Transcripts for Episode 100

These transcripts were generated by robots, not writers.

Stacy: Welcome to episode 100. That is wild. It’s crazy to think that I am publishing Episode 100 of this podcast, and as I was preparing for today, I have a bunch of clips from the history of the podcast that I want to share with you. I was thinking about when I first started the podcast, so I’d been talking about it for some time, probably a couple of years, when Catherine, who’s on my team, sent me a link to a podcast platform that was supposed to make it really easy to start and publish your podcast. And so I thought, okay, it’s time to stop talking about this and start doing it. And so I recorded my first episode from my little upstairs office in Thailand where I was living at the time with my iPhone and my Apple headset, the kind that plugs in the little microphone on there.

And I edited it right in the app and I published it from there. And I remember just creating that and thinking like, this probably isn’t very good, but I’m just going to get started. And it’s just evolved since then. I didn’t know I would love podcasting as much as I do, but it’s interesting that the work that I’ve done actually is perfect preparation for hosting a podcast. I’ve spent a lot of my work as a ghostwriter, as somebody who is interviewing people, pulling content out of them and then crafting something out of that. So I’ve had to learn how to be a really great interviewer. I’ve had to learn how to create great content, which I’d already been doing for a long time before I started this podcast in my blog and work for clients. And so little did I know this was such a natural transition for me to move into hosting a podcast.

And what’s been cool about this is that it’s also become a way for me to connect with you and to find people that really align with the message that I’m sharing and the guests that I bring on. It’s been such a great way to attract the perfect, most wonderful clients in the world. I’ve been amazed at just the number of people that let me know that this has made an impact on them in some way. And I try really hard on this podcast to inform, so be really educational, provide information, but also just to share a little bit behind the scenes of what it’s like to run a location, independent business, what it’s like to write books, and just bringing on experts that I feel like are the best in the world. They’re the best at what they do and they have been amazing. And I have had such an amazing time recording my solo episodes just like this one.

My vision for this podcast is just to grow more and to reach more people. In some ways this is a little bit outside of my general work. The main work that I do is coaching growing authors and the podcast. Yes, I do talk a lot about publishing and writing and all things book related, but it has this mission that’s beyond that’s connected to really creating a life you love. And so I want to reach more people with that message and that mission. So we are really working to grow the podcast. If you are a loyal listener, one of the things that you can do to help is to rate and review the show. It makes a huge difference in my ability to reach more people. And so that’s a big focus for us in the coming years, just getting the podcast out there, growing more listeners and creating a really high quality podcast.

I really see this as an opportunity for me to put more goodness into the world, both the content that I share, but a lot of it is the people that I have the honor of bringing onto the podcast. So without further ado, I want to share some of the top episodes that I’ve published throughout the scope of the podcast and they have a good range. So I have selected some that are on publishing, some on our early time in Portugal, some on business growth, really a really wide range. So I’m going to start us today with an episode with publishing, or I should say an excerpt from an episode with publishing expert Jean Friedman. This was such an insightful episode and it has been by far one of the most popular episodes that I’ve done. And I think part of it is because she does such a great job of laying out the different paths to publishing, we have a really honest conversation about the different options authors have before them and it was just fun to talk shop with her.

So let’s listen to a clip from episode 56, determining Your Publishing Path with Jane Friedman.

Jane Friedman: So the big mistake is thinking my book is for everyone or my book could help anyone. That is deadly from a marketing perspective. So you have to get more disciplined and focused and think about who is the person who will read this book and evangelize for it. Like, their life will be transformed and they’re going to help spread the word. That’s the audience you want to focus on for your first steps. You need to reach those passionate people who can then be your army in spreading the word and helping sell the book, because most books don’t get big or they don’t have success until the readers start doing some of the marketing for you.

Stacy: I love this clip. It’s so right on and it’s such a powerful reflection for authors. A lot of times when I meet new authors, I think they have this expectation that because their message and their book matters to them, it will matter to other people, too. And of course, that’s what our goal is for it to connect with other people. But it has to get in their hands first. And so there really has to be an active role as a marketer of your message and having real clarity around who your reader is makes a massive difference in your ability to reach them. When I listened to this clip, I visualized this joyful army marching behind an author and really this group of people that are supporting you every single step of the way. So I love this clip and I hope if you’re writing a book, it’s really encouraging for you as you craft that book and market it and get it in the hands of your reader.

Let’s shift now to a solo episode that I did on the book writing process. And this is actually a webinar that I replayed as a podcast episode, but it’s been a top listen for the podcast. It’s been something that has really been practical and encouraging for authors. So let’s listen to episode 65. You author the nonfiction book writing process throughout coaching people and my own journey and watching people that I admire is that every good thing requires a hard and scary choice. And showing up and getting this book done can be a hard and scary choice. But on the other side of it is something you can be so deeply proud of. And writing a book is not easy, but it is so worth it. Yes. This journey of writing a book, it can feel really hard. It can feel like a massive undertaking. I understand.

I’ve done it myself 17 times, working on number 18 right now, and coached dozens of authors and impacted over 100 books in my nearly 14 years in this industry. And what I’ve seen in books, in business, in life, is that the hard things are the things that really make a difference for us. They’re the things that matter. Think about it. Your education, maybe going to college, your relationships, your financial goals, all of those goals or milestones or things that you work toward, they can be really tough. There can be hard aspects of that. But reaching what you aspire to is beautiful and wonderful. And the journey of authorhood, when you can get to the end of that and say, I did that. I wrote that. That’s my book. It’s so incredible and so powerful. All right, let’s listen to the next clip. This is an episode I did on the ups and downs of living in Portugal, and this was recorded right before COVID So I’m going to play two clips back to back here’s.

Episode Six the Ups and Downs of Living in Portugal Another real challenge for.

Stacy (recorded): Me, especially as a location independent worker, as somebody who really heavily relies on the Internet to make a living, has been the lack of reliable Internet. Oh, my goodness. That has been such a huge challenge. So where we live currently, fiber is not accessible everywhere. It is across the street from our neighborhood, and it’s in most of the city we’re in. We’re in a city, so we’re not out on a farm or anything. We’re actually really right in a city. But the only unlimited Internet we can get is too slow to have video conference calls. So we have to buy a box which has a certain amount of Internet that runs out. It just like that stops working. And then we have to have these backup cards that we put into the modem to get new Internet. I mean, it’s like living in the early Aughts.

It’s wild. A little bit of a slogo for me with Portuguese. I know pomdia. I know Botard, bonoIT. That’s good morning. Good afternoon. Good evening.

I know some basics, I know some foods, but sentence structure, nothing yet. It is definitely an area I want to focus on. So maybe in the future I’ll have that as an up because I speak Portuguese. That will be the goal.

Stacy: Oh, my gosh. Those clips are a blast from the past. The Internet. The Internet. It was such a pain when we first moved here, and it was so frustrating. And as I mentioned in this clip, it would just go out, suddenly I would be on a call, and then it was just gone. Thankfully, not too long after I recorded this episode, they installed fiber, so I now have nice and fast Internet. However, this week alone, we’ve had a power outage. The Internet. I had all these Internet problems yesterday when I was trying to meet with a client, so we still have some things that are not ideal. However, the vast majority of the time, the Internet works fine. We normally don’t have frequent power outages, so these are just annoyances. But they’re nothing like what they were, and certainly nothing like when we lived in the Dominican Republic and the power would go out every day.

So it’s been better. I’ll say it’s been better. And on the language, I’m sorry to say I’m not as far along as I would like to be. Although I understand a lot of Portuguese now, I don’t understand 100%. I would say, depending on context, somewhere between 50 and 70%. Sometimes it’s lower if I don’t understand the context, or I don’t understand a lot of special language, but I understand a lot, and I’ve been able to navigate situations only in Portuguese. Not too long ago, I did a visa appointment for our family only in Portuguese. I’m sure I sounded terrible. My expressive language is not great, but I can understand a lot. So that’s good. I’m getting there. But I really should have made more progress by now, and it’s a big goal of mine this coming year to learn. I did hear somewhere that Portuguese is the second hardest language in the world to learn.
I should fact check that, but I believe it without fact checking it. All right, let’s listen now to those are some downs. Let’s listen to an up clip.

Stacy (recorded): All right, let’s talk lifestyle. This is probably one of my very favorite things about living in Portugal, and especially in southern Portugal. Fitness, healthy food, access to nature, the two hour period in the middle of the day when everybody just chills out and eats lunch. I mean, amazing. There is value placed on health and wellness here that I don’t see in other parts of the world. I think it’s maybe a European thing. I don’t know, but I like it.

Stacy: Yes, I will. Thumbs up the lifestyle. Still, I would say it’s even better for me now than it was when we first moved here. I think for me, it’s been such a good counterbalance from the American hustle culture that I grew up in. And the European lifestyle is much more, I would say, spacious, and there’s more time off, and family time is really valued. I won’t say I’m immune from that hustle mentality. I think it’s kind of inside of me. I’m not sure I can ever totally get rid of that. But it’s been really great to be in a place where just there’s more ease to life. I would also say that there’s much less kind of consumerism here. I feel less pressure to I don’t feel like I’m comparing myself to other people, which I certainly did more when I lived in the US.

As much as I don’t want to. It’s kind of natural that everybody’s kind of living in a similar way, and so it’s really easy to, oh, why? Why do they have this and I don’t? Or why are they making that choice and I’m not here? Everybody has such different cultures that they’re bringing in the expat community, and I just portuguese culture in general, I don’t feel like it has that same level of consumerism that we have back in the US. Which I really appreciate, that we feel really at home here. We feel really aligned with this place. We feel really peaceful. I feel like our access to food, healthy food, has gotten even better. We’ve learned where to have adventures, what beaches to go to. It’s awesome. So right now we have no plans to leave. We’re really loving our life here. Okay, let’s switch gears here and listen to two clips from my client and published author Amy Lofko on what she learned from publishing her first book.

Here’s. Episode 69 one Year Later what I learned from publishing my first book with Amy Lafko the book was the start.

Amy Lafko: Not the product or the end. And that’s what I’ve found most amazing about it, is that it ended up being the start of the journey as opposed to, here’s my finished product. TADA. It really became now this is the driving force behind the work that I do and the way that I serve people and the way I want to impact the world. It’s staying in your zone of genius, staying in what you love and what you’re passionate about and outsourcing the rest of that, knowing that it’s going to pay off because you can show up more engaged, because you have the energy for all that you’re doing and all the messages that you’re delivering, because they really do matter. They matter to other people and how they’re going to live their lives.

Stacy: I love these so much. And in the first clip, she talks about how the book was really the beginning for her. And I love that framing because a lot of times for those of us who aspire to authorhood, we see the book as the end goal. But I see a book as a catalyst. It’s a thing that spurs you toward that next thing that you want to achieve, whether it’s having an impact with your message or knowledge or story or it’s launching a business or brand or it’s getting into speaking, really commanding that keynote stage and getting those invitations. That book can be such a powerful catalyst for that. And I think, too, that a lot of times it’s so easy to anchor to that physical end product of the book as the goal, as the ultimate completion. But what I find that the authors that I work with, whether one to one coaching or in my programs, is that the journey becomes maybe the most important part.

The journey and the unfolding after the journey. The book is obviously an amazing thing to complete. It’s incredible to get to hold your book in your hands and know that you did that, you created that. But I think what’s more incredible is what that book opens up for you in the future. In the second clip, Amy talked a little bit about outsourcing, and I really appreciate her pointing that out, because especially when you are in that next phase and even along the way of writing your book. But when you get into that next phase and you really need to build your Author platform or you’re growing your business, being able to delegate and outsource and bring other people in to help you amplify your mission, your message and allow you to step into that zone of genius. You’ll just find that it has an energetic shift and that you’re able to show up in more of your fullness and really step into that potential, that purpose that you’re meant to.

Okay, on to a solo episode in which I answered some questions. So here is episode number 71, ask Stacy. Your writing and publishing questions answered.

Stacy (recorded): The biggest pro of publishing, the thing that lights me up, that gets me out of bed in the morning, that keeps me doing what I do, is that writing a book, for many of us, is achieving a dream. The dream might be to be an author, or it might be to impact lives, and this is a catalyst for that. And so if that is on your heart and your soul and you feel that is the direction that you’re meant to go, just know that you can do it. You can. It takes effort. Over time. That effort can be easier with support, like a program or like a coach, but you can do it.

Stacy: One of the things that I try to do in this podcast is provide encouragement and normalize greatness. I think it’s really easy to look to people we admire and think that they’re special, think that they have some inherent talent or some leg up, which, yeah, that can be true. There’s certainly privilege out there, so I want to acknowledge that. But I also want to point out that in writing, in nearly everything we do, it’s not always the most talented people that are successful. Some of the greatest writers of our time have never had their work read. And it does end up being that the people that are consistent and disciplined and show up and do the work and stick to it, they’re the ones that see success. So I want to encourage you with this idea that you absolutely can achieve whatever dream it is that you’ve set for yourself, whether it’s writing a book, moving abroad, starting a business, launching a brand, making an impact with your story or your message.

I really hope this clip encouraged you today to make your dream happen. Let’s listen now to an episode that I did with Robin Bethel on my team. Here’s episode number 76, working with a Ghostwriter. Why, what, how and how much? With Robin Bethel.

 

Stacy (recorded): The beauty of giving shape to what’s inside you with a book. And I just love the way that’s said, what do you mean by it? Can you explain that for our viewers and listeners?

Robin Bethel: Sure. I feel like each of us has this really stunning inherent goodness and beauty inside of us. And we each have our own gifts, and these gifts flow from all that’s inside. There’s a David White quote that I really love that hopefully I get it right. But a line from his poem, what to Remember on Waking and he says, to be human is to become visible while carrying what is hidden as a gift to others. I feel like that line speaks to what I mean as well. A book certainly not the only way to extend what’s inside of us out into the world, but it is a really beautiful way.

Stacy: So beautifully said. Doesn’t Robin have such a calming presence as well? I really love this idea of extending what’s inside of us out into the world. And I often think about the work that I and my team do as throwing stones into a pond. And so each author that we have the honor of supporting, they have a ripple effect. And oftentimes there’s another stone that picks up their message and creates another ripple effect. And what I love about authorhood and just writing a book and sharing it with the world is that you are having an unseen impact. You are creating something and impacting people in a way that you will never even be fully aware of. And I think that’s such a beautiful thing to take what’s in you, share it with the world and create an experience and impact for someone else. Let’s listen now to our last clip with my wonderful client, David Morales.

Here’s episode 70, grit, Grace and writing a book as a high level executive with author David Morales.

David Morales: And so the final thing I’ll say in terms of the professional side is understand your own persona, your self awareness. Be humble. If you’re in a room with executives and you’re sort of like ten tiers down, well, understand how to create value quickly so that the executives say, we want that person in the room, the higher up you go. Frankly, what I’ve learned is that I am a servant. I’m not a leader. The higher I go in my career, it is literally clear to me I am here to serve people. And it has enabled me to create incredible teams of successful people that, frankly, I serve. I’m not their leader, I’m their servant. And it has had incredible results, at least in the last several years.

Stacy: Here a mindset of service. Yes. I love this so much. And for me, this has been my orientation to the world since I was really young. My dad is a chiropractor, and as a chiropractic physician, he really had to be there in the service of his. So, you know, he always talked about that and he always talked about how he was there to serve them. And I’ve carried that mindset into my business. So I love hearing David articulate this. This also really extends to writing a book, to giving a talk, to really anything you do. Because when you are focusing on serving the person that is engaging with your work again, whether it’s a book you’ve written, something on social media, a talk you’re giving, it really takes the spotlight off of your own insecurities and doubts. And it allows you to reorient your focus off of yourself and onto others, to show up for others.

And that is really freeing. It is a gigantic mindset shift that I had to go through when I started speaking. I used to get really nervous, know all the normal things, worried I’d mess up, worry I’d say something silly. And when actually it was my dad, before I gave a keynote, once he coached me through It’s Not About You Stacey, it’s about them. And I’ve really held that closely. And this clip from David, I think does such a beautiful job of illustrating what that looks like in action. So that is it for our clips for Episode 100. That is a wrap on Episode 100. Wow. I have to say, when I realized that I was going to be recording the 100th episode, I was like, is that right? It’s really Episode 100. And it feels really good to be at this milestone and to get to share with you some of my favorite episodes.

I’ve had so many amazing guests. So certainly in a future episode, I’ll have to bring more clips from some of those great interviews. But I hope you really enjoyed these conversations. One thing that I hope you’ll also take out of my own story with this podcast is that it really is about consistency and showing up. One thing that we have found with this podcast is that we had to be publishing regularly. We needed to increase the frequency of publishing and really show up no matter what. And I think that’s true in writing a book. I think it’s true in building a business and really any big thing that you want to accomplish. So thank you for joining me in this reflection episode. Thanks for celebrating this awesome milestone with me, and I’m so grateful to have you as part of this journey. As always, I want to thank the people that make this podcast possible.

Thanks to Rita Domingues for being an amazing producer of the pod. Thanks to Catherine Fishman for Project support, helping make sure that all the things get done. And thanks to Kim Foster for ensuring that everything that goes out into the world is error free and beautifully crafted for you. I will be back with you before you know it.