Overcoming Challenges with Creativity: Kalila's Entrepreneurial Odyssey
What if there was a single toolkit that could help you navigate the pain of miscarriage while also giving you the skills to take charge of your future? Meet Kalila, a brave woman who not only took this challenge head-on but also created a survival toolkit, offering a tangible and creative way for people to express their emotions and feel less alone. We explore her journey of becoming a surrogate mother, the therapeutic act of creating, and how she turned her experiences into a comprehensive 60-page workbook.
Hear about Kalila's entrepreneurial journey as she shares about her future plans and current challenges. From her experiences with craft fairs and innovative marketing techniques to her ambitions of launching online workshops, Kalila is a wealth of knowledge. We also discuss the nuances of starting a podcast, overcoming common fears, and the art of creating a compelling demo reel. This episode is packed with practical advice that can benefit aspiring entrepreneurs and podcast creators.
In our final segment, we tackle important aspects like setting expectations, managing fears in business, and the art of public speaking. Kalila shares her apprehension about handling a potential influx of orders and her techniques for increasing sales without succumbing to the trap of comparison. We conclude with a coaching session on maintaining an engaging presence, building confidence in public speaking, and articulating a clear message. Whether you're a budding entrepreneur or just someone navigating life's challenges, there's something to learn from Kalila's resilience and ingenuity.
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This is an undiscovered legacy production. Welcome to the Undiscovered Entrepreneur, the podcast where brand new entrepreneurs come to life and could quite possibly be discovered. Join me, dj Scoob, and the rest of the screw believers as we help these new businesses become a reality. And now, way we go. We now join DJ Scoob in the coaching of Kalila, already in progress. So sorry, kalila.
Speaker 2:Kalila, it sounds like tequila.
Speaker 1:Oh well now we know how to say it. All right, so give me a little more insight about what you're now. You do a kit for people that have suffered a miscarriage, correct?
Speaker 2:That's the start of it, yeah. So the short story so you kind of know what to talk about is that I am a surrogate, I have three kids of my own. I call being pregnant my superpower, and in December of 2019, I gave birth to the first surrogate baby, who was, thank God, totally healthy. He's now three and a half years old and literally as I was giving birth, I was like I want to do this again. So obviously, with COVID, everything sort of was up in the air in terms of when and how and that kind of stuff, and in January of 2022, I was approved that I could actually be a surrogate again for the same family. So May of last year, I went in for the IVF transfer and everything was going perfectly and great and no issues, until 16 weeks and five days when I went in for a checkup and there was no heartbeat. So it was one of those where it was like a ton of bricks was dropped on me because I obviously had never been through that before and I didn't even know where to turn. I didn't know what to do and the hospital sort of just gave me this whole packet and said okay, now that you're checked out, I was in the hospital for two days and they were like, okay, we're done. So I started doing research. I like I couldn't get out of bed, as most people who've gone through the same situation do, and I realized that I needed to create, and so I just started pulling from all the different pieces of research that I was doing and what was helping to heal my pain and I put together this workbook. And then, through the workbook, I also then put together this whole survival toolkit that comes with affirmation cards and stickers and items that let the person know that they're not alone and that they're not going through this by themselves, even if they feel like they are. And now I'm actually just about to release my second workbook, which is really for the general population, called activate your inner strength warrior, and it's all about using the challenges that life gives you, instead of working against them, to work with them.
Speaker 1:All right. So I understand. I kind of get an idea of how it got started and that kind of thing. So what was the process? I mean, you learned a bunch of stuff and you threw a bunch of stuff together and a kit. I mean how did that work? I mean, what was the process there?
Speaker 2:A lot of it started with me literally hand drawing on procreate. I didn't know if I wanted to just create stickers or create something that I felt was tangible, that made it feel like the baby still existed. The biggest part to me was that, especially because I was the surrogate, I felt like I was going to be completely forgotten, where, as most parents and I and this is actually not the case, but a lot of parents I felt like were, because it was their own baby, it was their loss, so it was something that people could connect to and could say how are you feeling, how are you doing, is there anything I can help you with? Whereas I felt like I was just the surrogate and so I was going to be glossed over and, because it wasn't my baby, I wasn't attached to it, and those sorts of things. Whereas I then, through the therapy group that I was in, came to realize that it's actually that way for a lot of parents, even though it is their baby, because people don't know what to do, they don't know what to talk about, they don't know if they should bring it up, they don't know if the parents even want to mention it, whereas most parents are dying inside to talk about their baby, and so I started drawing. I started going through the process of procreate and looking at stickers and then I was like you know, the idea of actually drawing really helped me. So maybe I can put together something where someone can color how they feel, and I found different pictures that kind of expressed a wave of emotions, and to color each section of the wave with a different color for how they were feeling that day. And then I started thinking it back. I homeschool my kids, so it's something where I actually work with them quite a lot on working through your emotions and talking to people and being able to understand. You know the same thing. You know the social skills that are necessary in terms of working in the real world, even though they're still young, and so some of the things I do with them. For example, we have a calendar where every day there's a color that represents the over arching emotion of that day. So red could be anger, green could be happiness, blue could be calm, and then you, every single day, you color in a little tiny square of what that emotion is and at the end of the year you can look back and say, oh, did I have more good days or did I have more rough days? And then you can kind of say, well, why were the rough days rough? Did I start the day rough or did I end the day rough? Did I start the day great and then I ended the day rough, like what happened in that day? So I included that kind of a work activity and then there was just other aspects that I was like, oh, that really helped me, I should include that. And then I thought, wow, this whole idea is coming together and it's a 60 page book before I knew it.
Speaker 1:Right, right, just got. It just kept growing on you.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Okay, so you've, you put all these things together. What have you done with it up to this point? Now you have this kid, what? What have you done with it?
Speaker 2:So I do a lot of social media marketing. I've done one craft fair. I have another craft fair that's coming up on August 20th. That not only am I going to have the toolkits, but I also have another thing that I'm going to have my daughter involved with, because she really wants to be able to sit at the booth with me where I'm going to print out temporary tattoos with some of the one liners that I have with affirmations and for, you know, 50 cents or a dollar, while people are walking around they can get a temporary tattoo with this, this motivational affirmation. Beyond that, it's been a lot of word of mouth. It's been a lot of me talking about it. It's been a lot of my mom has helped promote it to different people and just really getting people to talk about miscarriage and pregnancy loss. Okay.
Speaker 1:So what can, what can I do to help you? What? What would be a couple questions you might have for me that I can. I can help you along. I mean, what do you think we go?
Speaker 2:So I think I'm. There's two things I'm stuck in how to get the word out more. Actually, it's three things. Once the word is out, I'm also at that point where I'm a little nervous because the workbooks are easy for me to distribute. Those I do through Lulu and through Amazon, so somebody else puts the whole thing together. The PDF form is with them and when it's ordered it is a drop ship directly from them. Right, the actual toolkits. I have all the supplies that I've ordered and I put them together in my house, so it's. It's like that double edged sword where I'm like, oh, my gosh, I would love for people to order, but then I'm like, oh, but I only have the kits enough for 50 people. So if I get this influx of orders, it's going to be a backlog, because I have to then pay for the supply is before I can make more. So that's the first two things. And then the last part was I had it in my head and now I don't remember what it was. Oh, I remember. Okay, I would love to be able to create some sort of online workshop, coaching group, something of this sort, so that I can also then help people as they're going through the workbook, or to be able to touch base with someone you know four weeks after you've had this loss, six weeks after you've had this loss, 10 weeks after you've had this loss, whatever it might be. I'm not a certified psychologist or psychiatrist, but through life experience I know I can help people and I know that there are certain things and tricks and techniques that I've learned from my psychiatrist and to be able to help in the healing group that can also help other people. So it's that fine line of saying, okay, I know that I have a lot of life experience, but I don't have a certificate in psychology to say, you know, I got letters behind my name.
Speaker 1:Okay, all right, good, what else? What else do you think I can help you with? I mean, there's got to be a couple other things you think. I mean, if you really have to think long term, like once I get past that point, what do I see happening for myself, or anything else, what else do you think I can help?
Speaker 2:My goal is to be a speaker. I want to be able to get up on stages everywhere and talk to people about building their inner strength and building their resiliency by telling my story and being able to then answer questions about surrogacy. Answer questions about you know what happens when you have to go through a challenge. How do you come out the other side with such a positive outlook, how do you work those steps to get through it so that I want to be a speaker and I'm also writing my book about the whole surrogacy journey. So to them, be able to find publisher, find editor, find you know all that stuff that I don't know. All those little steps. I know how to write, I know how to organize my thoughts, but I have no idea especially since I self published the two workbooks I have no idea how to go about finding any of those things to be able to really get the book out there and get the word out there.
Speaker 1:Okay, so you want to be a speaker, which is amazing because I'm actually on that road myself.
Speaker 2:Oh nice.
Speaker 1:Yeah, also, you want you have your book or you want to write a book, but you having trouble about self publishing and how to go about that.
Speaker 2:Right. So I have about four chapters done so far and I know and I'm really only at the very beginning of my journey in terms of how I got into surrogacy so I know there's a lot more to write, but it's finding finding the ways to then be able to go to the publishers and say here's my story. Do you want to purchase it? Do you want to be able to use it? That kind of stuff.
Speaker 1:Okay, good, what else? Is there anything else that you'd really like to go over with me and we have a whole two hours. I want to make sure I give my full amount of time and effort into being able to accomplish what you want to accomplish. So, is there anything else?
Speaker 2:Um, I think that covers the main points. Okay, those, those are really the big ones.
Speaker 1:Okay, so if you think of any other ones, other questions that might come about during our session here today, just ask. Okay. I guarantee there's going to be more questions going to pop in your head as we go along, I'm sure, and I'm open to them. I want to hear I really do. Okay, so how? I'm going to ask you a quick question because I have a couple of ways I do things and I want to hear what your, what your thoughts are. How do you actually organize your thoughts? When it comes to the books, what is your process? The workbooks? Yeah, well, no, for your actual book, because you have workbooks done already. So I don't want to talk about that. I want to talk about how you actually organize your thoughts in and the writing of your book, that of your journey.
Speaker 2:So the the thought process in terms of how I sit down and write is each. Each chapter is a section of the journey. So what I've gotten up to so far is the idea of I've I've met the first couple, because I actually went through three different couples in terms of finding the right couple, that we should be the match for each other. So it's the different events that happened, from getting from point A to point B to point C, what that journey looks like and then, now that I'm at the point of the first couple, is probably not a good match for the reasons why of you know the things that have come up. Then the next step is to is to move into how I then met the second couple, which was not a good match, and how I met the third couple. And then, once we met that third couple, what the process was of then going through IVF, going into the journey of being pregnant, enjoying the fact that I could go everywhere and people will be like, oh, you're pregnant. I had no idea. And I'm like, oh, it's not mine, my favorite phrase and then what the birth was like, you know, working the whole time with the parents, knowing that every time I had a doctor's appointment every time I had an ultrasound, every time I was nervous about something or needed to go to the doctor for something, I had to call them first, as opposed to my husband. And then what it was like through COVID, trying to wait to get pregnant again, actually going through the IVF again and then losing the baby, and what it was like in the hospital. So really the whole journey of the story.
Speaker 1:So are you basically just writing out of memory or do you have an actual process where you get your? You get your thoughts, so I had.
Speaker 2:I had notes of the entire process and I actually started writing years ago when I first gave birth, and then my iPad lost all of my stuff and I was like, oh, that's the worst, oh yeah, so I'm going back over to my notes. And it's funny because I actually just did a habit finder exam with a friend of mine who's a habit finder coach. And so she did her you know her 45 minute breakdown afterwards and she said one of the things that came up was that I actually have a very good eye for detail and a very vivid imagination, and I was like that's so funny. You say that because every time I write another section of my book, I can go back to the exact moment that I'm writing about and I can see the whole thing happening.
Speaker 1:Okay, good, so you kind of have a process. I wanted to just kind of give you an idea of what my process is, just so it might help you. I don't know, sure, I actually use here. I can actually show you right here these bad boys, right here. Okay. Sticky notes, post it notes whatever. Yeah. And then, basically, I give myself a 10, five or 10 minute mark and just dump everything and stick it to the wall right behind me, right here. Okay. Use that and then I organize those things into specific areas like different subjects, and then those subjects can be chapters or different parts, and I use that basically, so I get, I turn my editing, my editing brain off and just go flow with my creative brain.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:And it gives me a better flow of what I'm doing and I'm not. I don't worry so much about how the spelling is or if this is actually part of this part of the story. It just gets everything out, and then I'm able to move them around into sections. So I don't know if that helps you or not, if you've even tried that or heard of that before.
Speaker 2:I have heard of it. I haven't tried it because my story is so linear. There are plenty of other stories that I could tell that it would definitely be much more helpful because I would jump around a lot, because I do have a pretty eclectic background. My mom also was a cancer survivor two times over and that you know the first time I was a kid. So even going to a I can see like my next book talking about getting through other events that happen and keeping the victor mentality instead of going into the victim mentality. So that would definitely help, I think, for any follow up books that have nothing to do with the linear story. But because this is such a you know A to Z process, I don't know that it would specifically help for this one.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's what I was going to say too, because it sounds like you already have it kind of mapped out anyway. Yeah. So and, like you said, it's really linear. So, but it still might come in handy with these other books. It sounds like For sure. Yeah, once you get to that point, excuse me All right. So what are you doing right now to get the word? I mean, you said you have you do word of mouth, okay, cool. What else are you doing to get the word out about what you're doing? I mean, what if you did?
Speaker 2:social media.
Speaker 1:That's it, huh.
Speaker 2:It is. I don't really know of any other ways to go about doing it right now. I I'm pretty proficient with Canva. I post every single morning on, you know, the top six um Facebook and Twitter locals I've been doing threads recently, since it started and um LinkedIn, um, but. But in terms of marketing specifically, I don't know other ways to go about doing it besides going on podcasts and things of the sort which I'm doing.
Speaker 1:Right, well, that's good. That's actually a good way to get your word out. So go on to other podcasts that are similar to what you're doing. Do you have your, do you have your own podcast?
Speaker 2:I don't, and I I would love to. I think the thing that's holding me back is that I am worried I don't have enough to talk about, right, I have my story, I have my lessons and I don't want to jump all over the place to say this episode is about X and this episode has nothing to do with anything I've talked about in the past. Um, I would love to be able to interview people on what their stories are, but then I also think do I have the right questions? Like I've been interviewed and I know that people have always asked me interesting questions, I don't know it's it's that perfection thing that's holding me back in that respect.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and you know what? It's just a fear. Yeah. It really is just. What it's breaking down to is just a fear, and it's a fear of, like you say, not having enough to talk about or not quite getting the message out correctly, or anything like that. Don't worry about stuff like that. I think what you really need to do is just get started. Yeah. Just take that first step towards, even if it's just to buy yourself a microphone, you're making a step forward into something that you know you. You obviously know this stuff Right. This is stuff that you've been talking about for for years. This is stuff that you've been living through. How could you not have enough to talk about this is? That was actually a fear of mine. To be honest with you. That was a fear of mine, too, when I first started this, when I first started my podcast undiscovered entrepreneur. Am I going to have people that want to talk to me because it's an interview base? So am I going to have people that want to talk about that stuff? What if I run out of things to talk about? What if nobody? I go through a dry spell of, of not having anybody that want to interview with me? I've been doing this for two years. It has yet to happen.
Speaker 2:Nice. Okay, I think that's where your post-it note I the idea might come into a lot of use, because if I could put post-it notes on chapters of a podcast, then it it could help with organizing that.
Speaker 1:Now you're thinking Now see how you got. You got the juices, for you're already thinking for yourself how to do this Right. Right, you have the capability. It's there. I know what I can feel. It it's there. You just need to do it Right. And one of the things about I don't know if you got a chance to listen to my podcast, but one of the big.
Speaker 2:I heard one of the lady that was the DIYer and I was like oh yeah, so hardcore, cause I'm also a. Diyer.
Speaker 1:She is amazing. But yeah, that's the thing, though, and that I talk about that in the podcast too, that particular podcast I'm glad you brought one up. I talk about how fear holds us back sometimes when we have. But we, if we just take that first step forward into something that we know we know enough about, then things just kind of fall into place for us. People start following us, people start asking us questions about and giving us ideas for other things. It just automatically happens because you took that first step. So don't be afraid to take that first step. You will not run out of stuff to talk about, I guarantee it.
Speaker 2:Yeah. It's funny cause I actually I was always very nervous, even though I'm I'm I've no problem getting up in front of a theater full of people, right, but talking to the camera I I put off for so long. And then you can say I have a friend who is also a coach, but she does more like emotion code and body code and stuff like that, and so I was talking to her and same person does the habit finder and she posts videos all the time and she was like just do it, just just start recording yourself. And I was like, okay, fine, and now that I've recorded a few things, I'm like you're I know she's right Like I know that I can record and I do have the microphone and I do have the ring light and I do have, you know, the nice laptop and everything, and I think I always I see what everybody else does as perfection, and so for me to be able to get out of my own head and say, no, everybody had to start here. I'm starting here, that's okay, and I can take those baby steps and I can do the videos and I know what I'm saying, it's just now. Okay, so transition into also doing a podcast.
Speaker 1:And what's so hard? Tell me what's hard about that.
Speaker 2:It's that fear of everybody else looks like theirs is perfect, and I am a very, very hardcore perfectionist. So the practice of it like I'm used to. I'm an actress, so I'm used to getting up on stage. I'm used to being able to go to rehearsal for weeks or months at a time and rehearsing the same lines over and over again that somebody else has written and somebody else has choreographed for the dances. And then, when it's all my own stuff, I'm like how long do I have to rehearse? What do I have to say? Where do I go from here? So it's transitioning into saying no, I know what I'm saying, Like it's not imposter syndrome, because even though my husband says this all the time, okay, so, Big Zeal, you don't have those letters after your name, you have life experience. You know what you're talking about, it's not fake, it's authentic and people like that.
Speaker 1:People will actually go to somebody that's authentic over a piece of paper Interesting. They will because you've lived it Right. A lot of people that actually have that piece of paper have not lived it, they just read it in a book. Right. Right, so you actually have an advantage over those people. Okay, now I'm going to give you a little thing, and you might have heard it in the podcast, but I'm going to say it here again F-E-A-R. False evidence appearing real, okay, okay, that's what you're facing right now. This isn't a saber tooth tiger that's going to eat you up. Okay, this isn't a caveman coming after you with a big club that's going to hit you over the head.
Speaker 2:Right, I'm not going to die. I know that.
Speaker 1:Exactly. It's nothing that's going to hurt you. It could only help you if you get over that fear and just show other people what you actually are capable of doing, which I know for a fact you are capable of doing because I could see it. Thanks, you've lived it, right, right. How else can you explain that kind of experience? Right. Now, as far as perfectionists, I'm probably going to cut this part out, but I'm going to show you something here. Okay, I'm going to show you something here, something I don't show a lot of people, but I think you need to see this, okay, okay. So I'm going to take my camera here and take it off Hopefully I don't mess anything up but I want to show you this is my studio. Okay, Right. Now I don't know if the camera will go over. You can actually see I live in a studio apartment. Wow, okay, I work two full-time jobs. Hopefully I don't mess that up too much. I work two full-time jobs. I have my family and I do the coaching and I do the podcast. Wow, okay, I'm not going to talk about it, but I am starting from pretty much zero. This is what I have here is accumulation over the last two years. Okay, but I'm able to go on to podcasts. I'm able to have a podcast. I'm able to talk to people like yourself and help them along in their entrepreneur adventure because I have the experience. You don't have to have all the extra stuff. You don't have to have perfection. This is far from perfection. Okay, right, this is way far from perfection.
Speaker 2:I mean I feel you on the background and not like I have my canva virtual screen. But I'm in my bedroom, I've got my desk on one side, I've got my bed on the other with a TV behind me. So I totally get that.
Speaker 1:I'm just lucky I have a white wall I can put, you know, but anyway. So I mean you don't. It doesn't have to be perfect, especially when you first start out. You have to be a disaster before you're a master, right?
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:Okay, I think it's also because I have.
Speaker 2:I went to school in Boston and I got a theater education degree and I think that the impression of auditioning, the impression of putting yourself out there for radio or voiceovers or communications in general, is always you have one chance to make a first impression and I think that's also in the back of my head to say if you don't get it right, who then is going to give you that second chance?
Speaker 1:As true as I hear that I really do. But as true as that is, we have something called editing, it's true. So even if it's not perfect or your two are perfection, the first time you can fix it. Right, right. And even if you, if you flub something up or anything out, delete or just say it again, or whatever you know, don't overdo it though.
Speaker 2:Right, because then it sounds fake.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well then you're, you're spending. You know, I talked to a guy today. He said he had a YouTube channel and he spends eight hours editing like a half an hour. I was like, dude, you're overdoing it. You're just way overshooting what you're trying to do. Yeah. When it comes to like a podcast and even some YouTube channels. Mistakes are going to happen and people are okay with that as long as they're getting the information that they're looking for. Right. People will forgive a flub, they'll forgive. They'll forgive an ah and an oh and an and a, so as long as they're getting the information that they're looking for Right. So you got to bear that in mind when you're starting something like this. You got to get out of that perfection mentality. I could see why that, with your acting career and and your knowledge of that, you could still use that to your advantage. But at the same time you can't have that type of perfection. But even in movies, even in I don't know- they do take one, take two, take three, yeah. So, you know, don't overthink it, because I really think that's what you're doing right now, as far as that goes, is overthinking it. Just do it, just get started, just do that A recording, record yourself. That's what I did when I started. My first recording was with my son talking about his first, his, his job at the pizza parlor.
Speaker 2:That's awesome.
Speaker 1:You know. So like even if you want to call me and just have a recording and just talk back and forth so you can learn what the process is and how it sounds and what it looks like. I'm more than happy to do that with you.
Speaker 2:Thank you, I think also so far, because I've done, I want to say, five or six podcasts or interviews or, or you know, zoom calls at the moment. So that's also helped a lot just in terms of being able to understand that it most of the time it's just a conversation and it's guiding the conversation in the right way. It's not. You know, I'm used to listening to a one person podcast who really carries the whole thing for 45 minutes to an hour, whereas it doesn't always have to be like that.
Speaker 1:So my podcast I don't know if you noticed or not I have 60, somewhat episodes and one solo episode. That's it. Everything else is interview based. Right. So if you need a second person there, if it needs to be interview based, do it at an interview base, as long as you're getting the information that you know and in your head out. Right. If it's a matter of talking to somebody. You know, if you're more used to a face to face conversation with somebody, I have a podcast or that puts a mirror in front of them as they're recording. So you're actually talking, you're kind of tricking your brain into thinking there's somebody else that you're actually talking to. You can do that. I do a lot of video conferences. So I actually, if you, I my eyes kind of go down here because I'm actually looking at myself and you, you know, but at the same time, when I do do a solo, when I did do a solo, I looked at my picture because I was, I was tricking my brain into talking to myself as like an interview.
Speaker 2:That's funny because when I talk to myself on any recording I've done, whether it's singing or not, I always get slightly thrown off because then I'm concentrating on what my face looks like, as opposed to the words that I'm saying. So I like this. I figured out that with Zoom if I get one call on top of the other, so like your screen is on top of mine, so it looks like I'm talking more to the little green light as opposed to you know, down here in the corner. Yeah, yeah, Toggy, when I see myself, I'm like I hold on. I don't remember what I was saying.
Speaker 1:So I really think a good way to get the word out from what you're doing is to actually start a podcast.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 1:All right.
Speaker 2:My husband says that all the time and I'm like he's right, I probably don't hear that too often, but which is funny because, ironically, the post that I said yesterday was did you ever get a piece of advice from someone where you thought you know, you don't know what you're talking about, why are you giving this piece of advice? And then you hear literally the same piece of advice from someone else and you're like, wow, you have a point.
Speaker 1:My wife keeps telling me that too. I told you that for years. Well, sorry, I just now figured it out.
Speaker 2:Yeah, sometimes it happens.
Speaker 1:So other ways you can get the word out. When you go to these events, what do you do? Do you have a booth or something like that, or do you just walk around? Or what is your process there when you go to?
Speaker 2:the craft fair that I signed up for. I do have a booth. It's it's the first one was a little bit more difficult because I had no idea what I was stepping into and it was still pretty raw in terms of the emotions of what had happened, Because I'm a little bit further removed. Ironically, it's going to happen on August 20th and my year anniversary from having the baby is August 25th, so I know that there's going to be some emotion behind it. I think I'm going to use that to my advantage only because I'm going to use that just to connect with myself and say there's a reason why he's not here, there's a reason why he couldn't, you know, fully develop and come into this world as a baby, and if it's to help other people, then that's what it is. And I think to be able to set it up a little bit differently last time I was like I didn't know exactly what I should bring with me and I didn't know exactly how I should set it up. I have a much nicer setup for the actual survival toolkit that I've created than I did the first time. I had a little bit more time to prepare this time, so I think it'll be a much easier in terms of the setup and understanding who's going to be at the fair. This is the first one I've done, so if I can find more craft fairs, then great. I don't even know how to go about finding craft fairs.
Speaker 1:I'm sure there's a Google search somewhere local craft fairs or something like that that you can. You could probably look that up.
Speaker 2:That's actually probably the easy part compared to everything else that you gotta go through.
Speaker 1:But so say you're going to this craft fair, what do you do actually to get people's attention, to get your word out at these craft fairs? What do you actually do?
Speaker 2:So I have the workbook sitting out on the table and I have the toolkit sitting out on the table with the things that are included. Every single person that walks by a lot of them are much older people. So the woman would say something like oh I really wish that was around when I was having a child, because I totally went through that. And so I'll ask them what their experience was, if they're willing to talk about it, and then I'll say if you went through it, potentially you have a niece or your daughter or somebody you don't know. Here's my business card. Maybe you can send a care package to somebody if you find out that they've experienced a loss. So, just, a lot of times it was just to engage them and to hear their stories, because so many women have been affected by pregnancy loss and they're afraid to talk about it. And, like I had one lady who was really affected by it the last time and she came, I saw her wander back around a few different times and she didn't stop, but she would smile at me and then finally, after like the fourth or fifth loop around, she stopped and she started crying and she said I wish this was around 20 years ago and I said I'm so sorry for your loss. And she said my husband basically told me to forget about it and I know I can't talk to him, but it's so buried deep inside me and I need to do something and I don't know what to do. And she just started sobbing and I gave her a hug and I said I'm so sorry. And then her husband walked up and she was like I got to go and she started walking away and I was like oh, I just wish I could give you a longer hug. I'm so sorry.
Speaker 1:Good story, thanks, good story. And that gets into a lot of different kind of. I'm actually welling up a little bit because of that story, I'm sorry.
Speaker 2:No, it was rough to see it and I teared up when I was encountering her because I just felt for her so sadly.
Speaker 1:I think what really kind of makes me sad on top of that story is the fact that she has to hide her emotions from her husband. Yeah. So, yeah, anyway, sorry, like I said, it's kind of kind of a thing. I have a couple ideas I want to explore with you when it comes to getting your word out on a craft fair and this is actually something similar that I talked to. It's going to sound a little weird, but there's a gentleman who is that I interviewed as actually one of my first coachings. His name is Meatloaf the piercer. Okay. And he is a piercer and his wife is a tattoo artist. Wow, and when they did craft well, not craft first, but they went to get together like you're talking about, but what they started doing was making things with QR codes on them. Mm, hmm. And putting that QR code on stickers, on anything they can get their hands on. So people actually have a direct access. Even if they don't walk right up to the booth, they could take a picture of this QR code and go to a website, an information area and that kind of thing. So even if they don't feel comfortable walking up to use per se, you still have a capability of getting that information out to these people. Okay, what might turn into clients? Right, okay.
Speaker 2:I mean, I can certainly make a QR code on Bitly. That's not a problem to be able to just have different, like maybe one poster on one side, one poster on the other, that if they don't wanna stop they can get the QR code and then keep going.
Speaker 1:I would also use that QR code, if you can, on business cards. Okay. So one of my. You probably didn't get a chance to get into my background, but when I first started this whole thing, I wanted to be a karaoke DJ and a music DJ. That's why I'm DJ Scoop. I kinda kept that, but one of the things I did was I actually made a QR code on a business card that went to a video of me introducing myself and what I do. So, instead of just having just the card that has my name and address and a website or whatever, you also have me introducing myself and what I do on a video on this business card. So that might be another good way to be able to get your word out, not just as a business card, but actually you as a person, cause that's what people gonna connect with is you as a person, explaining what you do.
Speaker 2:Do you recommend keeping the old fashioned business card or do you recommend this updated business card where it's literally you have the business card and then every time somebody walks by, they just click the QR code and it takes them to that website?
Speaker 1:I would do both, okay, but invest more in the newest one, which is basically it's called a dot card, right, right, and basically you put it behind their cell phone and all your contact information on the cell phone. But, as weird as it sounds, not everybody has a cell phone that's going to do that.
Speaker 2:Okay so just keep a few of the regular business cards, yeah. Cause I do have business cards and I also have postcards in Jewish, and so we there's a ritual once a month. When you have gone through your period or whatever it is, you go to something called a mikva, and so for some of the mikvas in my area, I've given them not only a workbook but I've given them a postcard, so that if anybody has gone through a pregnancy loss and they want to be able to quietly take the information they can, they don't have to say, like, can I buy your workbook or whatever. They can just take the postcard. It has a QR code on there, so that part is easy enough to do.
Speaker 1:So you already got it going, but I think what you need to do is expand off of that Right. Expand that off into other areas where not just the postcard but, like I was saying, like other places where people can even just walk by your booth and just and then it's right there. Right. So, and then another thing too, I'm thinking about too is these people that you come up to and talk to about their experiences and that kind of thing, and this is going to sound a little weird too, but those are the people that you want to have on your podcast. Okay. So say hey, I have a podcast where we talk about this. Would you be interested in being a guest on this podcast? I'm not going to charge you anything for it, it's just for other people's information and, if they're open to that, because a lot of people are actually wanting to tell their story to the world, to help other people, right. So I would actually take that opportunity and asking these people if they are comfortable because you don't want to do anything where they're not comfortable If they're comfortable talking about it on, say, a platform like a podcast.
Speaker 2:And do you think that the podcast should be solely based on pregnancy loss, or do you think I can expand out? Because the whole idea behind my keynote is this resiliency and building inner strength. So do you think it can be? It can start with pregnancy loss and go towards the whole idea of going through something traumatic, or going through something that was challenging and how they came out the other side.
Speaker 1:Let me ask you, let me answer your question with a question. Okay. Have you heard of your zone of genius? Do you know what that is? No. Okay. So there's a book called the Big Leap. I'm a big advocate for this book and basically what it talks about is how to find your zone of genius. Okay, your zone of genius is the thing that you do that puts you into a state like a zone. Like you know how sports people talk about, they're in the zone. Or a writer Even a writer they get into this zone. Okay, if you could figure out what that zone of genius is in whatever you do, you will have a lot more energy, more thoughts, more provoking ideas than you would if you were thinking about anything else. So you have two main things I could see in your zone of genius right now. One of them is the public speaking and the positivity and the things like that, and the other thing is your knowledge of loss. Okay, so you have to decide which one of those. I can't make that decision for you, but you could decide which one is most in your zone of genius and work with that first and then, once you get, once you establish yourself in that, then expand out to something else. The thing that's gonna be in your zone is what people are gonna know you for and then follow you into your next step. So out of those two things I mean and I know you're kind of new to the zone of genius, but I'm gonna ask you this anyway what out of those two things you think would be in your zone of genius?
Speaker 2:I mean the speaking, for sure, but I think that the speaking in terms of going through any sort of challenge and finding the optimism in it and finding the silver lining, is really my sweet spot. Not just in pregnancy loss that just happened to be the tipping point for me but I think, being able to always look on the bright side, being able to always and not to say that I'm looking through rose colored glasses and that life is full of rainbows and butterflies and all that, like life sucks sometimes there's no doubt about it but to be able to then understand that there's a way to change your outlook. One of my phrases that I love, that I came up with, was you can't change the past, but you can change your outlook on it, and so that is where my sweet spot is, 100%.
Speaker 1:Okay so, and once again it's up to you, but maybe you should start with that, but incorporate your knowledge of loss in that as a springboard into your speaking, or have some kind of a combination of the two in a story.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, that's I mean. My keynote is my story. The book is the extended version and all the parts that I'm not telling within my keynote. But my keynote is the journey and the lessons I've learned through that journey and how I got to this idea of finding your inner strength.
Speaker 1:So if you were to have a speech right now, or a TED Talk, or whatever you want I hope it's a TED Talk for you someday that would be great Thanks, but I mean, if you were to go out on stage right now, what would be the first thing that you would talk about?
Speaker 2:The first thing I would talk about is asking the audience if they've ever gone through a challenge and they had no idea how to look towards the positive outcome, to say everyone's gone through their challenges. Let me tell you a little bit about the surrogacy journey and what I went through and all the challenges we faced and how I'm still on the other side saying I would do it again in a heartbeat.
Speaker 1:Okay, and can you see yourself actually doing that save and talking for maybe 15 minutes about it?
Speaker 2:At least the story in and of itself. Every time I've told it is. It's a pretty long one Because in understanding how I got to the actual couple, it was like these lightning bolts from God that said this is the path you're supposed to go on. And I can tell each one of those stories. There was three different times that happened, Understanding exactly what challenges I faced because it wasn't my baby. What amazing things I faced because of the ones in my baby and then my kids' reactions to it, my husband's reactions, all the time when people would be like, oh, I had no idea your wife was pregnant. And he would say, well, it's not mine. And then they'd look at me and be like what? And I'm like, well, it's not mine either. And then working towards going through COVID and the step again of going through IVF and all the medications and all of the shots, and then really that traumatic loss of being in the hospital for two days. So I for sure could talk about it for a very long time. It's quite a story.
Speaker 1:So do you know what you did just now? A podcast. A podcast. Very, very good. You've been listening. That's right. You made a podcast for yourself, not just a subject for a podcast, but you've already put together your probably your first 10 episodes.
Speaker 2:How is that all 10 episodes?
Speaker 1:You make them 15 minutes apiece.
Speaker 2:See, I'm still listening to podcasts for an hour.
Speaker 1:If that's what you're into, that's fine. But if you actually look a lot of podcasts, especially information podcasts if they go longer than 15 to 30 minutes, people start losing interest in dropping off. Okay. Okay, If you look at any of my normal podcasts not my coaching podcasts, because obviously those are a little bit longer, but if you look at any of my regular podcasts, they're no longer than 45 minutes tops. That's because sometimes my guests go a little bit longer. That's okay. I don't mind that so much. But if you're doing a solo podcast, one solo podcast that I made and the one that's gonna be coming out next week are 15 minutes Okay. So you take that story into 15 minute chunks and you have a podcast, Okay.
Speaker 2:I hear you. I will work on that, okay.
Speaker 1:That's good, I like that. Okay, I'm actually gonna hold you to that. Okay. Okay, now, if you need help making a podcast, I can help you. I have ways to be able to do that. I can help you start a podcast and that kind of thing, but we'll talk about that later. Okay, backing up of order problem that you have you are afraid that you're gonna end up getting 50 or 60 orders all at once. Yes. Okay, what leads you to think that? Tell me what that is about.
Speaker 2:I don't know, because I see the big picture of when all of a sudden somebody finds out about your stuff and it explodes. I'm always like, oh my gosh, what happens if I don't have X, y and Z? Or what happens if it's on back order, because all the stuff I got is either from China or from places that I had to order from. I'm very much an independent person. Anything I've done in the past very much your DIYer. I did it myself. I have the Cricut machine. I've got all the stuff to make whatever it is that I've been looking for. So to rely on somebody else to have to then fulfill my sections of my order, I think is just a nervous instinct to say, okay, but what if? What if? What if?
Speaker 1:And can you explain to me what that is?
Speaker 2:In terms of what, like worrying that it's not gonna be there. What?
Speaker 1:is that.
Speaker 2:I would say it's a Jewish thing. I don't know if other people have this issue. Like when we plan meals for people, my mom always makes fun of me because, like I'll plan for 70 people even though 50 people are gonna show up, and she's like, why didn't you plan for 50 people? Well, you know, in my head, god forbid somebody else comes and then they don't have food. It's the same idea. Like God forbid, somebody orders for me and then I'm like, oh shoot, I don't have enough.
Speaker 1:So this is gonna go to the same place as your podcast. It's a fear. Yeah. Plain and simple. It's a fear. What if? What if? That's all I heard you say is what if this happens? What if that happens? Right. So what do we do to overcome that?
Speaker 2:Plan. Make a letter to make sure that if that does happen you can be prepared to say your order will take a little longer, or Let me give you a little tidbit here.
Speaker 1:The expectation of what you set for your customers is what they're going to expect. Let's set that expectation. Let them know it's going to take six to eight weeks for delivery. Give yourself enough time to be able to put those things together. Then, if they get done sooner, you're going to look like a superhero. What you want to do is underpromise, overdeliver. There you go. You know exactly what I was going to say. Yeah. That's how you keep control of that, because if the inevitable happens, you have that cushion for yourself that you don't have to worry about so much because you've already told your customer that it's going to take this long Right, but by the time personally I think by the time you're getting to the point where you're getting 50 orders at one time, you've already made enough money and time and effort and everything to know you can make fill that order. You're getting way too ahead of yourself on how much ordering that's going to be done when you first start out. Have you sold any of these things yet?
Speaker 2:Well, I've sold a lot of the workbooks. I've only sold one or two toolkits so far.
Speaker 1:How long have you actually been selling the toolkits for?
Speaker 2:Just a few months.
Speaker 1:Okay, let's say two, maybe three toolkits over a couple of months. Yeah, do you think in those couple of months when you actually get things started, you're going to be selling 50 of those things? No, okay, let's not overthink this. Even if you sell 10, the first when you're doing a full market thing and you sell 10, you're still going to be okay. Right, what if you sell 15 of them? Are you still going to be okay? What if you sell 25 of them? Are you still going to be okay?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I probably have to start reordering.
Speaker 1:Okay, now you know what your breaking point is, okay, okay, when you get to that breaking point, that's when you need to start thinking about reordering, or setting that expectation that they're not going to get their order in a certain amount of time. Okay. Okay, but until you get to that point, you really don't have much to worry about. Right, right, yeah, so go for it.
Speaker 2:I think it's like one of those where you see the Amazon fulfillment rooms and I'm thinking like, oh my gosh, I don't know how many orders they're getting, but I see the conveyor belt and I see the people and I'm like there is no way, I'm up to that.
Speaker 1:Are you Amazon? Nope, okay. Then don't pretend you are Okay, okay, yeah, you're comparing yourself to somebody else. That's already a big company, star.
Speaker 2:Right, that's been around for 20 years, whatever.
Speaker 1:Yeah, since we're a bookstore, right? So don't compare that. Compare yourself to yourself. Compare yourself to yourself a week ago. Compare yourself to yourself a month ago. Don't compare yourself to somebody else. That's already there, right.
Speaker 2:You'll never get there. It's so funny because I say that all the time and I have to remember to take my own advice.
Speaker 1:Until some weird guy comes on and lets you on the show and tells you the exact same thing.
Speaker 2:Right. Who also says my husband was correct.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So what do you think? You think you could actually beef up your sales a little more and still be okay. Yeah. Okay, good, good you actually have. Do you have a pretty good following on some of these platforms that you've been on?
Speaker 2:I'm starting On Facebook. I've got almost 2,000 people. On Instagram, I've got like another 6 or 700. Linkedin, I kind of just started within the last month and I'm just under like 200. So not very much on LinkedIn yet, but I've just started.
Speaker 1:Okay, I will get with you on LinkedIn. Okay. So just I just want to put that out there for you Perfect, you have enough people where you can actually start some actual hard selling on these platforms. I think the problem is your mentality is I'm Amazon that you're not going hard enough on sales for what you're actually trying to accomplish. So I really think if you start processing things a little bit more about what you actually have to offer these people, because these people are following you for a reason personally, I think. Even if you only have out of 2,000 people, you only have like 10 or 15 people that actually want what you have. That's enough to get started and start making some kind of full flow happening and getting that word of mouth going.
Speaker 2:Right. Well, that's I mean. I know I've sold. If I look on Lulucom for the books, I've sold almost 100 books and they came out officially in January, so six months or so since the book was released. And then my second workbook. I'm just waiting for Lulu to approve global distribution right now. So as soon as that's approved, I can also hit the ground running with that one. It's the toolkits that I was a little bit slower on. I think it was also because my husband just helped me get the actual toolkit on my website. So if somebody now wants to order it, as opposed to emailing me through Instagram or something like that, they can go directly to my website and then I get an email that hey, this person wants to order a toolkit. So that has been, I think, a huge start, also to take that next step.
Speaker 1:So what are you doing with this link? Where are you putting it?
Speaker 2:It's on Instagram, I think in my profile it's on Facebook. In my profile it's on LinkedIn. It's a pretty easy website. It's KaliLagreenSpeakercom and it's got all of my information about speaking, but then it also has the information about the toolkits and the book and that kind of stuff.
Speaker 1:But I understand that it's on, it's probably on your in your profile and that kind of thing. Are you actually advertising in your strings, in your posts and things of that nature? I would think you would.
Speaker 2:Not as much as I probably should. I need to keep doing that. When it first came out, I was doing it a lot and then I've sort of been concentrating on really building the inner strength and I just I need to keep going back to sending people to my website to then say, okay, if you have a pregnancy loss or you know someone who's going through a pregnancy loss or with especially with this new workbook that's coming out, to say, okay, if you're really looking to build up some techniques in terms of building that inner strength, so when you really need to draw on it it's there and you have that muscle memory already to continue to put that in there as well. So I know I definitely need to do it more often.
Speaker 1:Okay, so you're thinking already yeah. This is. This is what it's all about. Yeah. Right. So it's all the stuff that you need to do that you should have been. I don't want to say you should have been doing this, but I mean, this is stuff that you're definitely have been thinking about for a while, but you just haven't taken off to do it.
Speaker 2:Right, and I do it sometimes because I post every day. So and I've had people comment and say you know, I love watching your videos, I love watching the stuff that you put out there. I know people that I've known in California, where I used to live, that said you know, I ordered a workbook for somebody that I knew that went through a miscarriage. I know somebody in Utah that ordered like 20 of them for their congregation. So it's, I know that it's working. It's just those baby steps of of putting them in the right direction.
Speaker 1:Okay, so these will. Well, let me try that again these workbooks that you've sold already. Are you keeping track of the people that actually buy them?
Speaker 2:I can't because it goes through Amazon and Lulu. I don't get the information of who it is that they send the workbook to.
Speaker 1:Okay, so have you ever put together an email list before?
Speaker 2:I haven't and I would love to Okay.
Speaker 1:This is. This is a common mistake that a lot of people make, and even myself have made. It's not starting a way to put together a, an email list. Have you thought about putting one together and know how to put it together, or anything like that?
Speaker 2:I don't know how to put it together, but I would love to put it together. I don't know what I would include in the email unless it was just the same repeat stuff of what I either say on my podcast, or like little tidbits of what I have in my book, like I don't want to give too much of the book away because I want people to buy the book, but I also don't want to keep it hidden and say you know, you can't see any of it because it's it's a secret book that you have to then buy. So it's it's figuring out what to put in a newsletter and then getting the newsletter out.
Speaker 1:So how would you I'm just going to run this by it, okay how would you feel about giving away the very first chapter of your book? Just the first chapter, that's it?
Speaker 2:For the workbook or for the the memoir.
Speaker 1:Maybe both, maybe just the memoir, maybe I don't know. How would you feel about just giving away that one?
Speaker 2:chunk the memoir. I would have no problem giving away the first chunk the the workbook. So, like I can show you here's, here's my there you go.
Speaker 1:That's awesome.
Speaker 2:New workbook that hasn't been officially released, but it's not really in chapters Like each there's 19 different activities or things to read, so I could you know I could. One of my freebies is I have breathing techniques in here, so I have four different breathing techniques, so I I certainly wouldn't mind giving those away, but that's four emails, not 52.
Speaker 1:One email.
Speaker 2:Right, but that's all. How many emails do you then send? Like wouldn't you have to do a weekly email, or?
Speaker 1:you could email Well you could, but I think personally you have enough information in your head to be able to make those things, and you only have to make them once. So you're like the very first email would be a free. The five top breathing techniques that you have, Just I'm just throwing it out there. People are going to want that because they're they're in what your, your niche is. These are things that they will already want. These are people have already said they wanted it because, number one, they're already following you, so they know what they're in for. And number two, we're all in the same. Well, you all are the same kind of niche. On the, I'm trying to, I'm trying to put this lightly, so, but you're all kind of talking about the same thing, so why wouldn't somebody want this? So, okay, I'm going to take, I'm going to take this from you and I'm going to leave you my email. Okay, Now, once you start building up these email, you start using these emails to give information, give information, give value, give value, and then, after a certain amount of time, pitch so my, the way I do, the way I do it, or the way I want to do it, because I'm this is kind of where I'm at too, to be honest with you, I would give away the thing. Four values, one pitch. So once a week or maybe once in four days, depending on what you're comfortable doing. Value, value, value, value pitch. So value, value, value, value hey, I got this toolkit. Value value, value, value hey, I got this.
Speaker 2:But so each of those values is is it's eight different emails, it's eight different things that are technically in the workbook, right?
Speaker 1:So it doesn't have to be in the workbook. It could be. It could be. My next podcast episode is going to be this. I'm talking to this person. This is their, this is their experience. It could be a story that you've come up with, that's part of your part of your life. It could be. I met this person at the craft fair and this is what they told me. As long as you know, obviously, get permission. It doesn't have to be the workbook, but it still needs to be some sort of value that people are going to be interested in.
Speaker 2:So it's. It's essentially the same ideas that I've been posting on Instagram and stuff like that, just in email form.
Speaker 1:Exactly, okay, exactly. You could even do a video of yourself saying, hi, it's me, hey, this is what I'm doing. People respond to very video more than Right, but anyway, however, you think you want to do that and then, when you get that last value and then pitch, okay, and I think that you're going to, you will, if you can do that, you will actually see an increase in sales of your toolkit and whatever else that you're pitching, because these are all people in that same niche that want help and they want help from you. They already said they want help from you. They were following you because they want your help from you.
Speaker 2:And then how do you then transition all of those into, let's say, a four week course that you could, obviously that I have information. But what? What kind of a course would I then build to say, okay, it could either be a live course or it could be a pre-recorded course that you could do on your own time, but it's again. I keep going back to the workbook because I don't know what else I guess would be available.
Speaker 1:What have you learned up to this point and what your experiences are, and what can you do to teach that to somebody else?
Speaker 2:I mean, it's all about building resiliency and building inner strength.
Speaker 1:Okay, and how do you do? I'm not going to. I'm not asking this is a rhetorical question Okay, how do you do that? That's what your course is about. That's what you, that's what you tell other people. This is what this is about. This is the resilience. This is what I do to do it. This is what you can do to do it. And here's, here's a four step course to be able to accomplish those things. What people are going to want is that final goal they're not going to. They don't want to hear about how I do, how I get there. They want to hear about what is it? The end goal is for me, and then, if I liked it and goal, then I'm going to go ahead and take these steps that you're taking. They're telling me to do. So that's going to be up to you. It might still take a while. Courses I mean, we're still new to this. It might be a while before you get to courses, but at least get that email list started so you have somebody to talk to you. You have four or 500 people that you can just build relationships with, talk back and forth with, build that rapport with some of them that can become super fans, and then, if you can actually get these people to become super fans, fill by anything you got, because they want it from you. They don't want it from anybody else. They want it from you because they built that rapport with you. And that's a book, by the way, super fans, I strongly suggest you getting that book because I think that would actually help you a lot. It's written by a gentleman named Pat Flynn. He's a guy that I follow religiously and he's a top podcast performer, but he also does this guy's amazing. You should probably look him up, anyway. So I think, even though courses and classes might be a little further off than like tomorrow, starting to build that email list, so when you do get to that point would be beneficial for you. Okay. Okay, also, build in public. When you're building these things, tell people on your podcast hey, I'm doing this, this is my next. This is what I'm doing right now. If you listen to my podcast, at the very end of all my not my coaching podcast, but my regular podcasts at the end of those I always talk about, hey, this is what I'm doing. So building in public will help you. Okay. So, even if it's like, hey, I just decided to put this in my toolkit today. Right. Now people know that this is something you have in your toolkit. They might be interested in.
Speaker 2:Right. So even like something as simple as the temporary tattoos, to say like we're working on creating a temporary tattoo, what would be your phrase that you would want on one? Something?
Speaker 1:like that. Oh, that's actually amazing. Okay, you got you just passed what I was talking about. Now you're involving your followers into your world Right, throwing them the ball. Hey, what do you think? Email me, dm me on Twitter. What do you think I should do? What would be great if you were to find this right now. What would you want in?
Speaker 3:it Okay. All right, kanane. My request to your followers and followers.
Speaker 1:That makes sense. Yep. Okay, good, do you have any questions for me up to this point, because I kind of go on over a lot but I mean I want to just check it.
Speaker 2:No, it's funny because, like as you're talking, I'm like I am totally going to re-listen to this entire podcast when it comes out so that I can start taking notes.
Speaker 1:Oh heck, I'm going to send this to you like, probably tomorrow.
Speaker 2:Oh nice.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I actually give this to my, to my, my, my co-tease I don't know how you want to call it. So they have it right away. Okay. I will end up putting it out on the podcast, but you're going to get this like in the next day or two, because it's important that you have it while it's still fresh in your head.
Speaker 2:Right, right. How long does it take you to to go from start to finish to get a podcast once you've interviewed somebody, to get it up onto YouTube and Spotify and iTunes and all that?
Speaker 1:Not long actually. Okay, it depends on your time, your time, how much time you wanted to vote actually to get it up. Okay. It could be a day, it could be a week.
Speaker 2:Okay. And then do you also recommend to have eight to 10 already done before you release it.
Speaker 1:I would release with at least four, including an episode zero, that talks about who you are and what you're trying to accomplish with the podcast. I would definitely have a bank that you could put in, but a lot of the podcast servers will only have a certain amount of time you can actually download things into now. When I first started out, I only had three hours that I can download into the server itself, but I had seven episodes in my hard drive ready to go After that. Then it's pretty easy to stay consistent because you're just building off of that. Okay. But is it necessary? Not really. I think starting off with four episodes is enough to get somebody to binge listen for a couple episodes and realize if they actually like you or not. And that's what really that first four episodes is about. First episode is about you. The next three episodes are about what you're actually doing. Great so.
Speaker 2:Oh, wait a minute. You just said the first four episodes are about my story.
Speaker 1:The first episode, zero, is about you and what you're trying to accomplish. The next three are what you're actually talking about, what you're actually accomplishing. So if you're saying, hey, my next three episodes, what I'm going to do is I'm going to do interviews on my podcast. The next three episodes are those interviews. Is what I'm saying? Okay, yeah, I'm not saying four episodes of just you, no, I just Because my story is a long one. Yeah, well, if you need to break it down by a couple, by all means yeah, but I mean yeah. So that's what I would say. I mean, if you want to make a bank of seven or eight episodes before you actually release, great. If you don't want to take the time and you just want to get out there, so you're so, because you're so excited about it. Great. It's all depends on what this is. It'll be your podcast, it's your movie. Right. Right, so you do what you want with it, even if you want to release once a month. Right. I actually have a guy who releases once a month because that's the only last time for but he still has a following, he still has people that look forward to what he's putting out and that kind of thing, even though it's a month. At the time when I first started out, it was every two weeks because that's all the time I could fit in. But then when I started getting along and I started getting my processes down and I could actually start editing quicker and I had another subject I wanted to talk about, then I went weekly. I got the experience to where I can get things narrowed down enough to where I can actually put out a weekly podcast. Okay. So that's entirely up to you. Now, if you want me to help you as far as how do I process this, how does this work, and that kind of thing, I'll help you with that if you'd like. If you have questions about that. Okay, that would be helpful, all right. So what else do I got here? Craft fair? Oh, the word art therapy came up in my mind when you were talking at the very beginning. Now, my wife actually does art therapy. Okay. So a lot of what you're talking about actually remnants a lot of what she does in her art therapy. So the different colors that that are mean different types of emotions and feelings. That's great. I really like that. You should expand off of that a little bit. I really think you should expand off of that because you're creative, I can tell Right. I am yeah. So let that creativity flow in the colors.
Speaker 2:In terms of what I create or what I'm asking other people to create Both Okay.
Speaker 1:Now, I don't know how you're going to do it, but I want you to kind of bear that in the back of your head. How do I expand off of the colors and the art and the emotions? It might be something you could put in your tool cat. It might be something you can do of YouTube video, I don't know, but I think it's something that you can actually build off of Okay. So I think I've given you enough to think about. I don't know what that was a lot. That was a lot. I don't know what time it is. I have no idea what time it is.
Speaker 2:Anyway, my time. I don't know where you are. I'm in central time, so okay, I'm in Eastern time, so it's 1015 here. So, you're 915.
Speaker 1:So we're out. We're only an hour, so we started at eight, so you actually have about another half an hour with me, so I want to.
Speaker 2:I mean, that was so much good information and I'm really excited to. I think getting the podcast sort of hashed out was the key factor and I think that if I can do that with the email list, like those, two things together will be such a big help. And then it will also help because the other oh, I do have another question, and because you're a speaker, maybe you'll have direct advice. Creating my demo reel is something I'm also. Just it's that fear again, it's that I need to be able. I have a friend who is going to be doing pictures with me so that I have some more diverse pictures that I can put on my website. Right now my website is done. For the moment it's out. I'm not live but I can certainly update it with different pictures and with newer pictures and with pictures of me speaking. Part of the problem being in the Orthodox community is that I speak a lot, but it's also a lot on the Sabbath where we can't take pictures of me speaking. So we're going to set up a time, probably late July or early August, where she's going to do pictures with me. But I've gotten permission from my synagogue to be able to use a section and set up some chairs where I can give either my whole speech or sections of my speech to five people, 10 people, whoever I can get to show up of my friends, just to have the microphone, just to be able to have action shots, just to be able to have a demo reel to show of the way that my voice carries, the way that I can tell jokes, the way that I can involve the audience, all those sorts of things. I'm getting very stuck on the demo reel side of things.
Speaker 1:No, you're not.
Speaker 2:No, I have it all up here. It's actually getting it out.
Speaker 1:So it's there, it's all there.
Speaker 2:I know it's doing it, it's there.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, it's just doing it. It's getting used to the fact that you're in front of five people, even though they're your friends or anything. The problem is that you're afraid you're going to and this goes into the perfectionist in you and you're afraid you're going to make a mistake.
Speaker 2:It's not the mistake. It's, and I know exactly what it is Whenever I would audition. I was in a theater group for 15 years when I was in Los Angeles.
Speaker 1:It was all women.
Speaker 2:We did major Broadway productions literally all women. I always played a man for women by women and things like Les Mis and Joseph and Into the Woods and things like that. And when I would have to get up in front of the entire theater, no problem, I could do that with my highest clothes, didn't matter. When I had to audition in front of three people at the very beginning I would be shaking in my boots. I hate just talking to this. I don't mind all of that.
Speaker 1:But what is really the difference between talking to three people and talking to 300 people? What is the real difference?
Speaker 2:In my head.
Speaker 1:It's in your head, it doesn't matter, there is no difference. There is no difference between talking to three people. Now I think your mentality is you have three people and their focus is directly on you and you could feel that because you could visually see it's only three people. So you're afraid you're going to make it. It's more. I know if I make a mistake it's going to be easier for me to see because there's only three people in front of me, but it goes right back into fear, f-e-a-r. False evidence appearing real. I'm going to say it again to you it's all there. You have everything you need. You just need to do it and get comfortable doing it, because you're going out of your comfort zone. As weird as it sounds, some people say their comfort zone is the 300, they're out of their comfort zone is 300 people. But you kind of have the opposite problem.
Speaker 2:I know people are going to be like I'm not.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly. So you shouldn't worry about it too much, and I think if you, even if you just practice it with yourself. Let me ask you a different question. What are you speaking? Are you memorizing a script? Good, don't do that, that's terrible.
Speaker 2:No, I know, Because then you get tripped up. I have a very funny story about that. Actually, I was in Guys and Dolls it was the second show that we did with this theater group and I played Harry the Horse, who is obviously a guy and he's one of the sort of side bosses in Guys and Dolls and he's introducing somebody who is coming to Chicago or he's coming from Chicago to New York to gamble with this group. And I remember being on stage and I actually it was the night, of course, that we videotaped the show and I got lost in whatever paragraph it was that I was saying. And I remember sitting there thinking nobody knows that I'm lost in this paragraph, Nobody knows that I have absolutely no idea what the scripted line is. I'm just going to continue, I'm good, I'm fine. And then I watched the video and I thought, oh my god, that wasn't even English. The words were all there but they weren't in any order of sense that could be determined that this was a story that was meant to be told, and I was like that I'm so glad that's on tape. That was perfect.
Speaker 1:Well, you're the only one that knows really if you really think about it.
Speaker 2:I mean yes, but at the same time I felt like the people that were watching were like are we supposed to follow what she's saying?
Speaker 1:Don't let that be a deterrent, that's just an experience, right?
Speaker 2:No, I know.
Speaker 1:Don't, don't, don't. Let that one experience because you had a little flub there be the one thing that your brain goes back to.
Speaker 2:No, I know, but it's just.
Speaker 1:I'm so grateful not to have a script, because otherwise I think about the lines and I'm like, oh, yeah, no, a lot of speakers will have that prompt, will have that, and not only will they get tripped up, but they'll send a lot more robotic, because they're not speaking from the heart, they're speaking from the mind.
Speaker 2:Right. No, you can tell instantaneously when someone has a script in front of them, versus if they're just speaking off the cuff when they know what they're talking about. But it's a conversation with the audience, it's not just a. I'm going to sit and I'm going to read these lines because that's what's in front of me.
Speaker 1:So okay. So how do we get past your fear of talking to three to five people?
Speaker 2:Just do it.
Speaker 1:I see a running theme happening here.
Speaker 2:Just do it. I should just have the Nike swish behind my camera, out the time.
Speaker 1:There you go. I'd probably show you two here, but I get in trouble. But I'm not branding, I'm just saying no, I know, I'm just kidding, okay, so when is this, when is this happening?
Speaker 2:I don't have a date set yet, but I can. I got permission from the head of the synagogue and I just have to pick a date and then send an invitation out to 20 people and say hey, if you're free at this time, I'll have drinks and snacks. Come hear me speak for 10 minutes.
Speaker 1:I want to get back with you and and hear about how that went. Okay. I really do. As a matter of fact, what I'd really like to do with you at this point is I want to invite you back a month from now.
Speaker 2:Okay, so you're going to hold me to everything. I'm going to hold you to everything, that's right.
Speaker 1:What I'm going to do is I'm going to give you another free two hour session, just like we did today. Okay, in a month's time, okay, and I want to see what changes you've made. I want to see what, what fears you've overcome, what change I mean? You got a lot that you need to do here. I'm going to be honest with you, but I want to hold you to these things and make sure that we're advancing in what we're talking about. Okay. That's what's more important to me than anything else is to see growth. I'm not saying accomplish all these things in a month. I don't want I really don't even want to see that any of these accomplished, but I want to see a start, a start, something that's changed.
Speaker 2:One foot in front of the other Exactly.
Speaker 1:I mean, if you could finish something, great, do it, oh my gosh. Yes, please do it. If you take it, you could finish it, but you're being pressured into having to finish all these things in a month's time. I just want to see you, no.
Speaker 2:I know. I mean, I know I need to do my demo reel that's sort of the most important thing to me so that I can get it up on my website Right now. The the reel that I have is me speaking at my daughter's about Mitzvah, which was at the end of May. But because that was so scripted, I wanted to make sure that I got the right things out. It's not really how I speak, but it was a. It was good enough for what I had at the moment. So it's, it's on there, but it's not. It doesn't showcase what I know I can do. Also, it was. It was much more close to my heart because my daughter was sitting right in front of me and she was the one actually taking the video. So it was. It was a little emotional, whereas because I've told the story of surrogacy and lost so many times, it's it's not as emotional and it's easier to tell.
Speaker 1:How can I help you with your reel?
Speaker 2:I think just once I maybe editing, I don't know. I think it's. It's getting the right things in there, knowing what I need to actually put it in there and what order do I do it in, and do I need to put music? Do I need to copyright music? Like is it? Can I just take 30 seconds, like I do on Instagram, or 15 seconds of any song? Is that available to use Things like that?
Speaker 1:Okay. So when it comes to music, yeah, you do have to be really careful because of copyrights. I use Soundstripe, okay, and Soundstripe is basically non copyrighted music. Okay. So you can use any of that. There's other other ones, too, that you use. That's just the one I happen to use. There is a little bit of a cost involved to get into the group, but once you're in there you can use anything that they got. Okay. So when it comes to that, that's if you want, if you want me to take a stab at the editing, I can. If you want to see how I edit. You could look at my last couple of YouTube videos and see if that's kind of the style you're looking for, okay, and we could talk about how we can accomplish that, okay. Okay, that would be great. If there's anything I can do to help you in making any anything, any of this stuff that we talked about, possible, you let me know. Okay, okay. I appreciate that Okay. So here's my biggest question now. Yeah, give me three takeaways from what we've talked about today, three takeaways that you know that really made a difference.
Speaker 2:Just do it.
Speaker 1:Okay, well, yeah, that's probably the biggest one of them all, right.
Speaker 2:Right, Um, stop getting ahead of myself and um, just get out of my comfort zone and do it. Forget the fear.
Speaker 1:What does fear stand for?
Speaker 2:I don't remember, I do it False evidence appearing real. False evidence appearing real.
Speaker 1:I want you to write that down somewhere when you watch this and you hear this again. I want you to write it down somewhere and put it somewhere on a posted note I have my book.
Speaker 2:This is like my, my book of everything.
Speaker 1:But what I'm saying is I want you to write that down and put it somewhere in your house that you always look at, whether it be your bathroom mirror, the front door. I got all kinds of notes on my front door of affirmations and things that keep me going, like my, my, um. The saying that I have is I can, I am, I will, and I'm doing it today, and that's something my six year old said that I use as my affirmation. He's 17 now.
Speaker 2:Wow.
Speaker 1:But we still use that we both use that as affirmations for ourselves. That's my tagline for my podcast. I can, I will and I'm doing it today. Do it now while you're thinking about it, right, right, so can you give me one more?
Speaker 2:My, one of mine is um stop thinking about the what ifs and start thinking about the what nows.
Speaker 1:How many times did you say what if? When we first started? This I know Keep that.
Speaker 2:Cause I think about it in the sense of of loss, in the sense of what if I did this instead? Or what if I ate that instead? Or what if I didn't eat that instead, as opposed to stop. I can't change that. I can't change anything that happened here. I can only change about this and what's going forward. So I I know it like, logically, it makes sense to say well, if you say that all the time, then it should count for stop thinking about the what ifs, even if that means stop thinking about the what ifs of the future, because you can't change those, just as much as you can't change the what ifs of the past.
Speaker 1:But what we do with the past in our minds and what we do in our actions is what makes us what we, who we are, today. So let's take those what ifs and turn them into. Do it nows. Right. Right, cause we don't know, really know, how it's going to turn out. Until we actually do it. We can't predict the future, we don't know. But the only way we are going to know is if we just do it, just like you're talking about Exactly. Yeah. Okay, so give me one thing you're going to do as soon as we get. Probably it's late, so probably go to bed, but I was going to say it might be tomorrow. Yeah, it might be tomorrow. So what's one thing you're going to do right away? Give me, give me one thing you're going to do like as soon as humanly possible.
Speaker 2:I am going to pick a date to do my demo.
Speaker 1:There you go. I like that and you let me know when that date is Okay. Okay. All right.
Speaker 2:Probably the first week of August, just thinking about the rest of the summer, which I know was a little bit farther out than what I'd like. But at the same time there's right now in Judaism we're in a weird time where we're sort of mourning the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem. So I want to make sure that it's after that time period is over and officially this year it ends on July 27th, which is two days after my birthday. So then after after July 27th, I'm like all right, let's go.
Speaker 1:All right, awesome, all right, kila Khalila, I'm sorry, I told you I couldn't mess it up. It's okay, kila, let's go. Thank you for listening to the coaching edition of the Undiscovered Entrepreneur Brought to you by Doing it Today Coaching. If you want to get across the start line, contact me, dj Scoob, at Doing it Today Coaching at gmailcom. Say the words do it now for a free two hour discovery call to see how I can help you in your entrepreneur adventure. Start and graphics by Elaine Wilson, supported by my Patreon, brian Briggs of OceanTreat Creative and Oliver Siegel of Anall, and hosted by me, dj Scoob. Click the show notes below for more information and remember I can, I am, I will and I'm doing it today.
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