmm.
CP (43:46):
Yes. Okay. I’m gonna give you a lot of tactics, but I, before I do, I just wanna say there are no rules. We are applauding you and cheering you on if you make any video at all.
CP (44:50):
Which means that they are pushing those videos to people who don’t know you. Mm-Hmm. Which is kind of awesome. If you wanna grow and you wanna share your message, you used to have to pay for ads for that, but now they’re looking at your topic, it, they’re serving this content to people that don’t know you. In fact, it’s 40 plus percent of the content you see in your feed and your home feed are from people you don’t follow. And that’s kind of new. So what happens is, you don’t have time. These people don’t know and love you. I kn I know and and love people that I follow, and I will sit through their intro because I love them, but not if I don’t know you. You’ve gotta get to the point. So the intro, sometimes we hear something like this, Hey everyone, it’s Chelsea Pipes, and today we’re talking about, and they won’t even last through the, Hey everyone, first of all, we wanna address the one human being that we’re talking to.
CP (45:42):
So we’re gonna use that word, you, not everyone, or hey all, or hey guys or whomever it is. But it’s how you start matters. So how do I recommend that you start a video? The simplest way is to ask a question and use the word you. So you’re gonna ask a question and use the word you. And you could call that a hook if you’re speaking in marketing terms. And there’s all kinds of hooks that you can use. You could even Google it. You could ask chat and g p t you could make it so that it’s specific to your industry, but simply asking a question. So here’s an example. Instead of me saying, Hey, everyone, it’s Chelsea, and today we’re gonna talk about three things you need to know for Instagram. Okay? I might say, do you wanna know the number one thing you’re doing wrong on Instagram?
CP (46:29):
I asked a question. I used the word you. And that person who doesn’t know me is like, oh, you’re talking to me because you used the word you and even invited me into a conversation by asking a question. Now, does every video you ever make have to have a hook? No. Does every video you ever make have to start with a question? No. But this is a best practice and it will improve your mindset when you’re creating video content to think about how can I stop the scroll? So that’s tip number one, is how you start your video matters. And I recommend having a hook, or it could just be simply a question and use the word you. Now, my second tip is my favorite. This is like my, my secret weapon. And when I realized this, I was like, where have I been? Where have I been this entire time?
CP (47:15):
If there’s anyone out there listening who thought I need to record this whole video in one clip, that was me. And then I thought, well, wait a minute. I don’t have to record this whole video in one fell swoop. I can actually record it in clips or little tiny itty bitty sentences I mentioned before. I love to script. I do a lot of educational content and I gotta be brief. So I like to write it out so I know what I’m gonna say. I don’t wanna memorize it because I still want it to feel like me. And that’s a lot of content stress. So I’m gonna do one sentence at a time. And if you’re in Instagram or TikTok, or if you are in Facebook and you’re creating a reel, all you have to do is press and hold record sentence number one, let go and reset.
CP (47:57):
Have a glass of water, look down at your notes. And when I started doing that, I was like, oh my gosh, I feel so much better. I don’t have to memorize all of this and I can record in clips. And with the beauty of how they set up these editing features, it just strings it all together. And so it’s a really simple way to not have to memorize, to be able to look down and feel confident. And also another pro tip, really high production value. I actually move my arm from here to here or just, you know, a few inches in between the clips. And I don’t even use a tripod, but I, I just move. And people say, why you change your angles? I go, because TV has a lot of cameras. They have camera one, camera two, we’re zooming in, we’re zooming out, and I hate editing and I don’t wanna edit. So all I do is my high production value of starting in one position and moving to the next when I’m recording clip number two. So recording in clips is absolutely going to help you. Ooh,
AJV (48:55):
Love that. So easy. And you know what the best part about that is? You don’t have to like get another, you know, editing app. You don’t have to like do this on your computer. You don’t have to do it outside of the, of the platform. Mm-Hmm.
AJV (49:18):
Yes. You gotta know what to do. I love that. And I love two simple tip of like, just move your arm, right?
CP (50:21):
Yeah. And, and you know, it’s funny because you can have really powerful text thought leadership content without any movement either. But you’re right, the, the stopping the scroll usually happens with some kind of, of movement. And that also brings in my, my really important last point for any video that you’re making. And this is one point that I see so many people missing almost a hundred percent of my audits. I will look through the content and this is not on it. And this will help you get more followers as well. So words text, right? Yeah. What is it? 80, 90% of people viewing videos have the sound off for a variety of reasons. Yeah. If it’s me, I’m in an airport somewhere, right? I’m getting on a flight to go somewhere. Maybe you’ve got a newborn and it’s 3:00 AM and you are not moving to wake that baby up.
CP (51:07):
But you are sitting there now and you’re gonna watch something, right? Maybe it’s like if your husband’s like mine and he watches like sci-fi and I don’t wanna watch that, but I don’t wanna be rude and have my phone on whatever reason it is. You’ve gotta give people different ways to consume the content. There is a massive audience of users who prefer sound off or need the closed captioning because they are hard of hearing or death. Yeah. So good. And so it’s critical that if you wanna engage people, they’re not gonna watch your mouth move for 30 seconds. They’re not even gonna watch your mouth move for three seconds if we can’t read it. So you need to add the closed captioning. It’s built right into the system. And the last thing that is the one that everyone, almost all, everyone misses, we’re going back to the profile where I’m scanning AJ’s profile, seeing what she’s all about.
CP (51:51):
If AJ doesn’t have a title on every single video, she does like a reel and there’s no title. I’m not gonna click on all 300 of her videos. I’m new here. I just wanna scan and see what she’s all about. So it’s so critical that on any short form, vertical video on any platform, you have a title that tells people what are they going to learn about? What are you talking about in the video? Because when somebody scrolls through mine and sees what I talk about, they’re like, oh, this person knows what they’re talking about. I’m gonna click follow. And so it’s really, really important to have those, what they call cover photos. Or just text on, on your video so that we know what it’s about.
AJV (52:34):
Oh, this is so good. And y’all, I cannot believe that we have already been talking for an hour. I told Chelsea it’s like 45 minutes and we’re gonna cover these things. And it’s like, whew. 60 minutes, just like flew by in a gif. And like we had a whole nother question that we were gonna spend time on. I, Chelsea, I’m gonna have to have you back at some point, but I don’t wanna leave everyone hanging. So the last question, and we’ll just do this super high level, and then we’ll tell people where to go to connect with you. Actually, I’ll go ahead and do that now. Y’all, if y’all wanna learn more about Instagram, then you should probably just follow Chelsea on Instagram, right? It’s like, if you want more of these tips you just go to, I think it, you said it’s, hold on, I’ve got this, I wrote it down so that I didn’t forget.
AJV (53:16):
It’s Chelsea dot pipes and it’s P E I T Z, Chelsea Pipes. That’s her handle. It’ll be in, in the show notes. So go follow her on Instagram and learn more about how to be better at Instagram. Now, last thing, content overwhelm. And we’ve kind of touched on this in a variety of different ways, but so many people want to, but they’re like, oh my gosh, I just don’t have time. Right? And I’m not a full-time digital marketer. I’m not a full-time content creator. I have a full-time business. How do I fit this all in
CP (54:03):
I think the easiest way to start thinking about content, and this is my personal strategy too, because I am in the overwhelmed category, I get so excited. I have too many things. I, I then I have no ideas. And what if I run out of ideas, which I guarantee will not happen, but I’m just letting you know, I also have that fear because I am human. And so I would recommend being more aware, and that’s the hardest part of content. So when I’m coaching people and creating like Instagram stories, they’re like, I don’t have anything to post. Like, I’m, you know, going to my law office and I’m, you know, doing paperwork that’s not exciting. Well, we have to start looking at everything as content. And I’m not saying to give all of those details away, but you can mess or you can give the message of, today I helped a client who was going through X, Y, and Z.
CP (54:50):
And you know, this is a really good lesson to learn about copyright law. So you can still let people know. So you have to start being aware of the content that’s around you. The best way that I personally do this is I put some time in my calendar, like three minutes max. I mean, if you wanna try it in one minute, go for it. I love that for you. But look through your text messages, look through your emails. Think about what meetings you had today. Mm-Hmm. And what were questions that came up? What were topics? What were the things that went sideways? Because you know, that’s definitely gonna be good content for you to say, here’s how to avoid this. And it’s being aware of the questions you’re being asked. And knowing that I am always asked this set of questions, Hmm, maybe I should make some content about it because if these people have questions about it, I guarantee that other people have questions about it.
CP (55:39):
And here’s my last tip on the content is, and this is a little bit harder, so maybe this is like the 2 0 2. I want you to start thinking about what are the questions people aren’t asking ’cause they don’t know to ask about. And that’s really where you can build that mind share and that thought leadership where people say, huh, I never thought about that. Mm-Hmm.
AJV (56:32):
I love that. And I just, I kind of wrote this down too. It’s, I, here’s my big takeaway from this. It’s like, content’s everywhere. You don’t have to come up with it. It’s everywhere. Like it’s, find one thing to talk about every day. So I love what you said, it’s like, what questions were you asked today? Or what questions did you ask today? Or what questions did you want to ask that you didn’t? You know, what experiences, like, did you run into an old friend? Did you did you have a client come back? It’s like, but what unique, something happened. Maybe it was a school event with your kids or a sporting event, but like, what was an experience you had? Where did you go? Who did you see? Were there any interesting moments? Was it like, you know, I have weird stuff happened to me every day.
AJV (57:15):
I don’t know if I attract it or what, but it’s like Rory is always like, babe, like, like, put that on Instagram. Like, you need to like talk about like this weird, like, yes, it’s just like that, but that’s life. Everyone has it. Yeah. It’s just, are you paying attention? Mm-Hmm.
AJV (58:17):
I’ll put it in the show notes, but then also stay tuned as I do the recap episode next.
Ep 415: Questions to Ask to Help You Find Your Why | Bianca Olthoff Episode Recap
RV (00:03):
Resilience, grit, determination, perseverance. Why do some people have it? And some people don’t. Why is it that some people can barrel through walls and overcome seemingly insurmountable obstacles and other people can’t get the motivation to get outta bed or keep going Sometimes? What is the difference? And that is what we’re gonna be talking about on today’s episode. I’m gonna share three ideas to help you be more resilient. And this was inspired from my conversation with Bianca just here recently about adding more grit to your life and how personal brands can develop that kind of grit and perseverance. And Bianca’s a new friend of mine, she’s Jasmine Star’s sister. We got to meet through Jasmine. And I’ve really enjoyed meeting her. And just the conversation inspired me to, to, to stop and say, I wanna put together specifically one tactical tool right here, right now that would help you immediately become more resilient, immediately become more perseverant.
RV (01:11):
And I call this first technique, or this is gonna be the, the main technique of this lesson is 30. What questions to help you find your why 30, what questions to help you find your why. So we all know that having a why is really important in an episode not that long ago. I talked about kind of a refresher of something I said in the Take the Stairs book, which is that discipline becomes dormant in the absence of a dream. Discipline becomes dormant in the absence of a dream that we, we wanna leverage long-term vision to endure short-term sacrifices. So the amount of our endurance, our perseverance, our resilience, our grit, whatever word you wanna use for this is directly proportional to it, to the clarity of our vision, the, and the clarity of our why. And one technique is to get really clear on, on the vision of what you want, which is actually to create a picture.
RV (02:12):
And I’ve talked about that before, but today I wanna talk about finding your why specifically. And I’m gonna give you 30 what questions to find your why. Because what I have found is over the course of my life and my career, that a lot of people struggle to find their why, so to speak. They, they struggle to boil it down. And yet when we give them these specific tactical, what questions, like when you answer these, what questions, all these questions start with what? Then once you go through and you answer all of these, your why sort of gets revealed out of that. So I’m just gonna run through this list, okay? These are 30 what questions to help you find your why. Number one, what issues are you most passionate about solving for the world? So just you, you answer that. What, what issues are you most passionate about solving for the world? Number two, what problems are you most capable of solving for other people? What problems are you most capable of solving for other people?
RV (03:19):
That leads to question number three, which is kind of related, but a little bit different. What type of person can you serve in the deepest way? So you just think of like all the different types of people out the world, and you go, what type of person? What are the makeups of the, the specific characteristics of somebody that I can serve in the deepest way? Number four, what are the biggest challenges that you have overcome? We’ve talked about this a lot in brand builders group where we say that you’re, you’re your most powerfully positioned to serve the person you once were. So what challenge have you conquered? What obstacle have you overcome? What setback have you survived? What tragedies have you triumphed over? That all comes into what are the biggest challenges you’ve overcome? Number five, what practical skill sets do you have that you wanna develop more of?
RV (04:18):
What practical skill sets do you have or do you want to develop more of? So what, what things do you actually wanna learn that is a hint at your why? Number six, what skills do you want to learn and master that you don’t have? So this kind of goes in tandem with the previous one. So what, what are skills that you, you don’t yet have, but that you wanna learn and master? Number seven, what would you do if you knew you could not fail? What would you do if you knew you couldn’t fail? I first heard Brian Tracy ask that question years ago. That’s been a great one to think about. Number eight, what do you feel called to, what do you feel called to, like, what do you feel called to do? Number nine, what places in the world do you wanna visit?
RV (05:08):
So now we’re starting to get into the more tangible things which often help clarify and, and, and help us codify like a big part of our why. So that’s what this next little section is all about. What places in the world do you wanna visit? Number 10, what type of family do you wanna have? So just like, when you think ahead 10 years from now, what type of family, like how many people do you see in the family? What, what type of family? Anything you can describe about that. Number 11, what physical attributes do you want to exhibit in your body, right? What physical things do you want to maybe change or highlight or, you know, modify in your body? Number 12, what type of job title do you want to have?
RV (05:57):
Like, what would your ideal job title be? Number 13, what type of clients would you most enjoy working with? What type of clients would you most enjoy working with? So if you had your pick of the litter and the whole world, and you said, this is the, the the specific type of person that I wanna work with what would that be? That that’s gonna, that’s gonna give you a hint as to what your purpose is, right? Like, we believe that all of these things are hints and clues as to what you’re calling is. There’s a reason why God made you in the way that he made you. There’s a reason why you are drawn to the answers to these things. These are not bad things, they’re not selfish things. They shouldn’t become idols in your life, right? They shouldn’t take the place of God.
RV (06:48):
They shouldn’t be the most important thing, but they’re good things. They’re beautiful things, and we believe that they are, they are there for a reason and they guide you in the, in the way that you should go. Number 14, what amount of vacation would you like to take each year? What about a vacation would you like to take each year? You might think, oh, I want permanent vacation. But the the, the reality is that you probably don’t. I mean, if you’ve ever been on vacation longer than seven days, it actually gets boring pretty quick. I mean, you can only go out to eat at like so many restaurants and sit around on the beach all day and do nothing. Like there’s so many, so many days and, and I know you’re probably listening and you’re like, try me, right? I’d like to, I’d like to have that problem, right?
RV (07:30):
Where I was bored of too much vacation. So maybe you need to do that and experience that and, and realize, no, I, I wanna have work. We were designed to work, right? God created work in the garden before the fall of original sin. So regardless of what your spiritual beliefs are, you know, for me that is the source of truth is biblically speaking work is not a part of the, the, the curse work existed before the curse work gives us purpose. So what amount of vacation would you like to take each year? Number 15, what type of house do you wanna live in, right? Like when you, when you think of your house, I mean, of course maybe you have some dream mansion or something, and that’s fine. Like if, if that’s it. But, but realistically go, gosh, like how much space do I really need?
RV (08:15):
What would I, what features would I really love to have? What type of house do you wanna live in? 16. What city and state would you wanna live in? If you could live in any city and any state, where would you wanna live? Or what city? Just sticking with the what theme, number 17. What type of neighborhood do you wanna live in? So is it a cult sack? Is it, you know, the, the mountains? Are you by yourself? Are there people near you? Can you see your neighbors? Can you not? Like, is it really tight and close-knit? Is it gated? Is it like, you know, is it just a big open area? Can you walk to the grocery store? What, what type of neighborhood do you wanna live in? Number 18, what type of car do you wanna have? What type of car do you wanna have?
RV (08:56):
And I know some of these might seem shallow in terms of like, you know, or superficial, but I don’t believe they are. I think that, that these physical things give you a lot of clues and a lot of insight into the type of lifestyle that you want to have, right? Believe it or not, not everybody wants a Rolls-Royce, right? Not everybody wants a Ferrari. Like I don’t want a Ferrari. The the, now I would have another Bentley, like I, I do, I do some days Miss Mile Bentley that I sold when we started brand builders group. But like the, you know, what, what type of car would you have? Those give you clues and hints and insight into the type of maybe job you want to create or the way that you need to plan and save money. And, and you can reverse engineer that into the type of career, the type of work or the type of client you wanna work with.
RV (09:40):
So I think these are, you know, worthwhile questions. Number 19, what do you want your ideal daily schedule to look like? What do you want your ideal dream daily schedule to look like? So if you could like, plan the perfect week and just plot it out on a calendar, here’s what I would do on Monday morning and Monday afternoon and Monday night and Tuesday. And, and not just like a vacation. I mean, you could have a dream vacation, but this is more of like, if, if this was a week that you lived on repeat, right? Going back to what I said earlier about vacation, I believe it or not, I think a lot of people don’t want permanent vacation. I, I, I have a lot of friends who have sold their businesses and it, you know, of course it’s fun for a while be like, oh my gosh, I don’t have to work again or whatever.
RV (10:26):
But a lot of ’em go into a deep depression and they really struggle to find purpose because it’s like they’ve had this, this focus and then once it’s gone, cuz work is good. Work is a good thing, it shouldn’t be an ultimate thing, but work is a good thing. So, you know, what would, what would your ideal weekly schedule look like? Number 20, what amount of money will you need to fund the type of lifestyle that you wanna have during your retirement? If you’re gonna take a retirement, right, or you know, what, what amount of money would you need to have to just live your dream lifestyle might be a better way if you go, no, I’m not gonna work forever and then just retire and do nothing. But if I wanted to sort of like, paste it out a little bit, what amount of money do you need to to fund that?
RV (11:09):
Number 21, what do you want your taxable income to be? What do you want your taxable income to be? Number 22, what activities do you love that are life giving? Life giving? What are the activities that just, they just make you happy for no reason? And you go, you know what, maybe I shouldn’t love mowing the lawn, but I do. Now I do not, right? That is not one of mine, but like, maybe it is for you or maybe it’s cooking or sewing or, or reading it. Reading is is mine, right? I could sit and just read for hours. It’s just completely life giving to me. So what are the activities that are like life giving number 23 is the opposite of that question. What activities do you hate doing that are life taking? And
RV (11:52):
You’re not exactly sure why. And maybe some people love ’em, right? I mean, one mine is landscaping and gardening, right? I know some people love it, it’s their thing. For me, I’m like, this is is prison. Like, I’m miserable. I do not wanna be outside in the hot sun sweating, like bent over getting dirty and all. It’s just like, it’s just not my jam. So what are the activities that you don’t like doing or the things that are life taking? Number 24. This is a good one, okay? This is where we start to get into the type of person you need to become to have all these things that we just talked about in the last section. So I would, I would classify these 30 questions. It’s not equal 10, 10, and 10, but the first 10 questions are really about like, what’s your purpose and your calling in life.
RV (12:37):
The second 10 or, or the middle part, they’re not exactly the second 10. The middle part are really questions around what type of lifestyle do you wanna lead and do you wanna have? And then this, these last ones are kind of more about what type of characteristics do you need to develop as an individual. So number 24 would be is what would the self-talk be of someone who had already achieved all of these things? What would the self-talk be? What would the, the mind of someone who had already achieved all of these things that you just listed out, what are the things that they would say to themselves? Because whatever those things are, are things that you can and mean should and need to say to yourself before they happen, right? Self-Talk should happen in reverse. The your self-talk happens first. This is the creation principle of integrity chapter from my take the stairs book that you think it, you speak it, you act, and then it happens.
RV (13:33):
So first you think it and then you speak it. So what would your self-talk be? If you had already achieved all these things, number 25, what would you have to learn to achieve the things on this list? What are the things that you would have to learn? Number 26. What person or people do you know who have already achieved the things that you wanna achieve? So what person or what people do you know of who have already achieved the things that you wanna achieve? What people already have, the things you wanna have. Those people are the people who have the answers for you, right? So just identifying them. Number 27, which is a little bit related. What type of coaches would you need to help you to get to where you want to go? What type of coaches would you need to help get you to where you want to go?
RV (14:31):
Right? I mean, Michael Jordan has a coach. The greatest actors in the world, they have coaches like the, the, the elite highest performing athletes and entertainers and musicians. They all have coaches. The best authors in the world have coaches. We coach a lot of ’em. The, the best speakers in the world, right? We coach a lot of ’em. Like there there is, everybody needs a coach, like, and can benefit from a coach. So what type of coach would you need to or coach would you need to get to where you want to go? Number 28, what behaviors do you need to stop doing in your life? You don’t even have to. You just go, these are things I’m doing, I just need to stop doing these. What behaviors do you need to stop doing? You know, things that have shown up for me over the years has been like drinking alcohol eating sugar you know, staying up late.
RV (15:20):
Like these are, these are things as I’ve gotten older, it’s like, I just need to stop. Like, I just need to stop doing this. So what are they for you? Number 29. What behaviors do you need to start doing? What do you just need to start doing? And you go, you know what, like plain and simple. I, this is, I need to just start doing this. I know for whatever reason I know that this is a, a behavior I need to start doing. And then question number 30, and this is a big one, okay, what would you be willing to give up if you knew you could have all of these things?
RV (15:56):
Like what would you be willing to trade? What would you be willing to give up if you knew you could have all of these things? Those are 30 what questions to help you find your why. Those are questions that anybody can ask themselves to immediately get clear on what your, get clearer on what your why is, what your real purpose is, what your real driver is. And I obviously if you’re watching this or you’re listening to this, I know you probably didn’t capture all that. The good news, if you go to rory vaden blog.com, we will list, we’ve got these all listed out on my blog. So you can go get the full list there if you want to download it or screenshot it or whatever or just, you know, play this, play this back and you can listen over and over.
RV (16:42):
So that is the theme of today, 30 what questions to Find Your Why. And and when I talked about the three ideas to help you be more resilient, it’s really those three sections, right? It’s, it’s the first section of questions is all about understanding what purpose do I feel called to The second set of questions is really what are the things that I want to have or do or achieve? And then the third set of questions are really about what is the type of person that I need to become? And if you are clear on those three things, those three sets of questions, then inside of that, i, I, as a result of that, as the the byproduct of that, you’ll develop more resilience, you’ll develop more grit, you’ll develop more determination. Because now all of a sudden your brain is set on something that it wants, and now it has a reason to go out and achieve it and acquire it and make it happen. So get clear on these 30 what questions and you will find your why. And as you find your why, you will find the ability and the drive to be more resilient and more perseverant. Share this episode with someone who needs to hear it and we’ll catch you next time.
Ep 414: How Personal Brands can Develop More Grit and Perseverance with Bianca Olthoff
RV (00:02):
Oh my gosh, Bianca Olthoff is fire. You are about to experience fire, and I’m so excited about it. So I met Bianca, honestly, we shared the stage together at this event called the Global Leadership Summit, which is probably the biggest speaking event in the world. And I saw her and I was like, gosh, she looks a lot like Jasmine Starr. And I was like, I swear they look a lot alike
RV (00:49):
And now I’m following Bianca. And I just, I love Bianca’s content. And she has a book coming out called Grit Don’t Quit. And we’re gonna talk about this today. This is the topic of perseverance. Now this is Bianca’s third traditionally published book. Her first two books have done great. And she is a bestselling author. She is also a lead pastor of a church. So we’re gonna hear probably a little bit about that, maybe a little bit about speaking in the kind of the Christian circuit and Christian conferences. But mostly I want her to talk about how do we persevere and how do we overcome when we wanna quit? And anyways, we just become friends and I feel like she’s family even though we’re really technically meeting for the first time. So, Bianca, welcome to the show.
BO (01:35):
I am so excited. And with that introduction, I mean, I’m ready to throw some fire here. I mean, en Fugo. All right, we’re gonna have some fun. I’m gonna light some stuff up.
RV (01:44):
So, all right. So tell me, let’s talk about perseverance and grit, I guess, and walk me through what, walk me through your definition of what is grit? Why are you writing this book? How did this all come about?
BO (02:01):
So let’s start from the nitty gritty, if you will. I think over the last couple years, I have seen so many friends and so many people that are in the same field or people of faith that have just given up. And it’s so easy in our culture and society right now to throw in the tell, if you will. And I didn’t realize how pervasive the message was until I came to some really hard blows the last couple years. And I was having a conversation with a friend and she was going through a divorce, and I’m looking at her and I’m wa we’re walking through this really dark valley, if you will. And sure. She looked at me from across the coffee table and she said, well, I’m just not like you. I go, what do you mean? She’s like, well, because of your life and your background, like you just were forced to be resilient.
BO (02:48):
Like, I’m not born like that. And then I was hit with the reality that I think people think that resilience and grit is something that you’re born with, not something that you build. Hmm. And so a little bit of context. I know that you’re a good friend with Jasmine, and you know a little bit about this, but for those that are listening to the podcast, and I am new to them, new friend my background is peppered. I am a daughter of immigrants, and we are a large Hispanic family on one income, a dire straits being raised in urban environments. I like to say like we put the urban in suburban and our family was raised in East Los Angeles. See, west LA is where all the fancy bougie people were. We’re in East la. So Jasmine and I, I don’t know if you even know this, but Jasmine and I struggled academically to read right and spell.
BO (03:36):
We were I litter at the age of 12. I th Oh, and couple this with being obese and homeschooled and people of faith living in a non-faith culture. Mm-Hmm.
BO (04:21):
And I’ve read so many books. I mean, Dr. Angela Duckworth’s book Grit was phenomenal. I loved it. It was amazing. Changed my life. It came out like 66, 7 years ago. But one of the things that when I closed the book, I realized, okay, so she defined grit, but she didn’t teach me necessarily how to build it. And she gave so many different examples of people that were like gritty. And she gave medical analysis and, and, and psychological understanding. But I left the book feeling very inspired, but I didn’t have practical handles. I’m the girl that likes to put the cookies on the lower shelf
RV (05:25):
Yeah. And and personal brands is something you, you, you understand, you know, this intersection, right? Like, talk to me about some of the endurance that you’ve had to have to build your personal brand. I mean, you’ve got so many file followers online. You’ve got this thriving church, this thriving community. You’ve got three books. You self-published a book and then, and then two books that you wrote, and now this is your third. Like, how do you think this applies specifically to the personal brand journey?
BO (06:03):
You know I never set out to try to build something, and the least of that was to build a brand for myself. However, I have a wonderful sister who was like, Bianca, it’s you. You are building something. You are building. I am a woman of faith. And so forever out there that may not share that I, I totally understand it, but this is my journey, so I’m gonna give you a little peek. So I started teaching bible studies and my sister was like, Bianca, I really do think that you need a website cuz you’re basically like that person that’s selling fake rolexes, like a fx in an alleyway out of the trunk of a car. Like you have to legitimize yourself. And that simple conversation really sent me on this journey to be like, you know what? I am very proud of the abilities and the skills that I’m cultivating been given and are wanting to increase and get better.
BO (06:49):
So like, why not put intention behind everything that goes out there? Not just my words, but also what’s associated with that. And so it’s been wildly, wildly important. I think for those that are not familiar with the faith space it’s been largely dominated by men and largely dominated by a certain type of men. And so for me to come in it, I, I kind of stick out like a sore thumb. But that’s actually worked in my favor now because in building a brand, I realize that not everyone likes vanilla ice cream. Not everyone likes chocolate ice cream. Some people like cookie crunch, malted cookie crunch, and some people like bubble gum ice cream. Some people like Get ready pistachio ice cream. I just realize that I might not be everyone’s flavor, but the people who are out there that like my favor, they will love this ice cream.
BO (07:31):
So I’m going to build a brand, whether that is in visual assets, digital assets, audio assets or, or biblical assets. I want it to reflect a person, the person who I am in the best form. And again, if I like putting things on the lower shelf, the cookies on the lower shelf I wanna make, whether it’s brand building or biblical principles as easy for people to understand. So I’m passionate about it, I love it. And also my background is in art. So when she started talking about brand building, I kind of viewed it as like painting a portrait. And any portrait that lasts is gonna have a je eso underneath that is like a primer. And I think that brand building needs to have that brand building is the primer. If you want something to last, you need a good primer. If you want your business to grow, you have to have a good brand. So I view it like that.
RV (08:14):
Yeah. Well, and I just, I think people don’t realize how much the road to building a personal brand is just littered with rejection and self-doubt and going, you know, you get turned down for this speaking gig and this, this literary agent tells you your idea will never sell. And this publisher says the book is no good. And you know, you do this email campaign and nobody buys and you, you know, spend your, all your money on a website and then like it doesn’t work. And there’s just, there’s just, to me, this is such a, such a walk of perseverance and grit just to even be in the game, right? Like just to, even to just to even have a chance. You, you, you have to go. So I, I know you talk a little bit about neuroscience specifically and the connection to grit. Can you take us, take us a little bit into that, cuz I kind of feel this as like, you, you mentioned Angela Duckworth as sort of like the handoff of going, you know, there’s this academic piece of grit and, and then, you know, we’re gonna talk about, I wanna talk about the three piece of perseverance and all that, but there’s sort of like this, this piece of neuroscience. And tell me about how the neuroscience of our brain connects into us being gritty.
BO (09:34):
Okay, so you said before we went live on this podcast, you said that you were a nerd and I am a nerd. So from one nerd to a nerd. Nice. We’re gonna nerd move about for a second.
RV (09:43):
Nice
BO (09:43):
Neuroscience in the study of the brain and neuropathy is something that’s becoming more on the forefront of everyday nomenclature, language vocabulary. Like we’re understanding it more. And so for those not familiar with it, the, the easiest way to kind of break it down is neuropathy is this study of like our, the brain grooves. The grain brain pathways. And so in taking a little bit of neuroscience background and applying it to the idea of grit is that no matter what failure comes our way, we get to determine what we tell ourselves about that failure is that, do we say our failure is final or failure is part of the process. And every time that we choose a different narrative, one that is life giving one that is believing that the best is yet to come, as cliche as that sounds, we’re actually building neuro pathways in our brain that can actually rewire our brain to have us view situations like perceived failure or maybe being dismissed by somebody or being rejected or not g getting the job.
BO (10:44):
We can rewire our brain with truth when we tell ourselves, this is not the end of me. Mm. When we tell ourselves that this is actually strengthening me. And when we do that, it’s not. And this is the difference between just so you know, like, oh, positive confession, I’m just gonna will myself to think this. It’s actually knowing that there is a purpose for this failure. I mean, this goes into, I think when we talk about perseverance, when we talk about grit, it feels very nebulous. Like what does that really even mean? And I love some science that’s coming out of Harvard right now. Actually it’s, it’s act probably about a decade old, but I think it’s just gaining popularity that when we try to talk about the word resilience, what are the components of resilience? You had mentioned the three Ps and we can talk about that in a second.
BO (11:30):
But I think that’s been really pivotal in like how I understand failure because it’s perspective, it’s the ability to pivot and then there’s the purpose component. That has been wildly just fascinating to me because it’s changing the way that I think. And by changing the way that I think it changes the way that I live by changing the way that I live, it changes how I lead. And so I think all of it is interconnected and it begins with this rewiring of the brain. And that’s been really fascinating to, to un uncover. And I go a little bit into it. It’s only one chapter that I talk about that I talk about it in the book, but I think it’s so important, the power of what we’re thinking, the power of what we’re saying, the power of what we’re believing about, what perceived failure actually means in our life.
RV (12:13):
Yeah. I think that and that it was empowering for me to sort of wake up and realize this idea that it is up to me to define the way I think about what has happened to me. Right? You don’t always get to cho choose what happens, but you get to choose how you respond to it. And, and more specifically how you process it, how you, the, the story you tell yourself about what happened. One alternative is, man, I’m a total failure
RV (13:20):
Like this is making me so resilient cuz there’s so much, so much rejection. So let’s do, let’s walk through the, the three piece cuz I know that there’s people out there, whether it’s an author, you know, who feels hopeless about how do I get this book out into the world or the attention of a publisher or an aspiring speaker or a lot of, you know, maybe it’s coaches going, how do I just, I I need more clients and I feel like I I I don’t know where they’re gonna come from. Or we also have, you know, a lot of professional service providers that are, you know, part of this community of lawyers and accountants and doctors and things where they might just be feeling burnt out. Right? I’m just going like, I don’t wanna keep going. Like I’m already, I’ve been going for so long and I’m burnt out. So walk us, walk us through the three P’s.
BO (14:08):
Okay. So before we dive into that, you had said something that was so impactful and I don’t want someone to miss this. It’s like the podcasters flipping it on the podcaster, but you said something so good that I think people need to hold onto. You had 20,000 doors that you knocked on and you had so many nos and so many slammed doors in your face. Uhhuh
RV (14:34):
I cried every freaking day, every day I cried
BO (14:54):
That resistance is the thing that builds resilience. And so I think that the door slammed in our faces mm-hmm.
BO (15:38):
And so again, cookies on the lower shelf friend, I made them all start with P because I was raised on Sesame Street and p is the letter for the day. Okay? So of the first P of resilience is the understanding of perspective. So perspective is, and this is where we get into like the neuro pathways and what so perspective would pause and say, okay, even though this is bad, whatever the bad is, you didn’t get the job, the pitch in the boardroom epically failed. The C-suite that you wanted was taken by someone who everyone thought was more qualified. Whatever your perceived failures, your perspective is like your per your chosen perspective. You can walk in and say though that it’s not now that doesn’t mean that it’s not e never your perspective will shift and say, what are areas of growth in my life that I maybe don’t see?
BO (16:24):
Your perspective would say, Hey, this is resurrecting something in me that I would like to work, work through with a trained professional. I’m gonna go see a therapist perspective is saying, what am I not saying? And then perspective allows you to pivot the who are, what’s the characteristics of people who are resilient. Not only do they have a healthy perspective of life and themselves, they have the wild ability to pivot to say though this is not working. I am going to turn and I’m gonna go in a different direction and I’m gonna make this work when life gives me lemonade. Life can me lemons. It’s not just for lemonade. It’s so that I could save the seeds and plant these seeds in the future for trees that will produce more lemons in my life. This is the ability to pivot. The French word is brico.
BO (17:03):
Most people are familiar with like collage, but brico is when we’re taking different strands of different things and we’re making something beautiful. This is the lemons to lemonade. Those resilient people will just, will have an ability not only to have clear perspective, but the ability to pivot. And then last and finally is an understanding of purpose. So if you’re familiar with the Austrian psychiatrist out of Auschwitz that survived the Holocaust, oh my gosh, why am I blanking on his name? Please help me. Rory. Do you know what I’m talking about? It’s brilliant.
RV (17:34):
Victor Frankl. Victor
BO (17:37):
Frankel. See, I knew what you came through. You are, come on homie. You are a homie. Who is
RV (17:40):
Vic? Who is Victor Frankel for 500. Yes.
BO (17:44):
Yes. Well done. You’ll win Jeopardy. You’ll be my phone a friend. Okay. So Vi Frankl really helped frame this understanding of acar pain having purpose. Nobody wants to say that. And again, it sounds so cliche, but what he did is he found that people that understood that their pain actually produced a purpose in their life. That they went on to live not only more fulfilled lives, but more successful lives. And I think wow, if we’re giving people handles on how to be resilient, it’s those that have a healthy, healthy perspective on self and life, have the ability to pivot and then can see a greater purpose beyond whatever trauma trial or tribulation has faced them. That’s what makes me passionate and that’s what makes me so excited. I’m like, wait, there’s actual he handles to build this for our lives.
RV (18:27):
Yeah. And these, these are so good because I you know, like with perspective, part of how I’ve always thought about it is like if you have a flat tire, that seems like an awful event. But one day when you go to heaven, if you real, if you learn back and you go, oh, that flat tire actually prevented you from a fatal car accident mm-hmm.
RV (19:03):
All that has changed is your perspective. Mm-Hmm.
BO (19:47):
Unan answer prayers
RV (19:48):
Thank you Jesus.
BO (20:08):
All things work together for good
RV (20:10):
In all things. Yeah. God wor things work together, together for good, for those who love God and called his purposes or something close to that. There’s is that you can choose to go, even though this awful thing has happened. Yeah. There’s gotta be some payoff as to why. And, and, and it is always the way, right? Like you can look back on things that happened 20 years and go, man, I actually am quite thankful that I got fired from that job. Like mm-hmm.
BO (20:51):
All, first of all, you are taking us to church today. Okay. I’m about to bring my podcast Oh yeah.
RV (21:24):
Oh, you’re talking to me? Yeah. Oh. Well, I, it’s funny. I would, my honest answer to that would be programming. It would be programming going back to the, to the, to the neuroscience neuro
BO (21:37):
Pathways.
RV (21:37):
Yeah. We, we, we used to, they, they taught us to say this, this phrase, the answers behind the next door, the answers behind the next door, the answers, the answer to every problem is behind the next door. And they like beat it into our heads. Whoa. And I, I actually would say it out loud between houses, the answers behind the next door, a always. And so I would say it was less of a feeling. I never felt like going to the next door. It was more of realizing, okay, my brain is a computer system, it’s going to do whatever it’s trained to do, and I need to program my brain that whenever something bad happens, the answer is behind the next door. So to just keep going. And, you know, I I would also say, you know, to that person that’s listening right now going, if, if they’re sitting there thinking, oh yeah, you know, this is all nice and tidy, wrapped up in a bow, like your pain turns into purpose and perspective, what I would say is just create an alternative version of how the story could end, right?
RV (22:38):
So if you’re sit, if you’re sitting on the corner with a flat tire right now, it, it, it, it feels awful, right? Like, I’m not telling people to fake their emotions. Like, it sucks when someone slams the door on your face. It sucks when you have a flat tire. It sucks when somebody dies. It sucks when you get fired. But, and this is part of where, for me, I think faith comes into it, which is in all things God works for the good of those who love him and who are called according to his purpose is to go. I am consciously choosing to believe that even though I can’t see it, even though I don’t understand it, even though I don’t feel it right now, what is a potential explanation for how this could be used for good? Or even just having the thought that it could somehow be used for good, I think gives you enough to go to, to go to the next door to go, yeah, I don’t understand it, but I’m just gonna keep going versus otherwise, I’m, I’m just searching for an explanation. And the explanation is, oh, I suck. I’m not worth it. I’ll never succeed. You know, I have bad luck. So I, I love what you’re saying there about perspective and purpose and I mean, those, those tie together really, really, really well. Well,
BO (23:50):
Thank you for knocking on the 20,000 doors because I think that what you’ve learned in that, in that season has equipped you to help so many other people in their season of not wanting to knock on the next door.
RV (24:02):
Well, thanks, Bianca. I mean, I think I, I think this is the not, I think I’m a hundred percent certain. I, you know, I’ve now interviewed thousands of people between my various podcasts over the years. This is a hundred percent the story of success there. I have not found one person who has been extremely successful who doesn’t have some version of that story. In fact, in your book you talk about Paul from the Bible, and this is, I know it’s a, I mean, hey, you’re a pastor, like, there’s gonna be a few biblical references. So
RV (25:04):
So can you like describe why you chose Paul as an example of this?
BO (25:09):
Well, I refer to Paul as my Bible boyfriend. I just feel like there is no one else and the page. And yes, my husband is aware that I have a crush on a
RV (26:07):
And before this, he’s a murderer. He’s a, he’s a, he is murdering Christians, persecuting them. Mm-Hmm.
BO (26:30):
So he’s the prosecutor and the prosecutor against people of the way as in those following Jesus. So he is on his way, he’s breathing hot threats down the neck of believers, and he’s stopped, he’s halted on the Damascus road in the desert, dusty, dirty road. And he has an encounter that really changes his life. And suffice it to say you can read his story all throughout the pages of scriptures, but the man goes on to Penn, two thirds of the noon testament, and the one who was a prosecutor and the prosecutor against the people that were people of faith. He becomes one of the, if not the chief crafter of our theology that we understand today. Now that sounds lovely. When we say theology, we think of like an ivory tower. No, this man was beaten. This man was stoned. This man was imprisoned multiple times.
BO (27:19):
This man had allegations come up against him. And there’s this one one specific account where he is just falsely charged. He’s put in a boat, he’s sent over on his way to Rome, their ship wrecked, their ship runs runs afloat against an an island called Malta. They finally make it through this storm that’s supposed to take their life. And as he’s there, they’re trying to drive themselves off and warm themselves off, and they build a fire. And as they’re building a fire, he picks up pieces of wood to start the fire. And then out comes a, a snake that bites him and everyone’s expecting him to die. And he doesn’t die. He doesn’t die. In fact, the hand that is bitten soon will be the hand that he lays on people that will experience supernatural miraculous healing. I mean, this man’s story is absolutely insane, and he has such a conviction about what he’s called to do, that it’s nothing can stop him.
BO (28:09):
I’m not saying that he walks, you know, skipping along and desires to eat bomb bonds on a beach. No, the man endures so much, and yet it did not stop him from doing what he was called to do. So the reason why so much of this book is framed upon the life, if, if there’s a through line in this book, it’s the life of Paul the Apostle where we are all gonna have this arresting moment. No, there’s not gonna be a, a light that shines down from heaven and a voice that’s like, why are you persecuting me? But there’s kind kinda a moment in our life and maybe even multiple times in our life where we’re stopped and we’re arrested and asked, what are we doing? And it’s those moments that I kinda wanted us to pause and take a take a a, a a, a pulse check, if you will.
BO (28:48):
What am I doing? What am I doing? Because there’s going to be resistance that comes along with the way when we are pursuing the call that’s upon our lives, whether that is sitting in a medical practice or whether that’s going to law school, or whether that is being a stay-at-home mom who is an entrepreneur running a business out of her kitchen. I, there’s going to be resistance. And the reason why I’m absolutely beaded with this man named Paul, is that nothing stopped him and thwarted him from not just pursuing the call upon his life, but encouraging others to do the same. So I look at Paul’s, which is the end of his life, he says, I poured myself out like a drink offering. Now this is very poetic. But he was also speaking to the philosophy during that time that during that time in ancient Greco-Roman culture, they would pour out their wine to the gods as a sacrifice. And he is saying, I am pouring myself out for the benefit and the sacrifice. Sacrifice unto the Lord, be benefit of you. And I wanna get to the end of my life and say, I have fought the good fight. I have poured myself out like a drink offering, not only pursuing the God call that he’s put on my life, but inspiring others to do the same no matter what comes my way.
RV (29:53):
Amen. I love it. Bianca, where should people go if they wanna learn about this book or connect with you, like see all the things that you are up to?
BO (30:03):
Absolutely. I’m so excited about the project and it launches August 28th. People can pre-order and get a bunch of amazing gifts and incentives and resources, not just stuff that’s gonna sit on a desk, but resources that will enable people to build resilience and grit and perseverance. So they can go to bianca ov.com/gdq for grit, don’t Quit, and also at Bianca ov on all social media platforms,
RV (30:27):
Grit, don’t quit, bianca ov.com/gdq. We’ll put a link to that in the bio as well. And I would encourage you to follow her online. I mean, I follow her on Instagram and I just, I love it. It’s just encouraging, encouraging words. So thank you for your encouragement, friend. Thank you for your example. Thank you. Thank you for boldly pursuing your calling and, and what you’re doing, and we just we’re praying for you and, and we are pulling for you. And we, we wish you the best. Thank
BO (30:55):
You. Appreciate you.
Ep 413: Do You Need an App? | Josh Hotsenpiller Episode Recap
AJV (00:02):
Oh boy. I just had the best and most enlightening conversation. And it’s like one of those conversations that when you have it, you’re like, oh, I really need to tell somebody else about this. Usually the first victim is my husband and he’s always getting infiltrated with all the new things that I’m hearing and learning, but today to you. So welcome. Here’s what we’re gonna talk about for the next just few minutes. I’d like to keep these short, sweet, and simple. But I was recently having a conversation with a newer friend of mine. His name is Josh Hotsenpiller, and he’s the founder and CEO of this awesome company called Juno, which we happen to be using to build the new brand builders group app. And so I also have another great friend, Amanda Mariachi, who also owns a company called appt.
AJV (00:46):
They build custom apps. And you know, apps are a big conversation, right? They’re a big topic, they’re really expensive, take a ton of time. And so I’m always so curious to go like, how much does it cost to do that? And you know, there’s so many apps out there. I’m like, all these people spent all this money making these apps. How long did it take? And it’s like, the more you get into it, it’s like, wow, like that’s really expensive. It takes a lot of time. And so I was having this conversation with Josh about building and creating apps, and he cut me off right in the beginning, which is always a good sign, something good’s gonna happen. And he goes, whoa, whoa, whoa. This is the wrong conversation to have. The conversation is not do you need an app? The conversation is what problem are you trying to solve?
AJV (01:31):
And is one of the solutions an app? And I thought that was so wise and so simply stated because, you know, we at Brand Builders group, like every other human out on the planet gets distracted by what’s happening in the market, what’s happening all around us, what our friends are doing, what our competitors are doing. Just what’s happening, right? And it’s like everyone needs an app. And the truth is, no, you don’t. Not everyone needs an app. Not everyone needs this. Not everyone needs that. And I thought it was just a wise thing for someone who owns an app company to go, whoa, whoa, whoa. Wrong conversation. It is not, do you need an app or How much should I spend on an app? Or, you know, at what point do I get an app? He goes, all the wrong things. All you need to figure out is what are the main problems in your business?
AJV (02:22):
And then could an app be one of the solutions? Because it’s definitely not the only one. And it really got me thinking, you know, we started this app conversation, this app journey months and months and months and months ago. And really the problem that we have been trying to solve at Brand Builders Group is consolidation, right? It’s like up until now we have had a private Facebook group for a lot of our community interaction. We have used Thinkific as our L M Ss. We use Keep as our, you know C R M, but we use Teams
AJV (02:58):
For internal Chat. We have all listservs for days for our community. But it’s like, in order to really get the full picture of all things Brain Builders Group, it’s like we have our course curriculum, our course content, and think if that you use several different, you know, landing pages to register for events or register for virtual trainings. You can come live, you can come in person, you go to our Facebook group for daily interactions, and we have a growing number of people who are like, I refuse to log into Facebook. How else can I get engaged? And we haven’t really had an answer. And what we were solving that we weren’t even clear that we were solving is our big problem is consolidation. How do we create a platform, a go-to place where you can come in to one place to get access to every single thing that we do at Brand Builders Group?
AJV (03:46):
Log into your affiliate commission statements and sign up for a referral program. Register for an event attend a live event happening right now. Chat with our community, join a forum, watch course content gamification, see leaderboards. And we were using so many fragmented tools to make that happen. It just so happens an app was the solution for our unique problem. We just went and reverse order, didn’t do it in the right order. Luckily, it all worked out in our favor. However, I just thought that was a really powerful conversation to have. And not just about an app, but about technology in general. It’s not, do you need a C R M or do you need an L M s or do you need this? It’s no, no, no, no, no. Wrong questions. What problem are you trying to solve for your business? And what technology could help?
AJV (04:42):
What problem are you trying to solve in your business? What’s the biggest problem you’re trying to overcome right now? And then is there, and then what technology could help? Super simple conversation today, but was one of those aha. You know, like ding ding, dinging moments. And I wanted to just stop in a moment and record this for you of going, it’s like we get distracted by all the shiny objects. We all have a little bit of squirrel syndrome, right? It’s like shiny object swirl. And this is a great moment to go. Like just because it’s out there doesn’t mean you need it. Just because everyone else is doing it doesn’t mean you have to. But get focused and get centered on what problem are you trying to solve. And then what and if technology or if technology can do it, and then what technology is out there that can actually help solve that problem. So hope this helped you. It was an aha for me. I’ll catch you next time. See you later.
Ep 412: Leveraging Technology to Scale Your Business with Josh Hotsenpiller
AJV (00:02):
Hey everybody, and welcome to another episode on the Influential Personal Brand. It’s AJ Vaden here and super excited to have my friend Josh on the show today. And I will give him a formal formal bio, a formal overview in just a second. But this interview is super special to both me and Roy and all of B B G because this is kind of the introduction of one of our strategic partners to our community and very high level. I’ll give you this little bit of background and then I promise I’ll introduce Josh
AJV (01:11):
And so I spent the better part of eight months pretty much trying out every single free demo that was available out there. Went very far down the line with some platforms that are great if you’re looking for that type of thing with like passion.io was one we went mighty Networks Pro is another. We went far down the lines, but we did a lot. And it kind of got down to the wire when I was about to sign on the dotted line with Passion io. And they revealed to me on this final call that they couldn’t do this one thing in our community that was really, really, really, really important to us. And about that time, very serendipitously very divinely one of our teammates, Jeremy said, Hey, you should check out this company called Juno. And I was like, what’s Juno?
AJV (02:00):
Long story short, now almost eight months later, we are about to go live with our own brand builders group app, the B b G app that has been totally created with Josh’s company, Juno, and their awesome team. And so Juan, I’m just really excited to have this conversation because I also know what it’s like to intimately work with your team and know your product very well, and be someone who is paying for your services
AJV (03:13):
AJV (03:57):
Lots in the a virtual event space, which I think he should also share some of his background that
JH (04:56):
Goodness gracious. Thank you so much for having me. I’m excited to share time and ideas and talk about the power of community and people.
AJV (05:04):
Yes. And I know you’re probably like, that’s the longest intro ever. You could have cut off four minutes, however, think this is gonna be a great conversation. So I’m gonna start in reverse order Okay. Of all of these questions. But before we get into that, can you just give people a little bit of insight of all of this awesome stuff that you’ve been doing for personal brands and companies behind the scenes. It’s like that bio does not do you justice whatsoever in terms of all the things that you’ve actually done. So help our audience get to know you.
JH (05:35):
Yeah. You know, I my bio is kind of over the river and through the woods. You know, you, I I quick bio grew up, the son of a preacher man was in that world, didn’t really know what else to do. I went and got my divinity degree in New York, right outside of New York City. Started a church at 23, grew up to about a thousand people. Started to feel like, gosh, like there’s what is, what would I do if I wasn’t doing this? Mm-Hmm.
JH (06:25):
And for me, it was a similar thing. I, what would I do if I wasn’t a pastor? And, and maybe you can relate to this as a listener, you grew up with a family that was kind of doing a family business, if you will. Mm-Hmm. You know, maybe it was my dad was in lawn care, or an engineer, or what restaurant business, whatever it was. And then maybe you go, wait a minute, maybe that’s not my story. Mm-Hmm. And so me and a me and a buddy, when we were 27, 28 years old decided we wanted to mobilize people to change the world. I know that sounds kind of whatever but we didn’t even know there was a space out there called the corporate social responsibility space. And so right during the 2007, eight 2007 and eight housing mortgage crisis, we launched a do good platform called Profits for Purpose that helped mobilize employees to give back time and money.
JH (07:11):
And yeah, we grew it up. We had over a million global employees accessing the platform. Those, a lot of those brands you mentioned, GoPro, Estee Lauder, staples, N F L, all sorts of groups. I always just believe in the power of community. And so I begin to build bra products for brands all around mobilizing people to do something. Hmm. So whether it was gl hp, we built the global sales enablement tool that to this day they still license and use it from one of my companies, the un they have boots on the ground all over this world helping fight genocide, hunger, poverty, and they weren’t able to mobilize those people. So we built a platform to mobilize ’em. And ultimately, my vision has always been how do you mobilize people to do amazing things and whatever that might be. And that’s the power of community.
JH (07:59):
I mean, that really is what it is. And so to me, we always had that big vision of how do we mobilize people? Tech was just part of it, right? It was just a thing. We always say, we’re not a tech company, we’re a values company. Tech is just a, is a, is a tool that you use to enable a vision. I love that. Yeah. And I think when you think about it bigger than that, you kind of missed the point and you mission drift and you kind of forget why you’re doing what you’re doing. And so for me, it’s everybody listening has a vision, has a community, has a vertical they care about. And the question is, what are the tools that we need to create radical change? And so tech has been that tool for me over the last 12, 15 years.
JH (08:41):
It’s, I’ve traveled the world, literally worked with amazing global brands, worked with a lot of really neat individual people, some amazing people. Like maybe some of your listeners know Lisa Turkers. We built her app. She’s one of the most phenomenal leaders I’ve never been around. We built Catalyst was a big group we built for a ton of their people. So we were in a lot of those faith-based spaces fortune 100 spaces. We’ve done it all from soup to nuts. And we’ve learned a lot from folks that have said, Hey, I’ve got an audience of 2000. You know, when we launched Lisa’s a app, I’ll never forget it. We trended number one in the app store for three days, which is an incredible thing to do for downloads. And you think about, you hear these things, oh my gosh, we trended in the app store. We did put 2 million people, active users on that app. That’s
AJV (09:29):
Amazing.
JH (09:30):
So, which remind me to come back to that because I think that there’s a, there’s a, there’s a strategic message I want to share about how and why to use technology. And I’m gonna use, I’ll use that as a use case cause I think it’ll help everybody listening. But yeah, we, we found that technology was a great tool. It was a great utility, which we’ll talk about in a minute to execute a bigger purpose. So that’s kind of what’s brought me here. I’ve done TEDxs, I’m a US state department, global ambassador for entrepreneurship. Oh man, it’s just been a wild ride all from just being the son of a preacher man. So it’s been a fun time. Yeah. Know
AJV (10:02):
What, you should really set smaller goals, you know, it’s like
JH (10:56):
Right. Right.
AJV (10:56):
They’re tools. Right. And it’s like they can be used for good or bad. It just all has to do with the intention. So why don’t we just kind of start there. It’s like you said this, it’s come back to like how and why to use technology. And I think that’s a good general place to start.
JH (11:13):
Cool. You know what’s funny about my mom and, and, and dad, they’re getting into that fourth quarter stage of their life. And I, I have a, I have a ritual. My folks live in Anaheim Hills, orange County. And so I have a ritual that every night I’m there, I drink whiskey with dad. And every morning I take walk with mom mm-hmm.
JH (11:58):
It’s not going away. And so now the question is, and so I raised 13 million from Insights Partners. It’s the largest software only BC in the world. They have 200 billion under management. And I, through total random Niff God we raised from their co-founder, a guy named Jerry Murdoch, who Richard Branson officiated his wedding. If that puts any context into like, you know, I’m raising money from this guy that like literally chases where the snow is
JH (12:52):
Well, I use my app, my, my Maps app. In fact, now it’s to the point when when I get into my car, it tells me it, it goes, you’re either going to the Crosby Club, which is where I golf, you’re going to Church of rb. That’s where our family goes to church. You’re going to star it knows based on time where you’re, where it’s Spotify is like, Hey, it’s Friday. It’s your country mix. It’s been a long week. Like, here’s some new songs that we think you’re gonna, like, what’s happening. Technology is becau it’s a utility. It’s a tool to make something happen and make your life easier. And so when you think about technology, you think about it from a utility standpoint. How is this a utility to help my community do something they already wanna do better, faster, more efficiently? I want to drive to this location.
JH (13:44):
This map’s gonna say, this is how you should get there in the fastest way. I want to listen to music. This app’s gonna tell me the music I don’t even know existed. I’m gonna love that in the fastest way. That’s what tech is. It’s a utility. And so you think about your community and your audience. So Lisa Turkish has told you I was going to use her as an example. She had, she’s brilliant. She had this idea, she’s like, I wanna do the first five. I wanna own the first five minutes of all of my audience’s day. Mm-Hmm.
JH (14:28):
But it was, it’s the most utility, one of the most utility apps we’ve done. And it’s, it’s still to this day, I think averages a couple million people on it actively, which is phenomenal to think about. But you gotta look at your audience and go, what is it that you are trying to accomplish? And what is the, the hammer and the nails and the screwdriver and the wrench that you need to do that? Mm-Hmm.
AJV (15:06):
So good.
JH (15:07):
That’s the question you solve that maybe you need an app, maybe you need an airplane, maybe I don’t know what you need. But the problem is we always think technology is gonna solve the problem. Oh, the problem. We haven’t even defined
AJV (15:21):
JH (15:44):
And it’s just, and and all of a sudden we’re like, my app sucks. The app, the company sucks. And you’re like, do I suck? I mean, who knows? Every, maybe everybody does. Maybe nobody does. Maybe we just didn’t identify a problem. Yeah. I was, I’ll never forget, I was sitting in the CEO’s office of a, I don’t know, me, half a billion dollar company. It wasn’t huge, but you know, big enough. And I was sitting in his office and he goes, Hey, I’m, I’m looking at signing this contract for this app, but I’m staring at this proposal going, I would never use this. And I said, my God, I’d hope not. I’d hope you’re too busy to use this, this you are not our target audience.
AJV (16:20):
Yeah.
JH (16:22):
You know? And he goes, oh my gosh, I never even thought about that. The question is not would you use this? The question is, would your audience use this again, icp, you know, our ideal customer profile, who is this person? Would they use it? And so when we look at your community, we go, what does your community need? Some of it might need leadership coaching, some of it might need emotion. I was just got off this podcast, AJ in this group called Happy. It’s phenomenal. They all they are is a listening for hire company. They’re not trained psychologists. You literally, at scale, they’re creating listeners. I love
AJV (17:00):
This
JH (17:01):
Which I can, I can open this, I can open this up to our AI conversation in a minute. But I was just on this podcast, these guys out of Manhattan, and they asked me to come on as an exec. How do you listen as an executive? And they go, we we’re literally scaling listening. Hmm. And you, their audience just needs somebody to listen. So it determines the type of app you build, the utility that you use. Is it just audio streaming? Is it video? My audience needs to be heard. Yeah. Well, my audience needs to be leadership coached. My audience needs to understand you know new law term, whatever it is. You gotta start with that mm-hmm.
AJV (17:48):
Hmm. That’s so good. And you know, it’s we had at this conversation, a good friend of mine has a custom app creation company called App name’s Amanda Mariachi. She lives in Denver. And you know, I had her on the podcast, I don’t know, a while back. And one of the questions that, you know, she had said is, the problem with building custom apps is that at the end of the day, it’s always gonna be more expensive than what you wanted it to be. It’s never gonna have a hundred percent of the functionality that you want. Sure. And somehow it’s always my fault, right. As the developer, as the builder, and Yep. Said, the truth is, is an app only works if you know exactly what you want it to do. Mm-Hmm.
AJV (18:38):
It’s over time. And at the end of the day, we’re like, we gotta call it, and then we finish an incomplete project. And she goes, yep. That’s often what an app building experience looks like. And it’s why we say no. It’s like, if you don’t know exactly who your audience is, what your business model is, if you can’t tell us that in the beginning, then we won’t work with you. And it’s exactly what you just said. It’s, it’s not do I need an app? It’s, could an app solve a problem that my audience has, because I know what the problem is and I know who my audience is.
JH (19:07):
And that’s how you grow an audience. I mean, it really is. It’s how, you know, it’s like anything. I mean, let’s go back to this listening group. You know, they, one of the things they brought me on, you know, they’re like, Josh, how many times do your exec, you know, your, your people just, I just wanna be heard. I just, I just wanna be heard. And, and I’ll tell a great story when I was I remember as the rise of Millennialism comes into the marketplace, and as a, as an ex, you know, GenX guy I’m wired a little bit different than millennials, but I’ll never forget this one guy came into my office and he goes we’re talking, and, and he goes, oh, I gotta tell you about this new company. I started, one of my employees in the middle of the day,
AJV (19:52):
Yeah. Tell me, tell me
JH (19:54):
You, you started a company. And he goes, yeah. So he kind of tells him about it. And I go, when, when do you work on it? And he goes, no. All throughout the day, I’m like, so wait a minute, when I’m employing you
JH (20:45):
Like, we feel responsible, like, yeah, you are here because I’m a thought leader in a space and, and I am the one you need to listen to. And so I’m gonna make a bunch of crap up and hope it’s right and every, you know, whatever else, right? And like, wait a minute, the art of listening is going to educate you on how to lead. Remember, you’re being paid to lead not to talk. And so a huge part of what you can do in leading is listening so that you know how to lead mm-hmm.
AJV (21:33):
That. But I think that’s, you know, we can apply that same conversation, not just to technology or an app, but, and anything, right. It doesn’t, it’s like even starting out, it’s like, I was just, as you were thinking as you were talking, I was thinking about, you know, the journey that we take customers on and brand builders group, and it’s like what we call finding your brand d n a are these six components. It’s the foundation of your personal brand. And one of those six components is what’s your business model? And are other words, what’s your primary business model? How do you make money right now? And then what do you want it to be in the long term? And it’s so interesting that for most people, most of that decision happens in a very small group setting that involves none of their clients. Mm. Mm-Hmm.
JH (22:42):
I don’t know where that came from. I’m supposed to know when you’re supposed to listen. That’s what you’re supposed to do. That’s what you, that’s what you’re supposed to do. You’re not supposed to know. Mm-Hmm.
JH (23:33):
We could do online learning, credentialing, where we could do community. Could you create that? And I remember I went back to my, my guys, I was like, guys, the customers asking us to create an all OnOne solution, we should do it. Now we’re in conversations with a big partnership with the company, and I was talking to their cfo F and they’re, I don’t know, they’re probably a half a billion dollar company. They’re worth multiple billions of dollars. And, and I said to ’em, I said, you know, it’s interesting when we got into this, I knew virtual only was gonna commoditize and evaporate. And so we needed a, we needed a more holistic solution. And he sheepishly laughed and said, we bought a company that we watched evaporate from 21 million in revenue to zero. Think about that. 21 million in, in, in, in, in revenue to zero.
JH (24:19):
Wow. Was I some savant that knew that I know that. Or did I listen to that? Mm-Hmm.
AJV (25:02):
I love that. I think that’s such a good reminder. Like I said, this is not just for technology or apps. This is just building your business, growing your business, leading your team. Listening, listening matters. Surprise. Right.
JH (25:14):
I know. Shocking.
AJV (25:16):
Surprise. Now on that, I loved what you said earlier, and I wrote this down, is, you know, it’s like technology really at its best use is helping people do things more efficiently. Do them where it’s, you know, easier, faster, smarter. Mm-Hmm.
AJV (25:59):
We, we, it’s like, and I love, and I don’t remember who told us this, but this was some interview that we had with someone who is smarter than us who said technology is only scary when you don’t know how it applies to you. Mm-Hmm.
JH (26:43):
It’s, so let’s go back to what we said. It’s not going away. So you can get scared and you can throw your hands up. You can talk about living in an al you know, an alternate community that doesn’t do parallel communities. I hear people talk about this all the time and I’m like, you know, all, all the conservatives will live over here and everybody else will live over here. We’ll just live in parallel societies. You know, it’s not gonna happen. Mm-Hmm.
JH (27:27):
You could walk down an alley in the middle of the day, you don’t thinking of it because you can’t see where it’s going. And that’s where we’re right now with ai. We don’t know where it’s going. And instead of seeing the good of it, the brain is wired to protect itself. And so we are seeing all the bad, right? Mm-Hmm.
JH (28:11):
Gimme the other thing, and I’ve been saying this to my wife for years ago, Kim, our boys, I have two boys, crews and Crosby, they’re 1113. I said, they are gonna have EQs through the roof because that is that, or they’re gonna be plumbers because those are gonna be the two jobs the future is gonna have. It’s gonna be working class trade jobs because you can’t machine learn that or it’s gonna be soft skills. And my mind bent this morning, I didn’t even, I got asked to be on this executive that listened thing from a big c e outta of Manhattan. And so I was like, yeah, sure, I’ll do that Ben, no problem. I get on and all of a sudden this guy gets on, he’s a c e of happy, which is this listening thing. And I’m like, dude, I’ve been saying for years future jobs are gonna get professional huggers listeners.
JH (28:58):
Like, because you automate these tasks. Yeah. What’s left? It’s hu it’s human need. Mm-Hmm.
AJV (30:02):
Other things in life? Yeah.
JH (30:03):
It doesn’t go away. I mean, do you remember, I don’t remember. It wasn’t there, but when the TV came out, I remember my parents saying, and I don’t, I mean I was raised like very religious rights. I don’t know how many did folks listen in, have a religious background or not. But this was how, you know, Satan was finally giving able speak to the whole world and introduce the mark of the beast or whatever. But tv here’s how it was radio first, then tv, and then the internet. And you go, okay, we can doom and gloom till we’re dead in the face mm-hmm.
AJV (30:44):
Totally.
JH (30:45):
Or we can flip the light on and say it’s, it’s a hallway, it’s an hour. I mean
AJV (30:49):
Yeah. I liken that too. It’s like, it does not matter what it is in life. It can be used for good or bad relationship. It’ll be, are healthy and unhealthy. Food is good and not good. It’s real and artificial. It’s like we can make anything good, bad, and honestly we can make anything bad. Good. That’s right. Bad is where I just, I had this podcast interview earlier today with a gentleman named Damon West and I loved what he said. He goes, the future is defined in only one of two ways, fear or faith. Mm-Hmm.
AJV (31:47):
It was we needed to consolidate Yeah. All of the different platforms into one. And that was something that our community has been saying for years and it’s something our team has been saying for years is when do we have to stop logging into one more place? Yes. Yes. And it’s cause like we were scrappy when we were building this. We don’t have investors, we’ve been self-funded and it’s like, well it’s not the best but it works for now and we’ll upgrade when it’s time to upgrade. And so it was consolidation and then organization. Mm. It was consolidation and organization of, you know, we just believe like regardless if we’re right or wrong, this is our belief is that people don’t pay for information anymore. Hmm. No, it’s for free. They don’t but they do pay for organization.
JH (32:33):
Mm.
AJV (32:33):
And they pay for application. Yeah. But it’s like, we don’t pay for information. You can get that for free, but often you don’t get it in the right order. And so you’re trying to piecemeal it together and you can do the right things in the wrong order and it will blow up in your Sure.
JH (32:47):
No doubt.
AJV (32:48):
And so that was our whole thing is like we need to consolidate and organize and then our team is the one who helps to apply and it would like, and that was like, that is why we built this app. And you know, one of the reasons we chose Juno is because of some of the AI components. Yeah. That did not exist in the other platforms. And yeah, one of the things that our community wants is they want a little bit of this done for them. It’s like, I don’t want to have to tell your team who I want to be introduced to. I wanna log in and I want someone to tell me
JH (33:21):
Like exactly
AJV (33:22):
Based on your profile, here are the five other members that you should connect with in this community. That’s so
JH (33:28):
Cool. Yeah. And let me share with, with our listeners, like how I kind of architect that engineered it because it’s gonna go back to the utility. So I created this thing called human interest modeling and, and what it was when it said, when you onboard onto our platform, we want you to declare what you’re interested in. Mm-Hmm.
JH (34:19):
Next thing you know, we’re on a rabbit trail of a yacht and the next thing you know, it’s more yachts and it’s golf. And next thing you know, if you look at that now that’s a complete profile of what you’ve discovered that you’re interested in. Not declared mm-hmm.
JH (35:05):
So it’s like, oh, I think I could really help with public speaking with research papers. I’m just making stuff up. And then somebody else comes on and goes, gosh, I’m the worst at research. I need to try to, I need to try to learn that. And all of a sudden the system’s like, Hey gosh, and AJ you guys should connect cuz AJ’s awesome at public speaking and you wanna get good at it and you’re really good at research and Jill over here really wants to get good at it. And all of a sudden, what is that? That’s utility that’s valued. To your point, that’s organization, that’s ai. Mm-Hmm.
AJV (35:59):
Yeah. It is. Back to, it’s like, and under, in order to use it, you have to understand it. You don’t have to know all of it. But it’s, I know that there’s a million ways that I could be using AI right now. I’m using it in five different ways, but it’s changing my life. It is giving time, back, minutes back that I can reinvest in other things that are important. Saving us money. It’s like there’s so many things that, you know, just to that point of it’s, you know, you only fear what you don’t understand. Even if it’s at the micro level of like, okay, I understand how I can use it for this one thing. Somebody is Yeah. And it, it that’s very much, you know, this conversation around technology in general and the app. And before I forget, cause I know we’re almost outta time if you guys are listening and you’re like, okay, I like this technology conversation and I’m curious about this app and that is something that I, you know, I, I do wanna explore, I wanna tell you guys where to go to learn about Juno.
AJV (36:51):
So you can go to juno live.com, that’s their website. So juno live.com. When you’re talking to their team, tell ’em that you heard about it through this podcast. We’re trying to do a really good job of tracking how we connect people. Don’t be surprised if there’s an AI component to this podcast in the near future that will do that for you automatically. That this is this one way to get connected to Juno. But Josh, if they wanna connect with you and they just want to follow you and learn more about you and learn from you, where’s the best place for them to go?
JH (37:23):
Yeah. I mean obviously jump on Instagram or LinkedIn. I mean those are awesome places to hang out. I do a a weekly email called Monday Motivation through I think josh hoen piller.com. You can sign up for it. I think we still have landing page up. I have a few thousand people that get that weekly. And it’s just honestly just my musings on leadership and life and, and things I’m learning on, on how to be a better listener, how to be a better leader how to build more utility in everything that we do. So yeah, come hang out, let’s get to know each other.
AJV (37:55):
Yes, and I’ll put all of that in the show notes too. And there’s so much to Josh that we did not cover today. This was so much about technology, but he has this awesome mastermind. You’re doing coaching, you’re doing so many, you’re speaking like you do so much more than what we talked about today. So we’ll have to have you come on another time to talk about, you know, part two of all things Josh, and you know, I just so appreciate you coming on and talking about this and for you guys listening one I just encourage you to, to learn more if, like, if you are trying to explore how do I use technology or an app to deepen the, you know, relationships in my community and isn’t app the right thing that I could just personally say, we’re paying for Juno, we’re using Juno. Highly recommend it. Their team has been awesome to work with. So you just get major accolades from our team, you, but then more than that it’s just to explore how technology can help you be better at what you do. Yeah. And I think that’s a really important thing. So Josh, thank you. Thank you for your time today. Thanks for your wisdom. Loved having you on. Oh,
JH (38:56):
Thank you. Pleasure was mine. And love everything you guys are doing and can’t wait to get to know you even more.
AJV (39:01):
Likewise. And then everyone else who’s listening, stay tuned for the recap episode that will be popping up later this week. We’ll see you next night.
JH (39:10):
Talk to you soon.
Ep 411: Eternal Life Part 1 | Strategy for Defeating Death
RV (00:00:03):
What is your strategy against death? I mean that seriously. What is your strategy for dealing with defeating or overcoming death? What is your philosophy about death? What do you believe about what happens after death? Ironically, this is probably one of the most important, if perhaps not the single most important questions for you to answer during your life. And yet, many of us speaking, at least for myself, my friends, my family, many of the people that I know and interface with, many of us spend a shockingly little amount of time thinking about or answering or even having any crafted philosophy at all about what happens after we die. And to me, from a logical standpoint, you put all religion and spiritual spirituality and, and, you know, theism, aside from a purely logical standpoint, this seems like an important question, one that we should spend a little bit of time thinking about, because one thing that I know is that 100% of humans that have ever lived have also died.
RV (00:01:36):
RV (00:02:42):
Do you believe in reincarnation? Maybe you do. If you do, though, why? Like, what evidence is there for reincarnation? What, what logical or academic or scientific support beyond just your own personal convictions, beyond your own feelings, beyond your own instincts, beyond your own emotions, what evidence is there to support that? That’s real. I’m not saying that you have to have evidence for that. All of us, of course, you, myself included, we are all welcome to have whatever beliefs that we choose. But for me, as an analytic, not somebody who’s a pastor, but as someone who is a critical thinker, someone who is logical, someone who is systematic and pragmatic and practical, I just am curious to know, is there any evidence for what you believe? And what is the evidence for what you believe? Maybe you believe in heaven. So what evidence is there for that?
RV (00:03:45):
And how do you get into heaven? And is heaven really real? And if there, if there is a heaven, how confident are you that you are going to get in
Ep 410: Hugs Help: How to Support People Who Are Grieving with Randy Stocker
RV (00:02):
Hey, I am gonna introduce you to a new friend of mine. His name is Randy Stalker, and I am having Randy on the show because of a few reasons. So first of all, I met Randy at the National Speakers Association, which has been a big part of my life, all the way from back from the time when I was like 20 years old. We met at a recent meeting and I always, always love meeting fellow NS AERs. But specifically it’s because of Randy’s topic. Now his topic is not one that is so hyper specific to personal branding and, you know, the things that we often talk about. But, you know, occasionally on this show, I will share personal development content. I’ve talked about how and why I stopped drinking, and I’ve shared some spiritual episodes and things. I’ve also had a lot of my, my friends, ed, mylett, and Jamie Kern Lima, etc, talk just more about like entrepreneurial stories.
RV (00:55):
But Randy is someone who has an expertise on helping people to deal with grief and loss. And he is the survivor on of a a pretty massive tragedy. And we’re gonna hear the story of that. He lost some family members that he’s gonna, I’m gonna let him tell the story, but what he’s done is he has turned it into a personal brand and he’s turned it into a career and he’s turned it into a message and a mission to help people figure out how to overcome loss brief you know, survival and, and really just he’s helped start a number of bereavement groups and you know, he’s just a, a good listener and, and a support. And so that’s something that I always struggle with which we’ll talk about. But anyways, Randy, welcome to the show.
RS (01:52):
Thank you, Rory. I appreciate the opportunity. So,
RV (01:55):
So tell me the story your story. I’d love, I’d, I’d love to, I’d love to start there. I know it’s, it’s probably something you’ve shared many times and I’m sure it’s painful, but I I think it’s a pretty, a pretty key part of, of the jumping off point of all this.
RS (02:09):
Absolutely. So on July 22nd, 2003, my two daughters, Janelle, who’s age 19 and Amy age nine, went to visit their grandpa and Grandma Stalker in Gibson City, Illinois. They spent the time back to school shopping with grandma, called my wife Shar, and said how much fun they were having all the money grandma spent on them. And then they were driving back home when a guy driving a fully loaded semi-truck speeding and reading a book broadsided the car where Janelle and Amy were sitting killing all three immediately.
RV (02:50):
So you lost your two daughters and your, was it your mom and my
RS (02:54):
And my mother? Yes.
RV (02:56):
Wow. All in all in one moment. Just like that.
RS (02:59):
Yeah. Janelle had just finished her freshman year of college at Dur Dury University in Springfield, Missouri. She asked me if she could spend time with grandpa and grandma before she went back for her sophomore year, which I thought was wonderful. Her 19 year old girl to ask that. Unfortunately, Rory, I made our nine year old daughter Amy go with her. Huh? I thought it would be good quality time for the two. I knew grandpa and grandma would love seeing them both, and so I made Amy go, which I regret to this day. But I always asked myself the question, was it the right thing to do? And the answer always yes.
RV (03:37):
What makes you say that? Like, how do you, how do you, how have you come around to, to that viewpoint?
RS (03:49):
Well, it’s, it’s always good for kids to spend time with their grandparents. Number one, you don’t anticipate your daughters are gonna get killed by a semi-truck, or they’re making a, about a three hour trip to see grandpa and grandma. The girls needed to spend more time together cuz Janelle’s going back to college. So I just said, Amy, you need to go and it’ll be good for you,
RV (04:13):
Uhhuh,
RS (04:26):
There’s guilt for 19 years for doing that, but I always ask the same question, was it the right thing to do? And the answer’s always, yes, it was the right thing to do. Mm-Hmm.
RV (04:34):
RS (04:35):
So just because we do the right thing doesn’t mean we have the right results. And this was a terrible instance of that. So,
RV (04:44):
Yeah. So I thank you for sharing that. You know, I got two kids, I got two boys now, and it’s a different, you know, it’s a different way of seeing the world as a parent and I so I struggle with what to say, right? And, and I struggle with what to do. We had less than three miles from our house here where we live in Nashville just recently was a school shooting at the Covenant School. And we knew 11 children at that school two of which are our next door neighbors. One of ’em, which was in Bible study. Thankfully none of the kids we knew were kids that were injured. I mean, minor injuries, but no, no, no, no gunshot wounds. And, and nobody, no one that we knew died that day. But that was a massive, massive tragedy right down the street.
RV (05:47):
You know, I was in, I was in high school in Colorado the year that Columbine shooting happened. And you know, there there’s, there’s some of these just extraordinary tragedies, nine 11 tsunamis. And, and then there are the, the kind of more personal and private ones of, you know, I, I had a friend lose her husband unexpectedly a few weeks ago, and like a pretty good friend you know, people who lose a child and you just go like, I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what to say. I, I don’t want to say nothing, but I don’t, I really don’t wanna say the wrong thing. And so sometimes I say nothing like, can you help? Like what? Like what, what, what do we, what, what do we, what’s,
RS (06:36):
Yeah, what’s the you’re, you’re like most people and just like I was before I lost my daughter’s Roy. It’s not untypical. So lot of people start out by saying the wrong thing because we think, cuz we’ve heard it before, things like, I know exactly how you feel. You don’t wanna say that cuz you never know exactly how I feel or how that person’s feeling. You never say, call me if you need anything because I don’t, if I didn’t call you to mow my yard or shovel my snow beforehand, I’m not gonna call you now. So what you do say is, I miss him or her, him or her too. I cannot understand your pain. Just know that I am here for you. Or if you’ve experienced loss yourself having experienced loss, my self, my heart truly, truly goes out for you and your family. Always and your family in there. Okay. The simple, simple thing to say is, I am so, so sorry for your loss
RV (07:45):
And you don’t, I
RS (07:45):
Never tried to assume that you know what they’re going through because you don’t.
RV (07:51):
And do you not get, I mean the, you know, I’ve lost my grandparents never, like someone in my immediate family I mean, I’m a biological father died, but I, I didn’t really know him af I only knew him until I was like six months old. And so, like, I never really knew him. And like I have to think that you, you know, you have funerals and you’ve got insurance companies and you’ve got, you know, just so many things are going off it. And it’s, it is helpful to hear those things. I’m so, so sorry. Even though you hear it over and over from everybody else and it, it’s still just, that’s the, that’s still helpful to hear.
RS (08:37):
Yeah. Even better than that, don’t give the per person permission to grieve when you’re sitting down with somebody just to, just to talk to them doing a one-to-one. You only need to give them permission to grieve or to get mad to get with you. Huh? It helps ’em a lot cuz they’re trying to hold it in cuz they don’t wanna burst out and start crying in front of their good friend. Number two, shut up and let them talk.
RV (09:07):
Hmm.
RS (09:08):
Sometimes we try to solve problems, we try to find solutions. Guys, you can fix a broken arm or a cut finger. You can’t fix grief. You can’t cure grief When you lose somebody that you loved for a long time. It, it’s always gonna be right here. So the only thing that can cure that is that person comes back from the dead and that’s not gonna happen. So a lot of times we try to fix something that’s unfixable.
RV (09:41):
I mean I think that’s a good reminder of like, and I don’t know if that’s more of like a male brain issue or just everybody, but like, there’s a part of me that just wants to do something. It’s almost like I feel like if I were, if I were a good friend and if I cared, I would do something and I don’t know what to do. And so I try to like do something and say stupid stuff. And you’re, what I hear you saying is like listening is doing something and listening, giving them permission to listen or, or listening and giving them permission to experience whatever they need to experience is doing something.
RS (10:22):
Yeah. A lot of people walk away from this situation cuz they’re so uncomfortable with themselves.
RV (10:28):
Yeah.
RS (10:29):
Okay. My advice is to just be there. If it’s a good friend or a family member, you don’t have to say anything. Just sit beside ’em and hold their hand or give ’em a hug. Just being there means so much. Some of the cliches we heard and still hear, I’m heals all wounds. What the heck does that mean? Hear it all the time. They are in a better place. So many people said that to me and I said, you know, I’m sure heaven’s a lot better place than this stupid earth we live on, but my daughters are doing pretty good with us in Quincy, Illinois. But we also heard God never gives you more than you can than you can handle. And God really tested me by taking my mom and my two daughters at once. It’s a true saying, but did I wanna hear it? Absolutely not
RV (11:21):
Mm-Hmm.
RS (11:34):
Even
RV (11:34):
If it’s, even if it’s true, it’s not helpful. It’s
RS (11:37):
True and it’s hurtful.
RV (11:40):
Mm-Hmm.
RS (11:41):
RV (12:05):
Mm-Hmm.
RS (12:06):
Number one, please be patient and understanding with me.
RV (12:13):
Hmm.
RS (12:13):
Patient being a key word. Number two, please let me grieve in my own way and in my own time. Don’t tell me how to grieve. Don’t tell me when to grieve. Don’t tell me when to start grieving and stop grieving.
RV (12:29):
Hold on. And I wanna, so I wanna go back to the patient one for a second. So when you say, please be patient and understanding with me, that means like, don’t pressure me to do stuff. Be okay if I’m unresponsive for a while. Like if I disappear for if I disappear for a little bit, I’m not at the parties, I’m not whatever. I mean, I if if it’s an employee, it’s, I may be not coming back at work or colleague. I mean, is that, are those all the things when you say like, be patient with me? Yeah.
RS (12:58):
Be patient means I am not the same person I was yesterday. Okay. I mean, once my daughters were killed and my mom were killed, I, I changed from the Randy stalker that was fun-loving and happy and liked to drink a beer with the guys. I go to a bible studying or something to this angry, frustrated person that couldn’t understand why his daughters weren’t there. And every time he saw other girls their age got mad, got angry, got frustrated. So a a person who’s grieving is not the same buddy I had yesterday. So be patient with them because they will get to the point, maybe they’ll be close to that same person, but maybe not.
RV (13:48):
Yeah.
RS (13:48):
How about the things,
RV (13:50):
I can’t imagine what that would be like to see kids your same, that were the age of your kids.
RS (13:57):
Yeah. Please forgive me if I say something stupid insensitive. Okay. When you’re grieving your mind’s not the same. You say a lot of dumb things and I upset so many people, they were trying to comfort me. Oh, they were having fun with their kids and I would get mad. So I was just a totally different person. So you just gotta understand that
RV (14:20):
Is that, that’s number three you’re talking about there?
RS (14:24):
It’s number four. Yeah.
RV (14:24):
Number four. Yeah. And when you say let, let me grieve in my own way, like, you know, I just wanna spend like a minute on each one of these. Oh, you bet. And, and y’all, and I don’t, I didn’t mention this, but Randy has a book called Hugs Help. Our story of tragic loss, survival and helping others as you can tell, it’s, you know, it’s very practical. I mean emotional but very practical and like these things that we’re, we’re running through right now. And, and so grieving in my own way, I feel like that comes back to what you said a little bit earlier of the things not to say as like, oh, you should grieve like this, or I understand what it feels like, or God won’t give you more than you can handle or any, anything that sort of leads lets on in a presumptuous way that like, I know what you’re going through or I know what is best for you. It’s actually way better to just sit and go, I have nothing for you. Like, I don’t know what to do. I can’t imagine how you’re feeling. I be
RS (15:26):
Honest. Yes. I
RV (15:27):
Have no recommendation. I don’t even know what to say. I just want you to know that I care and I’m here, basically. Yeah.
RS (15:33):
Be a supporter of somebody who’s grieving. Don’t be a comforter, be a supporter.
RV (15:38):
What’s the
RS (15:38):
Difference? Wherever you can help them get around. Help ’em with their kids, mow their yard, whatever it takes. Just help take some of the additional stresses away so they can concentrate on their grief and surviving their grief and getting through their grief.
RV (15:55):
Ah, so when you say that really
RS (15:56):
On, on the fringes, help ’em on the fringes to take some of the stress away.
RV (16:00):
Yeah. So when you say be a supporter, you’re saying like, take care of the practical things. Don’t try to like do the emotional things.
RS (16:07):
Yes.
RV (16:09):
Yeah. That’s interesting. I feel that way about like having a baby like that, having, having kids rocked my world and I’m just like, I was just not prepared emotionally for what being a dad would be like and how difficult the whole thing was. Yeah. And like what helped so much was people bringing dinner, which it was like, never in my life could, I imagine for one moment that like bringing someone bringing dinner would make such a huge difference as when we had our first kid and, and our second kid of just like, there’s so much going on. Just getting dinner together is a massive feat. So that’s interesting. That’s the connection I make there. When you you’re, that’s like what you’re talking about.
RS (16:49):
Yeah. Tie that into a funeral though. In the funeral you have their visitation, you have people bringing all kinds of casseroles and food and drinks to your house once a funeral’s over the house is empty. I mean, we had hundreds of people, thousands to come to the visitation, hundreds come to the house and all of a sudden it was just haw and I and nothing left. That’s when you really need to step up as a friend. Okay. When it gets really quiet and don’t, don’t ever think you are bothering them cuz they’re thinking, why hasn’t Rory called me? Why hasn’t AJ stopped by my house? Don’t they like me anymore? That’s where I need to step up and start helping people.
RV (17:32):
Yeah. That and then I think it’s, it’s, it’s just, it’s just so ironic because it’s sort of like miscommunication. Like the definition of miscommunication where you go somebody is maybe not calling or not stopping by because they’re so afraid they’re gonna say the wrong thing or do the wrong thing. And yet you’re saying all you, all you have to do is be there and don’t do anything else or just be there and help with the basics. Like, and it’s so, it’s so simple. It’s just, you know,
RS (18:02):
We try to do more than we’re, than we should be doing.
RV (18:04):
Yeah, totally. Totally. so you said please forgive me if I’m, I’m you know, if I say something silly or insensitive what else, what, what are some of the others? These are so help, this is so helpful, Randy.
RS (18:18):
Yeah. The, the fifth one is a lot of people are scared to bring up the name of the deceased. They, they think it’s going to make us start crying or get angry. Like we’ve, for like, I’d forgotten my mom and my two daughters were killed.
RV (18:33):
Totally.
RS (18:33):
Okay. That is, that’s a fear we shouldn’t have because people who are grieving want to hear the names of their loved ones. They want to hear stories, really
RV (18:44):
Pictures.
RS (18:45):
Oh, absolutely. I run a big Facebook site and to a t people want to hear stories about their loved one because we never want them to ever be forgotten. Ever. So proactively say, bring up a story or show a picture. If you
RV (19:03):
Really not
RS (19:04):
Comfortable, if you’re not comfortable doing that, say, Hey, I remembered a great story about your dad. It made me laugh this morning. Can I share it with you? So ask for permission.
RV (19:17):
Okay. Yeah. That is, I am exactly the opposite of that. I feel, I feel like, oh my gosh, I just, I don’t want to tiptoe into anything that’s gonna make them sad. It’s really sad. I worry less about making ’em angry. I worry about going, here we are having a beautiful day and now I’m gonna bring up something. You know, like AJ’s mom died when she was 15 and sometimes I’m just like, I can’t imagine how sad to grow up and to get married and to have kids and not have your mom there. And so it’s like I sometimes am afraid to even say something about my mom because I’m so, I just feel like it’s gonna make her feel bad. You know? Like, so that’s super helpful. I would not have guessed that at all.
RS (20:01):
Roy, ask her, ask her to tell you a story about her mom when she was 12. Okay. Proactively ask her. I mean, she would love to talk about her mom, but she’s not gonna bring it up cuz you don’t bring it up. Okay. I, 19 years later, I still love hearing stories about mom and Janelle. Naomi don’t hear ’em very often. Sometimes it brings a tear to my eye. Nothing wrong with that. Same with you. For all the people you’ve lost or anybody’s lost out there who actively share a story with them.
RV (20:32):
Yeah. That’s powerful.
RS (20:35):
Okay. Number eight, never stop calling me. Sometimes we think, well we’re, we’re not gonna call today because all their other friends are calling. Well, all the friends are saying, well, we’re not gonna call today because all their friends are, are calling a graver is waiting in hope. And that phone rings for somebody just to say, Hey, I’m thinking about you today. Okay. So never stop that calling and it’s just not on the date of death. You gotta kick in mind the secondary losses. I didn’t just lose my mom and my two daughters. I had lost college graduations. I had lost walking my daughters down the aisle. Uhhuh
RV (21:27):
Yeah. I heard, and I once heard I had a good, I had a good friend who lost her dad. And I remember her telling me that the entire first year that somebody’s gone, every single holiday, every single annual event, whether it’s Valentine’s Day, Christmas, Halloween, summer vacation, their birthday, like, it’s like they experienced the grief over and over again. Like the whole year of, she used to call it, it was the, she called it the year of firsts. And she was like, when somebody dies, it’s like the, it’s not just the day. It’s like there’s this whole year of first and every time, it’s like the first Christmas with Adam, the first vacation with Adam, em, the first time at home with without em the first, the first the the, the first time we go back to the golf course that we used to go to. Like, and that really hit me of like, wow, that, that means you’re at least for a year, it’s like pretty intense. Not just, oh this happened. There’s a funeral and like we all are all moving on now.
RS (22:39):
Yeah. One thing to keep in mind too, it’s not just the actual day. Grief builds up, it builds up inside of a body. Okay. Father’s Day, I hate the most cause I don’t have two of my daughters or Father’s Day. So three or four or five days before Father’s Day, I can feel the grief starting on my gut and working its toy up. And this gotta to explode. So the best time to call people is two or three or four days before those key events say, Hey, I’m thinking about you, I’m praying for you. I’m here to help. Okay.
RV (23:15):
Is that, let’s
RS (23:15):
Say get to the actual day, it’s, the buildup is worse than the actual day.
RV (23:21):
Ah,
RS (23:22):
Today is another day in their life, but the buildup anticipating thickness is gonna be a terrible day is a lot worse than the actual day.
RV (23:30):
Wow. Yeah. That’s insightful to just go like, yeah. I mean I guess I imagine you never have another Father’s Day where you don’t, you just never have another Father’s Day where you don’t think about it. And so you’re leading up, up to that moment. Can can I ask you about like the you know, spiritually, so I I’m a hardcore Bible thumping Jesus freak. We, we are, we, we, we
RS (23:53):
Hardcore Bible thumping Jesus freak. Okay. Jesus
RV (23:56):
Freak. Yeah. So, you know, we’re, we’re Christians. We believe in heaven. In fact, in fact, I am, I haven’t shared this publicly anywhere, but for the last several months I’ve actually been working on something that I’m, I I’m, it’s a, it’s called Getting into Heaven. And it’s, it’s seven, it’s seven questions that I think every intelligent skeptic should ask about Jesus. And I’m not really doing it. The, the, the reason I’m putting it together is for my sons, for Jasper and Liam. It’s gonna be dedicated to them. And I want them to know, I want them to know why daddy believes in the logical reasons of miracles, a resurrection and Jesus. So that’s a very personal and powerful thing for me and our family. Separate if whether or not somebody is a Christian or believes in heaven or is an atheist or whatever, when somebody loses somebody, especially when you don’t know what their faith is like, it’s one thing if I go, I know you’re a Christian, we go to church, we have the same beliefs.
RV (25:10):
I, you know, I can send them a Bible verse, I can send ’em something. If there’s somebody who I don’t know if they’re a Christian or I know they’re of a different religious faith and I don’t know much about that faith or like, you know, whatever, like a, you know, it’s not, we don’t have a shared spiritual belief system. Or, or I know they actively don’t have a faith. Like how much does the, you know, does it help this, like you, you already said they’re in a better place. Like, that’s not a good thing to say. That doesn’t really, even if it’s true, it doesn’t help. Is there anything else around the spiritual conversation, you know, like, I’m praying for you as a good example too, cuz I go like, that’s gotta be another thing that everybody says. And, and first of all it’s like, are they really, you know, like, you know, so, so what are some things around that?
RS (26:04):
Okay. That that’s, that’s a fair question. Yeah. We are we’re good Catholics. Okay. We live in Quincy, Illinois. When this happened part of my presentation about everybody grieves differently. Okay. My wife and I had been married 21 years. When the girls were killed, she would be in church every single day. She felt more comfortable in church, closer to God and closer to her church friends. I tried, I would go to mass every single Sunday. I would sit about halfway through mass and I’d start crying and I’d cry because why am I worshiping this God that took my daughters up to heaven? Yeah, I know they’re in heaven. I know I’m gonna see them again, but why would God take them away from me? One day I left mass, I went out to the cemetery. I was yelling and kicking and screaming and crying.
RS (26:57):
Somebody walked up behind me, Roy and put their hands on my shoulders and he said, son, what’s, you know, what’s the matter? I explained that I was so frustrated with God for not protecting my family. My prayer every night is take care of my family, take care of my wife, my kids, and grandkids, yours, his well. And this guy explained free will to me. And he basically said that God gives us all the free will to make our own decisions good, bad, right or wrong. And God didn’t take my daughters to heaven. God gave this truck driver free will, like he gives it to you. And me and the truck driver made some stupid, stupid, stupid mistakes. So after, instead of blaming God or taking Janelle naming mom to heaven, I started thanking God Rory for the 19 years I had with Janelle. And for the nine years I had with Amy.
RS (27:55):
And that changed my life. So instead of hating God, which I hate you worse hate, but that’s how I felt for a long time. I started thanking him cuz I didn’t really have to have them, he didn’t have to give ’em to me at all. I had 19 years with one and nine with the other. As far as your question, I think you need to stick with your faith. Okay. If you’re talking to somebody that has different faith, doesn’t matter. Use what you want to say. It’s gotta come from the heart. And if it doesn’t come from the heart, it’s not near as meaningful. Mm-Hmm.
RV (28:43):
Yeah. That feels like your
RV (28:44):
Question. It’s, that feels totally, and that feels like a hopeful thing for, that feels like a hopeful thing, just no matter what the scenario is. Like I’ll get to see him again someday. Like that’s a Absolutely. That’s, that’s a very hopeful yeah, that’s a, that’s, that’s a really hopeful thing. So I want to, so that’s super helpful. So can we talk about the truck driver for a minute? Because on the one hand you have to, I mean, like, there’s so much, I mean, your story just makes me cry, Randy, because it’s just, it’s just, it’s just so, it makes me so sad. And I know there’s people listening that are going through it right now, right? Like they’re going through it right now and
RS (29:27):
Presentations bring out a lot of, lot of tears. Roy,
RV (29:30):
I, I’ve, I can’t imagine tears
RS (29:32):
Are okay. It means you care, it means you love somebody.
RV (29:35):
I c I can’t hardly talk, talk to you right now. They’re, but you know, it’s like, first of all, you have to reconcile the loss of somebody, then you have to reconcile your life without that person. Then you have to reconcile with God. And then in your case, you have to reconcile with this other person. Maybe not reconcile with them directly or, but like, there’s a, that doesn’t just go away, right? Like there’s, there are, there’s feelings and emotions around that person.
RS (30:13):
Yeah.
RV (30:14):
Can you like, talk through that a little bit?
RS (30:16):
I, I can. He was a truck driver. His name is ran my, my same name unfortunately. After the death, the state of Illinois charged him with involuntary manslaughter. We went to court in Bloomington, Illinois. The judge asked a few questions and then the judge asked me to stand up and he said, I’m sorry Mr. Stocker, but I cannot charge this guy with anything. He didn’t mean to kill your family. This is before distracted driving was the terminology it is now. But I think you’re getting to the point, did I forgive that driver or not? And I get this question asked pretty much every presentation I do. And I say, I, I forgive the driver. I know he didn’t kill them on purpose, but I have not yet forgiven his stupidity. Okay. It was stupid, stupid thing he did to read a book while driving a truck. So I forgive the driver, but not his stupidity. What are your thoughts there?
RV (31:28):
W well, I guess I just took
RS (31:29):
Me a while to get to that. So,
RV (31:30):
Yeah, I mean my, how long did it take to, to get to that point?
RS (31:35):
After that trial, I actually actually asked to speak to the truck driver and his wife. And they put us in a small room at the courthouse and she said they were so sorry and gave me a big hug, but he didn’t even get out of his truck to see if my family was alive or not. Roy, he sat in his cabin and called somebody didn’t even check. So that, that part really hurt me, him not even looking to see if they were alive or needed help or anything. So it took a long time, but probably two or three years after they were killed, they started answering that way. I forgive the driver, but not a stupidity.
RV (32:20):
Yeah. I mean,
RV (32:22):
What the, whatever the, there’s, there’s always a scenario around how it happened. You know, why it happened. I, I’m a big, I’m a, I’m, I’m a big believer that forgiveness is really, you know, it, it sets, it sets you free as the one who was harmed more, more than it has anything to do with setting them free. But anyways, it’s just, I I I, I I can’t imagine. So buddy, I, I, I want to point people towards the book Hugs help our story of tragic loss, survival and helping others. And then, you know, tell me about the hugs part of it. You know, where does the, where does the, the title come from? Because we haven’t, we haven’t talked about it, but as soon as, as soon as I saw it, I was like, man, I really even just love the title of this because it, it feels, I guess this whole, this whole topic of just death.
RV (33:23):
You know, and I, I firmly believe in heaven. Like I am absolutely convicted in, you know, what are my beliefs? And, and I’ve re researched them at length over the course of my life, both from a spiritual and emotional perspective, but especially from a logical and rational and archeological perspective. And no matter, no matter what, it still feels so hopeless. It still feels so desperate. Like, you know if I lost my kids or my wife, like, it’s like I just, I have no control over this. And, you know, this is going to happen in some way to one of us, some someday. And I think there’s so much about what you talk about Randy, that’s just tactical and practical and you know, the, the hug especially of everything somehow is ma is, it feels magical to me as like the thing. So can you just tell us like, where, where, where’s the fir first of all, tell us where, where do you want people to go to get the book or to connect with you or like learn about, you know, having you speak and then, and then I wanna hear the story of the, the title.
RS (34:34):
Okay, good. The book’s on amazon.com, just write in Hugs, help Randy Stalker. If you want to, a lot of people like autograph copy, so they can go to my website hugs help.org, and they can order an autograph copy and I’ll send it right from here. Venmo is the only way I take payment for that, but if they have Venmo does it that way. I’ve, I presented about 35 times my first year since the book has released mm-hmm.
RV (35:18):
Indeed.
RS (35:19):
Cuz we all need to understand grief. We need to understand how to help those that are grieving. So I’m looking for the opportunity to talk to as many people as I can. As you can tell, I’m very open with my presentation. Sometimes I shed a tear while I’m speaking. They need to understand that about half the time it’s
RV (35:40):
RS (35:43):
And then as far as the Hugs help, I, I wrote the book in eight months, during October. It was released May 23rd. Actually a year ago today it was released. Okay. It didn’t have a title. So I went to see my dad in Gibson City, Illinois. Had a nice couple days with him. He is a big brood of a guy, Uhhuh
RV (36:38):
Yeah.
RS (36:38):
That’s where it came from. I’m proud of the title. It’s getting a pretty good name out there. So
RV (36:44):
It is the, you know, the other, the other thing I love about hugs, I mean, it’s so helpful to know what, what, not to say, what to say and all this, you know, but I think, you know, one of the things that really sticks with me, I, from, from what you’ve said and talk about is just being there. Like, literally just being there. You don’t have to say anything. And in order to give a hug, you have to be there.
RS (37:13):
Yep.
RV (37:14):
Like, and that’s, I, that’s why I was like, man, this really is the perfect, the perfect title. It’s memorable, it’s clear, it’s what people want. It, it, it’s what the grieving person wants. And it’s also to me what the, what the people surrounding the situation want, which is a clear answer for how can I help, what can I do? And just knowing like it’s, you know, hugs is a great way to do it. You’re not, you’re just there. You’re not saying anything. You’re not fixing anything. You’re not coaching anybody on how they should feel.
RS (37:54):
Just there.
RV (37:55):
You’re just there and you’re just holding them. Yeah. And well, I’d
RS (37:59):
Like to share five takeaways with people. Do we have time for that? Sure. Okay. Number one, always remember that everybody grieves differently. My wife and I were night and day grieving. She didn’t cry for four months after our daughters were killed.
RV (38:14):
Wow.
RS (38:15):
Four months. And I was just a, just a ball baby every single day. So when you’re trying to help people understand that husband may grieve differently than the wife and the kids and everybody else, number two, you cannot grieve wrong. Don’t ever let anybody tell you how to grieve, when to grieve or when to stop grieving. If you feel like crying cry. If you feel like screaming scream, you cannot grieve wrong. Number three, always try to accept a griever for who they are. Now, I’m never gonna be the Randy stalker before July 22nd, 2003. He’s long gone. I’m a new person. Everybody that goes through tragedy is a new person, not a better person, not a worse person, just a different person. Number four, try to really hard to understand the grieving process. We share nine steps there with you. Just a lot of times people won’t say what’s on their mind. They can tell you how to help ’em, but they won’t. So if you understand what they’re going through, it will help them. And number five, what you just said, just be there for them. You can’t fix it. Nothing you can do to just be there. That’s what a graver needs And hugs do help Roy.
RV (39:41):
Yeah. Amen. Well, Randy, thank you for the courage and the boldness of sharing your story. I I’m convinced it’s gonna help a whole bunch, a whole bunch of people, and I’m, I’m very grateful to have met you and to have had this encounter and this opportunity to get this instruction from you. It gives me a lot more confidence in, you know, approaching this situation in a way of being able, being able to be helpful to, to people going through a hard time. And so again, you know, you guys can go to hu Hugs help dot org Right? Is the website. And you can, or you can grab the book Hugs, help on Amazon and walk you through this. Randy I really wish you the best man. I, I’m, I’m praying for your message to get out there to, to help a lot of people. I know there’s a lot of people who struggle with grief and struggle with how to support a griever. And there’s, you know, there’s a lot of, there’s a lot of death and tragedy and heartbreak going on in the world. And so I think this is a really, really needed message. So we love you. We’re cheering for you. We’re grateful for you. Keep on going, my friend.
RS (40:53):
Take care, Rory. Thank you. Okay.
Ep 409: 3 Things To Know Before You Write A Book | Risha Grant Episode Recap
AJV (00:02):
So this is for the person who has always thought I have this great idea. It needs to be a book. Or maybe it’s for the person that gets told all the time, wow, you’re such a great speaker, or a great storyteller, or, wow, you have an amazing story. You need to write a book. So that is who this particular message is for today. And here’s what I have to say about that. There are three core philosophies that I have along with my company, brand Builders Group around the art and the science of writing, sell and selling books. Number one, a book should be the last thing you do not The first thing a book is when you have a truly vetted idea and you have enough content for it to actually be a book, not a chapter of a book, not a blog, not a podcast, but an actual 200 to 300 page book, which means you need to have points and stories and frameworks.
AJV (01:14):
And I idea for a book is not a book. A great story is a great story, not always a book. And I often wonder when people started writing these books, did they ever ask themselves, should this be a book, a chapter of a book, or a blog, or even just a conversation on a podcast? Because great ideas and great stories can be any one of those things. It does not have to be a truly vetted and fully published book for it to make a huge impact. And so I have read many books where at the end of it, I’m like, man, that would’ve been a great blog
AJV (02:12):
And each of those chapters has to have different stories and points and frameworks that all build together, right? In a through line of what’s an overarching theme of this body of work, which we call a book. And that doesn’t start in the beginning. That’s the end, right? That’s the conclusion, right? You don’t start writing a book with a hypothesis. You start writing a book when you have the conclusion, when you have all the information. And that takes time. It takes talking about it a lot writing about it a lot creating content about it a lot, speaking about it a lot. So if you have a great idea or you have a great story, the first thing you do is not write a book, sorry, to burst your bubble on that
AJV (02:58):
One. The first thing you do is you start talking about it. You start blogging about it. You start writing content about it. You start making videos about it. You start speaking for free or for money, but you start speaking about it. It just needs to be vetted. You need to know what people remember, what appeals to them what you love talking about. Like what stories should you use? And then once you’ve done that for an adequate amount of time, and I’m not gonna put a timeframe on there for an adequate amount of time where you now have an entirely vetted, like, this is the main theme. These are the points I wanna make, these are the stories that support those, and here’s what I wanna teach people, i e frameworks, then, then you’re ready to write the book.
AJV (03:46):
But it’s the last thing you do, not the first thing you do, right? So that’s number one. Is that writing a book is the last thing you do, not the first thing you do. And if you think you have a great idea, start with a blog
AJV (04:36):
You, you think that the message that you have will help impact someone to change their life or their business for the better. Otherwise why do it? Because it takes a ton of your time, energy, resources, and money. So if it’s not going to be something that you’re deeply passionate about talking about for a long time, then write a book, right? So back to this is that writing is just part one. And what most people don’t spend near enough time thinking about and planning and executing is the sales and marketing plan. And I did say those, those in order sales and marketing, right? If you think that you’re going to write a book and send it to your email list, even if you have a huge email list, it will likely not sell as many books as you think. If you have a huge social media following and you think that you can write a book and just use your audience, I think you will most likely be severely disappointed in how even that does not move many books. That’s marketing. And I’m not saying you shouldn’t do it, of course you should do that. Of course, you should market your email list. Of course you should be marketing it on social media and doing a podcast tour and doing all the
AJV (05:56):
Things. Yes, but that’s not the bulk of what actually moves books. What actually moves books is you the author selling. Now I say you the author because you are the best and most well positioned person to make the sale. Now, that does not mean you can’t have support and help doing all these things. Of course you can. But when you think about how do I move books to get them in the hands of people that I think it will actually make a difference in, you literally have to think of old school selling. And here’s what I mean, my old school. Pick up a phone and call somebody. Pick up your phone, text somebody, engage with them, go speak to their group, go meet them in their office. They need to see a, a tangible copy of what this book is, why it’s important. And you need to start with the people who know you like you and trust you the most.
AJV (06:56):
So those are the people who have hired you before. They have paid for your services before. They have worked with you before. They’re the ones who were telling you that you need to write the book. Well, if they think you need to write the book, well then they need to buy a copy of the book, right? But it’s like that is sales. You need to pick up the phone and call people and give them a reason to buy these books. And hopefully you have some people who will buy lots of books at the same time, right? So bulk sales and as well as the individual orders. But you have to be a salesperson to be compelling enough to go pull out your credit card, click on this link and give me at least 24 99 to buy this book that takes sales and supplemental marketing, right?
AJV (07:41):
It’s not one or the other. It is both. But please hear me when I say it takes a sales effort, a sales plan, which means you actually have to have people to call on, right? So back to, are you ready to write the book? Do you have enough content? The second question to ask yourself, am I ready to write the book? I e do I have enough people in my audience in my my client sphere, in my, you know, friends and family sphere that I could actually get this in enough hands of people and make it, you know, marketable enough that this would actually spread and make a difference, right? That matters. Now, if you’re writing a book just because it’s a legacy book and you’re like, man, I just wanna get what I believe on paper, and I don’t care if I ever sell a copy.
AJV (08:28):
I’m not gonna try to, I’m just gonna have some for friends and family to give away. That’s a different story. This, this piece, this message is not for you today, right? This is for the person who’s going, no. Like, I want this book to make a massive impact. I want this to be a part of my business. I want this message to spread. I want this to be in the hands of people I care deeply about that this is who this is for. So number one the book is the last thing, not the first thing. A second thing is get sales ready, be sales ready. And then the third thing, and this is not in order per se, but the third thing is you have to know how you want to actually publish the book. That’s it. That’s it. An important part of this formula that maybe wasn’t such a part of the formula 10 years ago and definitely wasn’t a part of it 20 years ago when we wrote our book take the Stairs in 2010 is when it launched.
AJV (09:21):
And so that’s what 13 years ago, like, there was not a lot of awesome self pop publisher options where it was credible. There was hardly any even less than self hybrid options. I mean, it was like, if you really wanted to get your book in the mainstream, it was a traditional publisher, right? And it took us two years of hardcore whole hardcore sales and cold calling and prospecting and follow up to get an agent to even look at this much less considerate, right? So two years of just going like, please
AJV (10:21):
It’s like, we’ll do your fulfillment for you, right? So it’s like that’s something that we do for our members at Brand Builders Group because we care deeply about getting your message into the hands of others. There are good self-publishers. Like there are books out there that are self-published like Miracle Morning, Hal l Rod, where it has sold it has sold millions of copies and he gets to keep every dollar of it, right? But that this is an important part of the journey. ’cause What, here’s what people think. They think I’m going to get an agent, which is pretty much necessary in order to work with a traditional publisher. I’m gonna get a big advance and whew, my job is done. Earn not true. That’s not how it works. Agents sell your book proposal to publishers. Publishers publish your book. They help edit it, they help formatting, they help with not help.
AJV (11:11):
They tell you what the cover’s going to be. But they do those com right components. They put it into a form of a book where you can flip pages and read it. They do not sell your book. Now, maybe if you’re Michelle Obama, they will help market your book for you. But if you are not Michelle Obama, they do not sell your book. They do not market your book. So the question is if publishers publish and editors edit, then who sells? And who does that? You do the author, that’s your job, right? So being an author today also means that you are a sales person. Going back to step two. But that is an important part of the journey of like the advance. What that really should be considered is like, this is an upfront amount of money that I’m gonna reinvest back into the book launch.
AJV (12:01):
Because if you get a big advance, that means that you’re not going to make any additional money until you earn that out. And royalties. So people are always like, well, I don’t have the money to traditional, or I don’t have the money to self-publish, which is why I need a traditional publisher. I don’t have the money to do a hybrid publishing deal because that takes my money upfront. Well, the truth is, is it takes your money both ways. It doesn’t matter. You’re just going to ex have an expenditure upfront that you then get to earn and keep all the money on the backend, or you’re not gonna have an expenditure upfront, but you’re going to make pennies on the dollar for the life of that book. It takes your money any way you look at it. It’s just, do you have the money to invest upfront?
AJV (12:50):
Yes or no? And that is really the only thing to decide because it does take your money. It doesn’t matter how you do it. It’s an investment of time, energy, and financial means to get a book in the hands of people that it will make a difference. And so deciding which route to go is really important. And if you think that, you know, oh, if I do it this way, I’m gonna get all this support. Think again. There are things that people do and there are silos, and then there are things that are up to you and there are some things that are gonna be on your plate regardless of which path you go. And sale, selling and marketing, the book is one of those things. So consider those things as you’re, you know, going through the options of like, how would I wanna do this?
AJV (13:33):
And it’s like, do I want to have more money for the long tail? Do I have enough confidence in myself to sell this at the back of the room or to sell this to clients or not? Right? And tho those things make a big difference. Do I have enough money upfront to be able to make that upfront investment, but then earn it back and I get to keep it versus no, I’ll take this money upfront, but that money costs me a lot in the long run. ’cause I won’t make another dollar until all of that is earned out. And then I’ll make very small royalties for the rest of the lifetime of that book. So, like I said, it’s gonna take your money either way. It’s just which way makes more sense for you. So those are the three things that you should know as you prepare on the adventure. ’cause That’s what it is. There’s peaks and valleys of writing a book. Check out our entire podcast interview with Isha Grant to hear more about all that it takes to write your first book. We’ll see you next time.
Ep 408: So, You Want To Write A Book. Now What with Risha Grant
AJV (00:02):
Hey everybody, this is AJ Vaden, one of your co-hosts on the influential Personal brand. And I’m so excited to get to interview my friend Risha Grant today, because she’s awesome and y’all are gonna love her. But two, I just love getting to talk to first time authors who have done the incredibly hard work to dream up the idea of a book, work with a traditional publisher, write it, get it sold, and then to get to talk to them right before it goes live is like one of the best things in the whole world. So you’re gonna get to hear a little bit about that journey. And before I formally introduce you, Teisha I just wanna remind everyone why you need to stick around for this particular episode because I know so many of the people in our audience and in the Brand Builders Group community have so many questions about what it takes to write a book.
AJV (00:57):
Should I try to get a traditional publisher? Should I self-publish? Should I do some sort of hybrid publisher? Like so many people talk about writing the book, and so few talk about selling the book. ’cause The truth is, if you actually want anyone to read it, they have to buy it. And then they have to be motivated and motivated enough to start the book. And that is what we’re gonna talk about today, is the journey from idea to writing, to publishing, to selling, and to actually having this make an impactful change in the readers of your book. And so, Isha is gonna walk us through what that journey look like, looks like for a first time author. And that is why you want to stick around. So if you have a dream of writing a book, you’re in the middle of writing the book, or you’re about to launch a book, this is an episode that you want to listen to.
AJV (01:53):
So stick around and let me formally introduce the one and the only Reha Grant. So here’s just a high level. I, I personally know Reha. So I get to just speak volumes about who she is as a human being. But she is an incredibly sought after keynote speaker. She speaks on anything from culture and leadership and personal accountability as well as diversity, equi diversity, equity and inclusion. Like I’ve got tongue tied today,
RG (03:14):
Thanks for having me. I am super excited to be here. So let’s, let’s get to it. Let’s, let’s really talk about it. ’cause You’re so, right. It is writing it is one thing. Selling it is a completely different animal.
AJV (03:28):
Yeah. So I, I wanna kind of know, because I know that there’s, there’s many journeys when it comes to writing a book. And I wanna know, like, first things first. What made you go, this has to be a book, right? So for the people who are listening, who are going, and I think I wanna write a book, maybe they should hear this before they make that formal decision. So let’s talk about that first.
RG (03:53):
Well, it’s because all of the stages that I’ve been on, right? I get a chance to talk to so many people, and I consider that, you know, a huge blessing. And they have so many questions, you know, within the speech, I’m out of there, in and out of there in an hour, 45 minutes I’m speaking. And people have all of these questions and they wanna know more. And you can only give them little tidbits within that speech. And they want, they want to continue to learn. And so I’ve thought, you know what? My journey has been insane. You know, for so many reasons. You know, I could be looked at as someone who wasn’t supposed to do all the things that I’m doing. And I thought, let me put it in the book. ’cause If I can inspire or impact anyone’s life in a way that lets them know, it doesn’t matter where you come from, it doesn’t matter what you’ve been through. If you want to be better, do better go out there and crush goals. You can do that. You can make that decision. And this is how I did it. So I decided to put it in a book. And so it’s actually my second book. The first book was self-published, this second book, traditional publisher, completely different ballgame.
AJV (05:01):
Yeah. And I should have practiced that first time author with a traditional publisher. Yes,
RG (05:20):
Yeah, I probably should too, but
AJV (05:24):
So, so let’s talk about that, like the route to working with a traditional publisher and what is, what does it take and why, why did they decide to work with you? And I would be so curious to hear your experience and your take on that. ’cause I have my own stories of what it took us to get a publisher interested. So walk us through. It’s like, if you really wanna write a book, which I love that. And, you know, I would say I’ve been more reminded over the last two years of the power that books have. Like, I think I forgot that a book has the power to change your life. ’cause I had stopped reading during Covid for some reading for some Unbe un unbeknownst reason to me. And it’s like, they do, like, books are powerful and they take so much time and passion and energy to get it out there. But then to actually, you know, work with a traditional publisher who they’re not working with just anybody. Yeah. They’re working on kind of the, the sure win. Like, Hey, I, I, I’m not, they’re not in the gambling business. They’re like, Nope, I think this is gonna sell a lot of books,
RG (06:41):
I think, so for me, it was a long process that took a lot of patience. This second book has been six years in the making. But what happened is I went and spoke at a, at a conference that I did not wanna go and speak at, because it was one of those you pay for everything to come here, but the everybody in the audience, you know, is, is going to want to do business with you. And I was a little, you know, not, not that excited about it,
RG (07:24):
You need
RG (08:08):
One thing I will say about, about this whole process is they are focused on how many people are going to buy this book, right? You can have this idea, you think it’s great, which I did. I had a, I had a different idea that I thought was great. They were like, that’s great, but if we broaden this, you know, then we’re going to be able to sell it to more people. And so I found myself thinking about, well, you know, maybe it’s not for everybody. Maybe it’s for a certain, you know, certain smaller group of people that would really benefit from it. But they kept pushing me and kept pushing me. And so we got to this bigger book. My agent has been amazing. He was able to actually get my, my book in a bidding war with three, three different publishing companies.
RG (08:55):
And so we ended up going with Hay House because they just had an amazing offer. And I say this like it was nothing, but when I tell y’all it was
RG (09:37):
There’s, there’s a description for every chapter. There’s a sample chapter. There’s who are your competitors and why is your book different? Who’s gonna buy this book? What does your platform look like? Do you have enough people in social media to support this book? What does your email list look like? How are you gonna publicize it? Because they don’t really do any of that
AJV (10:16):
And actually, I’ll pause right here just for a second because I think a lot of people forget that if you really want to go big, and I would say this, even if you are considering doing a hybrid or a self-published book, doing the book proposal is the business plan. And I love the way that you said that. It is the architectural blueprint of how am I going to position this book? How am I gonna market this book? How am I gonna sell this book? What audiences do I have access to? And regardless of what way you decide to publish, this can be as robust as necessary. But it’s really important for you to actually think about these things. Because getting the book published, quite honestly, is like, at the very beginning stages of the journey. Like, that’s a part of the process that that’s not the end goal that is
RG (11:20):
So I started in August of 20. This would’ve been August of 2019, I believe. And so the book proposal itself I actually ended up going and getting help with that because it was so expansive. I mean, I had, my agent sent me all of these proposals to look at, and I was like, oh my gosh. You know, and, and even if you’ve tried to write a book, you know that the only way to write a book is to actually write a book. You have to sit down. You have to figure out what time works for you, when you’re gonna have the least amount of distraction when you can actually get this done. Well, I was speaking like 70 times a year.
AJV (12:12):
So let’s just talk about this just for a second. Like, I think the really unknown part of this for most people is the process of writing a book proposal. So can you just like, walk us through like, how long did that part take?
RG (12:29):
Months. It, it took months. Gosh, we probably allotted six months to write that proposal. Because it’s not, it’s not just a, here’s a couple of pages on what I think this book should be. There are, you have to do a chapter description for each chapter. You have to write a sample chapter. You have to then talk about marketing and how you plan to actually market this book, who your competitors are, and why your book is different from theirs. Then you have to do an overview even after you’ve done all of the, the chapter descriptions and the sample chapter. It is a living document that is really thick. You know it, so by the time you sit down and write the book, the great thing about it is, you know, all of the stuff you wanna talk about. We varied a little bit from that.
RG (13:16):
‘Cause We, we, when we presented it, we had 11 chapters and we ended up with nine because one of the things we noticed is that we didn’t have as much information for a couple of the chapters. They were gonna be a lot shorter than the other ones. So we were able to figure out a way to to just build those out, you know, by, by placing them into other chapters. So we were able to get it done. But it is a it’s just an incredibly long process, I think from, so from the time that you write the proposal, then they have to take it and sell it and see who’s interested in it. And so we had we had one, one group that we knew, one publishing company that we knew was interested in the book, but of course we wanted to get the best deal that we could get.
RG (13:58):
So it went to bid three, three publishing companies bid on it. And then once we got the deal, then we actually had to write the thing
AJV (14:48):
Yeah. And I just think that’s like so important. Like you said something there, which was, so I had to get this proposal and then they had to go sell it, right? And that’s just an important distinction of going, like, your book proposal is a sales tool. It’s a sales and marketing tool. And, you know, think about the amount of research that it takes to do that. And then you’ve gotta go to the sales process, then you’ve gotta go to write the book, and then it goes into editing and publishing. So we are in August of 2023. When did you start this process? Isha?
RG (15:22):
2019.
AJV (15:23):
RG (15:25):
2019. Yes. It was a really, really long process. And four years is really, you know, it’s good considering mm-hmm.
AJV (15:40):
I mean, the third book will just take two. You know? Yes,
RG (15:43):
Yes. I’m gonna keep getting better. I’m gonna keep getting better. But it is a it’s been a real process. ’cause I mean, you think getting the book done is the big deal, and you’re like, yes, I’ve done this. That’s, I mean, you gotta do that, but it’s this other part of actually selling the book. And that is the, that’s where I am now. That’s where I’ve been since February. I mean, we’re talking, working seven days a week. I’m talking 10 plus hour days, more like 15 plus hour days for a lot of this time since February. I have gone back to every client I’ve worked with, if I’ve consulted for you, spoken for you met you, you’ve heard from me at this point about buying this book. And that was not something that it’s Yeah. Yeah. And that, and that is not something that I could hand off to somebody else.
RG (16:35):
You know, I tried to delegate where possible. But what I’ve realized is if I want to hit the bestseller list, if I want to actually, ’cause let me say this, there are a lot of books out there. Mm-Hmm.
AJV (17:49):
Yeah. Good luck. Let us know how it goes.
RG (17:53):
Yes. They’re happy for everything you’re gonna do, but they wanna know what are you going to do? And that was what I think helped to sell the book. I mean, they were interested in the topic, but we had such a robust marketing plan in that thing that and, and I’ll be honest, my background is marketing and pr. So it was helpful that I was able to to really look at that and really see how we can push the book. And we have, we have done everything that, that we know to do. But it’s not a it’s not a, I wrote this and, you know, here it is, and now I’m gonna go sit down and watch all the great things happen. That is not it.
AJV (18:35):
That’s a real bummer.
RG (18:37):
Yeah. That is not it so far.
AJV (18:41):
I would, I would love to hear from you for everyone who’s listening, what would you say are the sales tactics and the sales strategies that you feel like are really working to move books?
RG (18:53):
You know, I don’t think people talk about this enough, but I think it’s relationship. It is, for me anyway. I’m not saying ’cause, you know, social media, that, that’s been helpful. Pr and the pr that’s really been helpful has been the pr where I’m writing op-ed pieces or I’m getting to write longer pieces for Fast Company or business Insider and those kinds of things. But it has been the relationships for me. I am I’m big on relationship building. I’ve, my, my entire career, I’ve been big on it because I know that when things go bad in business, and it will if things go bad in writing this book, and it will, you know, you need to be able to call on people and say, Hey, this is happening, and I’m not sure which way to go. Hmm. And so with the book I focused my sales campaign on my relationships.
RG (19:52):
Now I have been, I’ve owned my own business since I got outta college pretty much like a couple years out of college. So it’s been over 25 years. But those relationships, you know, I make sure that I am doing more. Like, what can I do for you, you know, as the client. It’s not just about what you can do for me, but how we can together make sure that we are able to help each other. Yeah. And so when it came to something like selling books, that’s what I’ve done. And, you know, whether it’s, whether it’s a speech or what, you know, whether it’s a a q and a or one-on-one consulting, I’m offering services that people usually pay a lot, a lot of money for. And it’s not like they’re not paying that for the books, but they’re getting a heck of a discount
AJV (21:02):
Wow. And I so, so appreciate you being transparent in that, because that was our experience too. It’s like we, you know, it’s like we had all these grandiose marketing plans and at the end of the day, 90% of our book sales came from us selling.
RG (21:18):
Yes. Yes. That is, that is it. There is no way around it. And if somebody finds out something else, let me know.
RG (21:28):
There is no, I think that’s just like a really important part. It’s like writing and getting your book out there is like, it’s like launching your own micro business.
RG (21:37):
Yes. And it’s like
AJV (21:40):
Business plan, content strategy, sales and marketing plan. It needs staff, it needs attention. And it’s like, you’re not ready to emotionally invest and then actually financially invest. Yeah. Then you’re not ready. Right. ’cause It’s gonna require all the above
RG (21:57):
Financial investment. Yes.
AJV (22:00):
It requires
RG (22:01):
That you not Yeah. I think you know, it’s a, it is a misnomer that you, you get a publisher and you don’t have to worry about money couldn’t be further from the truth. I mean, this is an investment. It’s a financial investment that is pretty substantial. Uhhuh
AJV (23:03):
It is. And, and then also back to that kind of sales piece for just a second, and I think this is a, a testament to, although I I love you, it wasn’t top of mind for me to proactively be like, oh, Isha, let me have you on the show because my brain is busy. Yes. But it’s like you did a call to action on an Instagram post, and then it, I think somebody had tagged me and it’s, I think it was Amy LaValley. Yes. Yes.
RG (24:02):
Yeah, it is. I mean, I’m doing the same thing. I probably have 5,000 contacts in my phone. I am one by one contacting these people. Some of these people I haven’t talked to since before the pandemic. And I’m saying, yes, it is me. I know we haven’t spoken in three years, but I’m shamelessly asking for your support. Just purchased one book. And so people are sending me screenshots back that they purchased the book I ran into. And anybody I’ve done business with, my, my makeup person that I use sometimes I run into her at the mall this weekend. She said, oh, you sent me a text. She was like, I gotta get it. I’m like, go ahead and get it now.
AJV (24:39):
Let me pull up the link for you right
RG (24:41):
Now. Yeah. You’re gonna go back to work in a second and you’re not gonna think about this. So it’s not like one time I have to send this and I mean one text message at a time. It is so time consuming. But I’ve gotta go back through those people and say, Hey, you know, I just wanna make sure you remember to purchase this book. It is an all day commitment. And so from the time I get up in the morning, I, I work out, you know, and then, then the rest of my day is, is pushing these books out. So, well,
AJV (25:07):
I know the amount of work that goes into this, and so I’m just so excited for you, I’m so proud of the work that you’re doing, because this is a book people need. And it’s like, I know this is like launching a business, having a baby. Like, it’s that level of intensity. And I’ve had done both. So I can say that
RG (26:09):
Radical acceptance. I work in the, the diversity, equity, and inclusion field, and I’ve been working in the field long before it was a hot topic. And what I’ve known is that there are so many people that feel excluded, ostracized, left out, and not just to a point of of isolating themselves, but to the point of taking their lives and not feeling like they matter. And you know, we have so many, so many things in this world that say, this is normal and this is who you have to be, you know? And if you’re not this person and you don’t fit into this perfect box, then you’re not worthy. Hmm. And people would come and talk to me about, they, they have so many stories. Maybe it was their race, maybe it was their sexual orientation, maybe it was their religion. Maybe it was just that they wanted to be a dancer and their parents wanted ’em to be a lawyer.
RG (27:04):
It doesn’t matter what it is. We’re not allowed to authentically show up as who we are. And it’s, and one thing that I never understood about it is we don’t have to agree on everything. You don’t have to like my lifestyle, but you do have to treat me with common courtesy, decency, and respect. And when I walk into work, it should at least be a place that mandates behavior that allows me to do my job in the way that that wins and is helping the company win and meet their goals and, and helping me to meet my goals. And so people are, environments are in environments where they’re, we’re in a complete suit of armor every day to just kind of deflect all of the BSS coming at them every day. And I thought, you know, what if we were just accepting of each other, and I’m not talking about, ’cause I know that can go a whole bunch of ways for a whole bunch of people, things that are just horrible things.
RG (27:57):
I’m not talking about those things. I’m talking about showing people that you see the humanity in them and allowing them to be who they are without your judgment. Hmm. That is, that is all I’m talking about. I know in the wellness world, radical acceptance is about taking, taking your pain and trying to avoid the pain that’s coming at you. The radical acceptance that I teach is about helping you not cause pain to yourself or to others. And so, it’s a thing that e even within myself, there are so many things about me that would be looked at as a negative. Like most people that I’ve come in contact with. And I, and it’s not missed on me that because I’m on this stage and because I’ve, I’ve been blessed to build this business that that everybody likes me. Well, if you didn’t know me in that realm, and you just knew, you know, you just knew Isha, here’s this, you know, I I, I always start every speech with, I’m a small town divorced ex preacher’s wife who comes from a loving but largely religious family.
RG (28:57):
Some describe me as this competitive relentless ex division one basketball player. But my friends as an extremely loyal but conditional extrovert. I also happen to be a bisexual black woman, a serial entrepreneur, and a Catholic middle school basketball coach who runs a diversity consulting and communications firm in one of the reddest states of the nation. When I say that, so many things within that Yeah. Are things that people frown upon. Mm. And they wouldn’t give me, you know, give me the chance to, to be me. And so I learned that if I would radically accept myself, you know, be willing to lose everything, to gain myself, then I could extend that love and acceptance toward other people, you know? And so it’s, it’s radical acceptance of yourself, of others and, and of the world. You know, are you willing to be wrong to get the company culture right.
RG (29:46):
Are you willing to lose judgment in the moment to win humanity in the end? And so that’s what took up all these years. That’s what made me say, you know what people need to know. They matter. You know, you may be, you may be the one person in someone’s day that smiles and treats them with kindness, one person that keeps them going. And we are so caught up in our own stuff that we don’t do that. So that’s why the book is called Be Better Than Your bss, because we all are carrying around and BSS stands for our biospheres, our Belief Systems, you know, the bias synapse in our brain that deals with unconscious bias. So I want people to know that people are people, you know, you can, you can mentally disagree with someone’s life, but still embrace the person that they are.
RG (30:39):
Mm-Hmm.
AJV (31:27):
Wow. I would say that’s worth four years of your life.
RG (32:05):
That’s exactly what the biosphere is. Yeah. It’s those five socializing agents that we all grow up in from our family and friends to peers and schools and religion and media. And we, we don’t really know what we think for ourselves because from the time we’re born, our family tell us what to think. And then as we go through life, you know, we, we don’t really take the time to research it for ourselves. And so are, we will really willing to unlearn all of the things that we’ve learned from the people that we love and the institutions that we trust.
AJV (32:34):
That’s so good. On that note, if there was one profile, if there was one person who is listening to the show today that you could identify and go, you, I wrote this book for you and you need to pick it up. Yeah. Can you tell us who that would be?
RG (32:51):
That would be the person that feels as though they don’t belong anywhere. They don’t fit anywhere. They’re the person who says, because I look like this or dress like this, or don’t fit into this box, you know, I’m not worthy. Mm-Hmm. It’s also for the company that says, you know what, we’re an imperfect company working with imperfect people, but together we can create the kind of company where people can thrive. It’s it’s for companies that, that understand that they may not have handled everything the best that they could in the past, but they can actually read this and work with their employees to build a better future.
AJV (33:33):
Yeah. I love that. Who wouldn’t want to pick up the book when you frame it that way? Right. Yeah. I think that’s a really, really important message. And, and I think one of the things that is important for everyone listening is going, if you aren’t willing to give up years of your life however many, because you believe in it that much, then it’s not the right topic. Yes. You shouldn’t, it shouldn’t be what you do because it’s, you’ve got to go, it’s worth it. Yes. It’s worth all of the money and the time and the investment because it needs to be said and it needs to be heard.
RG (34:10):
And that was what is going to carry you on those days where you’re like, why am I doing this? Am I crazy? This makes no sense. I’m spending money, I’m spending time. But when you know that the impact is greater and that the impact is, is going to change somebody’s life, that’s gonna carry you through those days for where you’re questioning your own sanity
AJV (34:31):
RG (35:14):
Oh, wow. That is a great question. I wish that I had followed my gut on, on some things that that I probably didn’t need to do that I was, that I was led to do. And I have the benefit of having been in business a long time, but, you know, when you’re embarking on something new and you have a lot of new people involved you wanna do all the things that they tell you that works. I would say always trust your gut. It, it is not gonna lead you astray. And not that because the things that I have learned and encountered, they’ve all been great. But just because there’s so much work and so much time, I wish I had just stayed in line with my gut and said, okay, that may, that may be great, but I’m still gonna go this direction because I know it works for me.
AJV (36:03):
I love that. Second question. What’s the number one thing you have learned through this process?
RG (36:13):
Patience, maybe
AJV (36:53):
I love that. And third question what would be the one piece of advice that you would give to someone who is going, I’ve got a topic, I’ve got a message that’s worth it for me. Right. The time, sweat, tears, money. It’s worth it to me. Yeah. What should I do first? What should I do first? Isha, what’s your one piece of advice?
RG (37:17):
I would run the, run the idea by a lot of different people to see what the interest is. Because some, sometimes things that are important to you may not be important to a massive group of people that that you need to buy this book and read this book. I know that we talk a lot about, well that’s important to you, but it’s
RG (38:00):
So you wanna make sure that there’s a beginning, a middle, and an end. And I think I think there are people out there who are willing to maybe look at your synopsis if you’ve put together a synopsis and, and tell you what they think. And I think you have to that’s where your gut comes in though, because sometimes those people are gonna be wrong, even though they they are people that you trust, admire, you know, believe in. You’ve seen them do it over and over. Sometimes, you know, people will look at something you have and say, it’s not gonna work, but in your gut, if you know it’s gonna work, you also need to need to run with it. So yeah, just, I, I believe in bouncing stuff off of people. I think that’s really, especially for something like a book, I mean, you want a lot of people to buy it, so make sure that it means something to other people besides yourself.
AJV (38:50):
It’s so good. You said something that made me think about this thing. So we read a lot in the Vaden household. It’s part of our jobs, but also part we love it. Like we love books we love reading. And we have this thing where if we read a book or listen to a book we’ll always ask you, how was it? And we have this saying in our house with my husband and I, and we’ll go I’ll always say, well, it should have been a blog. And he’s said, what do you mean? And I’m like, should have been a blog
RG (39:28):
Yes.
AJV (39:28):
And everything else just turned into stories and fluffy stuff because you had this amazing idea, but there wasn’t enough to make it a book. Right? It should have been a chapter of the book, not the book. And so we, now we now we have this saying is like, was it, you know, was it a book, a blog, or a podcast? Like what, what was it?
RG (39:48):
Yes.
AJV (39:49):
It’s like we get so excited, but we forget now. This has to go for a lot of pages, a lot of words. Yes. Is there enough depth into it or should it be a chapter? Should it be a blog or a podcast?
RG (40:01):
AJV (40:24):
So, so good. And Isha, if people want to read your book which is more than a blog, so please go read this book. It will be the whole book,
RG (40:37):
Go to Amazon. Be better than your bss. How Radical Acceptance empowers Authenticity and Creates a Workplace Culture of Inclusion.
AJV (40:46):
So y’all, you heard it here, go to Amazon, pick up the book better than your BS by Isha grant. And if you wanna just be extremely specific, just go to the show notes of this episode. I’ll have the exact Amazon link in there. Go buy a copy and help this woman hit the bestseller list. Isha, we are so excited for you. We love you so much, and everybody else, thank you. See you next time on the Influential Personal.
Ep 407: Telling Stories That Make a Difference | Damon West Episode Recap
AJV (00:02):
So I just had this amazing conversation with a newer friend of mine, his name is Damon West, and he’s got an incredible story from being a collegiate athlete to working at a very large investment bank, to getting hooked on meth, to being sentenced life in prison, to getting parole, to becoming a motivational speaker and a multi-time published author. And the stories just awesome. But while I was talking to him, it spurred this idea to make this video to share with all of you. And I think it was really good cause we were talking about how do you incorporate these crazy stories, these events, these, I can’t believe this happened to me, type of story into your message. And how do you take a very, you know, you focus story, in this case, a very me focus story and turn it into a message that is universally helpful to your audience, where I’m not just telling you my story to help you get to know me, but I’m telling you my story.
AJV (01:14):
Because within that story, there is a message that means something to you, the person who is listening, the end user, right? So at Brand Builders Group, we have a really simple formula that talks about this, which is tell a story, make a point. If you’re going to tell a story, what’s the point of that story? The story part is about you. The point, the message is about them. So what are you trying to convey during this message? And this was just a really great storytelling conversation, is really what it ended up being, is how do we tell our story in a way that actually helps other people? And so here’s a couple of things that I just wanted to share from this conversation cuz I thought they were worthwhile. So number one is just asking yourself, and I’m, I’m literally using words out of his mouth cuz I thought this conversation was so great, is what’s the SWAT team story in your life?
AJV (02:14):
Like, if you’re struggling on how to make a point and create a message, then ask yourself like, what are the SWAT team stories in my life? And what I mean by that is, you know, in Damon’s life, there was a SWAT team raid, and that’s how he got arrested. A SWAT team busted down the doors, rated a, I think meth house would be the appropriate term and arrested him, right? That’s a SWAT team story very literally for him. But all of us have those swat team stories in our life, those defining moments or events or decisions that said, my life was going this way and then this thing happened. That SWAT team moment
AJV (02:59):
And then my life went in another direction. Could be good, could not be good. But what are the SWAT team stories, the stories that make you stop in your tracks and go, wait, what that happened to you? Like this thing, this decision, this event, this moment? Like, wait, I, what? So what are the SWAT team stories in your life? And then what’s the message within that story, right? That, what’s the point of that story? Because that’s what takes a story that’s yours and makes it a story that other people need to hear. Because there is a message, there is a point, there is something within that story that is universally applicable to anyone who hears it. I’m going, I needed to hear that today. I needed to be reminded of that today. So that’s the first thing. Second thing is know what your signature stories are.
AJV (03:50):
When I was talking to Damon, we, we were both talking about how it doesn’t matter what audience you’re in front of, right? This is maybe an audience of one and maybe you’re just practicing in the mirror, right? Maybe you are the audience of one. Maybe it’s in a one-on-one coaching call. Maybe it’s on a podcast like this. Like right now, technically I’m talking to my camera, right? Although others will hear it. I’m talking to myself, right? The only thing I see right now is a little green dot on my computer. I’m talking to myself. However I have you in mind, right? So maybe it’s that maybe you’re making content videos or maybe you’re speaking on stages. Maybe you’re speaking on stages to hundreds of high schoolers or thousands of people in corporate America. The the point is, it does not matter who you’re talking to.
AJV (04:32):
It’s what are the signature stories that you tell no matter what, because this is a signature story of your message of your life. And it’s profound in many ways. And so we have lots of stories. Like I have a list of probably at this point, a hundred different stories that I could tell, but I have two or three that I tell no matter what. Those are my signature stories. And it’s like, I know that this was such a defining moment. This was such a swat team story in my life that it doesn’t matter what audience am I, I’m in front of, this is a story I’m telling. That’s what we’re calling your signature stories. It’s those one or two stories that are in every single message that show up in all the different types of conversations because they’re that powerful because they were powerful to you.
AJV (05:17):
And if they were powerful to you, if they changed you, they have the power to help change someone else too. So what are your signature stories? All right, so have your list. The next thing is knowing how to tailor your presentation without changing your message. And I thought this was really profound because in an era of everyone’s something that’s a little special to them, right? Most audiences wanna feel like this was catered to me. This was tailored for me. This was crafted or built or customized just for my audience. At the same time, that’s what we think we want. But what we really want is we want something that we know is going to be impactful to the audience that’s going to help them, help them make better decisions, help them think differently, help inspire them in some way. And sometimes having something brand new isn’t the best way to do that, right?
AJV (06:07):
Sometimes the good old tried and true is what people really need, although that’s not what they think they want. So knowing how to tailor your message or your presentation know how to tailor your presentation for the audience without ever actually changing the message. So here’s how you do that is you can tailor the opening. You can tailor the ending. You can work in industry lingo or statistics. You can make it about the event. You can weave in acronyms. You can tell a story about the audience. You can do something about the city that it’s in. Like I have go-to stories and jokes. If I’m ever speaking in Las Vegas there are just, this is like, I’m gonna tell this joke or I’m gonna tell this story if I’m in Las Vegas because it, I know it’s gonna be a home run no matter where I tell it.
AJV (06:56):
Or if I’m ever speaking at 8:00 AM I always have a story for an 8:00 AM if I’m ever speaking over lunch. I have little jokes that it’s always for lunch meetings. If it’s I’m, if I’m the closing speaker and I’m the last people, that last person there and people are constantly leaving to catch their flights because nobody thought about having a speaker right before everyone leaves. It’s like, I have stories and jokes just for those time that’s tailoring the presentation that makes it feel custom and unique. Although my message is never impacted. So how do you tailor your presentation for the industry, for the audience, for the company for the location, the locale, the theme of the event without ever actually changing the message itself. Cuz when people say, Hey, I I love that you customize this, what they’re really saying is, I love that it felt like you customized it just for us, but what they really want is the goods.
AJV (07:47):
And you only know it’s the goods because you’ve delivered it enough to know that point resonates. That story is what people remember. You need to be doing your message and your presentation so often that it’s like, I know a laugh is coming here. I know a silent moment is coming here. And not only happens cuz you’ve done it dozens, if not hundreds of times. And so people say they want something custom, but you don’t wanna try out brand new stuff and an audience like that, that’s for your small group of friends or for your mirror, right? That, that takes practice to know it’s like it’s gonna crush that’s gonna make a difference. That’s going to actually be what they asked for while also giving them what they want, which is making it feel custom and tailored. And you can do that without ever changing your message. So don’t change your message. Learn how to tailor the presentation, right? And then I have these other quick three things that I just thought were really good. Just little motivational bombs for you today. So number one I thought this was so good for all of us, is that there’s only two ways to think about the future. It’s with fear or with faith. And they both have more in
AJV (08:54):
Common than you think. They are both a hundred percent based on things in the future. One is negative and one is positive. Fear is thinking about all the bad things that might happen in the future. Faith is remembering that good things are coming your way. And as we’re doing all these things, we’re thinking about, you know, speaking on that stage or writing that book, or getting our message out into the world or, you know, starting this new venture or this relationship or having a baby. It’s like we can choose to be filled with fear, which is the negative, or we’re gonna choose to have a little faith because they’re both a choice. And it’s just which one, which path are you gonna take? Is it the path of fear or the path of faith? And that I needed that yesterday when I had this conversation.
AJV (09:36):
So thought maybe it would be good for you too. Number two is that you are always more capable to overcome more than you think. You are always capable to overcome more than you think. And I think that’s just a reminder to all of us. It’s like once we’ve overcome it, then we’re reminded of like, whoa, I did that. But before it happens, or even during, we’re like, I don’t know if I can do this. But the truth is you can, you can do it. You can overcome this. You can make these new decisions, you can create these new habits, you can do this. And you are way more capable of overcoming more than you ever thought was possible. You are capable. That was number two. And then number one, I asked a amen at the very end. I said, with all these life trials that you’ve been through that you have overcome without, you know ease with lots of difficulty what would you say is like the number one thing when it comes to keeping this positive mindset and choosing a faith future over a fear future?
AJV (10:41):
And he said, number one key to my mindset and to my emotional wellbeing and my overall growth is just consistency. It’s nothing big. It’s just showing up every day. It’s making a choice. I’m not going to, you know, do drugs again. I’m not gonna take that sip of alcohol. I’m not gonna eat that cookie if I want it. I’m not gonna spend that money here. I’m going to investigate here. I’m gonna wake up every day. I’m gonna get in the shower and I’m gonna try. I have to put in the work. And he said, it’s n nothing profound and it’s nothing big, he said. But it’s those daily decisions. Those defining moments that were made in the, the ease of the moment where I could have easily said, this is too hard. But it didn’t. I said, no, this is hard and I can do hard things. And it was a great reminder to me, and I hope it’s a great reminder to you that success isn’t easy. It takes work whatever that success is. It’s not supposed to be easy. Who said this was supposed to be easy? But the best things in life come from overcoming. I, I know that for most of us when we look back, it’s like we don’t remember the things that came easy, but we profoundly remember the things that
AJV (11:53):
Came hard then we overcame because it changed us, it challenged us and it grew us. Those are the things that we remember and those are the things that your audience is gonna remember too. So don’t be afraid to share those moments of your life, the hard stories because they do make a difference. They made a difference for you and they make a difference for people like me. So tell your story. Get out there and I’ll see you later.