Latest / Christian Business Growth Podcast / Introvert to Impact with Traci Hubbell-Poe

Transcript

Introvert to Impact with Traci Hubbell-Poe · Christian Business Growth Podcast

• 0:01
  Hello and welcome to the Christian Business Growth Podcast.
• 0:03
  Today I'm here with Tracy Poe.
• 0:05
  She's from Communicate Great.
• 0:07
  She's going to share some really interesting insights with us.
• 0:10
  Tracy, how did God get you started in business?
• 0:13
  Okay, so here is a little bit of a long story, but I will try to keep it as short as I can.
• 0:19
  I actually was in the nonprofit world for years and years and years.
• 0:24
  And back in 2022, I just, could not be in that space anymore.
• 0:30
  I was sick all the time.
• 0:31
  It was impacting my mental health, my spiritual health, my family, because I was putting in...
• 0:39
  such crazy hours and I know a lot of people are in nonprofits, especially when they have hearts for other people.
• 0:45
  And if it's a small nonprofit, a micro, people are wearing so many hats and that's where I was and I just, I had to walk away.
• 0:57
  And so I did and as I was contemplating what I was gonna do next, I knew I did not wanna go back to the nonprofit space.
• 1:06
  And so I thought, you know what?
• 1:09
  degrees, like I know what I'm doing, let me go get a job with corporate, pays well, you know what I'm worth.
• 1:15
  Again, when you're in the nonprofit world, you are not getting paid if at all.
• 1:20
  I mean, because you know that you're there to give.
• 1:23
  And so I thought, well, let me flip it and I'm going to go make money and then I'm going to write those bigger checks because I was still giving, you know, financially and of my
• 1:33
  time beyond whatever I was doing for the nonprofit.
• 1:36
  And
• 1:37
  the more I was looking at it, the more it just made me nauseous.
• 1:41
  And I just felt God like tapping me on the shoulder like remember when.
• 1:46
  And so the remember when was when I was working on my master's degree and I had to pick a project.
• 1:54
  And so I prayed about it and I knew I wanted to do a workshop.
• 2:01
  And again, my degrees are in communication, communicate great.
• 2:05
  And so I...
• 2:07
  I built this workshop up, it was on, I think, academic survival skills, but with the lens of communication.
• 2:16
  And so I advertised it with the student body, and I had a couple people sign up, and then the day came, and one person showed up.
• 2:24
  And at first I felt, you know, I felt a little defeated.
• 2:28
  And then I thought, wait a minute, I am okay with one person showing up because...
• 2:34
  massive introvert over here, shy, timid.
• 2:37
  I fought it all my life.
• 2:39
  And you know, I actually say that verse all the time, that God did not create me to have a spirit of fear and timidity.
• 2:45
  That is one of my life verses.
• 2:47
  Anyhow, so I was working with this student and it was like light bulbs, those aha moments going off.
• 2:53
  And my, that just fueled me.
• 2:57
  And at the end of it, I thought this, this is what I want to do.
• 3:01
  I want to work with people, workshops, retreats, whatever it is, and help them with their communication skills.
• 3:09
  Life goes on.
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  I end up in the nonprofit world doing some of that.
• 3:13
  But when I left that last job and was looking at corporate and was feeling, oh, this is not, this is not it.
• 3:21
  And the tap, remember when, was that.
• 3:24
  Like, remember that this is the dream that I put in you all those years ago, and now it's time.
• 3:30
  Now we're doing it.
• 3:32
  And I didn't even know what the name of the company would be.
• 3:36
  I didn't know exactly what I was doing.
• 3:39
  And I was just walking through the house one day and just communicate great, just dropped into my head.
• 3:45
  And so I thought, wow, I kind of like it, but is it grammatically correct?
• 3:50
  Because if I'm going to be, if I'm going to be working with people on communication, I can't have a grammatically incorrect name.
• 3:57
  And so I did.
• 3:58
  searches and I came up with three different references that said, no, it's grammatically correct.
• 4:03
  And I was like, okay, Lord, you do know what you're doing.
• 4:06
  And so he gave me that name communicate great, which I think is fun.
• 4:10
  And one of my things is no matter what I'm doing, if people are relaxed and having fun, they're going to get more than if you're boring them or they're feeling stressed.
• 4:22
  So I always try to do everything with kind of a quirky fun bent.
• 4:26
  And so that to me is definitely Communicate Great.
• 4:30
  So that is kind of how I started Communicate Great.
• 4:35
  And then, you you and I were talking before we hit record and I was sharing with you that when people have a passion for something else and they start doing that thing, they may
• 4:46
  not have a business background.
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  And I do not have a business background.
• 4:50
  I don't know what I'm doing with running a company.
• 4:54
  but I know I wanna help people with their communication.
• 4:57
  And so you hear business people say, oh, you can only pick one thing, you have to niche down.
• 5:03
  And I was like, okay, I like helping people with public speaking, I like helping people with interpersonal calm, you what do I do?
• 5:11
  And so I do a little of both, but my biggest focus is on the public speaking side.
• 5:18
  And there is a whole story with that.
• 5:20
  I don't know if you want me to go into.
• 5:22
  God calling me to teach that class, yeah, it's God all the way.
• 5:31
  It truly has been God all the way.
• 5:33
  Well, let's talk a little bit because we again, we were talking before that and you're a major introvert, but you come across very lively and I appreciate that about you.
• 5:41
  Talk to us as other entrepreneurs, other introvert entrepreneurs that are listening today.
• 5:47
  What advice would you give that person that's sitting at home is like, I'm not sure I want to get out there.
• 5:53
  You know what, it is hard and I would say it is just take that step, take that action.
• 6:00
  I actually do, one of my workshops is, I think I call it, uh Video Camera Comfort Starts Here, because so many people now not just are taking physical stages, but with the
• 6:13
  pandemic, so many people move to virtual.
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  And now you have virtual stages and in-person stages.
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  and I help people with both.
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  But the first thing that I talk about in that workshop is you have to take action.
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  And so I ask the question, what has to happen before you move?
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  And they'll give me a couple of answers.
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  And the bottom line is for you to move, you have to determine that you are going to get up and move somewhere.
• 6:42
  You have to take that action to do it.
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  And so for me, sharing with other introverts like me,
• 6:50
  It's just that encouragement of if you have a passion for something, you are only gonna be able to help those other people by taking that action and getting up and moving.
• 7:04
  And so that would be my thing is to let that passion you have to help others be your driving force to get up and move.
• 7:12
  I agree 100 % as an introvert, you think about yourself.
• 7:18
  But when you take your mind off yourself and think about the person that you're passionate about, that's when the action becomes real.
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  You start to move from your heart, not just from your head.
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  Huge difference.
• 7:29
  Tracy, what's...
• 7:30
  Go ahead.
• 7:31
  I was gonna say it's authentic at that point.
• 7:33
  And that's one of the things that I do when I work with people with their public speaking.
• 7:37
  Again, whether it's to do content or to be on a podcast or whatever, whether it's virtual or in person, you have to be authentic because if you're not, the audience is gonna see
• 7:47
  right through you and they're gonna shut down.
• 7:50
  Absolutely.
• 7:51
  So what's God currently doing in your business right now?
• 7:54
  Oh, okay, so I, know, and let me just say, don't be me.
• 8:02
  I am in year three of my business, and because I have really been doing this angst of fighting back and forth with moving forward with what God's calling me to do, and
• 8:16
  sometimes sitting in that timidity, I would say that,
• 8:20
  It's taken me a while.
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  That and there's a whole story about me leaving and my mom passing.
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  And so for the first year and a half of my business, I was just, I could not focus.
• 8:29
  It was just, it was a hot mess.
• 8:32
  So really in the last year, year and a half, I've really started going.
• 8:35
  And so what God is doing right now is he opened up an opportunity to be on the school platform.
• 8:41
  And I'd been thinking about it for a while and excuse, excuse, excuse.
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  And then there was an opportunity to come in for, for
• 8:51
  free for three months and get your community going and trying it.
• 8:54
  And I was like, well, you can't be free, right?
• 8:57
  So I went in and I got my public speakers growth hub up and going.
• 9:02
  So right now what's happening is that I'm in the process of building this public speakers growth hub.
• 9:08
  And what I'm finding is the members who are coming in and they're being active, oh man, it lights my fire because they are really getting it and they're growing.
• 9:18
  And every time they show up on a workshop, they're so excited and they're giving me positive feedback like this is so helpful.
• 9:25
  So what's currently happening is I'm getting to help people who are either fearful, have never spoken before and they're just getting going, or maybe they've been speaking.
• 9:36
  I've got a couple who've been speaking, but they really are wanting to go that level up way, you know, to get really, really good at what they're doing at that craft.
• 9:48
  And so I'm working with all of those who are kind of on the beginning end of this journey.
• 9:52
  And it's so fun.
• 9:54
  It is so fun to watch them again, having those aha moments and getting it and watching the growth of their skills from week to week.
• 10:02
  So right now it's fun because I'm getting to work with people who, who really are valuing that they get to do this and help other people.
• 10:12
  And again, you and I were talking, it's my heart is to help the mission driven person, the person who knows
• 10:18
  They have something to say and who can make a difference in somebody else's life.
• 10:22
  That's who I wanna help.
• 10:24
  That's great.
• 10:25
  people that don't know a lot about school, school is built on the concept of community.
• 10:29
  And as entrepreneurs, we're all solo sometimes, we're solopreneurs, a lot of us.
• 10:34
  And having that place of community where you can connect and what I call affinity groups, and affinity group means you can have like-minded people and like-minded resources.
• 10:44
  So in yours, yours is a group for people who want to get into speaking, who want to speak better.
• 10:48
  But you also probably had to share a little bit about Christianity in there, just I'm assuming based on who you are as a person.
• 10:54
  I don't hide my faith.
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  I don't hide my faith.
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  And there are people in the group that are not Christians.
• 11:01
  I don't hide my faith.
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  There are people in the group who have other faiths, know, everything from, uh you know, atheist to other faiths to Christians.
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  And I don't hide my faith.
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  So yeah, I bring it up.
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  It is not a faith-based group.
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  It is not because I feel like
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  We are here to spread the light and that is what I want to do with whoever comes into my circle not hiding my faith.
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  I'm going to talk about God.
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  I'm going to reference God.
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  I'm going to say things like praise God, you know.
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  So yeah, I don't hide my faith at all.
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  That's cool, and it's a balance when you're in business, do I wanna go full on and just do for Christians or do I wanna do for everyone, but still not hide my faith?
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  And the catch is, and I love that you're saying it like that, I don't hide my faith.
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  So many entrepreneurs, they try to be a Christian in secret.
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  Their secret identity is Christian.
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  And I'm not saying you gotta go preach all the time.
• 12:00
  But having those moments where people realize this person actually believes in something greater than themselves.
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  That's a huge conversation.
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  It's a good open door conversation.
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  right.
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  And the bottom line is if you come into my community and you know I'm a Christian and you're just really uncomfortable, you can choose to leave.
• 12:18
  Nobody's left so far, but you know, it's your choice.
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  It's your choice.
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  If you want to hear me talk about God or reference scripture, which I do quite often, especially when I know I've got a believer in the community because a lot of their talks
• 12:33
  are faith centered.
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  And so we'll talk about it and I'll say, and that reminds me of the scripture, blah, blah, blah.
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  Have you thought about putting that there?
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  And so because I know scripture, and I'm not saying I'm an expert on the Bible, I'm really good at knowing what the scripture is, but don't ask me where you're gonna find it.
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  It's in the Old Testament somewhere, it's in the New Testament somewhere.
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  But I know some of those really life-changing and like I said, you
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  some of my life versus I know those and so, and it's amazing how the spirit just talks through you.
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  So that happens a lot.
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  That's cool.
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  So let's talk, we're gonna shift gears a little bit to our business growth concepts.
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  So what are some things you're doing in your business that's helping your business grow that might help somebody else grow their business?
• 13:18
  So one of the things that when I first got into business, it was, oh, you're gonna be making $10,000 in 30 days.
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  And all of these people pitching their own coaching programs or whatever it is would dangle in that carrot like, oh, you're gonna be big super fast.
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  And I think a lot of people start their business and they fall into that and they believe that.
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  And I have people come to me and say, well, how can I make six figures speaking?
• 13:45
  Well, not overnight.
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  mean, you know, probably not maybe weird once in a while, but the thing that I have finally settled into, you know, and again, I said that first year and a half, it was a hot
• 13:57
  mess.
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  was chasing every rabbit, listening to every person, and I just needed to settle into me and pray it through and make my decisions.
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  So what I finally realized is it is not a sprint.
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  It is not a 100 yard dash.
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  This is like a marathon and I know people use that analogy very frequently, but this is a marathon and you do the things to move you forward every day and you make those iterations
• 14:27
  and change.
• 14:28
  Okay, I've been trying this for a while and I would say if it doesn't work one time, don't give up and shift.
• 14:35
  Keep trying that thing and maybe make iterations.
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  And you know, after you've been trying it for a longer period of time, if you feel like you need to put that aside even for now, go ahead.
• 14:47
  But again, pray everything through, like pray everything through.
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  So I would say understand it may not happen overnight.
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  Stick with that perseverance.
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  The Bible talks about persevere, perseverance, you know, that long race.
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  And so I would say understand that, have that mind.
• 15:08
  mindset shift of this may not happen overnight for me, stay the course, and do the things that are going to move the needle for you.
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  Figure out what those things are.
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  And I am just coming into figuring out what those things are instead of doing all of the things that might help build visibility, but is visibility big if it's not translating
• 15:36
  into
• 15:37
  conversion, if that makes sense.
• 15:40
  So stick with it, stay the course, pray everything through, make those small changes, those little tweaks here and there.
• 15:50
  One of the things that we talk about with video, I actually did a workshop Tuesday and one of the women asked, how long will it take me to get comfortable with doing video?
• 16:01
  And I answered, the research that I have done,
• 16:04
  says you have to do 100 videos at a minimum to start feeling comfortable.
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  And the look on her face was just like horror, know, like 100 videos, you know?
• 16:15
  And I said, well, hold on, hold on.
• 16:17
  That doesn't mean you have to publish all of those 100 videos, right?
• 16:22
  There is hope and it can go fast.
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  And so you have to do a video, watch it, make a change.
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  Do video, watch it, make a change.
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  Don't try to do 25 changes at one time.
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  So go slow, understand growth when you're going slower is stronger.
• 16:42
  If you think about a tree, a tree that stands the test of time is probably gonna grow slower than trees that shoot up really fast.
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  And then they don't live as long, they can be pushed over by storms more easily.
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  So build that foundation at a slower pace, at God's pace, because truly,
• 17:01
  It's gonna happen on his time, especially if you're surrendering your business to him, if he's called you to this.
• 17:08
  So that's my advice that I have learned.
• 17:12
  Just take your time, make the connections, build true, authentic relationships.
• 17:18
  Be patient.
• 17:20
  Yeah, that consistency is a key because somebody gets an entrepreneurship and they post on their social media once or twice or maybe even for a week and they expect everything to
• 17:28
  explode.
• 17:29
  They're to go viral like that guy down on the street.
• 17:32
  Well, the people who went viral had been working for 20, 30 years sometimes before they went viral.
• 17:37
  So it's all about planting those seeds, that consistency.
• 17:40
  So my suggestion again on that consistency factor is pick that one channel that works for you and be consistent.
• 17:47
  share that passion, share that story, get that out there.
• 17:50
  That's very important.
• 17:51
  So what are some of those consistencies that have helped your business?
• 17:56
  So, know, I just, just fortitude, honestly.
• 18:00
  That's my thing.
• 18:01
  Because I've had this question asked for me.
• 18:03
  I've been on a few other podcasts and that's been asked and it's, you just have to wake up and make the decision, you know, you know, basically take up your cross daily and follow
• 18:15
  me.
• 18:15
  It's just that you have to make that choice.
• 18:17
  And so it's not like I can say, oh, try this technique or that technique.
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  It is to me, the answer is,
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  It is a choice.
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  You have to choose.
• 18:27
  Did God call me to this?
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  And there are times when we question it.
• 18:32
  There are times when I was ready to just be done, like, Lord, I'm not doing this anymore.
• 18:37
  can't, like nothing is happening.
• 18:39
  And the next day something happens and it's, okay, God, you have me here for a reason.
• 18:44
  You have me here doing this, what you called me to do for a reason.
• 18:48
  And so if you know God has called you to this, then it's just that gut.
• 18:54
  thing of wake up and do it again.
• 18:57
  Do your consistent action again.
• 19:01
  Actually, you know, what I would say is I'm really big into lists, so maybe this is a technique.
• 19:07
  Come up with your money-making actions.
• 19:11
  For instance, networking is huge.
• 19:14
  People ask me how I get the most people.
• 19:16
  It's through networking.
• 19:18
  And so I know, for me, networking is one of those things that's going to move the needle.
• 19:24
  And so come up with your list of the things that you know are gonna move the needle and just check them off.
• 19:30
  Like, did I do this today?
• 19:31
  Did I do this today?
• 19:32
  Did I do this today?
• 19:33
  That's actually one of the things that I do now that I think about it.
• 19:36
  So I just know what's gonna help me and that's what I do.
• 19:41
  That's great word and that's important because if you're called and you're passionate, you know God has called you into business.
• 19:48
  Not taking action is not being a steward of what God's called you to do.
• 19:52
  That's way of saying it, yes.
• 19:55
  I agree.
• 19:56
  Right.
• 19:56
  We're not being faithful to what he called us to if we're choosing in action.
• 20:01
  And that's not to say we can get burnout.
• 20:04
  So you talked about solopreneur early.
• 20:06
  We can get burnout.
• 20:07
  Right.
• 20:08
  Like Jesus went off by himself multiple times to recharge just to be with his father.
• 20:13
  And so I would say I'm not saying have a very skewed work life balance.
• 20:21
  Be healthy, take care of yourself, steward your body that God gave you.
• 20:26
  We're supposed to eat the right things and sleep and exercise, you know, move all the things to keep us okay.
• 20:33
  But don't use that as an excuse to not do the business side of it and to be faithful in what he is calling you to do.
• 20:43
  Absolutely, good work.
• 20:44
  So as we end up here, tell us how we can get in touch with you and then I wanted you to give us one little snippet, one little bit of wisdom to end up the time together.
• 20:52
  I got the wisdom.
• 20:55
  CommunicateGrade is my company.
• 20:57
  My public speaker's growth hub is on the school platform, and I think you're gonna be dropping some of the links, but I'm also on several of the different social media
• 21:08
  platforms, but I would say, oh, and I also have, uh well, I don't have a podcast for public speaking.
• 21:16
  I have other podcasts, but the school,
• 21:20
  Public Speaker's Growth Hub, my website, CommunicateGreat.online and I have a page for the audience.
• 21:26
  And then social media, I'm on Facebook and alignable.
• 21:32
  um I do have a YouTube channel for the Public Speaker's Growth Hub, Instagram, so I'm in several places.
• 21:40
  I actually have somebody else do my social media.
• 21:42
  So I'm not sure where all I am because I don't look at those vanity metrics.
• 21:47
  I don't care about them.
• 21:49
  So she posts what she posts and then it's done.
• 21:53
  But the wisdom, here's the wisdom.
• 21:55
  I'm gonna say to you that if you have a message that you know can help other people, if you want to help other people and you have that apprehension about taking again that
• 22:08
  in-person stage or the virtual stage, just know that yes you can do it, you really can do it.
• 22:16
  If you want help, I am here to help, but be faithful in that calling and know that you absolutely have a message to share that can change someone's life.
• 22:28
  Thank you for being with us
• 22:30
  Thank you for having me on, I appreciate it!