Latest / The Daily Writer / The Power of Writing It Down with Ally Fallon

Transcript

The Power of Writing It Down with Ally Fallon · 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: Everyone has a story to share.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_00: Everybody has life experiences, wisdom, and insights that can benefit other people and make a huge difference in their lives.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_00: You do too.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_00: But are you writing it down?
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_00: And do you plan to write it down?
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_00: Well, if you have any doubts about the power of sharing your story and the value of writing it down, you're going to love today's conversation with my special guest, Allie Fallon.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_00: Ali is the best-selling author and founder of Find Your Voice, which is a community that offers workshops, coaching, editing, and support for anyone who wants to write a book.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_00: Ali has written and published 13 books on counting, including The Power of Writing It Down, which is her newsbook, and her memoir, Indestructible.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_00: She's also coached hundreds of writers from total beginners to New York Times bestselling authors, hosted workshops all over the country and world, and helped hundreds of thousands of people use writing as a tool for their own personal growth.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_00: Allie's also collaborating with Donald Miller on the Write Your Story workshop, which sounds like an absolute blast, and she shares more about that in our conversation today.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_00: So in this interview, we dive into the ins and outs of writing a memoir.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_00: What happens when you're not sure where to start or end your story?
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_00: How do you go about the process of doing a memoir?
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_00: And what if you don't feel like you're a writer?
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_00: Well, if you've ever thought about whether you should write it down, the answer is yes.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_00: And we get to all these questions in this conversation.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_00: And our guide Allie is here to walk us through this process.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_00: So let's get to the conversation with Allie Fallon.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_00: Ali, thanks so much for making time to be on the Daily Writer Podcast.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_00: I'm excited to talk to you about memoir, about your awesome new book, and also about a workshop you're doing with Donald Miller.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_00: So we've got a lot of ground to cover.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_00: But first of all, welcome to the show and thanks for being here.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_01: And thanks for having me.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_01: I'm excited about this.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_00: So the first thing I want to dive into is uh your book, The Power of Writing It Down.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_00: And as we were talking just before I hit record, I really, really love this book.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_00: Like I legit love it.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_00: It's very heartfelt.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_00: There's so much wisdom in it.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_00: You know, as kind of as a ghostwriter myself, I always look at things like book structure and stuff.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_00: And it's just really, really well done.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm curious if you can walk us through a little bit of your own journey of why you wrote this book in the first place and how you were hoping to impact readers with it.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I would love to.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_01: Um the book is really the culmination of about 10 years of my own struggle to I guess become a writer, call myself a writer, um, grow into my own writerhood, if I can make up that word.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_01: I set off on a journey um in my mid-20s sometime.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_01: I knew I wanted to write a book.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_01: I wasn't sure uh how to get there.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_01: And when I say I wasn't sure how to get there, I mean I knew nothing about the publishing world.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_01: I'd never heard the term book proposal document.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't know anybody who worked in publishing.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_01: All I knew was I had this kind of aching in my heart to uh write my story, to get the story out of me and onto paper.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_01: I was working a full-time job at the time that I didn't love.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_01: It was filling the space, it was good enough, it was paying my bills, it was kind of, you know, giving me a sense of stability.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_01: But I I knew the whole time that I was working this job that it just wasn't going to be, it wasn't the thing I wanted to be doing 10 years from now, 20 years from now, 30 years from now.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_01: So I finally took the leap um to step out and leave that job with the intention that I was going to write my first book.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_01: And I spent the next year kind of spinning, knowing that there was this book that I was trying to write and sitting at the computer thinking I was writing it and um writing things that just didn't feel right, throwing them away, starting over, uh, you know, the the writer's block thing that we've all dealt with.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_01: And um that book came out several years ago.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I actually was able to publish it and it's a it's a memoir, it's a story, a coming of age story of being 26 years old and trying to figure out what I was supposed to do with my life.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_01: Um, all of that to say, that kind of launched me into because I had struggled for so long to become an author, and then I was able to become an author.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_01: It gave me this opportunity to start working with other authors who also wanted to become authors, and that became the bulk of my career.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_01: I was working with authors, helping them outline their books, helping them um get connected to publishers, write book proposal documents, edit their books, edit their manuscripts, get their books out in the world, market their books, et cetera.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_01: And I started to see this cool pattern happening while I was working with authors that really stuck out to me.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_01: And the pattern was that while they were working on this creative project, there was also something deeper going on as well.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_01: So on the surface, they're writing this book that's about leadership or about business or about um money or about relationships.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_01: And while they're working on this book, there's this kind of growth, evolution, spiritual something happening under the surface that had to do with the book itself.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_01: It was almost like the creative project was inviting this creative journey out of them.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_03: Wow.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_01: And as I watched this parallel happening, I was like, maybe there's something more going on here than just um, maybe it's more than just a coincidence.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe it actually is that those two things parallel each other that when we're invited into this creative process, just like I was at 25 years old invited to jump off of this cliff and give up my cushy job and go write this book, that there was also something deeper happening, and that as I'm helping these authors who are taking the leap to share their stories vulnerably with the world, that there's something more happening than just publishing a book, that they're also kind of evolving as people.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_01: And that idea was was um brewing under the surface, but I think I kept dismissing it, thinking like it's probably just my bias because this is what I love and it's the work I do.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_01: And so I'm probably just you know, I probably just think everybody should write a book.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_01: And then I went through a really dramatic, unexpected life change.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_01: Um where um I uh went through a divorce and um it wasn't it was a divorce that was complicated enough in itself, but also the person who I was divorcing was also my business partner, you know, we had everything that I had done professionally was tied in to him.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_01: And so uh my my pref my personal life, but also my professional life came to this crashing halt, and I was at this this precipice wondering like what the hell am I gonna do next?
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_01: Because, you know, like I only thing I've ever wanted to do or ever known is writing books.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_01: And if I'm gonna write anything, it's gonna be about this.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_01: And how can I possibly do that when I know he's gonna read it and I know everybody who he knows is gonna read it, and everybody, you know, all the people in the industry all knew him and knew us together.
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_01: And um, I just decided I was gonna sit down and write the story regardless of what happened, and and by that I mean regardless of whether anyone else ever read it, I was gonna sit down and write the story.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_01: So this is my second book called Indestructible.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_01: It's the story of my life unraveling and putting it back together again.
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_01: And that book was what really clinched this work for me.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_01: It's it's important that I tell these parts of the story because this is where the power of writing it down was born from is, you know, I had this idea in my head that when someone's writing a book, there's something deeper going on and it's not about publishing.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_01: And then I go through this divorce and write this book, and as I'm writing the book, there's all this deeper stuff happening for me.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_01: And writing the book healed me completely.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_01: Um, oh, I can't say completely, but healed that part of my life completely in such a profound way that I was, it was like my eyes were open and I was like, this is not a bias that I have.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_01: This is actually something that's happening, it's a real thing that's happening for people who are who are being called into this process of book writing.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_01: That even if you never share the book with anyone, even if you never publish the book, even if no other eyes ever read it other than yours, that there's something really incredible and deep and profound that's happening.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_01: It's a healing, it's a spiritual awakening, it's a you know, a solidifying of of learning, um, it's making you into the person that you need to be so that you can lead those around you and contribute to your community.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_01: And so that that experience of writing that book was where the idea for the power of writing it down was born.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_01: The message of the power of writing it down is really everybody should write a book.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_01: If you've ever wondered, if you've ever thought to yourself, I'd love to write a book someday, you should write a book.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_01: Even if you never publish it, even if nobody else ever reads it, even if it dies with you on your computer, if your eyes are the only eyes that ever see this book, it will matter that you've written it because it will change you completely from the inside out.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_00: Wow, that's really, really powerful.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_00: That's really powerful.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_00: How did you handle it when you finished uh when you finish the book and it's ready for editing and you get ready for all the marketing stuff and and you have to go promote this book?
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_00: How do you uh how do you balance that line between, okay, this is my story, it's obviously very, very personal.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_00: You're pouring your heart out to the world, you're doing things you probably thought you'd never share.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_00: How do you balance that with the marketing side where where your story then becomes a product for sale, essentially?
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_00: And and you're thinking about the marketing copy and the angles and and how are how is this gonna play with bookstores and vendors and and distributors and all this stuff.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_00: How do you balance that as a writer?
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, this is such a hard question.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not I I don't feel like I'm the person who's gonna have a great answer for you.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_01: The way that I balance it is I don't balance it.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_00: And I I guess that's that's what PR people are for, you know, just marketing people.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I think so that it's a little bit different too if you're talking about a memoir versus a content-driven book.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_01: But with with a memoir, I mean, a memoir is like really my first book, Packing White.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_01: Um, what's odd is of the three books, that book has done the best, even though it doesn't, there's no there's no marketing hook.
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, the marketing hook is like young 25-year-old girl quits her job and goes on a crazy trip across the country, which is kind of like a fun, you know, it's a fun, engaging hook, but it's not like um the power of writing it down the hook is have you ever wanted to write a book?
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_01: I can help you, I can help you achieve that.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_01: Um, which I think is a stronger hook than than than packing a light was.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_01: But the reason I say that when it comes to marketing, I don't balance the marketing is because my belief is that the biggest thing that's trying to happen through the book that you want to write is something new is trying to be birthed through you.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_01: And so the marketing piece of it just, you know, I I'll say this to the to the chagrin of every marketer who's listening.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_01: It takes care of itself.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it yeah, it really the marketing piece is none of my business.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_01: You know, Julie Cameron says, who reads your book is none of your business.
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_01: The fact that you write it is your business.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_01: And I really have lived my creative life by that.
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_01: That, you know, you said before we started recording that you you love how with the power of writing it down, that you can really sense the heart that comes through in it.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_01: And to me, that's the greatest compliment as a writer because I put my heart and soul into that book.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_01: And um, I did put a lot of energy into the marketing of that book too, actually.
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_01: But what's funny is that book came out on January 9th, I think, of 2021, 9th or 10th, somewhere in there, which was like a few days after the insurrection at the Capitol.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_01: It was like when the handoff from Trump to Biden was happening.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_01: Um, there was a lot of drama happening in the world, and it was just a really truly terrible time to launch a book.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_01: And not only that, but there was a leadership change off happening at my publisher.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_01: And because of that, the marketing team that was working with me shifted.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_01: And so whatever we had planned to do didn't happen.
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_01: And we were in the middle of, I mean, 2021 was we all thought this is the end of COVID, and it wasn't, it was just like the beginning of a new wave of COVID.
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_01: And so, so I guess my point is you can put a lot of strategy into marketing, and then you can get out there in the real world and start to market this thing and realize that your strategy isn't working the way that you thought it would or that you wanted it to.
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_01: And so, what you have to, I think, what you have to be able to lay your head on the pillow, you have to say to yourself when you lay your head on the pillow at night is I know that I did the good work of writing the book that I knew was trying to be written through me.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_01: And I shared that with my readers.
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_01: And if it's 300 readers, it's 300 readers, and if it's three readers, three readers, you know?
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_01: And I think um that book didn't do what any of us thought that it could do, yet hasn't yet done what any of us thought that it could do, but who knows?
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, yeah, books all the time find their their track or their path, and who am I to judge that you know find their track much long after the author has written them?
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_01: And I you know, I I check in with myself and say, Who am I to judge?
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_01: How many people were supposed to read that book?
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_01: It's like five thousand, fifty thousand, five hundred thousand.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_01: It's if one person picks it up and reads it and feels like they really connected with the message, then I did my job.
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_01: And and I guess even less than one person.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_01: If I'm if if the book did in me what it was meant to do in me, even that has to be enough.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_01: Otherwise, you will absolutely kill yourself as an author.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_01: You will peter out of energy so fast in this industry because um, you know, Don Miller, you mentioned Don Miller, we're doing this workshop together called Write Your Story.
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_01: And he said to me when the book came out, he said, Hey Ali, how's the book going?
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_01: And I was like, Well, not great, you know, this the what the publisher thought it was gonna do, it's not doing.
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_01: And um, and I think I mentioned some some other author who came out with a book at the same time, you know, hard time to launch a book, but so and so is doing great in the marketplace, so who knows?
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe it's just who knows?
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_01: And he said, you know, um, he said, someone else will always be selling more books than you.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_01: You'll always be able to find someone who's selling more books than you.
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_01: And I just thought that was good advice.
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_01: It's like so easy to compare ourselves to how many books someone else is selling, but that's not the measure that I want to live my life by at the end of the day.
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_00: So man, that is so true.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_00: So I remember sitting with my wife on the couch.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_00: This has been probably a month ago, and a commercial came on for the movie adaptation of Where the Crawd sang.
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_00: Now I haven't read the book, I know tons and tons of people have.
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_00: I and I know my wife read it and she loved it.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_00: And I was just curious, I knew that the book had been really successful.
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_00: And so uh I kind of perceive of like, okay, if the book has like over a thousand reviews on Amazon, then it's really successful.
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_00: You know, Atomic Habits by James Clear has like uh, you know, 40 or 50,000 reviews or something.
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that book had like close to a hundred thousand reviews or or some like ungodly astronomical figure.
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_00: And it's funny because that's so right.
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_00: It's like whatever success we have, there's always somebody who's doing crazy or higher numbers in whatever metric that we're throwing out there.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_00: That's really true.
• 14:51
  unknown: Yeah.
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_01: And I mean, I I tell stories all the time about authors who um feel pulled or called or invited to write a book.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_01: They write the book, the book sort of doesn't go anywhere, it doesn't do anything, no publisher picks it up, nobody's all that interested.
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_01: You know, there's the a book that all of us have, well, I shouldn't say all of us, so many of us have read.
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_01: It's sold so many copies.
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_01: The author felt invited to write this book, wrote this book, um, couldn't find a publisher, you know, wasn't a part of the industry, couldn't find a publisher to pick it up, printed the book at Kinkos, or you know, I don't know, one of those places like back in the day when that was a thing, bound it himself, really wrote the book for his his kids and was sharing the book with friends and family beyond that.
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_01: And it wasn't until years later, I don't know the exact timeline, but years later, that a publisher um somehow found the book and picked it up and and you know there was a publishing contract created and distribution rights are now owned by this publisher.
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but that the book was published more widely, and then now that book has sold 26 million copies and has a major motion picture called The Shaft.
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_01: So um It's a good book.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, it is a good book, yeah.
• 16:01
  SPEAKER_01: And and it has had an impact on so many people.
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_01: But I guess the point is is if you had taken a slice of time shortly after that book was written, before it had never really done anything, and you were like, wow, what a failure that book is because you know, only a hundred people read it, you'd be missing the point.
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_01: But if you just wait, wait a bit, you know what I'm saying?
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_00: I would like to explore some themes related to memoir because obviously your book, The Power of Writing It Down, is tied into memoir.
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_00: You've written memoir, so I know that's very close to your heart.
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_00: I do want to come back to um some details about the Write Your Story workshop because uh it looks really, really cool.
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_00: And I'd love to share closer to me in some details about that.
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_00: I'm just super enamored by what this is and how much fun it looks like.
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_00: But let's dive into memoir for a second.
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_00: Um I guess my first question is why should somebody write a memoir?
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, you've shared some of this already, and obviously our stories can impact people and and even if it's just a handful of people, it's still worth it, even if it just impacts us.
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_00: But looking at it from a book publishing standpoint, why should somebody go to the trouble of writing their story down?
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_00: What's the value of it?
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_01: Well, the value is that it's our stories that heal us, you know, it's our stories that keep us stuck, and it's also our stories that heal us.
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_01: If you think about the old oral tradition of sitting down around a fire and sharing stories from generations before the older generation sharing stories with the younger generation, both as a way to inform them and equip them, and also as a way to inspire them and in a way to, you know, invite them into maturity and create rites of passage and thresholds in life.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but this is the way that the human brain and the human psyche is built.
• 17:43
  SPEAKER_01: We're built to be drawn in by stories, we're built to connect to one another through stories.
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_01: And um, and I believe we're built to heal through stories as well.
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_01: So the value in sitting down to write down your personal story really does start with you.
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_01: And I think this is so counterintuitive for people who are have a publishing objective in mind to think, and maybe even not just those with a publishing objective, but those of us who have been um cultured and conditioned and rightly so to be of service to others.
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_01: So this is like myself included.
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_01: I'm I'm like how always looking for like how can I be of service to others around me?
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_01: It's very counterintuitive, intuitive for us to say, even if nobody reads this, even if this book is of no service to anybody else, the fact that it's of service to me to write it means that I can become the person who can be of service to others.
• 18:34
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 18:34
  SPEAKER_01: So without writing packing light, without writing indestructible, without writing the power of writing it down, there's no way that I could be sitting here having this conversation with you.
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_01: So if you're listening to this and you're thinking, oh, this is really helpful to me, she's opening up something for me, then just know that if I hadn't written those books, even if you've read none of them, even if you've never heard of me before, which is quite possible, if I hadn't written those books, I wouldn't be sitting here doing this work right now.
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_01: So, um, and I wouldn't, you know, know what I know and I wouldn't have healed the way that I heal have healed.
• 19:03
  SPEAKER_01: I wouldn't be able to be holding this space or to be of service in this way, right in this moment.
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_01: And so I think that's the reason to sit down and write our our memoirs.
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_01: First and foremost, it has to be because it serves us.
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_01: It's very hard for people to like get their head around that.
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_01: People are like, um people will say to me, Oh, I would love to write, but it just feels so self-indulgent.
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, indulge yourself, you know.
• 19:27
  SPEAKER_01: This is just why not?
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_01: It's yeah, it's one of those things where um you have absolutely no idea the possibilities that could open up for you because you sit down to take a look at your life in this way.
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_01: When we start to take a look at the stories of our life through the lens of storytelling, we see it differently.
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_01: We see it with a new lens, we see it from a new perspective, we see it with a much higher view.
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_01: I talk about this in the power of writing it down, how it's almost like it lifts you up in a hot air balloon and you're looking down at your life from a 30,000-foot view and you see it much more clearly than you would otherwise.
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_01: And that that opens up possibilities in all kinds of ways, opens up possibilities for healing, opens up opportunities for new ways to participate and connect in the world.
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_01: Um it it uh it I talk about this in the power writing down, it shows you how you are the hero of your own story, it shows you where you have more agency to create change than you ever knew was possible.
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_01: So, I mean, I just I don't think it can be overstated the power that can come to you from sitting down to write your own story.
• 20:33
  SPEAKER_01: And then the beautiful thing is when you don't need it anymore, when you you close the computer and you're like, I I wrote this story, I feel so settled with this.
• 20:43
  SPEAKER_01: This is exactly what I wanted to say and how I wanted to say it.
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_01: And then you share it with the world and you get one email, one email from one person who's like, I read your story and I sobbed.
• 20:53
  SPEAKER_01: I needed to read that.
• 20:55
  SPEAKER_01: I left an abusive marriage because of that.
• 20:57
  SPEAKER_01: I left a toxic situation, I moved to a new city.
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_01: You know, when you get those emails, it's like it really does something to you, you know.
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_01: It really makes you feel um a kind of way that you can't feel if you are needing the applause.
• 21:12
  SPEAKER_01: Like if I'm needing to get followers, I'm needing to get sales in order to feel okay about myself.
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_01: I don't get to experience the gift that it is when one woman sends me an email and says, I read your book and it changed my life.
• 21:26
  SPEAKER_00: And you've probably had that happen many times, haven't you?
• 21:29
  SPEAKER_00: Where somebody has let you know that they they've read your work and they've made some kind of substantial life decision based on that.
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_00: That has to be such a uh such a feeling of power in a good way, meaning that you put your work out there into the world.
• 21:45
  SPEAKER_00: Somebody read it be and because of something that you did, they took some kind of uh major action in their life.
• 21:51
  SPEAKER_00: Like that's a lot of people.
• 21:52
  SPEAKER_00: I always say writers are the most powerful people in the world because nothing happens without writing, honestly.
• 21:57
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely true.
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_01: I mean we are we're the transmitters of ideas which is why I'm such a proponent that we need to stop acting like only these certain tiny small group of people are writers and everyone else doesn't you know if you're an engineer you don't get to call yourself a writer and if you're um a bartender you don't get to call yourself a writer and if you're you know you fix cars at BMW you don't get to call yourself a writer if you want to write and if you sit your buttons in the chair and you write then you're a writer and it's so important I believe that we that we open up our view of who is a writer because of exactly what you talked about.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_01: For for centuries the transmission of ideas was left to the elite.
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_01: So a tiny group of people who got to call themselves writers or scribes and no one else had access to the education in in order to do this.
• 22:44
  SPEAKER_01: And and so because of that we see that the transmission of history is actually in many cases not even true.
• 22:51
  SPEAKER_01: Like the the stories that we're passing down from generation to generation in many cases are not even true.
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah because the people who got to transmit those stories were were in a tiny little you know group to a small group of people that needed the story to be written a certain way.
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_01: So when we broaden who gets to contribute to the story it can only be good for everybody involved because you know we're more likely to get the true version of history.
• 23:18
  SPEAKER_01: So I I feel that it's actually a justice issue that we for someone listening who's going well I only have 400 followers on on Twitter or whatever or on Instagram you know I could never write a book or or that feels out of my reach or who am I to write a book about XYZ subject.
• 23:36
  SPEAKER_01: Just remember like you contributing your voice to the pot, even if only four people ever read what you've written is you saying I'm going to contribute my truth so that when we look back at this time in history it's not 10 people who got to say what it was like to be alive during 2022.
• 23:54
  SPEAKER_01: It's it's you know six billion people who get to say what it was like to be alive during this time.
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_00: And man and that opens up a whole can of worms even just in relationship to who gets to tell history who who determines what history is and you know I think that there's a certain cadre of society.
• 24:13
  SPEAKER_00: I've never used the word cadre on this podcast before I don't even know why I pulled that out of my hat.
• 24:17
  SPEAKER_00: Once in a while my college professor dates come out I guess.
• 24:20
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah there's there's kind of a certain group of people that that looks at let's say American history as sort of this set ideas or this set group of ideas or ideals of what have you and you know these kinds of things but history is always written by the winners and history is always selective and there's no such thing really as objective history.
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_00: Because as humans we there's no way that we can be completely objective about anything.
• 24:45
  SPEAKER_00: We all have a bias and we all have a perspective and it's really cool that now anybody can contribute and share their story and share their perspective and we need more of that.
• 24:53
  SPEAKER_00: We need more people's perspectives and their ideas because that makes all of us better.
• 24:58
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah I don't know if you hear this a lot in the in the industry of publishing but a lot of times I'll hear from people this idea that you know because self-publishing has become so widely accepted and so widely available to literally anybody that it's almost like the quality of literature that we have now is declining rapidly yeah and it I just I hate that BS it's such BS it you know the the beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
• 25:25
  SPEAKER_01: And so if if there's a book that you love then it's a good book because you love it.
• 25:31
  SPEAKER_01: And if there's a book you hate then it's a bad book because you hate it.
• 25:34
  SPEAKER_01: If you hate um you know reading Steinbeck then I don't think we'd be very good friends but um just joking because I happen to love Steinbeck.
• 25:44
  SPEAKER_01: But no if you hate if you hate Steinbeck then I'm a hem myself that's not a good book to you you know if you love some random book that four people have read that I've never heard of then that's a good book to you.
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_01: And so who are we to say who am I to say who are you to say who are the publishing elite to say who are the you know the acquisitions editors the agents the New York Times bestsellers list to say these books are good books and these books are bad books.
• 26:07
  SPEAKER_01: It's like it it's up to the uh to the reader to decide.
• 26:12
  SPEAKER_00: And you know there's a certain part of kind of being in this book publishing writing industry that we're in where it's very easy to look at people who do self-publishing and maybe they don't do a great job with the cover design or the formatting or or the font choice or whatever aesthetic thing that so many of us you know those things are really important to a lot of us.
• 26:31
  SPEAKER_00: They're really important to me.
• 26:33
  SPEAKER_00: But there's also the element where I look at a book and maybe it's not really that well done but in my heart I still go, yay for them they had the guts to write a book and put it out there.
• 26:43
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 26:44
  SPEAKER_00: And I think I'm maybe I I look at this the wrong way, but I think you know a poorly done book is better than no book because you can always improve on a poorly done book.
• 26:54
  SPEAKER_00: You can always follow it up with something better.
• 26:56
  SPEAKER_00: Just get something out there.
• 26:58
  SPEAKER_00: I mean let's do our best to make sure it's it's excellent in quality but you know we all got to start somewhere absolutely I I completely agree with that sentiment.
• 27:08
  SPEAKER_00: And let let's make sure that you know and people like us are kind of here to help ensure that people's books are better hopefully and and improve on those and all that.
• 27:16
  SPEAKER_00: Well let me throw this question out there Allie.
• 27:18
  SPEAKER_00: Let's say that I wanted to write my memoir and actually I've really considered it.
• 27:23
  SPEAKER_00: So and I told you uh or I mentioned before we hit record on this conversation that I'm working with my dad on his his Vietnam memoir.
• 27:30
  SPEAKER_00: But let's say I wanted to write mine.
• 27:32
  SPEAKER_00: Where would I start with that?
• 27:34
  SPEAKER_00: Do I look for certain threads or third certain through lines in my story?
• 27:39
  SPEAKER_01: Where does somebody even start with trying to put together a memoir yeah I would start by creating the narrative arc and that's that sounds more complicated than it actually is.
• 27:50
  SPEAKER_01: Essentially the first step is choosing where does the story start and where does it finish.
• 27:55
  SPEAKER_02: That's good.
• 27:55
  SPEAKER_01: So in other words indestructible is the memoir of I you know I'm the way I described it at the beginning of the episode was my life unraveling and me figuring out a way to put it back together.
• 28:05
  SPEAKER_01: So it really starts the day I realized I was getting a divorce and then it ends the day that I realized that this was the best thing that could ever have happened to me.
• 28:13
  SPEAKER_01: So it actually spans the course of about two and a half years.
• 28:18
  SPEAKER_01: It's not like you know there's a difference between autobiography and a memoir.
• 28:22
  SPEAKER_01: In autobiography you're gonna tell the whole story of your whole life and in a memoir you're gonna tell a story.
• 28:28
  SPEAKER_01: So from start to finish from the day I found out I was getting divorced to the day I realized this was the best thing that could have ever happened to me.
• 28:35
  SPEAKER_01: And people I've worked with have have told um you know their memoir has been about um raising an autistic child for example or about discovering that they're they're I helped a woman who just uh her um discovering her daughter was trans um helped a a guy write a book where he just wanted to um explain his faith to his children to his four children so you're it first it's about determining like what's the story about what's the story that I'm trying to tell and then as best as you can determine where does this story start and where does it finish and then that starts to be your filter for what goes in this book and what doesn't because a lot of times our biggest questions are like I don't know what to put in and what to leave out but there are a series of filters along the way and that's the first of the filters is like here's the start date here's the end date what fits inside of that and what doesn't wow I love that I love that I know a lot of people do want to write their story but I think knowing where to start and where to end is is a huge that's a huge roadblock to a lot of people because it's like uh where how do I even take all the events of my life and shrink those down or compress those but but yeah I love this idea of a beginning point and end point.
• 29:57
  SPEAKER_00: It sounds so simple you know to do that once you explain it and that sort of takes away the the fear of diving into writing a memoir.
• 30:06
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah I mean it sounds simple and then when you get into it it can it can be sort of complicated.
• 30:11
  SPEAKER_01: I think what's really helpful and what I've tried to do with the products and services that I provide is give people enough scaffolding that they can sort of go away and work on a thing for a little bit and then come back and get a little bit more instruction and and check their work and and decide like is did I get this right?
• 30:28
  SPEAKER_01: Am I doing this right?
• 30:29
  SPEAKER_01: And then go back and work for a little bit and then come back and check in again.
• 30:32
  SPEAKER_01: I think that's really helpful to writers because a lot of what we do is we we go and we we're like oh I think I've got it you know and then you go write it down and then you're like does this suck?
• 30:42
  SPEAKER_01: So having that the opportunity to check in with someone and just and say like am I doing this right?
• 30:49
  SPEAKER_01: Am I on the right track?
• 30:50
  SPEAKER_01: Am I getting it?
• 30:51
  SPEAKER_01: I think can be what most of us need when it comes to getting our stories on the page.
• 30:56
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm glad you mentioned uh you kind of referenced you know some different ways that you help people I would like to get into that for a minute if you're if you're okay sharing that yeah yeah some people listening you know they're hearing what you're saying but they're still probably feeling overwhelmed and they're thinking I really need somebody to help guide me through this and I would love to have Allie help me with this.
• 31:14
  SPEAKER_00: How are some ways that you help people who want to share their story?
• 31:18
  SPEAKER_01: So I have a couple of different options um the main thing that I do is a class called prepare to publish and it's available all the time on my website findyourboys.com you can click the write a book button and it takes you to our prepare to publish course which will walk you through the process of outlining and writing a book from start to finish.
• 31:37
  SPEAKER_01: So that's available and that's I set that that course up so that it's like a go away and work for a little bit, do a few assignments, check in, watch a video, read you know, read a recap, get a couple more assignments, go away, do your work, come back exactly because of what I just talked about that I think that that's a rhythm that so many writers are desperate for.
• 31:57
  SPEAKER_01: Also, you know this um I was telling you about the write your story workshop that I do with Don.
• 32:02
  SPEAKER_01: This workshop was really born out of the feeling that Don and I have that there are a lot of people who would really benefit from writing their stories but who may or may not be on a publishing track who may be like I don't really know about the whole publishing thing.
• 32:16
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe I will do that maybe I won't do that.
• 32:18
  SPEAKER_01: But what I know to be true is I have a story that I've got to tell because it's it's it's eating me alive and I've got to just get it down.
• 32:25
  SPEAKER_01: And so what Don and I talked about was maybe it would be fun to get people together for just a weekend on his property a very casual setting where we um we walk you through the process of what it looks like to take a story that's in your head and to outline it in a way that makes it really simple to sit down and write it.
• 32:42
  SPEAKER_01: So in the course of two days we take people through this this process of of taking one story from their life and turning it into a written document that's like five to seven pages somewhere in that in that range.
• 32:54
  SPEAKER_01: So it's not a complete memoir but if you put the process on repeat a handful of times you could turn it into a book if you wanted to or you could just do it for this one story and do it for this one story and do it for this one story and just use it as a you know a therapeutic tool.
• 33:07
  SPEAKER_01: We've done this three times so far and we'll do our fourth one in October and it's cool because it's a really small group we keep it uh to 50 people that's as many people as we can fit in there we host it on Don's property so that's as many people as we can fit in carriage house and um it's a real intimate setting and we get to know each other really well and get to know each other's stories really well and you come away with a story from your life a sense of accomplishment like okay I just I put the tools to use and I I turned that story from inside of me into a written thing that I could share with somebody else.
• 33:40
  SPEAKER_01: And it's a a real cool feeling of accomplishment.
• 33:43
  SPEAKER_01: So so that's a fun uh weekend thing that we've been testing out to see how it would go and so far it's been going well so we'll just keep doing it until it stops working.
• 33:52
  SPEAKER_00: Now here's an odd question.
• 33:54
  SPEAKER_00: So and for those who you kind of aren't aware who she's talking about with Don, it's obviously Don Miller who does Business Made Simple and I've been a subscriber to that for a couple years and absolutely love all the stuff that he puts out um and also the author of many many books.
• 34:08
  SPEAKER_00: How is just kind of from a business perspective how how is this tied into the things that he's doing with Business Made Simple or is it just kind of a separate side project?
• 34:18
  SPEAKER_01: It's totally separate.
• 34:19
  SPEAKER_01: It's totally separate.
• 34:20
  SPEAKER_01: I mean he and I it's funny like I was over at his house one night for dinner and um his wife and I are very good friends.
• 34:26
  SPEAKER_01: So we we've spent and Don and I are really good friends too we spent a lot of time together over the years and I was over at his house for dinner and we were talking about this is right before power of writing it down came out we were talking about the book coming out and he was going to have me on the Business Made Simple podcast and he was like have you thought through what you want to talk about on the podcast you know same conversation you and I had before we did this episode.
• 34:45
  SPEAKER_01: He's like have you thought through what what you want to talk about on the podcast and I was like you know sure here's some you know different themes from the book that we could cover we could hit this and hit that and he was like no you know what you need to do which is very Dawn.
• 34:58
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah I mean if you hear him coach anyone on the Business Made Simple podcast he's like no no no here's what you need to do and then when Dawn says that you listen so um he was like what you need to do is you need to create a a one page worksheet where someone could easily down the worksheet download the worksheet and they could you know quickly fill out the questions and it could help them to take a story from their life and shape it into an actual story.
• 35:22
  SPEAKER_01: And I was like that is a really good idea.
• 35:24
  SPEAKER_01: So I left that night and set to work doing that and and through the process of creating that we came up with the idea for write your story.
• 35:31
  SPEAKER_01: So it's that's how it started it started as like a you know because he was saying like not everybody who listens to the Business Made Simple podcast is going to want to publish a book or or nor should they care to publish a book.
• 35:44
  SPEAKER_01: That's that's that everybody who's listening to the podcast has a story that they in you know has lived a story that they may have felt pulled or invited or called to share and everybody could benefit from learning how to share that in a in a cohesive way um that follows the framework of storytelling.
• 36:03
  SPEAKER_01: And then you know if they do want to share it beyond just themselves they could use that framework for giving a keynote speech or sharing at their community group or sharing in their their book club or their writer's club or sharing um with their extended family members or sharing with their spouse or um giving a TED talk or writing a book or writing a resource or sending an e you know all these different ways that we can use the tool of storytelling to communicate more effectively is is you know there's just kind of it's a win-win situation for for everybody who learns that tool.
• 36:37
  SPEAKER_00: Well I'll have a link in the show notes obviously to uh to write your story because it sounds fascinating uh it really does and I think maybe there's an interesting business lesson in here for those of us who who have a business of some kind based around writing or teaching or content or or whatever it might be.
• 36:54
  SPEAKER_00: Because Don has, you know, Business Made Simple is is kind of his main thing but then last I think it was last year or two years ago he did a like a one time writing workshop.
• 37:05
  SPEAKER_00: It was like four hours long like a hundred bucks or something and I downloaded that, listened to it multiple times, ran it through transcription so I could like have it in writing and it was so good.
• 37:17
  SPEAKER_00: And I think it's interesting how he does these kind of one off things that can or in in the case of the writer story workshop is doing it on an annual basis.
• 37:24
  SPEAKER_00: So you don't have to just kind of have your one thing you can have these other side things that you're doing as well which I think is is is good for all of us to remember.
• 37:33
  SPEAKER_01: It is good.
• 37:34
  SPEAKER_01: I mean it's like diversifying a portfolio right I mean it's just really good to have and and I think it brings out one of the things I love about the Write Your Story Workshop is it brings out a really different energy for both Don and I because it's a it's a collaboration between the two of us.
• 37:47
  SPEAKER_01: You know like when I teach workshops alone it's much more um it's it just doesn't have that the the the gold that Don brings to it and vice versa when he teaches the Business Made Simple workshops it doesn't have the same energy or element that I bring to it.
• 38:06
  SPEAKER_01: And so the two of us working together on the workshop I think is really cool.
• 38:09
  SPEAKER_01: Like you know Don makes the joke several times or has made the joke several times during the workshop that he's like you know I can put the spin on your story that's gonna help you sell it to a publisher.
• 38:18
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 38:19
  SPEAKER_01: And and so there's that option and opportunity there.
• 38:23
  SPEAKER_01: And then there's also the option and opportunity to just write this thing because it's healing you and and not to think about how to sell it to a publisher.
• 38:31
  SPEAKER_01: So anyway.
• 38:32
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah that's that's really really good.
• 38:34
  SPEAKER_00: And it's so funny that we're talking about Don Miller.
• 38:36
  SPEAKER_00: So just today of course I'm on the BusinessMain simple email list um there I got an email that was letting people know his uh I think it was called the Hero on Admission journal was available.
• 38:47
  SPEAKER_00: And it's it's funny because I took his Hero on Admission course last year, which is like a life planning kind of a deal but he only had these downloadable worksheets.
• 38:57
  SPEAKER_00: And I kept having to print these off and like trying to fit them into a big binder and stuff and I'm like why doesn't he make a journal or something and finally they released that I was so thrilled and I got on Amazon toor today and it already has like hundreds of reviews I'm like people have been waiting for this.
• 39:12
  SPEAKER_00: So I was so thrilled that they actually put together something.
• 39:15
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah good for him he's he's on it this has been an absolute blast.
• 39:20
  SPEAKER_00: I feel like I could chat with you forever about this stuff because we both love books and we both love writing and uh we're we're both into a lot of the same thing.
• 39:28
  SPEAKER_00: So uh I appreciate you taking time to chat with me about this.
• 39:30
  SPEAKER_00: Your book is amazing.
• 39:31
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah thank you.
• 39:32
  SPEAKER_00: And I just I I still appreciate the energy that you bring to conversations but more than that the value that you're adding to people in the world through your books and through your writing.
• 39:42
  SPEAKER_00: So this has been just lots of fun.
• 39:45
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
• 39:45
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you so much for having me.
• 39:46
  SPEAKER_01: It's really a pleasure to be here and I'm grateful to get to chat with your listeners and chat with you.
• 39:51
  SPEAKER_01: So thanks again.
• 39:52
  SPEAKER_01: All right cool so the final thing is where can listeners find out more about all the things that you're doing as well as your books so the workshop I'm teaching with Don, you can read more about that at writeyourstory.com and then my website is findyourvoice calm so you can find prepare to publish and all the other products and services that we offer there.
• 40:10
  SPEAKER_00: Perfect it's been a blast thanks so much again.
• 40:13
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks Kent.
• 40:14
  SPEAKER_00: Hey I hope you enjoyed that conversation with Allie I had an absolute blast talking with her she's so wise when it comes to storytelling and writing and man I took a lot of notes and it's it's really hard to nail down like one single takeaway.
• 40:27
  SPEAKER_00: And as you know on this podcast I always try to to leave you with one takeaway that you can put into practice immediately from these interviews.
• 40:34
  SPEAKER_00: So if I had to nail it down today I would say it's simply the value of writing your story and more so just getting started doing it.
• 40:42
  SPEAKER_00: So I would encourage you to start sharing your story on social media.
• 40:47
  SPEAKER_00: Put it into a newsletter put it into an email put it into a text message to a friend talk with somebody once a week and just start sharing your stories with each other.
• 40:56
  SPEAKER_00: Do something do anything to start writing your story.
• 41:00
  SPEAKER_00: I promise you you have a story worth sharing you have wisdom and insights and life experiences that other people need to hear and it will be a crime if you leave this world someday and you did not write down your story.
• 41:14
  SPEAKER_00: So take to heart what Ali said in this conversation and write it down because I promise when you do it's extraordinarily powerful.
• 41:21
  SPEAKER_00: I also want to encourage you to grab her book called The Power of Writing It Down.
• 41:25
  SPEAKER_00: I promise you it is worth every penny and actually much much more because it's just a not only a great guide for writing it down, it's also really well written.
• 41:34
  SPEAKER_00: She's a wonderful writer and a wonderful storyteller so make sure and grab that.
• 41:38
  SPEAKER_00: Also check out the Write Your Story workshop which she is hosting with Donald Miller.
• 41:43
  SPEAKER_00: That sounds like an absolute blast so make sure and check that out and of course check out Ali's website at allisonfallon.com where you can find links to her books, social media and all that good stuff.
• 41:54
  SPEAKER_00: Many thanks to Ali for taking the time to do this conversation today.
• 41:58
  SPEAKER_00: It was an absolute blast getting to connect with her.
• 42:00
  SPEAKER_00: She's a very busy person and does a lot of different things so I'm super grateful she took the time to talk with us here on this podcast.
• 42:07
  SPEAKER_00: Hey thanks so much for listening and I'll see you in the next episode.