Transcripts for Episode 135

These transcripts were generated by robots, not writers.

Stacy: Welcome. Welcome to a solo episode. I love these solo episodes.

I love when I get to just be here with you. The two of us, we get to connect and I get to just share some of the things that are on my heart and on my mind. And today I am going to talk about community, and I’m going to loop back around there. But first, I just want to tell you something I’m really excited about that has nothing to do with my work and nothing to do with our topic today. And that is that in a little over a month, I am going to be going to the eras tour. I’m going to the heiress tour next month, and I am so excited about it.

If you follow any of my work, if you’re on my email list, which you should be, by the way, you can go to stacyennis.com/join and get on that list. If you’re on my email list, you notice that I reference Taylor Swift pretty frequently. I’m a huge fan of her work. And so a lot of my, like, my life is kind of buzzing with excitement right now. Getting ready to go to that. Now, this is special. Not just because I’m a fan and I love her work, but also because I am taking my daughter with me, and my best friend is flying in from Scotland with her daughter, and we’re all going to go together and it’s going to be epic and sparkly and incredible. And I’m so excited. I’ve had these tickets for almost a year. We just got our train booked.

We’ve got our Airbnb booked, and it’s going to be amazing. I’m so excited about it. And that’s all I wanted to say. I just wanted to share my excitement because I’m excited. And by the way, if you have been to the heiress tour and you have tips for me, please let me know. You can dm me on Instagram. I’m Stacey Annis on Instagram. Tell me all the tips. Like, what do I need to bring? What do we need to have with us? Like, when do we take the bathroom breaks? What do we do? I know I can google all this stuff, but I’d rather learn from you. So let me know. I’m very excited about this. So aside from that excitement, I’m really excited about something else professionally. And that is the new author community that I recently launched just a couple weeks ago.

It’s called the author influence circle. We already have, like, a really cool group in there. These are people who are on their author journeys. They are working on their books. And I built this community to serve people who are a little bit further along in the journey. So of course, I coach authors. I have a self study program called nonfiction book school that you can follow step by step to write your book. I have a group coaching program called idea to draft our next cohort begins in June. I have private coaching. I have all these ways that I can support authors. I have pretty wide ranges of budgets, wide ranges of support needs, but I’ve never had a way to support authors beyond. And so that’s where this community comes in.

It’s really built to help authors who are already on the journey, who want a bit more advanced information. They want to understand about platform building and marketing, and they want to drive community, build community, connect with other people, because it can be really lonely. And to be honest, launching a book can be really hard. So to have that community, to crowdsource reviews, to help drive buzz and support each other and show up for each other and really be on this journey together, that is what I envision for this group. And that’s why I am so excited about it now. I personally found in my own journey that I really need community. I have struggled to find that throughout most of my professional life. Not because I can’t find people I can connect with, but what I found is I would find people in pockets.

Like, I would have this one friend who lives over here and I’d have this other friend who lives over here. And we would connect, but they wouldn’t know each other. And we would talk about the things and that would be really supportive and good. But it really was a bit different feeling like, different from feeling like I’m in community with a group of people. And those moments where I have felt that. Where I have felt that I’m really in a community, a group of like minded people who share my values and who share hopes and they strive and they want to make this world a better place. And they’re big vision, they’re big hearted. That’s magic. So what I really wanted to do was build that.

And I am building that type of a space for people who are writing books, but not just writing books. They’re writing books that are part of something bigger that they’re doing in their world. They’re part of a bigger vision. They’re writing books that are a catalyst for change in some capacity. And some of those authors are working within social equity work. Some are in business, some are in leadership, some are in specific industries that they’re adding value to. There’s a really wide range of authors, but the thing is that we share this drive and this hunger to show up in our purpose and really make an impact on the world. And to be around people like that, it’s truly magic. So that was the why behind founding this community, this author influence circle.

And you know, what’s been interesting is I’ve had this vision for probably over three years now. I’ve talked about it to my team regularly. I bring it up pretty frequently, like at least once a month over these past years. It’s something I’ve written down multiple times I’ve really wanted to make happen, but to be honest, I just didn’t have the bandwidth. I have a very demanding personal life with. As I’ve mentioned, I have a child who has a lot of health needs. It really takes up a lot of my time and energy. I have a busy business. I have myself to, you know, take somewhat good care of, hopefully, and actually have really prioritized that in more recent years. And I didn’t want to just do it and not have any clarity and intention behind it.

And I don’t think I even knew the specificity of it. Like, I didn’t have the, like, I knew what I wanted to build, but I didn’t have the clarity of understanding that I wanted it to be a bit more advanced for people who are a bit further along the path. And I have that now. And I’m so excited about that clarity and really knowing what I’m serving and how I’m serving people. And one of the things that I had to do, and I hope that this is a good takeaway for you, if you’ve had something on your heart and mind that you’ve wanted to build, is once I had that clarity, you know, the tendency as a recovering perfectionist is for to want everything to be strategized and tactically planned out and sequenced and really super excellent everything all the time.

And I do strive for excellence. And I would say I show up in excellence in most things that I do. But if I had this requirement for everything to be perfect, I never would have gotten this off the ground. And it’s already been three years, and I wanted to make this happen. So what we’re focusing on right now is really inviting people who want to build with me and who are excited about creating community together and who are wanting to be on this journey and in this space together, and who are okay with being a little flexible with the platform, changing a little as we learn more and grow. And so we’re running a founding member launch right now through May 15 with lifetime access for $99 a month.

And I’m really excited about this because you people in my email community, past clients and students, this is like my gift. Hey, let’s build this together and I will always honor this rate for you and we will make this reciprocally amazing. So I’m really excited about that. The other thing I’m really excited about, I know I’ve said really excited like 300 times, but I am really excited. Okay. Is the plans for this community. So at the moment, we are running weekly what I’m calling focus and flow. So you log in and there’s no camera on, no sound. It’s just your little icon. I think it just has your initials and you’re just there with other bubbles of initials and we’re all working together and it’s awesome. So there’s that. I’m doing a monthly office hour where you can.

I’m actually calling it open coaching so you can come in with your questions and I provide support for you on your specific needs. Obviously, that’s hugely valuable to be able to come in with your questions. To ask me, a veteran in this industry, who can either answer the question very quickly and clearly or can help you understand where to find those answers. So that’s huge value. I’m super excited about that. And I’m also hosting events, trainings and different things to really support you on this journey and help you learn. So we have a branding session in May. We have a speaking trainer coming in to talk about how to leverage your book to step into the keynote stage. I’m going to be doing an event on crafting your professional story. We have. Oh gosh, there’s so much goodness.

Oh, we have a session coming up on building your street team for your book launch with one of my amazing past clients, Giovanna Gonzalez. The speaker trainer that I mentioned is Misty Mejia. She’s a world class speaking trainer. The branding expert I mentioned is Emily Sikorsi of Rootin river. She is also a world class expert. So I’m bringing in so many amazing people. I’m gonna be doing a session later in the year on writing a book proposal with Rochelle Fredson. She is incredible and a true expert. I have all these amazing people that are gonna be coming in throughout the year and I’m so excited. I’m so excited. It’s gonna be amazing. So that’s great. I think that piece, like in and of itself is the, like, way exceeds the value of the membership.

But then this other layer to it, which is really engaging together. So we are very actively and intentionally building ways for members to connect together and grow together. And that’s going to be a process, right, of building that connection. But I am so excited so, so excited to see it unfold. One of the things that a past client student named Kevin, who is a member of the community, mentioned about the work that I do with people is he used this word or this phrase, collaborative accountability. I love that. I love that so much. And that’s one of the things that a group like this offers. And for me, too, actually, because, you know, I told you, I’ve been dreaming about this for years, and I’m accountable now.

I have some people that joined a full year membership, so I am now beholden to my own dream and my own vision because I’ve already launched it, I’ve created it, and so I’m showing up right, and I’m building this thing. So for me, that’s really exciting. And it’s very meaningful to be at this place and this stage, to be able to build this for authors and really to be able to show up and serve in this way. As I say that, you know, I’m reflecting, as I mentioned earlier, or many times, actually, about how I’ve wanted to do this for a long time. And gosh, there’s so many other things that I’ve wanted to do a long time, for a long time. Some of which I have taken action on this year. An example is piano lessons.

I started taking piano this year, which I’ve been wanting to for years. I want to learn to fly an airplane. I haven’t started that. I have big dreams for my business and my work in the world, some of which I have taken action on, getting my book proposal out to agents, things like that. But, you know, sometimes when you’re working on something that you’ve been dreaming about for a long time and you haven’t taken action on, it erodes your self trust a little bit. I’m sharing this very vulnerably. I think you can relate to this. I imagine you can. If you’ve wanted to do something for a very long time and it feels deeply important to you, and it feels like it’s part of your work in the world and you don’t do it, you lose some trust in yourself.

You lose a sense of who you are in a way. And I’m not just talking about this community, I’m just talking more broadly about those commitments that I make or that I desire to do and don’t do, and some of which are still not being done for you. Perhaps that is writing a book. Perhaps it is launching a business. It could be ending a relationship. It could be leaving a job that’s toxic for you, it could be turning that side hustle into something more or quitting a habit that’s not serving you. There’s so many things that many of us hold within us that we’re not doing, and we know that part of our purpose in this world requires it.

And so as I go through this journey with this community, which is, as I said, something that’s been on my heart for a long time and that I deeply wanted to take action on, but I haven’t until now. I hope that encourages you in whatever it is that you’re doing, to consider what action would look like, even if it’s something small. Can you remove that layer of perfection and shift your attention to action? And do it with excellence. But do it. Don’t wait. I hope you have a beautiful day. Thank you for joining me in this episode where I got to gush about something I’m really proud of and really excited about. You can learn more at stacyennis.com/authorcircle stacyennis.com/authorcircle. And if you’re excited to build this with me, like, get on in there because I want to see you.

I would love to build this community with you. Thank you as always to Rita Domingues for producing this fine podcast. She makes this show possible, and I truly could not do it without her. I will be back with you soon, next week, like always, with some amazing episodes. I have so many cool guests coming up and lots of great stuff to talk about, and I’m just grateful you’re here and grateful that you are part of my podcast world. I will be back with you before you know it.