Latest / The Daily Writer / Cancer Survivor Helen Bullen on Writing Her Memoir

Transcript

Cancer Survivor Helen Bullen on Writing Her Memoir · The Daily Writer

• 0:06
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the Daily Rider Podcast, where we bring you tips and inspiration each day to help you build habits for writing success.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_00: For more resources, including your free Daily Rider Starter Kit, visit DailyRiderLife.com.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_00: People write books for all kinds of reasons.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_00: Some people write to teach what they know, some people write to tell made-up stories, some people write to promote their businesses, and some people write because they're passionate about a particular topic.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_00: Just to name a few reasons that people write.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_00: Well, on today's episode, I'm really excited to feature a conversation with a friend of mine who's written a book to tell her story of surviving cancer.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_00: Her name is Helen Bullen, and we're talking about her fantastic new book called Agnes B.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_00: Cancer and Me Life with a Breast Cancer Diagnosis, a powerful, humorous, kindly blunt, inspirational, and moving true story of strength and resilience.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_00: And I've got to say, in my book, that gets the award for the best subtitle of the year.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_00: Helen is a kindly blunt cheerleader of all small business owners.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_00: She's also a retired osteopath and former owner of a successful multi-healthcare bricks and mortar clinic.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_00: She runs the HB Club, which is group mentoring, HB Inspired, which is a VIP mastermind, HB Box, which is luxury stationary boxes, and Helen also holds HB retreats in both the UK and abroad.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_00: Helen also has online courses to help as many business owners as she can.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_00: Her previous work as a qualified lecturer led her to many senior teaching and examining roles both in the UK and Europe.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_00: Over the years, she's also won multiple awards for both her clinic business and her business acumen.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_00: I've got to know Helen over the last couple of years as fellow members of Honore Corter's Empire Builders Mastermind, so I've got to give my requisite shout out to Honore here for bringing us all together.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_00: Well, not just Helen and myself, but a number of other people, about a dozen people or so per year, in this really, really cool Empire Builders Mastermind that she runs.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_00: So Honore, thanks so much for all the awesome awesomeness that you provide through that and all the cool people that you bring together.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_00: And as I've gotten to know Helen, I can definitely attest that she is a fireball of energy, yet she's also a kind, empathetic, and brave human being.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_00: So in this conversation today, Helen and I talk about her new memoir, why she structured it as a diary, her process of writing it, how the book has changed her as a person, and also her tips for authors.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_00: I really hope that you grab a copy of this book.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_00: It's super well written and it also has a great cover design.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_00: So props to the cover designer.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_00: And it's just a really, really inspiring read.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_00: So again, I hope that you grab it.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_00: You can find it at helenbullen.com.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_00: That's Helen with one L and Bullen with two L's.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_00: And of course, there will be a link to her site in the show notes as well as a link to the book, and you can grab it on Amazon.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_00: Here's my conversation with the amazing and inspiring Helen Bullen.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_00: Helen, it's so good to have you on the Daily Rider Podcast.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_00: This is your very first appearance.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_00: So welcome.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_00: Really, really glad to have you here.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_01: How exciting.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_01: My first appearance.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_01: I love it.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_00: That's kind of like back in the old days.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know if um if you've ever seen the Johnny Carson show.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_00: That was super popular back in the you know 70s, 80s, night, early 90s.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_00: And they made a big deal when comedians would go on the tonight show for the first time.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_00: That was like a career-making appearance on the tonight show.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_00: And I just want you to know um this is probably not gonna be a career-making appearance on the Daily Roder podcast.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_01: I had so many high hopes then.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_00: I know you had your hopes on the so I'm I mean, it I don't think it's gonna hurt your career, but I'm gonna do my best to make it valuable for you and the audience.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_00: I'm kind of the ringleader, so I'd if I can help you to have a good time and help the audience to have a good time, then I'm sure I'll have a great time.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_00: I've accomplished my goal.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_00: So we're here to chat about your amazing book, Agnes B.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_00: Cancer in Me, which by the way is a really, really fun title.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_00: I I love the title.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, not every book has a great title, so well done.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_01: No, and um it sort of came up really from me in the book trying to write about breast cancer and thinking, I've got, do I write boob, do I write breast?
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_01: Do I like and I was like, I'm gonna name them.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna name them A and B.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_01: And then I was like, oh no, the one that's got cancer is gonna be called Agony Agnes.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_01: The other one's gonna be called B because she really wasn't my favorite boob in the I mean, ridiculous, who has favorite boobs?
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_01: And then it sort of just came, and I'm I'm a bit of a person that I will wake up.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_01: I don't think I'm particularly creative, but sometimes I wake up with a uh a sentence in my head, an idea in my head, or a title.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_01: The other book was the same and the name of another business.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_01: I wake up with it, and that was the case of this.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_01: I was like, Agnes B, cancer in me.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_01: Oh my god, that's it.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_01: Wrote it down in the middle of the night.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_01: So that was how it came about.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_00: So why did you decide to write a book about this whole experience?
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_00: A lot of people go through cancer or they go through traumatic experiences, health crises, family crises.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_00: What was it that made you want to go to the time and effort to write a book about this?
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_01: When I started, I literally I'd been I've been called back after a mammogram.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_01: So let's just get everybody to get their checks done whenever they're offered a check.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_01: So I'd had a mammogram, it's just a routine, and I got called back and I didn't think I was gonna have anything like cancer told to me.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_01: So I sat, because I create content all the time and thought, I'm gonna write about this.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_01: It's interesting how people don't interact in a in a waiting room and maybe having business, because I'm a business mentor, can I make this a piece of content?
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_01: So while I was killing time, I wrote down what I was observing, what I was feeling, and I was a bit irritated, I've been called back, but you know what it's like, and I was writing all that down.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_01: So the first sort of hour of me writing wasn't really the cancer book, it was a piece of content, and then I went in and obviously suddenly I was on this roller coaster, we're going to take biopsies.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, you have got cancer, we don't know what type, and it was a bit surreal, and I tried to find some humour in it, but I also needed for myself to write it like a bit like a diary.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_01: So I started to annotate it every day.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_01: I had a note, I've got many notebooks.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_01: I had a stationary book, stationary company, so I've always got notebooks around.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_01: I had a notebook and I was writing it, and then I thought, and like you, Ken, I've written another book, you know, you've written many books, I've written one before, and I like Scrivner.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_01: And I was like, oh, I know where to put this, I'm just gonna put it in Scrivner, and it was done sort of like on a daily basis.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't do absolutely every day, but to begin with, it's most days, and then it gets lesser as there's less to tell because it becomes a routine of what I'm doing.
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_01: But I wrote it in Scrivener, and then I thought, well, if I want to turn this into a book, it will happen.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_01: And then probably a couple of months in, maybe not even that long, maybe four weeks in, I thought there has to be something that comes out of this.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_01: I'm going through this, and I was starting to be aware of people not knowing what to say to me because it was such a shocking news.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_01: I'd got stage three, uh triple negative breast cancer, which is quite an aggressive form of breast cancer.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_01: My chances of surviving, even now, are 60-40.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_01: So in my favour of it, you know, coming back.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_01: But at the time it was quite a serious one, and people were like, Oh, you of all people has got it.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_01: I had people sort of doing drive pasts, throwing candles almost at my door, going, Here's a present, and driving off fast.
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_01: And I just thought, oh, maybe I need to make something of this to help people to know what to say, or it's not wrong to say something.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_01: And I'd got a good friend Jackie who I walked with, and I just thought she handled it really well.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_01: She just listened to me.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_01: She didn't give me any airs, too many airs and graces.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_01: I remember her saying to me one day, okay, when your chemo finishes in December, and then you have them stick to me in February, because I knew that was my journey.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_01: She said, After that, it's not all about you.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_01: But until then, you can whinge mow and do whatever you like on our walk.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_01: And I found that quite funny, and she would just listen to me.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_01: So the book then came about with I think I've got advice here.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_01: So I wrote it as a sort of diary, and then my podcast happens to be called Kindly Blunt because the people I work with say I'm kind, but I am straight talking.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_01: I thought I could use that in the book as little tips.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_01: So advice if you're going through chemotherapy, uh, advice if you're looking after somebody going through cancer, advice if you're maybe to go and get check stone.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_01: I remind people throughout the book to go and get yourself seen if you think there's something that isn't quite as it should be, and and how to speak to people.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe don't use those platitudes like it'll be okay, because you're like, my own collegist doesn't know it's going to be okay.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_01: So how do you know that?
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_01: So I yeah, that's really how it became a book.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_01: I suppose I'm I said I wasn't creative earlier.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_01: I am creative, I like writing, but if you'd asked me when I was at school, I can't spell, I have appalling grammar, and my sentences are as long and as fast as I speak.
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_01: So well, luckily we both know a very good editor, the lovely Karen.
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, he worked with me for that, and I've got better over the time.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so I think it always, if it was gonna come from as a book, I probably would it was half expected that I would make it into a book.
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_01: I just wanted to put something back out there.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_01: If it was going to be such a horrible journey, then I was gonna make something out of it.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_01: And I as I wrote it, I didn't know if I was gonna survive.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_01: So as you read it through the book, the hope it gets better because the chemo starts to work and whatever.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_01: And and I also had a background story as well of that I was supposed to be married in 2020.
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_01: We've been together for 15 years.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_01: We chose 2020 when everybody went into lockdown.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_01: So our wedding got cancelled.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_01: I remember all the years we chose, and then so we nipped in a little wedding in July.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_01: We managed to, because we still want to be married, but you could only have five people, and I think it was only GAF about a month that the doors opened for people to be able to get married.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_01: And we said, Oh, let's go in our genes and then we can celebrate next year, not knowing that I was going to have a cancer diagnosis.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_01: So I actually had to wait two years to try and get in the dress that I tried on in 2019, had chemo and steroids, so I'd got bigger.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_01: I'd lost one boob, so I was a one boob bribe, and getting in the dress that on the day.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_01: So it the book ends when I actually actually ends when I just go on honeymoon, but it ends when I've got into that dress, I've slimmed down a bit, they've created it so that it fits me, and I've now got a pocket for my lip gloss rather than having a boob in there.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_01: So you know, I try and think it's funny throughout.
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_01: And and actually, so it worked as quite a natural story from that point of view as well, with the cancer sort of in in between.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_01: So, yeah.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_01: Did I answer any of your question then, Kent?
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_01: I went off on a whole new tangent.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_00: No, this is this is great.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, this is why I do a podcast to have conversations.
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_00: It's just people who are listening, they just happen to get to listen in to this, basically.
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_00: So, and I I've said this many times on my show where you know my podcast is in many ways, it's just it's a way for me to talk to really smart people and learn things from them.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_00: So it's kind of like free coaching in a way.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_01: I like being called smart.
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_01: I'm coming on again if I get called smart.
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_00: One thing that I'm curious about with with writing a memoir is when you were writing this, how do you balance the there are kind of two things that you're trying to accomplish with a memoir.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_00: You have the element where it's therapeutic, you're getting your thoughts out, the processes is just helping helping give you a dumping ground for your emotions in your story.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_00: At the same time, and of course you know this because we've both been in the Empire Builders Masterclass um with Ana Recorder, and you know, she's uh very smart when it comes to book publishing and a lot of other things as well.
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_00: But she teaches in there that you have to think about your reader and what they want from the book and what how you're gonna help them with it.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_00: So, as you were writing this, how did you balance those two things between what you want from the book and it being therapeutic, but also what the reader could get out of the book as well?
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I think when I wrote it, I'm a bit of a believer when I write that I write everything I want to write and then I go back and edit.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, because I find if I start to think too much about what I'm doing, I stop writing.
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_01: And I so I quite like to just let it flow.
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_01: And there was one part of the book that when we got to editing, I think it was the lovely Karen said to me, Helen, you are not angry with the reader, you are angry with chemotherapy.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_01: And I'd obviously been in quite a black place.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_01: I was probably on chemo number 14, and so I didn't actually is what I'm trying to say to you, Ken.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_01: I probably didn't write my book like that when I first started.
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_01: And there was one, I think we needed to lose about 300 words, so it worked quite well.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_01: But for me, all the time, I was trying to tell my story, but with a positive slant on it, and you can't always be positive, but also to be really truthful, to really say and educate.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_01: I think I felt I was educating people because I am a retired osteopath.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_01: I used to lecture pathology, but I have to admit, I didn't really realize what happens when you go through chemotherapy.
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_01: I knew about chemotherapy, I knew what it did to the cells, it you know, it kills fast growing cells.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_01: I hadn't really cottoned on that chemotherapy is just the name for chemicals and everybody has different chemos.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_01: I hadn't cottoned on that yes, it was going to damage all the fast-growing cells, and I know it kills your hair and your mouth and also the cancer cells, but actually, there's a lot of cells that grow fast, all your digestive system.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_01: So actually, and that doesn't happen till about day three after the chemo.
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_01: I think we all tend to assume that it comes on the first day.
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_01: The first day actually, it's not nice, but it's not so difficult for most people.
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_01: Some people have reactions, but most people it's okay.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_01: But by day three, it's done its job.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_01: It has killed cells.
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_01: So your body, your blood cells, you know, at one point I got stopped having chemo because all my white blood cells, I was dangerously low on my white blood cells.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_01: Excuse me, Ken.
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_01: Sorry about that.
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_01: I was dangerously low on my white blood cells, and so I couldn't have it.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_01: I couldn't breathe sometimes.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_01: I nearly had to have a blood transfusion because it does your red blood cells.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that spurred me on to go, when you've got somebody you know is having it, it's not just the day they go for their chemo, it's actually, you know, and I was having weekly chemo, so the week, the whole week was ruined.
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_01: And by the time I got to feeling better, I was off for another lot.
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_01: And I just wanted people to know that because I felt that when people were talking to me, they a lot of people rushed around flowers.
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_01: I looked like a florist when I first got diagnosed, which was lovely, my friends.
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_01: But then as time goes on, because I'm 16 weeks worth of chemo, in fact, it was over 20 weeks, but 16 weeks worth, people start to come away a little bit because their lives are going on, which they do.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_01: And I wanted people to remember that you know, actually, when you have chemotherapy, it gets harder as you have more.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_01: So I wanted to get that message across that actually by your 14th, 15th chemo, you're on your knees.
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_01: You are it's doing a job, but you're on your knees.
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_01: It's not actually that you want to be forgotten.
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_01: So, although there was structure in my writing, there also wasn't.
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_01: I had a bit of both, but I did edit myself twice before it actually went to the editor, and that was great because I could easily see what didn't need to be in the book, and probably from a place of I was off chemotherapy, so in a better mind frame to go, okay, that that works, that's quite funny, that doesn't need to be in.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_01: So I probably did it on the two edits afterwards, but I think I wrote my first book very similarly.
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_01: So I don't know if that's the right way to write a book, but it's how I do it.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I think it depends on the book a lot.
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_00: I think every book is different, and some books I think you have to dive in and you just you get a draft done as fast as you humanly can, because then you have a complete something to work with.
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_00: Other books are more methodical.
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_00: Now, for me, with with my the books that I do for ghostwriting clients, those are that's a whole different ball of wax because you're collaborating and you're basing the material many times on interviews and other kinds of stuff.
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_00: But for my own stuff, I'm a huge fan of just getting something out there, doing a word vomit if you have to.
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_00: So you at least you have something to work with.
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_00: And if you if you just edit the whole time and you're real meticulous, you're never gonna get that thing done because you're just gonna lose steam.
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and I think sometimes if you edit as you go along, sometimes you'll take things out that actually do fit somewhere in the book.
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_01: They may not fit right on there, but you may say, or you may even want it for another book.
• 16:44
  SPEAKER_01: So I've found that before that I thought it's maybe too much for here, but I'm gonna keep it.
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_01: And I think sometimes if you're critical, too critical as you go along, for me, it stops me wanting to write because I start to double think, like, well, am I gonna write the right thing today?
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_01: Is this gonna be any good?
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_01: Whereas I quite like to just see what comes out, and I'll have a mini edit.
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_01: So if I've written like I was writing that in a day, about a day, I would scan through and just check what I thought.
• 17:11
  SPEAKER_01: I might do a little note at the bottom if I thought this may need tweaking something here.
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_01: So I used to put little notes at the side, but I do, I like me personally, and I think we all write in different ways, I like to write what's coming out, and sometimes if I start to really overthink for me spelling, if I start to think about spelling or the length of a sentence, then it stalls my writing.
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_01: It but if I go back slightly afterwards and just have a little view, and I'm I quite like to have it read read to me.
• 17:41
  SPEAKER_01: So if I can put it through a Word document and it will read to me, I hear it better than I read it.
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah.
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_00: That's a really, really important writing tip.
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_00: I think a lot of writers miss that.
• 17:51
  unknown: Yeah.
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_00: Microsoft Word can do it, your, you know, your phone can do it, there are other kinds of things you can you can use to read your stuff back to you, but you hear things that you hear corrections that need to happen where you would never pick those up if you're just reading it.
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_01: No, especially if you've written it as well, because you presume you've read you've written what you want to read.
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_01: But when you hear it, yeah, it's great.
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_01: And I love it.
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_01: If I ever it's in a different um font, sometimes it speaks in a different accent.
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_01: Have you ever done that?
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_01: I have done that, so it's like, oh, it's gone American, it's gone English, it goes different ways.
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_00: My wife and I, we we kind of joke.
• 18:28
  SPEAKER_00: She has on her phone, because on an iPhone, you know, you can you can tell what kind of accent you want it to have, or male or female from different parts of the world.
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_00: Now I think she's got she has a British male as her Siri voice.
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_00: His name is Colin.
• 18:44
  unknown: Oh.
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, Colin tells us where to go whenever we're driving, and I'm always like, because I'm usually the one driving.
• 18:50
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, I don't need Colin telling me where to go.
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_00: Turn it off.
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_00: Where's the I just think it's kind of funny?
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_00: I want to pause here for a second and give a big thanks to today's sponsor, Vellum.
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_00: Now, if you've been listening to the podcast for a while, you know that about once a week I give a shout out to Vellum because they're one of my podcast sponsors.
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, they were my very first paid podcast sponsor.
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_00: They signed up way back in December.
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_00: Since then, I've had a number of other sponsors sign up, but Vellum is always gonna hold a special place in my heart, not just because it's awesome software for self-publishers, but also because they were my very first uh podcast sponsor.
• 19:26
  SPEAKER_00: So, shout out to Vellum for believing in this show and being such amazing partners.
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_00: Now you can go back to other episodes and listen to kind of my scripted plug for Vellum, but let me just talk for a second about why I love Vellum.
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_00: I love Vellum because, and this is not scripted by the way, I really love Vellum because it makes my life a lot easier.
• 19:45
  SPEAKER_00: I think two or three times just this past week, I was actually working in Vellum with some book formatting stuff, either for myself or some of my clients.
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_00: Now, a little side note here, I don't usually format my client's book.
• 19:57
  SPEAKER_00: So when I go stride a book or co-author a book with somebody, it usually goes to a professional designer for the cover and also for the interior layout of the book.
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_00: Because I I for client books, I usually want that little bit of an extra touch that only only a professional graphic designer can provide that's totally customized to the book cover and special font choices and all those kinds of things.
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_00: But for the vast majority of things, Vellum is really, really great.
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_00: And the way that I personally use Vellum is I use it for some of my own books.
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_00: But something that I also use it for, and you might be surprised to learn this, is that almost every time that I work on a client book, I do kind of a mock-up of what their book formatting is going to look like before it actually goes to, I don't mock up the whole book, but a lot of times I'll mock up like I'll I'll do a draft of of the introduction or maybe a chapter or two of the book, and then I will personally format it in Vellum, send it to the client, and I have to tell you, okay, if you do any kind of client work, uh like ghostwriting or freelance writing, when you take just a couple of extra minutes and you format something in Vellum before sending it to a client.
• 21:05
  SPEAKER_00: Now, again, it hasn't been edited yet, it's just a draft, but when you format it in Vellum and send it to people, it goes to a whole nother level.
• 21:13
  SPEAKER_00: I promise you, formatting something in Vellum looks a million times better than sending people an old boring Microsoft Word document.
• 21:21
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, how exciting is that?
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_00: Or, I mean, even a step down from Word is Google Docs.
• 21:25
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, how many times have we seen Google Docs with that same 12-point aerial font that is literally like eating the blandest vanilla ice cream you can possibly imagine?
• 21:35
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, Google Docs is great.
• 21:37
  SPEAKER_00: I'm thankful for it, but let's be honest, it is definitely like the most boring document you've ever seen in your whole entire life.
• 21:44
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm probably sound a little bit dramatic, but that's just how I feel.
• 21:47
  SPEAKER_00: Google Docs is really, really it wasn't made for book formatting, it was made just for drafting documents.
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_00: But what I oftentimes do with clients is I will take uh again those drafts, format them in Vellum, and send it to them.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: And I've got to tell you, whenever people see those mock-ups in Vellum, they're really, really wow because they look like they were professionally done by a publisher.
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_00: And this is one of the reasons that I love Vellum.
• 22:11
  SPEAKER_00: It isn't just easier to do stuff for my own books, it also elevates my ghostwriting business.
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_00: So if you do any kind of client work, I strongly encourage you to get Vellum.
• 22:19
  SPEAKER_00: And what I'm talking about is just one of the many, many ways that you can use Vellum.
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_00: I love it.
• 22:25
  SPEAKER_00: Plus, the guys from Vellum are just uh absolutely amazing.
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_00: They used to work for Pixar, by the way.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_00: So when you use Vellum on your Mac and you wonder why does Vellum look so great?
• 22:35
  SPEAKER_00: Why is this such a cool piece of software?
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_00: Why was it designed so eloquently?
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_00: Well, the reason is that these guys came from a design and storytelling background.
• 22:44
  SPEAKER_00: And it really, really shows in Vellum.
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_00: So make sure and check it out.
• 22:49
  SPEAKER_00: You can go to trivellum.com slash daily.
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_00: Love these guys.
• 22:53
  SPEAKER_00: I love Vellum.
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_00: It makes my life so much easier and it helps my business.
• 22:57
  SPEAKER_00: So check it out.
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_00: Go to Trivellum.com slash daily.
• 23:00
  SPEAKER_00: I promise you will not be disappointed.
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_00: All right, with that said, let's get back to the conversation with my good friend Helen Bowlin.
• 23:06
  SPEAKER_00: Here we go.
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_00: Now I'm curious with so my my assumption is that a good chunk of people who are listening to this um probably are going through something difficult and maybe they've thought about writing a book about whatever they're going through.
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_00: How how would you encourage them to just start writing down their emotions and their thoughts or their experiences or their stories, even though it may be very raw and there may be a lot of negative emotions and frustrations and who knows what else?
• 23:41
  SPEAKER_00: Should they just get started and just kind of do a brain dump of whatever they're going through?
• 23:45
  SPEAKER_00: Is that is that a way to get started?
• 23:47
  SPEAKER_00: Writing a memoir of a difficult experience?
• 23:50
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I think so.
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_01: And sometimes, even if sometimes you're not able to write it at that time, for me, writing down so some days I wasn't well enough to fully write about that day or the day before, but I would write key things down because otherwise you lose it.
• 24:05
  SPEAKER_01: When you're going through a trauma, you think you're never gonna forget all of that trauma.
• 24:10
  SPEAKER_01: You think you're gonna remember everything because it's so awful, you don't, but then you lose bits.
• 24:14
  SPEAKER_01: And and when I read my book now, I go, oh God, I forgot, I forgot on that day I felt like that.
• 24:19
  SPEAKER_01: So for me, I would write down little notes.
• 24:22
  SPEAKER_01: So I I don't think I'm gonna write a second book, but there was talk I thought I could write, what was I gonna call it?
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_01: I was gonna call it Be Me Cancer Free was gonna be the next title if I wrote another one.
• 24:32
  SPEAKER_01: And so I just thought, if I do want to write this, which I don't think I will, but if I do, I had better write some notes of the year after me having cancer because I won't remember back.
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_01: So uh only last week I was called in for another check, had to wait two and a half hours.
• 24:47
  SPEAKER_01: The worry of that, I just noted it down.
• 24:50
  SPEAKER_01: I thought, well, if I do want to write it, I'll remember that.
• 24:53
  SPEAKER_01: And that emotion of that gut wrenching, like, oh my god, they've just sent me down for for um for uh they sent me down for an ultrasound, and now they've told me there's a biopsy team on standby.
• 25:04
  SPEAKER_01: Uh high alert.
• 25:05
  SPEAKER_01: I'd gone in just thinking, oh, just to check.
• 25:08
  SPEAKER_01: I'm worried.
• 25:08
  SPEAKER_01: I it came out all clear, but I wrote down about that worry because I don't think I will remember that worry in that same gut-wrenching, like, oh my, I'm sitting here and somebody had just been diagnosed with cancer.
• 25:20
  SPEAKER_01: So I saw that lady come out.
• 25:21
  SPEAKER_01: So I just jotted a few notes down, and I think that can be a good way.
• 25:25
  SPEAKER_01: And then I think it's finding where you like to write.
• 25:27
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I have I've even got it here, a little notebook, and I quite often have that.
• 25:31
  SPEAKER_01: It's small enough to go in my bag.
• 25:33
  SPEAKER_01: So I do do it on my notes on my phone, but sometimes I just want to write.
• 25:37
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and I would write notes down and think, well, I may use that, I may not.
• 25:42
  SPEAKER_01: I would suggest you have the same book.
• 25:43
  SPEAKER_01: Don't write it, you know.
• 25:44
  SPEAKER_01: If you've got lots of notebooks, you lose where you've put it.
• 25:47
  SPEAKER_01: But I like a little notebook, I use the notes on my phone, and as I said, I like Scrivener, and it sort of depends what mood I'm in.
• 25:55
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I prefer Scrivener because I know I haven't got to rewrite it.
• 25:59
  SPEAKER_01: If I write too many handwritten notes, I've got to type it up.
• 26:03
  SPEAKER_01: But some days I just want to be sitting in a coffee shop with a pen on a piece of paper because I like a pen on a piece of paper, and so I'll write it down there.
• 26:10
  SPEAKER_01: And and I do that not just for books, but I do that if I'm creating content.
• 26:14
  SPEAKER_01: Um, because you get ideas everywhere, don't you?
• 26:17
  SPEAKER_01: You you know they're all around you.
• 26:18
  SPEAKER_01: Once you start opening up, you're like, oh, that could make some content.
• 26:22
  SPEAKER_01: So I will just jot down notes and um I do wake up in the middle of the night with ideas as well.
• 26:27
  SPEAKER_01: That's my on my phone.
• 26:29
  SPEAKER_01: Sometimes I have a notebook, but I just quickly put it on my phone and then I go back to sleep and I save the idea because otherwise it is gone.
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_01: Somebody told me once there are so many ideas out there and they all float around.
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_01: And if you don't grab it when you get the idea, it just goes off to somebody else.
• 26:45
  SPEAKER_01: And I've always remembered that.
• 26:46
  SPEAKER_01: Um, she's a she's a poet and she said, No, I have to, if I think of a poem or a line, I have to write it down because I know when it goes, it's gone to somebody else, and I may see it one day and it's not mine.
• 26:56
  SPEAKER_01: I thought, oh, that's quite a good way of thinking about it.
• 26:58
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 26:58
  SPEAKER_00: I like that's a fun way to think about ideas, yeah.
• 27:02
  SPEAKER_00: And I think it also that way of thinking about ideas, it also reminds us that ideas come from they come from somewhere.
• 27:11
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I obviously they come from our brains somewhere deep in our brains, I guess.
• 27:15
  SPEAKER_00: But there is kind of a sense in which when you're in a creative flow, you're kind of channeling some type of energy rather than feeling like you have to come up with something or whatever.
• 27:26
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's kind of like, no, you just need to open yourself up to the flow of what's being given to you, of what's being entrusted to you, rather than you having to manufacture everything from scratch.
• 27:37
  SPEAKER_00: I find that a really comforting idea about creativity and writing.
• 27:40
  SPEAKER_01: And it's much more comfortable when it feels like that.
• 27:43
  SPEAKER_01: If you've got to write something, it does it just doesn't work for me.
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_01: And I have ways of doing that, so I'll put music on that I like, or in the morning, I I'm I'm an early riser, I come down early rise, but I put a podcast on.
• 27:55
  SPEAKER_01: Sometimes it's you, Ken, in the morning, I'm unloading my dishwasher.
• 27:57
  SPEAKER_00: Are you serious?
• 27:58
  SPEAKER_01: Yay!
• 27:59
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, that's nice, thank you.
• 28:00
  SPEAKER_01: But I change which ones I'm listening to, and I see what I get out of it.
• 28:04
  SPEAKER_01: And sometimes, I don't know if you do this, but you listen to a podcast or a book being read, and there's one key point that just somehow you go, Oh, that's that's an idea for doing something, and then it takes me down another route.
• 28:16
  SPEAKER_01: And I find in the mornings, I'm not really very awake when I get up.
• 28:19
  SPEAKER_01: I like getting up early, I unload the dishwasher.
• 28:22
  SPEAKER_01: My husband thinks we have a dishwasher fairy, it just empties.
• 28:27
  SPEAKER_00: Except I'm the one who thinks there's a fairy.
• 28:29
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, exactly.
• 28:30
  SPEAKER_01: But I don't mind because it's sort of my task that I can listen, you know, it's quite robotic, I know where everything goes, I do it all.
• 28:36
  SPEAKER_01: But nine times out of ten, I will pick something out of it and think that's a great, I can go that direction with it.
• 28:43
  SPEAKER_01: So that's how I and I think keeping your head in a good place is good as well.
• 28:48
  SPEAKER_01: I know what music, you know, I can't listen to really fast music when I'm writing because I'm fast already.
• 28:55
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 28:55
  SPEAKER_01: I like acoustic hits, so I'll have that on and that does it for me.
• 28:59
  SPEAKER_01: I like being in a coffee shop with a hubbub going on, not loud noise, but just people talking, getting on with their daily life.
• 29:06
  SPEAKER_01: I can write really great stuff when I'm in a coffee shop.
• 29:08
  SPEAKER_01: So, but if you ask me to write something by about three o'clock in the afternoon, you're not gonna get much.
• 29:16
  SPEAKER_01: I'm done.
• 29:16
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 29:17
  SPEAKER_00: I should send you this playlist that I I use a lot when I'm writing.
• 29:22
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm a child of the 1980s, you are too.
• 29:25
  SPEAKER_01: And yeah, I'm being before that, but yes, I was yes.
• 29:28
  SPEAKER_00: But I mean, you know, we we kind of came of age, you know, in the 80s and that the period around there, and um, I love all the 80s music.
• 29:37
  SPEAKER_00: I drive my son nuts with it.
• 29:38
  SPEAKER_00: But there I didn't realize it until a couple years ago.
• 29:41
  SPEAKER_00: There's this whole group of artists out there who make music that sounds like it was made in the 80s with the synthesizers and all the stuff, and a lot of it is instrumental, and so I've got this long playlist of it sounds like stuff that's from the 80s with really no vocals in it, but it's just instrumentally something that feels very it's like mental comfort food almost.
• 30:02
  SPEAKER_01: And is that what you write to?
• 30:03
  SPEAKER_01: Do you find that a lot of times, yeah?
• 30:05
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 30:07
  SPEAKER_01: It's just finding, isn't it?
• 30:08
  SPEAKER_01: What it does for you.
• 30:09
  SPEAKER_01: I I had another friend and she liked rock.
• 30:11
  SPEAKER_01: I thought I could never write with rock, but she can, it's her thing.
• 30:14
  SPEAKER_01: I think we all have different things that inspire us, it's just finding it.
• 30:19
  SPEAKER_00: It is, and I think you can like a variety of things.
• 30:22
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, there's there's really no genre of music that I really, really hate.
• 30:26
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I even like opera um and classical all the way down to heavy, heavy metal and rap and country.
• 30:36
  SPEAKER_00: I really like it all.
• 30:38
  SPEAKER_00: So maybe I'm just weird that way.
• 30:39
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
• 30:40
  SPEAKER_01: No, I think I for me, I'm I'm even weirder, I think, because some days I can put music on that I could write on two days ago, and I put the music on, I think, uh no, that's not right today.
• 30:48
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, not right, not right, not for me.
• 30:50
  SPEAKER_01: But I don't do silence very well, so I like even if it's the washing machine going on, I like some little bit of noise.
• 30:58
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know what it is.
• 30:59
  SPEAKER_01: Otherwise, I can hear myself, I think, thinking.
• 31:03
  SPEAKER_00: I think that's what's nice about going to a coffee shop is you have kind of murmuring around you, but it's not really loud, hopefully.
• 31:12
  SPEAKER_01: And normally, you know, you can get quite a cool coffee shop, and I like it if the coffee's good, that's always a good start.
• 31:18
  SPEAKER_01: I've got one to me and it's got nice coffee, and it has some plants in the middle, and it's a bit funky, and the seating's nice.
• 31:24
  SPEAKER_01: That's what my husband's like, Well, why'd you go there?
• 31:26
  SPEAKER_01: Why don't you take take why don't you sit in the lounge and have a coffee?
• 31:29
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, No, no, no, you don't get it.
• 31:30
  SPEAKER_01: This is my this is my place that I like to sit and be at.
• 31:35
  SPEAKER_01: And yeah, and it took me a while to realize that was an inspirational place for me.
• 31:39
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't really realize there was such places when I started, but now I have learned where to go.
• 31:44
  SPEAKER_01: Expensive hobby with my coffees, but anyway.
• 31:47
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and the coffee is almost beside the point.
• 31:50
  SPEAKER_00: You know, if the coffee's good, that's that's a bonus.
• 31:53
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, but even if the coffee's just okay, I mean, it's really more about the atmosphere and the environment, I think.
• 31:59
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, definitely.
• 32:00
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, if I stay long enough, I can have brunch and I can have another coffee.
• 32:04
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, it works well.
• 32:05
  SPEAKER_01: I've never been chucked out of a coffee shop, but I'm sure they've wanted to.
• 32:10
  SPEAKER_00: I'm curious.
• 32:11
  SPEAKER_00: Um, can you talk at all about any habits that you have in your life for writing or creativity or anything that really helps you get your creative creative work done?
• 32:22
  SPEAKER_00: Any routines or specific habits that you use?
• 32:25
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I have um, well, I suppose I have principles that I work behind in my business.
• 32:30
  SPEAKER_01: And my first books are about those principles.
• 32:32
  SPEAKER_01: And when I work with business people, I talk about them.
• 32:34
  SPEAKER_01: Not that they're anything new, but I also always think if you're going to be effective in what you do, you need everything.
• 32:42
  SPEAKER_01: So I have care of myself.
• 32:43
  SPEAKER_01: So I always try and exercise most days, even if it's just 10 minutes out the door, try and hydrate, try and eat well as well as I can.
• 32:51
  SPEAKER_01: I try to really know why I'm doing what I'm doing.
• 32:55
  SPEAKER_01: If I haven't got a strong enough why, and it used to be my why used to be sometimes for to put a roof over my head, you know, and I was paying a mortgage and I've got young kids.
• 33:03
  SPEAKER_01: It doesn't have to be quite that now, but it's normally that I want to go traveling or this book is going to make a difference to people.
• 33:09
  SPEAKER_01: There has to be a strong why, so I like to work that out.
• 33:12
  SPEAKER_01: I also like to um work on any limiting beliefs.
• 33:17
  SPEAKER_01: I think you have to believe in yourself and doing it.
• 33:20
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm not saying I believe in myself all the time because I think we all have those voices that go, really, you think you can do this?
• 33:26
  SPEAKER_01: But I do try and work on my mindset, and I'm pretty good at being pretty positive.
• 33:32
  SPEAKER_01: And then I may have a drop, and I think, hang on a minute.
• 33:36
  SPEAKER_01: Of course, you can do what you want to do, or because you see somebody else doing it and you don't, you know, you suddenly start to think, Oh, they can do it.
• 33:43
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know if I can do it, all that sort of stuff.
• 33:45
  SPEAKER_01: So I definitely work hard on that.
• 33:46
  SPEAKER_01: And I like to do affirmations and I like to do journaling.
• 33:50
  SPEAKER_01: I don't do it every day, but I tend to do it when I've dropped off that feeling good about myself.
• 33:55
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and then I like to understand what I'm doing.
• 33:58
  SPEAKER_01: And I when I'm working with business owners, I always say to them, look, we need to learn the tech.
• 34:02
  SPEAKER_01: There is a point that you have to learn the basics.
• 34:04
  SPEAKER_01: A bit like having a book, isn't it?
• 34:06
  SPEAKER_01: You can write the book, but you sort of have to know how to get an editor, how to put it on the Kindle, how to get it on Amazon, all those things.
• 34:12
  SPEAKER_01: I said that like I do that.
• 34:14
  SPEAKER_01: I actually have somebody that I pay to do that for me, so I feel a little bit of a fraud, but I know I've got to instigate that.
• 34:20
  SPEAKER_01: So I have to understand how, and then I really believe in taking effective action.
• 34:25
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not, I'm not into people being busy, being busy, you know, and you run around and you feel like you've done loads, and actually, when you look, you've just ticked off two things on your to-do list that really didn't need doing, but you thought you liked to do it.
• 34:36
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm all about sitting your butt down 10 minutes.
• 34:39
  SPEAKER_01: I I I quite like if I if I want to do something and writing not so much because I tend to find it easier to write, but I will sit down and think, right, put the timer on for 10 minutes, all distractions off.
• 34:52
  SPEAKER_01: I'm only focusing on one thing, and I will do that one thing.
• 34:55
  SPEAKER_01: And there's Parkinson's law, isn't there, where you spread yourself into the time you're given.
• 35:00
  SPEAKER_01: So the less time you give yourself, the quicker you'll get things done.
• 35:04
  SPEAKER_01: And I think we've all had things that we need to do, and we've had maybe a month to do it, and two hours before it's got the deadlines in, we are trying to do it, and it's a stress.
• 35:13
  SPEAKER_01: But you yeah, but you get it done, don't you?
• 35:15
  SPEAKER_01: You get it done because it has to be done, but actually, you probably could have done it in the first two hours of when you knew that you know at the beginning of the month and not had the stress.
• 35:24
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm all about sort of 10-minute tasks.
• 35:27
  SPEAKER_01: As to my writing, I like writing early in the morning.
• 35:30
  SPEAKER_01: I think it's finding when you're creative, and I'm creative early on.
• 35:34
  SPEAKER_01: I don't have any, I don't look at my social media particularly, I don't look at my emails.
• 35:38
  SPEAKER_01: I and I used when I wrote my first book, I had a bricks and mortar business as well as doing the mentoring.
• 35:44
  SPEAKER_01: And if I went into work, well, there were staff needing me, there was people that worked for me needing me.
• 35:49
  SPEAKER_01: There was no way I could be creative in that situation.
• 35:52
  SPEAKER_01: So if I do it in the morning, nothing really has happened.
• 35:55
  SPEAKER_01: The end of the day, I can be a bit miserable or I can be a bit grumpy or I can be tired because whatever's gone on, or there's an email still in my head.
• 36:02
  SPEAKER_01: But first thing in the morning, I tend to be pretty clear-headed and I enjoy that time.
• 36:07
  SPEAKER_01: It's like secret time.
• 36:09
  SPEAKER_01: So everybody, I mean, everybody in my house, I my kids have left home now, but it used to be that people would start getting up about quarter past seven.
• 36:17
  SPEAKER_01: And if I got about half past five, five o'clock past five, I'd have all that time like to myself, just to sit and be creative.
• 36:24
  SPEAKER_01: And then I would just sit and think, just write what you want to write, open a page on Scrivener and write.
• 36:30
  SPEAKER_01: And I would always do a plan for a book.
• 36:32
  SPEAKER_01: I do do a plan for a book.
• 36:33
  SPEAKER_01: Probably this one was a little bit different, but my first book that was structured.
• 36:37
  SPEAKER_01: It was all around my principles.
• 36:38
  SPEAKER_01: So I knew what was going to be in each chapter.
• 36:40
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm a real lover of these things, post-it notes.
• 36:44
  SPEAKER_01: I like to brain dump, brain dump my ideas, everything I think that could go in a book, then I stick them on the wall and then I move them around, right?
• 36:51
  SPEAKER_01: That could be in that chapter, that could be in that chapter, that maybe doesn't need to be in the book, or it could be in another book.
• 36:57
  SPEAKER_01: So I normally have a structure, and when I did the first book, I had a card index and I put all the chapters on cards.
• 37:05
  SPEAKER_01: Each subject was going to write about.
• 37:07
  SPEAKER_01: So if I got up and I felt I didn't write want to write something for chapter one, I had them all elastic back.
• 37:12
  SPEAKER_01: I could go to chapter two and pick a subject like that, and I could write it.
• 37:16
  SPEAKER_01: And that for me worked quite well.
• 37:18
  SPEAKER_01: The only trouble was when I got to the end, I had about four subjects that I had to write on to finish the book.
• 37:23
  SPEAKER_01: And I was like, I don't want to write on that.
• 37:25
  SPEAKER_01: But I did manage it.
• 37:26
  SPEAKER_01: But that's how so I do believe in structure.
• 37:29
  SPEAKER_01: I but I think if you're writing a journey, you that is your structure.
• 37:34
  SPEAKER_01: Each day is your structure, so you can write my second book.
• 37:37
  SPEAKER_01: My first book was more of an information.
• 37:39
  SPEAKER_01: I need to give you all this information, I need to order it before I start writing it type thing.
• 37:44
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, yeah, that's sort of my tip.
• 37:46
  SPEAKER_01: I say find when you're creative and try early mornings if you've never done it.
• 37:52
  SPEAKER_01: I always think you might not like it, but give it a go.
• 37:54
  SPEAKER_01: Give it 10 days, see how you go with it.
• 37:57
  SPEAKER_01: Um, especially if you're very tired in the evening or you're doing it as a side hustle.
• 38:01
  SPEAKER_01: It's very hard to be creative when you've had a busy day doing something else, or your family want you when you come home.
• 38:08
  SPEAKER_01: The early morning actually is extra time, you know.
• 38:11
  SPEAKER_01: Whereas if you go late into the night, you tend to keep going.
• 38:15
  SPEAKER_01: At least in the morning, people start to get up, so you have to stop.
• 38:18
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 38:18
  SPEAKER_01: And you can still be going at two in the morning if you're creative, and then you've got to get up at seven, eight and go to work.
• 38:23
  SPEAKER_01: Doesn't always work for anybody.
• 38:25
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, I don't like to say you have to be in the morning, but I always say there are some advantages.
• 38:29
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I totally agree with that.
• 38:31
  SPEAKER_00: I really, really do.
• 38:33
  SPEAKER_00: Because it's it's hard to it's hard to have an ending point in the evening.
• 38:38
  SPEAKER_00: You know, if if you decide you're just gonna be a night owl, you could work till one, two, three in the morning.
• 38:44
  SPEAKER_00: And then you might start to really feel it maybe three or four in the morning if you do are doing that consistently.
• 38:50
  SPEAKER_00: But the the problem is that your quality of sleep, you know, the later you stayed up, the the later you stay up, the quality of your sleep declines.
• 38:58
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 38:59
  SPEAKER_00: So if you go to bed at 10 and get up at six, that's better quality of sleep generally than if you go to bed at two and get up at eight or something.
• 39:07
  SPEAKER_00: Or do I have my math right?
• 39:09
  SPEAKER_00: If you go to bed at two and get up at 10 or whatever it is, in general.
• 39:12
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and most people don't have the luxury of being able to stay in bed till 10.
• 39:16
  SPEAKER_01: That is the problem.
• 39:17
  SPEAKER_01: You know, you've got to go to work, you've got to get back on the treadmill of what you're doing, and then it gets a bit messy.
• 39:22
  SPEAKER_00: Then it gets the reality is if you get up at 10, you're probably just gonna mess around until 12 or 1 when you have lunch.
• 39:29
  SPEAKER_00: So, really, you're not gonna do anything substantive until one or two in the afternoon, probably.
• 39:34
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, basically, you're starting to work a night shift, aren't you?
• 39:36
  SPEAKER_01: If you're working up, you are working a night shift, you know.
• 39:39
  SPEAKER_01: And we all know that they're not that good for our card card.
• 39:44
  SPEAKER_01: How do you say it?
• 39:45
  SPEAKER_01: The rhythms that you have.
• 39:46
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you're uh I can't say it.
• 39:51
  SPEAKER_01: That's the one.
• 39:51
  SPEAKER_01: I also have problems with words, which is very funny because if I do lives and things, everybody knows.
• 39:57
  SPEAKER_01: I always have to go, how do you say that?
• 39:58
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, if you ever put off about writing a book because you think you can't spell or grammar or say words, I've written two.
• 40:04
  SPEAKER_01: It's fine.
• 40:05
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's what editors are for, also.
• 40:08
  SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
• 40:09
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 40:10
  SPEAKER_00: Well, as we we kind of go into the home stretch of this conversation, I'm curious if you can talk about Helen, how this book has changed you or helped your business in any way.
• 40:21
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, um, whether it's helped my business, it's not really.
• 40:24
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I'm a business mentor, and my book that I was writing for got cancer, is another book that's gonna come out, which is a business book.
• 40:32
  SPEAKER_01: That will help it more.
• 40:33
  SPEAKER_01: But at the back of my book, I do have about my course and I have about my social media.
• 40:38
  SPEAKER_01: What I did find is I have a lot of people that follow in my business that have supported the book.
• 40:43
  SPEAKER_01: So it's sort of done the other way.
• 40:45
  SPEAKER_01: There is one funny thing it might have done for my business, which is gonna sound weird.
• 40:49
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm on Facebook, I'm on Instagram, I'm on LinkedIn for my business.
• 40:54
  SPEAKER_01: I have gone on to TikTok for my book.
• 40:57
  SPEAKER_01: Oh my goodness, it's another world.
• 40:59
  SPEAKER_01: But I thought, I think there's there's a thing called book talk, hashtag book talk, and then bookworm and book club and bookish and all that.
• 41:07
  SPEAKER_01: Well, one of the first videos I put out, which was a video of my pictures of me going through my cancer journey and saying my book was coming.
• 41:15
  SPEAKER_01: I think I've got 615,000 people have viewed it.
• 41:19
  SPEAKER_01: And yeah, I have an immense number of likes on it, 31,000 likes or something, just ridiculous.
• 41:25
  SPEAKER_01: Now, the now what I'm doing most days is I go in and I read a bit of my book.
• 41:29
  SPEAKER_01: Now I might not have thousands, I probably have hundreds watch it, but I've had people telling me I've bought your book today.
• 41:35
  SPEAKER_01: I've got up to a thousand followers so I can have my link.
• 41:38
  SPEAKER_01: So for me, maybe it's um it's been good learning.
• 41:41
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't really want to do TikTok.
• 41:43
  SPEAKER_01: I don't really not that happy that Gyana's running it.
• 41:45
  SPEAKER_01: I hope they're not listening to this because I'll get you know taken off somewhere.
• 41:48
  SPEAKER_01: But I just thought I think I can market my book there.
• 41:51
  SPEAKER_01: I think there's a place for it.
• 41:53
  SPEAKER_01: And there are a lot of people with triple negative breast cancer and breast cancer on there that I'm following that I find quite informative as well.
• 41:59
  SPEAKER_01: But yeah, it's been just a different platform for me to use.
• 42:02
  SPEAKER_01: I've been doing it on all the platforms, but solely my book is on TikTok.
• 42:07
  SPEAKER_01: It's me.
• 42:07
  SPEAKER_01: So if anybody's on TikTok, Helen Bullen UK, come and help me out, come and find me.
• 42:12
  SPEAKER_01: But um, yeah, it's different.
• 42:14
  SPEAKER_01: So, yes, I suppose that's uh it's done it that way, and it's just made me know that now I've written two books, I want to write five, you know.
• 42:22
  SPEAKER_01: I think that's what it's done for me is I am starting to call myself an author.
• 42:27
  SPEAKER_01: I've even written up some of my bios as the first thing.
• 42:29
  SPEAKER_01: I come as author, business mentor, and for years, you know, my career, I was an osteopath, I was a trainer, so I retired early.
• 42:37
  SPEAKER_01: That's what I define myself as.
• 42:38
  SPEAKER_01: Now I'm like, oh, maybe I'm defining myself as an author.
• 42:41
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, and I think that's a good thing.
• 42:43
  SPEAKER_01: It is a good thing.
• 42:44
  SPEAKER_01: And people in my membership group now are starting to say to me, I'd quite like to write a book.
• 42:48
  SPEAKER_01: So I hope I'm motivating people that you know they they just think she can do it, I can do it.
• 42:53
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 42:54
  SPEAKER_00: That's fantastic.
• 42:56
  SPEAKER_00: Um, Helen, where can people find your book?
• 42:58
  SPEAKER_00: Obviously, it's on Amazon and all the places, but if they want to find out more about you directly, where can they go to do that?
• 43:04
  SPEAKER_01: Uh well, all my social media is Helen Bullen UK.
• 43:07
  SPEAKER_01: There's one L in Helen and there's two in Bullen, Helen Bullen UK.
• 43:11
  SPEAKER_01: Or you can find me at www.helenbullen.com.
• 43:15
  SPEAKER_01: Basically, if you put my name into Google, it comes up.
• 43:19
  SPEAKER_01: There aren't many Helen Bullens.
• 43:21
  SPEAKER_01: Helenbullen.com, you stick it in, and I will be like that.
• 43:24
  SPEAKER_01: Probably with long hair in some of the pictures as well.
• 43:26
  SPEAKER_01: You can see the before and after.
• 43:28
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but yeah, but mostly I am active on Facebook and Instagram, and that's Helen Bullen UK.
• 43:34
  SPEAKER_01: And I I love having new followers and chatting to people, so I'd love to catch up with people there.
• 43:38
  SPEAKER_00: Wonderful.
• 43:39
  SPEAKER_00: Well, Helen, thanks so much for your friendship for your book and for taking the time to be a guest today on the show.
• 43:44
  SPEAKER_00: This has been fantastic.
• 43:45
  SPEAKER_00: I appreciate you so much and sharing your journey in the book.
• 43:48
  SPEAKER_00: I know this was not an easy book to write, it was not an easy book to go through the experience that gave you the material for the book, essentially.
• 43:58
  SPEAKER_00: But wow, what an incredible story.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm so glad that you're that you're around.
• 44:03
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, living life to the full.
• 44:05
  SPEAKER_01: I tell you, everybody needs to live life to the full.
• 44:07
  SPEAKER_01: You never know what's going to happen.
• 44:09
  SPEAKER_01: Live life starting now.
• 44:11
  SPEAKER_00: Sure.
• 44:12
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 44:12
  SPEAKER_00: Well, thank you again.
• 44:13
  SPEAKER_00: This has been amazing.
• 44:14
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, it's a pleasure.
• 44:16
  SPEAKER_00: Hey, wasn't that a fun conversation with Helen?
• 44:19
  SPEAKER_00: She is a ball of energy, and she is just such a fun person, but also really, really, I guess as we say in, I don't know if this is an American thing, or maybe even it's just a Missouri thing, but I know around these parts when we want to compliment somebody uh in their intelligence, we will call them whip smart.
• 44:37
  SPEAKER_00: And I would describe Helen as Whip Smart, and I mean that as an absolute compliment.
• 44:42
  SPEAKER_00: Helen, as you can see, is not just a really uh she has a great sense of humor.
• 44:48
  SPEAKER_00: She's also a phenomenal writer, a great business leader, and just a really, really inspiring person.
• 44:53
  SPEAKER_00: So make sure and grab her book.
• 44:55
  SPEAKER_00: You can check it out on Amazon.
• 44:56
  SPEAKER_00: There's a link in the show notes.
• 44:57
  SPEAKER_00: And also make sure and go to her website, helenbullen.com.
• 45:01
  SPEAKER_00: That's Helen with one L.
• 45:02
  SPEAKER_00: Bullen with two L's.
• 45:04
  SPEAKER_00: She's got a lot of cool things there for small business owners.
• 45:07
  SPEAKER_00: So make sure to check it out.
• 45:08
  SPEAKER_00: And as always, my good friend, thanks for listening.
• 45:10
  SPEAKER_00: I do not take your time and attention for granted.
• 45:13
  SPEAKER_00: Hope you have a great rest of the week, and I'll see you on the flip side.