Latest / The Christian Reeve Podcast / Kathleen Gage | The Christian Reeve Podcast | #121 |

Transcript

Kathleen Gage | The Christian Reeve Podcast | #121 | · The Christian Reeve Podcast

• 0:00
  Hello and welcome to another episode of the Christian read
• 0:02
  podcast. Today's guest is an
• 0:04
  award-winning marketing specialist speaker, author,
• 0:08
  consultant, and podcaster. All the way from the USA.
• 0:12
  Her name is Kathleen, Gage, welcome to the show caffeine.
• 0:15
  I did Kristen, it is great to be here all the way from the UK
• 0:18
  with you. Yes, that was kind of blows my
• 0:21
  mind. I've had a lot of guests from
• 0:23
  around the world on the show, but it always kind of amazes me
• 0:27
  that it's possible to just do this.
• 0:29
  And And I'm very grateful for, it's good, you know, I have to
• 0:33
  tell you back in the day when I started my business 27 years
• 0:36
  ago, we didn't have this and a lot of people don't even
• 0:40
  remember AOL. And when little boys come on,
• 0:43
  you've got mail and and we would sit there and wait 45 minutes
• 0:47
  for an email to download. It's crazy.
• 0:49
  You know what we've got today compared to the past.
• 0:51
  So it's in many ways a blessing in many ways occurs.
• 0:55
  Yeah. Like I remember like okay so I
• 0:58
  was born in the 90's, early. 90s, but I do remember all of
• 1:01
  this stuff. I'd say that really the 2000s
• 1:04
  was kind of like my era, but I do remember growing up in the
• 1:08
  90s so there's a bit of an overlap there for me, but I do
• 1:12
  remember this crossover. I think we got our first home
• 1:15
  computer in like 2006, and I would have been 12 or 13 at the
• 1:21
  time. And I think the biggest thing
• 1:25
  that I remember, which I'm so grateful does not exist anymore.
• 1:29
  Is how slow everything was like. People don't realize how lucky
• 1:36
  they have it now because even in the 2000s, you know that Cutting
• 1:40
  Edge technology coming out and how quickly things were moving a
• 1:43
  kid. You not in the very first days
• 1:45
  of YouTube. Dailymotion and all those
• 1:48
  websites. You'd load a video and just sit
• 1:51
  there for 20 minutes, just waiting for it to load.
• 1:56
  And it used to be even back, then I remember being
• 1:58
  frustrated, like, come On Lord. Come on.
• 2:02
  Ah I like now I mean I get and that's the irony.
• 2:07
  I get annoyed if something takes longer than 10 seconds to load,
• 2:10
  it's it's incredible. Well, you know, actually, my
• 2:12
  very first computer was a PC jr. If people don't even remember
• 2:16
  what that was and that was in 1985.
• 2:19
  Where's my first computer? And I actually was born in the
• 2:23
  early 50s. So it's like I, you know, I
• 2:26
  started in this whole thing with technology when it was very
• 2:29
  Archaic. And I remember as a kid, my dad
• 2:32
  took me to his place of work. He worked for a savings and
• 2:34
  loan, and he took me to the computer room and it was this
• 2:37
  huge massive room with these huge massive computers.
• 2:40
  They had bands going, and the fans didn't do their job all the
• 2:44
  time. The computers would get
• 2:45
  overheated, shut down. And now it with a little device
• 2:50
  like this. We actually, and I just pulled
• 2:52
  up my phone for those people listening and not watching, but
• 2:56
  I, you can have more power in a phone today than In the 60s when
• 3:01
  they first started really using computers and Technology, it's
• 3:05
  amazing how quickly things have progressed.
• 3:08
  I mean I didn't like I remember in the in the late 90s that my
• 3:11
  very first phone was was a Nokia 3410.
• 3:16
  Oh yes. The infamous indestructible
• 3:18
  phone and the funny thing about that is I remember I got it at
• 3:24
  10 years old which he needed phone at 10 years old for but
• 3:28
  okay, whatever. Had this phone and I was really
• 3:31
  excited. Oh my God, my first phone.
• 3:34
  Oh, yeah. And then it quickly dawned on me
• 3:36
  that, I mean, it'd be different now if I was ten and I got like
• 3:40
  an iPhone, that be amazing. Right?
• 3:42
  But back then Nakia 3410. Yeah.
• 3:45
  I had my mom's number, my Nan's number.
• 3:48
  And then that's it. Well, that's it.
• 3:51
  That was all you needed and they kiss.
• 3:53
  They gave your people and it's so funny because I didn't
• 3:58
  realize we were going to go in this direction.
• 4:00
  Action on the conversation. I love it because you reminded
• 4:02
  me of when I was growing up. We had what was called party
• 4:06
  lines, where you'd have a phone line, and several people could
• 4:10
  listen in, at the same time, and you'd have to schedule with the
• 4:13
  people on your party line. Okay, we get the phone from 5,
• 4:15
  to 5:30, 5:30 to 6:00 and, you know, we actually had a dial-up
• 4:20
  phone and then I saw a video recently where they gave this
• 4:24
  kid. These kids, a dial-up phone and
• 4:26
  they didn't know how to dial a number.
• 4:27
  They were looking at it, like, well, what do we do with it?
• 4:29
  It and, you know, the phones were on the wall.
• 4:33
  So, yeah, we've come a long ways and it again, you know, in many
• 4:37
  ways that's a blessing, but I think in a lot of ways, it's
• 4:40
  kind of disassociated us from having conversations with people
• 4:44
  and really like at the dinner table.
• 4:47
  If people even sit down to have dinner, nowadays, you know, a
• 4:50
  lot of people they're sitting on their phones, looking at their,
• 4:53
  they're looking at how much they're loved on social media
• 4:56
  rather than how much they're loved at home.
• 4:59
  Acceptable, if I'm ever with anyone and I see you on your
• 5:04
  phone. I might swear at you, I don't
• 5:08
  know. I depends how I feel, but I will
• 5:10
  probably just get up and leave because that's absolutely
• 5:14
  nothing. And here's the, here's the weird
• 5:15
  thing about that as well. My generation.
• 5:18
  I guess, I think I'm a millennial.
• 5:20
  I don't know. I get really confused.
• 5:22
  I think we'll sell my Millennial.
• 5:24
  So I grew up in that kind of, you know, with that technology.
• 5:27
  But I remember what it was like before in the 90s, and obviously
• 5:31
  being that. I was a 90s kid.
• 5:32
  I, my mom was, she was a young mom but like, I 80 70 60, SB
• 5:38
  being inspired by that stuff. So it's very much kind of a 20th
• 5:42
  century kid. You know, product of that time,
• 5:45
  I still enamored by those times but then maybe it's just because
• 5:49
  I'm sentimental either, but going into the 2000s.
• 5:53
  Obviously, that was interesting. And Exciting.
• 5:59
  But at the same time, I don't know.
• 6:01
  I've always been and still am amazed by the past and, and now
• 6:06
  things don't really people get really excited that I call this
• 6:10
  amazing VR technology AR technology and it's like to me
• 6:16
  I'm kind of split, you know, part of me kind of feels like,
• 6:20
  oh yeah, that's cool. Less useful.
• 6:21
  Bubba, blah. And the other part of me is like
• 6:23
  this is dangerous. This is I'm with you whirring.
• 6:26
  This is, you know, and Not, it's not trying to be like a
• 6:29
  worrywart, it's like there are many problems associated with
• 6:34
  technology. You know, there's as many good
• 6:37
  things as there are about technology, there's bad things
• 6:39
  and I just wanted to bring this up, by the way, this is with
• 6:42
  what you were saying about, how people don't understand how
• 6:46
  things work. So like the younger generation I
• 6:49
  kind of forgive that you know, if they've never seen for
• 6:53
  example they don't know what dial-up is.
• 6:55
  Then that's fair enough. I just don't know what that is,
• 6:57
  you know, it's the same as My Generation, we don't know maybe
• 7:02
  as much about what people grew up with in so you in your
• 7:04
  generation, you know it's like but I think that that depends it
• 7:08
  comes down to curiosity but that just made me feel your
• 7:12
  generation know. You know.
• 7:14
  And I was thinking about it because I'm going to be 68 on my
• 7:16
  next birthday and it's like, yeah, it's like I and I'm very
• 7:22
  active. I'm very physical.
• 7:24
  I eat really healthy and I look at people from my generation and
• 7:27
  it's scary. What has happened to, you know,
• 7:31
  really. It's not just my generation.
• 7:34
  It's not just the seniors and now it's like the silver-haired
• 7:37
  and all that, but that's what we have hair color for is to not
• 7:40
  have that syllable hair but quite seriously.
• 7:42
  It's like, you know, you look at the health patterns of just the
• 7:48
  family nucleus and in in generations and we're becoming a
• 7:52
  very very unhealthy world and, you know, put the pandemic aside
• 7:55
  just eating patterns and obesity in the United.
• 7:58
  United States, we have a 70 to 80% overweight rate, and it's
• 8:04
  about 45 to 50 percent obesity and that's in all generations.
• 8:09
  And it just it boggles my mind because there's so much that is
• 8:13
  connected to that with health care with lack of Mobility, with
• 8:18
  lack of clarity of thinking, with violence with anger or, you
• 8:21
  know, there's so many intricate aspects of people in what they
• 8:27
  eat and what, The outward reflection is so it's kind of
• 8:31
  interesting because in many ways like you said, we've come a long
• 8:34
  ways and, and Technology AI in some ways is great.
• 8:38
  But then in other ways, you think what has it done to us?
• 8:42
  I always think back to this quote that I heard recently
• 8:46
  where it says The world. That you were born into no
• 8:53
  longer exist anymore and then to add to that.
• 8:59
  Your parents wet. This is what people don't always
• 9:01
  think about. Like and don't get me wrong, I'm
• 9:03
  not counting people that have like really hard home lives
• 9:05
  because that's different but when you, when you've got like
• 9:08
  an upbringing where, you know, your parents did their best, but
• 9:10
  maybe they could have done better blah, blah blah, right?
• 9:14
  The key thing you have to always remember is that they're going
• 9:17
  based on what their parents told them as well as what they've
• 9:20
  learned up until the point that they have you.
• 9:23
  But All you have at your disposal is what you already
• 9:28
  know. And the information given to you
• 9:30
  at that particular time, right? And like, for example, I've had
• 9:35
  conversations with my mom about what it was like, you know, when
• 9:40
  she was a mum fresh mum in the 90s and that what the advice,
• 9:44
  then from a medical perspective was versus what it is.
• 9:48
  Now, it's worlds apart and I guess the overarching point I'm
• 9:54
  trying to make Make is that, you know, things, especially now
• 9:57
  shifts. So quickly that I think the
• 10:00
  biggest thing that we can do, anyone any age can do is learn
• 10:06
  the learn to adapt as best you can, you know, because I think I
• 10:12
  think it's more to do with that. I've met people of all ages
• 10:16
  throughout my life and the biggest pattern I've noticed as
• 10:20
  the ones that do better, are the ones who know how to adapt and
• 10:23
  that Nothing to do with age is to do with not being resistant
• 10:29
  to change, right? Absolutely.
• 10:31
  Absolutely changes inevitability.
• 10:33
  It's like, you know, you know, you do your job certain way for
• 10:37
  three years. Some manager comes in says,
• 10:39
  right? We're doing it this way and then
• 10:41
  suddenly, your whole world changes, you can try to resist
• 10:43
  it like, No, it should be the way it was before, but changes,
• 10:47
  good change, inspires change. Forces you to learn new things,
• 10:54
  you know, it's a good thing but I think we seem to fear it so
• 10:59
  much and it's so interesting because, yeah, they, you know,
• 11:03
  like the whole thing when the shutdown's began, you know, that
• 11:06
  was a massive change and it continues like from day to day.
• 11:09
  We don't know what to expect. So, there's a higher level of
• 11:12
  stress but it's, I think there are ways that we can adapt to
• 11:18
  change better, and with more grace because I heard a saying
• 11:22
  many, many years ago that which we resist will persist and so if
• 11:27
  we resist the change, it's only going to amplify.
• 11:30
  It's going to feel more overwhelming.
• 11:33
  And I know for me, some of the ways that I actually helped
• 11:37
  myself to adapt to change is one, I try to step back and I
• 11:42
  look at it from an outsider's perspective.
• 11:44
  Okay, what is this mean? Like in my business?
• 11:47
  For example I've had my business 27 years and I'm a keynote
• 11:50
  speaker and when the Pandemic hit that literally wiped out
• 11:54
  that side of my business and that was about 80% of my Revenue
• 11:57
  stream, whether it was for a 20 thousand dollar keynote speech,
• 12:02
  or it was for free presentation, where I could sell product on
• 12:05
  the back end and make a hundred thousand dollars.
• 12:07
  I mean, I literally played at that level and the pandemic hit
• 12:10
  and all of a sudden it got wiped out.
• 12:12
  And do you think I liked it? It was, it was Friday.
• 12:16
  I was, you know, I was just I wanted to go to bed, pull the
• 12:19
  covers over my head, and not get up for Here.
• 12:22
  And I went through a period of like, oh my gosh, how could this
• 12:26
  have happened? What did I do wrong?
• 12:27
  And I started blaming myself and it was like, wait a minute, this
• 12:30
  is happening to everybody. So don't be so self-righteous.
• 12:32
  And so self-centered that you think you're the only one, it's
• 12:35
  impacting. So what I did is I step back and
• 12:38
  I hooked in with people that our colleagues friends and we were
• 12:42
  all going through the same thing and we actually started
• 12:44
  Mastermind groups of like, okay, what can we do to get to the
• 12:47
  other side of this? And I actually, in the last two
• 12:50
  years have read I told my business were in the process of
• 12:53
  doing a whole rebranding in the coming year.
• 12:56
  And I had to accept the fact that it was not going back the
• 12:59
  way it was. And a lot of people they say I
• 13:01
  can't wait till it gets back to normal and it's like, what's
• 13:04
  normal? And there is no normal.
• 13:06
  The only normal is that it's going to continue to change and
• 13:09
  the more we can use resources and tools to adapt to that
• 13:14
  change. The better off, we're going to
• 13:15
  be and a big one for me, is meditation.
• 13:18
  Another one is exercise to get oxygen to the brain and other
• 13:21
  one is Really surrounding myself with a strong circle of
• 13:24
  influence, people that are going to lift me up and, you know, not
• 13:29
  a lot of- negativity and things like that.
• 13:33
  So you mention this kind of major shift with your business
• 13:37
  are you now kind of doing like one-to-one sessions or maybe
• 13:41
  like the same sort of thing. But instead of doing keynote
• 13:45
  speeches in front of big groups maybe you're charging for Zoom
• 13:48
  cause I don't know sorry to put it so it's not as if it was so
• 14:00
  foreign to me but it was Three. I made a real conscious choice
• 14:05
  to change to the vegan industry because I am vegan and so I put
• 14:10
  my effort into that. We just recently launched a
• 14:13
  summit. It was called vegan visibility
• 14:15
  Summit. And I brought in 11, marketers
• 14:18
  within the vegan industry, they all had to be vegan to
• 14:20
  participate in this. And so we launched that online
• 14:23
  and I've been doing one-on-one for years.
• 14:25
  It's I actually in the early days of my business I would go
• 14:30
  meet with clients face-to-face. So I was more of A local
• 14:34
  consultant than a national or an international and it all evolved
• 14:38
  over the years. So really, with a lot of it, it
• 14:41
  was just changing the playground rather than the way that I did
• 14:47
  business as far as like I do one-on-one, I do Keynotes, I do
• 14:51
  summits I do I'm an author 20 times over.
• 14:55
  I do book launches so really it was stepping back and saying
• 14:59
  okay what is no longer applicable?
• 15:03
  Letting go of that. And then saying, okay, out of
• 15:05
  what I have, what are the resources, I can use and where
• 15:09
  do I want to take things? So, in many ways, I've scaled
• 15:12
  back rather than add to Okay. Okay, this take it back.
• 15:20
  I'd like to kind of explore how you got, you know, because
• 15:24
  obviously that's probably the best way to describe, you know.
• 15:27
  It would be like an entrepreneur business, a business owner, as
• 15:30
  far as like, an all-encompassing term that, you know, takes into
• 15:33
  account everything. But you mentioned, you got over
• 15:35
  27 years experience. So why did it all kind of begin
• 15:40
  with you? What was your kind of first
• 15:42
  position? Was it just starting out in?
• 15:45
  Straightforward marketing or where did you start?
• 15:48
  And like, talk us through that journey of where you began to
• 15:51
  sort of where you want. Now that's a real, great
• 15:54
  question. And actually, I was working for
• 15:57
  a large corporation and I was with them for about three years.
• 16:00
  And we went through a lot of layoffs and they called them
• 16:03
  right-sizing downsizing upsizing in size and whatever that
• 16:06
  whatever name they put to it, that that month.
• 16:09
  But it was a very unstable situation.
• 16:12
  And so during one of the period, Where they were going to have a
• 16:15
  layoff one of the directors, actually told me we're going to
• 16:18
  be doing a layoff and we need some numbers.
• 16:20
  Do you? Because she knew that I was
• 16:22
  pretty discontent with the fact that it was never secure and she
• 16:26
  said, would you like to be one of the people we lay off and she
• 16:29
  goes will give you a severance package and I'm like, okay and
• 16:33
  so it was in 94. Yeah I mean she was she was such
• 16:37
  a support to what I really wanted to do with my life and I
• 16:41
  had the vision of starting a business and being a
• 16:44
  motivational speaker. I had no clue what that meant
• 16:47
  other than I saw Tony Robbins back about 35 years ago.
• 16:51
  So he was one of my early influences.
• 16:53
  Went through his 30-day program, went through his week unlimited
• 16:57
  weekend program and and so there were early influences on me,
• 17:02
  wanting to be a speaker. But I had a director at the
• 17:05
  company who this man, he was kind of an obstacle to everybody
• 17:09
  who worked there and he goes, oh, you'll never be a speaker.
• 17:12
  He goes, you'll never make it. He goes, who do you QR and it
• 17:15
  was just one of those people that I think there are a mirror
• 17:18
  of our Self Doubt and we get to walk through it and say is that
• 17:21
  really true? Or is it not true?
• 17:25
  And here's what I need to do. So when we had the layoffs I
• 17:28
  actually I got a DBA started. My business had no clue what I
• 17:33
  was doing and was fortunate enough to have a friend who
• 17:38
  introduced me to a seminar company and I got a contract
• 17:42
  with a national seminar company and I liked what I did.
• 17:46
  And for four years, I was contracted with them and
• 17:49
  traveled all over the US. I went to the UK.
• 17:51
  Once Ireland, I went to Canada quite a bit and so in a
• 17:56
  four-year period I got about 20 years worth of experience.
• 17:59
  When I was tired of being a road warrior because literally from
• 18:04
  day to day, I didn't know what city or what, what state I was
• 18:07
  in and when I was ready to move on, I actually made a decision
• 18:11
  to leave the company left on very good terms and I started
• 18:15
  working in my local market working with municipalities
• 18:19
  State agencies, and then federal agencies on how to motivate your
• 18:24
  staff, because I did a lot of motivational speaking with this
• 18:27
  company. So it's kind of like a lot of
• 18:30
  it. Just evolved as opportunities
• 18:32
  presented themselves, but I also created a lot of that
• 18:36
  opportunity. I was not one to just sit back
• 18:38
  and wait for things to come to me.
• 18:40
  I would pick up the phone. I'd call people.
• 18:42
  I would go to a lot of networking meetings.
• 18:45
  Trust me, I made a lot of mistakes as far as like, really
• 18:48
  missing the Bean with where I was going.
• 18:50
  So I've actually looked through some of the early documentation
• 18:54
  of things I did in my business and like putting proposals
• 18:57
  together. For example, I may have put 50
• 19:00
  proposals together to get one and now I can put one together
• 19:03
  and get the job where, you know, a lot of it was just trial and
• 19:06
  error, and the greatest lesson I learned Christian in.
• 19:09
  The time I've been in business is surround myself with people
• 19:13
  who know more than I do pay Say mentors to teach me.
• 19:16
  Hire coaches. And so many years ago, I
• 19:20
  actually started investing in some very high-level.
• 19:23
  Coach has made all the difference in the world because
• 19:26
  I had this fear, like, oh, I can invest that kind of money.
• 19:28
  Like one coach literally in about a two-year period.
• 19:31
  I invested about a hundred thousand dollars in her more
• 19:35
  than made my money back. And that was a huge leap because
• 19:38
  coming from a place where it was like, I didn't know if I was
• 19:42
  going to make enough money to pay the bills from month to
• 19:44
  month and then Going to a level of I'm making that kind of
• 19:47
  investment but it was a well, thought-out process.
• 19:51
  I didn't just jump into it and the mistake, I see a lot of
• 19:54
  people make is they'll buy program after program after
• 19:57
  program, they hire people and they don't do the work and they
• 20:00
  think by buying a program that's all it's going to take.
• 20:03
  But you got to open it up and dig into it.
• 20:06
  Go to ask you this question and I'm just going to say it's my
• 20:09
  audience as well. I don't normally ask questions
• 20:12
  like this because normally All my questions to center around,
• 20:16
  what I think people might want to hear or what, no, not so much
• 20:20
  that. But what I think makes sense,
• 20:21
  like, you know what would everyone want to know?
• 20:24
  You know what the best thing is to ask?
• 20:26
  This person is cetera and such and I'm always working on that
• 20:28
  naturally, but this actually comes from a personal point
• 20:32
  because I'm kind of looking at how I'm going to grow my own
• 20:36
  personal brand moving forward excetera.
• 20:38
  So I got to know how do you learn to like Trust people to do
• 20:48
  the job, the way you need and want it to be done.
• 20:53
  Like, how do you do that? You know what?
• 20:56
  I, you know, when I figure out that answered no one way, first
• 21:00
  of all, is to observe what they're doing, do they walk the
• 21:03
  talk? And for example, let's say you
• 21:06
  have a fitness coach who is 100 pounds overweight and they're
• 21:11
  teaching you how to be fit. There's kind of a disconnect
• 21:14
  there. Or if you have a coach who
• 21:16
  supposedly is a mindset coach, but on every coaching call you
• 21:20
  have or you hear them online. They're being real - there's a
• 21:24
  disconnect there. So really I would say observe
• 21:28
  first and then talk to people that they've worked with and
• 21:31
  really, you know, take the time to do your due diligence.
• 21:36
  Another thing is to see if they really do have a track record.
• 21:40
  For example, one of the services I offer in my company is Work
• 21:45
  with experts who want to get on podcasts and primarily in the
• 21:48
  vegan and plant-based space. And if anybody goes to my
• 21:52
  website and they go to my media page, they're going to see
• 21:54
  hundreds of interviews that I've done.
• 21:56
  So they know that I know what I'm doing rather than I did one
• 22:00
  interview and now I'm an expert. And I think that's the challenge
• 22:03
  we deal with today is that you can create a Persona online.
• 22:07
  That may not really be a true Persona.
• 22:10
  And so, do your homework talk to other people.
• 22:14
  People talk to more than one person because one person can't
• 22:19
  give you a complete picture. And if you continue to hear good
• 22:22
  things about somebody. Chances are, they would be a
• 22:25
  good person to tap into, but don't go into a situation
• 22:29
  blindly and be willing to do the work.
• 22:31
  The thing that frustrates me more than anything is when
• 22:35
  somebody hires a coach, the coach gives a recommendation and
• 22:38
  then they push back. And I had a woman who paid me a
• 22:40
  lot of money to coach her. And every time I would make a
• 22:43
  recommendation, She would push back and she just wouldn't do
• 22:47
  the work. And finally, it came time for
• 22:50
  her to re-sign. I said, I can't let you resign.
• 22:53
  I said you haven't done the work and it was a lot of money.
• 22:57
  I just wasn't willing to do that.
• 22:58
  And so you have to be willing to get the information and you have
• 23:03
  to be willing to do the work. But you also have to go with
• 23:05
  your gut because somebody can present a good persona, but your
• 23:10
  guts just saying now. Something's not right.
• 23:13
  And you To follow that and don't follow blindly.
• 23:17
  I know that some people will follow a coach to the edge of a
• 23:20
  cliff and jump off the cliff and it's like, you know, you have to
• 23:22
  use common sense to only add to this as well.
• 23:26
  It's a slightly different point B on the point of trust in your
• 23:29
  gut. I've begun to have some Brands
• 23:34
  reach out to me recently, and that's exciting for me because
• 23:37
  it's the first time that it's happened.
• 23:39
  You know, I've been doing all this content creating stuff
• 23:41
  seriously for the past two years and It's starting to make Leaps
• 23:46
  and Bounds but it's taking time, right?
• 23:48
  And, you know, naturally once you start hitting certain
• 23:51
  numbers, people start reaching out to you and a few of them
• 23:55
  reached out to me and I'm very meticulous with this stuff, you
• 23:58
  know, if I see that there's bad reviews, like there was one app
• 24:02
  that reached out to me that was Pretty much everyone was like
• 24:06
  this app sucks, don't download this app and like a few people
• 24:10
  were like, oh, but there's like pretty designs and I was like, I
• 24:13
  can't support this, I can't support this.
• 24:17
  But then this Big Brand reached out to me and this happened
• 24:21
  today. They finally got back to me.
• 24:24
  And here's just a quick thing about marketing and sales for
• 24:27
  anyone out there if you're in that industry and you're doing
• 24:31
  freelance in like I am. So Yeah, I do a lot of work with
• 24:38
  companies providing like SEO, copywriting that kind of thing,
• 24:43
  and naturally. I mean, you'll know all about
• 24:46
  this. But for those who are listening,
• 24:48
  who don't know, when you're working with a client especially
• 24:51
  several clients, it's like a tennis you're going back and
• 24:54
  forth and back and forth because you know they don't like
• 24:56
  something they want to tweak something and that's fine.
• 24:59
  You have to expect a little bit of that but very important thing
• 25:02
  is the brief I didn't realize this until I really started
• 25:06
  getting into the industry, like just how important the brief is
• 25:09
  because the brief tells you basically the limitations the
• 25:12
  expectations, everything. If it's not in the brief, it
• 25:16
  does not exist, you know? Yes you can have experience you
• 25:19
  can draw for what you already know but you've got to use that.
• 25:22
  Like your kind of Holy Grail. Your Bible will like your point
• 25:25
  of reference. So anyway this company reached
• 25:28
  out to me. They said here's a reference
• 25:32
  video. Okay, I created the video.
• 25:37
  I went out of my way or went to the local Christmas pocket, you
• 25:40
  know, set up a thing. It came up with a good video.
• 25:43
  It's not the most professional thing ever because, you know,
• 25:45
  I'm not a professional videographer.
• 25:46
  I'm not a marketing agency, but I did my best in the way that
• 25:50
  would fit with the style of videos.
• 25:52
  I make this company have reached out to me, I didn't reach out to
• 25:55
  them. They reached out to me
• 25:56
  originally, so and I know it's because they saw my numbers on a
• 26:00
  particular platform. I'm like, oh, that's what it is.
• 26:03
  It's all about. This.
• 26:05
  Sometimes it's about who you are and and the way you come across
• 26:08
  but a lot of the time, it's just none, people see that they see
• 26:11
  dollar signs and I understand that. but, you know, I work very
• 26:16
  hard with my ideas and the things that I produce and when I
• 26:21
  got the first response back, it was like we want you to provide
• 26:25
  a voice over. Also, fair enough.
• 26:27
  So I did that and I'd already basically created this ad in a
• 26:33
  way that, okay. So I filmed a bunch of scenes
• 26:37
  showed that I was using the product and then I did it to a
• 26:41
  particular musical score. So it fits perfectly.
• 26:44
  And then, even though they asked me to do this voiceover, I
• 26:47
  managed to still keep the Integrity of the advert.
• 26:50
  School in the way it was set up and add on this voice.
• 26:54
  Over a particular point, they then criticize me again and
• 26:59
  said, well, we need you to do this, this, this and this.
• 27:02
  And here's a couple of things. Number one, they're like, oh,
• 27:06
  they mention a particular rail network?
• 27:08
  Oh, you should indicate that you're using this product with
• 27:11
  this particular train provider and it's like, you don't even
• 27:15
  know what city I'm in that you like how have you not paid
• 27:18
  attention and then There was just a bunch of other things and
• 27:22
  I got a bit irritated and I put it in the most professional way.
• 27:25
  I could. I said, look, I spent a lot of
• 27:28
  time on this. I worked hard, I did everything
• 27:31
  that you asked me to do and I don't think that we can agree on
• 27:37
  this, you know, and the way I look at and this is how I look
• 27:40
  at all projects marketing or anything in life.
• 27:43
  Your time is the most important thing.
• 27:45
  What you spend your time doing is the most important thing if
• 27:49
  it works for your brand. All of those different things.
• 27:52
  But a lot of the time people see money and I think what they're
• 27:56
  used to is they're used to people going.
• 27:57
  Okay? Yes, okay, yes I'll do solutely.
• 28:00
  Yeah, absolutely. And I look at the flat fee
• 28:04
  because I'm not an idiot. I know the flat fee that they're
• 28:06
  paying me. It's a nice one off but it's not
• 28:09
  in any way near worth how much money they're going to make off
• 28:13
  of it and putting that aside. If they wanted it as very
• 28:20
  specific way, I go back to my previous point, it should have
• 28:23
  been in the brief. It should have been absolutely,
• 28:26
  you know, and there's I guess what I'm trying to allude to is
• 28:29
  that eventually you have to trust your gut and say you know
• 28:32
  what? This is not worth my time.
• 28:36
  I'm worth more than this, sorry. See, you let keep it
• 28:40
  professional. You don't have to.
• 28:41
  I mean, you notice I'm not I'm not mentioning the brand.
• 28:43
  I'm not gonna write. I said to them.
• 28:47
  I like the product and I use the product, but I'm not going to
• 28:51
  endorse it and I'm not going to Continue to play into their
• 28:57
  hand, just because? Right because I guess, I guess
• 28:59
  what I'm trying to say is you need to know who you're working
• 29:02
  with. If I was a professional
• 29:04
  marketing agency or a professional videographer, then
• 29:09
  I would understand. And I blood fair enough and they
• 29:13
  said in their last email to me, they're looking to form a
• 29:16
  long-term partnership with this type of person.
• 29:19
  And I was like, well, did you even look at the way that I
• 29:23
  create like the video that I created for them is not Really,
• 29:27
  the type of thing I normally do. I normally do like acting music.
• 29:32
  Comedy skits like a range of different things, but this
• 29:35
  doesn't fit in that. But I know how to do marketing
• 29:38
  and sales because I do it for a living.
• 29:40
  So even the way I did the voiceover and I had to do that,
• 29:43
  right, right, I did everything they expected and I showed a
• 29:47
  bunch of people friends. I showed people that are
• 29:50
  business professionals. They all said they loved it,
• 29:52
  they thought it was really good and couldn't understand why this
• 29:54
  company wouldn't go. Go for it.
• 29:57
  You know, it's coming, ask you this.
• 29:58
  Let me ask you, because this is such a great teaching
• 30:01
  opportunity for everybody that's watching is, what, what did you
• 30:05
  learn from it? What can you do differently next
• 30:08
  time in in this is for the people listening to really
• 30:11
  consider like when you have things like this happen.
• 30:14
  And you know, you just reminded me of a situation early on in
• 30:18
  doing consulting with people, this woman hired me, we agreed
• 30:21
  upon a price and I always over deliver.
• 30:24
  I just, you know, that's part of My DNA, I love to over-deliver
• 30:27
  and surprise clients and, you know, just do things that
• 30:30
  they're not expecting in their very thrilled with.
• 30:33
  And so with this client the whole way through she is telling
• 30:36
  me what a great job I'm doing. Oh, I love working with you and
• 30:39
  on and on and on this went on for probably about three, four
• 30:42
  months that we were working together and then all of a
• 30:45
  sudden, it went South and she said, this is the worst
• 30:48
  experience I've ever had. You're the worst consultant.
• 30:52
  I didn't get any value from this.
• 30:53
  Well, fortunately I kept the Males.
• 30:56
  Because I went through and I looked at it.
• 30:58
  I looked at the things, she wrote me, and I was like, how
• 31:00
  did this happen? And seriously, I got blindsided
• 31:03
  and she goes, I want my money back, and it's like what?
• 31:07
  And it was not a small contract, and I'm like, okay, that's not
• 31:10
  happening. What I did, is I prorated it.
• 31:13
  Well, now, the, what I learned from that lesson was or that
• 31:16
  experience was, I learned be very clear in what goes in my
• 31:20
  contracts. And with Consulting, there are
• 31:22
  absolutely no refunds if the client doesn't do what they say.
• 31:25
  Been advised to do. That's not my problem.
• 31:28
  It's their problem also that I keep documentation like when
• 31:32
  they're saying great job and I do check-in points where I'll
• 31:35
  say, okay tell me you know, what is it about this that you really
• 31:39
  found valuable? Is there anything I could have
• 31:41
  done to improve and, you know, I want feedback on both levels but
• 31:45
  I keep a record of everything because and she threatened to
• 31:48
  take me to court and I'm like, are you serious?
• 31:51
  And actually, I started kind of stalking her online to find out
• 31:55
  who Is this person anyway with what?
• 31:57
  And she, it turns out she had. Kind of a, if you will and
• 32:00
  bipolar personality one day, she was really sweet the next day,
• 32:05
  vicious woman. And and I started blaming
• 32:08
  myself, I thought I must have done something wrong and it
• 32:11
  turns out, it had nothing to do with me.
• 32:13
  It had everything to do with them or with that woman.
• 32:16
  So I always look at these opportunities as a real nice
• 32:21
  opportunity to do things differently the next time.
• 32:24
  And like you said, put it in the Make sure that we're really
• 32:26
  clear on everything that is a deliverable and what's not
• 32:32
  accept or Etc and what happens if there's a dispute, I mean I
• 32:35
  even had in my contracts if there's any kind of dispute that
• 32:39
  they pick up the legal fees and they have to sign a contract and
• 32:44
  since that time I've had no problem.
• 32:46
  Yeah, I totally agree with you is about making things clear
• 32:49
  from the get-go. The reason I brought this up
• 32:52
  other than to connect to what you were saying before, is that
• 32:55
  I've had a lot of instances like this, where read more recently
• 33:00
  and the reason it irritates me is because I'm a very clear
• 33:03
  person. I leave everything transparently
• 33:06
  I say, what I can do, and what I can't do, and the things that I
• 33:09
  can't do, are to be honest because of, I just don't have
• 33:13
  the funds, or I don't have the equipment.
• 33:16
  That's the reality, and I'm very transparent about that.
• 33:19
  I'm transparent, right? My livestream listeners.
• 33:23
  I'm transparent to a businesses, you know.
• 33:25
  If they need me to do a specific thing and I can't I said this is
• 33:28
  why, you know, but it irritates me when they get in contact with
• 33:33
  me and then they're like, oh well can't you just do this?
• 33:36
  Can't you just do this? And it's like, why do you like
• 33:38
  did you? You know?
• 33:40
  Okay, for instance that client before I don't live in London, I
• 33:43
  live in Manchester. What are you talking about?
• 33:45
  And I put that in the email. So this is sound like a rant but
• 33:49
  I'll try and be be a sometimes we have to have rants but you
• 33:52
  know, and that's just knowing what our Wheelhouse is this one
• 33:56
  add to? This is what there was.
• 33:57
  Another one that reached out to me similar thing and we ended up
• 34:01
  not working together as well. And one thing I would say as
• 34:04
  well for anyone listening keep it professional.
• 34:06
  Don't say anything - don't you know, even if you're annoyed
• 34:11
  about it never mentioned the company's name even if they
• 34:14
  write you know because I mean you're just opening yourself up
• 34:17
  to being sued. So you know if you tell me it is
• 34:21
  about maintaining a level of professionalism and even if You
• 34:25
  know, and with social media nowadays, there's so many heated
• 34:29
  discussions and and polarizing situations like right now, you
• 34:33
  know, in the states, we have a lot of stuff that's very
• 34:36
  polarizing about women's rights and all that kind of stuff and
• 34:40
  it's real easy to jump in. Those discussions with people,
• 34:43
  you don't even know and you start giving input and people
• 34:46
  attack each other. It's like step back, don't play
• 34:48
  that game because nowadays like let's say somebody's looking for
• 34:53
  a job, the employer will go. Go online and they'll scrub the
• 34:57
  internet to find out. Okay, what tweets have you put
• 34:59
  out there what? Facebook content?
• 35:01
  What Tick-Tock, all of that. So you really want to be
• 35:04
  conscientious of what you're putting out to Market and and
• 35:07
  own, what you've put out be be willing to put your stake in the
• 35:10
  ground and say well this is who I am the thing again.
• 35:14
  Just going back to what I was saying before as well.
• 35:15
  It's like I always do my research about people and look
• 35:18
  into them and do the same thing. If a company is reaching out to
• 35:21
  me, I mentioned before one company reached out to me and
• 35:25
  wanted to work. Me and I Look to their customer
• 35:26
  reviews and they're atrocious on my well, not going to not going
• 35:29
  to support this at all, because the two reasons, one, because
• 35:32
  it's a bad product and two, because that would be, if I
• 35:36
  would support that, that's a lie to my audience, right?
• 35:39
  Because they trust me Becky's, going back to this other recent
• 35:42
  one company reached out to me. They said they loved what I did
• 35:47
  on YouTube. I think they were referring to
• 35:49
  the podcast. So they'd seen the numbers
• 35:51
  there. Okay.
• 35:53
  And we start negotiating a nice Say well, here's a couple of
• 35:58
  things I could do. I could hug you, give you a
• 35:59
  sponsor here. I could do a placement here.
• 36:02
  You know, I know how to present myself in these situations.
• 36:04
  I've just not got to that point of getting the actual final sale
• 36:07
  yet, but I know how to do it. You know, been doing marketing
• 36:10
  and business for many years now. And I know how to prevent
• 36:13
  present myself, but I'm very new to negotiating for freelance
• 36:17
  purpose, right? Is it?
• 36:18
  I used to do corporate. Now, I'm freelance anyway.
• 36:22
  This company reaches out, we negotiate and then they A oh, we
• 36:26
  need you to send over, you know, all your analytics.
• 36:30
  So basically, you know, Spotify and Etc.
• 36:36
  And I painstakingly do this. I'd be mock-ups or do everything
• 36:40
  send it their way. There's a ghost now that just
• 36:45
  makes your company look really unprofessional.
• 36:48
  Where is the guy honey? That spoke to me today?
• 36:50
  Was really professional about it and they said what they said, I
• 36:54
  disagreed. But we went off.
• 36:55
  On good terms that other company did not do that, right?
• 37:00
  And it's, you know, I just think that you really have to pay
• 37:04
  attention to reputation. And as you said, like the things
• 37:08
  that you say whether or not you're going to dive into
• 37:11
  certain areas plan everything out like every time.
• 37:17
  Think before you speak. I mean it's such a simple
• 37:20
  concept but yet so many people wisdom, such neat.
• 37:23
  Yeah. And nowadays people You know,
• 37:25
  they're so knee-jerk in their reaction to things that it's
• 37:28
  like, and, you know, and I see this a lot Christian with being
• 37:32
  a vegan. I've been vegan for over three
• 37:34
  years now and people come on, and make stupid, meet comments,
• 37:37
  you know, like, oh I'm having my steak right now or my hamburger
• 37:40
  and my cheese, and it's, those are meant to trigger us, you
• 37:43
  know, because if people knew you know, what goes on in factory
• 37:46
  farms, if they really knew and they pulled that they, they
• 37:49
  would not be making those kind of comments, and it's just like
• 37:52
  a lot of times people just, they To poke the bear it so to speak
• 37:57
  and it's like we can either take the bait and engage with them or
• 38:03
  just walk away and say, you know what, whatever it's like just
• 38:07
  you do you, and I'll do me a couple of questions related to
• 38:11
  that. Actually, what would you say is
• 38:16
  the biggest message that the vegan Community is aiming to
• 38:20
  convey to the world right now? Wow.
• 38:23
  Oh, that is I thank you for that question.
• 38:25
  And first of all and I think there's two main ones health I'm
• 38:29
  going to put on the back burner because that leans more towards
• 38:33
  plant-based eating but as far as the whole vegan movement it
• 38:36
  really is about the environment. If people would really go into a
• 38:42
  conversation and have an open mind, they would see that the
• 38:45
  environment has been directly impacted through the
• 38:48
  deforestation of the Amazon forest through factory farming,
• 38:53
  the amount of methane going into To the the environment and also
• 38:58
  it's about animal cruelty. So the two main messages is that
• 39:03
  we're all connected, we are sentient beings and you know, a
• 39:06
  lot of people they say they're so spiritual, they're connected.
• 39:10
  We're all one. And they say that on the one
• 39:13
  hand but on the other hand they're consuming an animal
• 39:18
  that's been tortured had forcibly brought into this
• 39:21
  world. You know, the way that animals
• 39:24
  are brought Into the world and then they're Stripped Away.
• 39:28
  The baby, cows are stripped away from their mother, the day
• 39:31
  they're born and just horrendous treatment.
• 39:33
  So I think the big message and I can't speak for all vegans.
• 39:37
  But I think the general over overriding message is Animal
• 39:41
  Compassion and the environment, and that were literally at the
• 39:45
  edge of a cliff. We, if people pay attention to
• 39:49
  like, what's going on with the Hurricanes, the floods, the
• 39:52
  fires, and even, Even people's emotions because if you go back
• 39:58
  to the 50s, when that was, when food manufacturers, first
• 40:01
  introduced, convenience foods and TV dinners, and that's when
• 40:05
  a lot of the weight gain started happening.
• 40:07
  I mean, it pre 50s to see somebody who was overweight, was
• 40:11
  kind of a rarity to see somebody who was obese.
• 40:14
  Was truly a rarity, you did just didn't see it.
• 40:17
  Now we've come to accept it. And it seeped into so many
• 40:21
  aspects of our life, like the healthcare system.
• 40:23
  For example, about five months, To go.
• 40:25
  I actually had a freak accident. I was at an outdoor event and
• 40:29
  one of the chance for one of the vendors best wind came and they
• 40:33
  hadn't secured it properly and it blew up and hit me in the
• 40:36
  back of the head and I literally face-planted on the cement and I
• 40:40
  broke my wrist. Oh, yeah.
• 40:42
  Yeah, that would, there was a big.
• 40:43
  Oh, and ouch. And actually, it was this wrist.
• 40:46
  I had to get a plate, put in it, it's fine now, you know, no
• 40:49
  problem. But when I went for the initial
• 40:53
  consultation with the surgeon and then winning, the surgery, I
• 40:56
  was shocked and appalled, I was shocked and appalled at the
• 41:01
  number of people that Let themselves get to a point and in
• 41:08
  a lot of it is not even let themselves.
• 41:09
  A lot of it is that our foods have been manufactured to be
• 41:13
  addictive. I mean, there's there's a whole
• 41:15
  backstory to all of this, but I looked around and I thought this
• 41:20
  is sad that people that are younger than me are using
• 41:24
  Walkers. They're using the motorized
• 41:26
  wheelchairs, or the carts, and because they're so overweight
• 41:31
  that the only solution is to cut into them.
• 41:33
  To give them a new knee or a new hip, and it doesn't have to be
• 41:36
  that way. And so part of my whole mission
• 41:39
  is that it really is about raising awareness one on the
• 41:43
  whole vegan movement and then on the health aspect of it.
• 41:46
  Thank you for that. Have a long answer to a short
• 41:49
  question, but I'm very passionate about it.
• 41:52
  I love that. No, I'd certainly relay.
• 41:54
  I'm exactly the same. I was auditioning for something
• 41:57
  the other day and they were I'd give my standard longer
• 42:02
  long-winded answers. I swear that's very long-winded,
• 42:06
  us has a problem for me. You might get booted off in
• 42:09
  YouTube that and they're like, okay.
• 42:13
  Can you, can you please simplify that?
• 42:16
  Can you, can you please make that Cliff Notes version?
• 42:18
  It's like that just strips all the soul away from the point of
• 42:22
  the story, you know? I mean, I think the thing I'm
• 42:26
  beginning to accept with things like that and particular clients
• 42:31
  that I work with. And the way that I do things is
• 42:33
  that That I have to do stuff. That makes sense for me right
• 42:36
  over then, you know, the way everyone else does it.
• 42:39
  Because a lot of people might say, in my position below, why
• 42:42
  don't you just go for the money, go for, you know, just do what
• 42:45
  they say. And it's like, because money
• 42:48
  comes money goes. Yeah, but you shouldn't
• 42:50
  compromise who you are, just for the sake of making money.
• 42:54
  I think, I don't know. Absolutely, you know?
• 42:57
  And it's interesting because a couple of years ago when I was
• 43:01
  really thinking of Switching some things up in my business, I
• 43:05
  had a consultant who advised me? And I didn't hire her, but she
• 43:09
  gave free advice and she said, oh, you're making a huge mistake
• 43:13
  to be really open about being vegan.
• 43:15
  It's going to be the death of your business.
• 43:16
  Yada yada. Yada you need to just stick with
• 43:18
  what, you know, and I was kind of offended because I said,
• 43:21
  well, this is really important to me.
• 43:23
  She goes, there's no money in it.
• 43:24
  Well, it happens to be one of the fastest growing Industries
• 43:28
  for one thing. And it it also really goes back
• 43:31
  to what you just said Christine about.
• 43:32
  Being true to who we are. Because for me, what I have
• 43:36
  found is by being more open about it.
• 43:38
  And, and really, moving my business in that way.
• 43:41
  Now, I work almost exclusively with people in that industry,
• 43:46
  whether it be a food manufacturer, whether it be a
• 43:49
  consultant, whether it be a nutritionist, whether it be an
• 43:51
  author, you know, there's so many opportunities and there's a
• 43:55
  lot of companies there's a I actually just interviewed a man
• 43:59
  who does a platform for vegan investors.
• 44:02
  The People who are investing their clients, they're not doing
• 44:05
  IPOs, they're getting pre IPO, which is initial public offering
• 44:09
  to a stock offering and they're doing the pre investment with
• 44:14
  companies that are not going public yet but they need the
• 44:18
  investing dollar. So they're marrying.
• 44:19
  The vegan investors with the vegan companies and he told me
• 44:23
  the numbers of how much money is in that industry.
• 44:26
  It's a 30 trillion dollar industry and I'm like, are you
• 44:30
  kidding? Get out and so So plenty of
• 44:33
  opportunity, you know, it's like I think no matter what we are
• 44:38
  passionate about, there's a market for it and part of it is
• 44:41
  being like you say, you've used the term transparent being
• 44:44
  transparent about who we are. It's harder a lot of people have
• 44:48
  said to me Christian he's going to focus on a niche.
• 44:53
  You can't do all these things. You have to focus on one thing.
• 44:59
  I'm gonna do everything I want to do because right, you know,
• 45:02
  it means I have to work harder granted but I like to work.
• 45:06
  I don't know what I call it but point is it's me.
• 45:09
  It's that's who I am. I wouldn't be happy.
• 45:11
  Just doing the one thing and yeah, I totally agree with you
• 45:15
  but I just wanted to quickly question.
• 45:17
  So that consultant that said that to you.
• 45:20
  I gather yeah. That she's saying or he or she
• 45:22
  sorry, I didn't catch if it was machine.
• 45:24
  It would she? So I get that.
• 45:27
  She She thought, oh, maybe it's not a good business move or
• 45:31
  something. But was she coming at it from
• 45:33
  the perspective that you would lose money by doing that, like
• 45:35
  you would lose customers or was it more older?
• 45:38
  There's just no money in this, you know, I don't really know,
• 45:42
  but I would say it was a combination of the two.
• 45:44
  And it's so interesting because it was right before, the first
• 45:47
  big shutdown. We had covid-19 just starting to
• 45:50
  be talked about, so it wasn't even like on anybody's radar by
• 45:53
  that point. And, you know, and I Considered
• 45:58
  what she said because she's a seven-figure business owner and
• 46:00
  I'm like, okay, you know, she might have some some say in this
• 46:05
  and it might be right, but I have to do what's right for me
• 46:08
  and then when the pandemic hit a my business started really kind
• 46:12
  of going south in a lot of ways. After at that point it was 25
• 46:15
  years in business and I'm like, what better opportunity for me
• 46:19
  to just dig deep in and kind of, you know, decide what do I
• 46:22
  really want to do with my business?
• 46:24
  Do I want to retire because I'm at an age where a lot of people
• 46:27
  read. Higher, or do I and I'm like,
• 46:29
  you, I love working. You know I even if I retired and
• 46:32
  shut down my business, I'd still be doing a lot of what I'm doing
• 46:35
  anyway, but it just made sense the further.
• 46:39
  I went into the research that I did it well and it's interesting
• 46:44
  because for a period I thought I was going to get into being a
• 46:47
  nutritionist. I actually got a certification
• 46:49
  from E Cornell University on plant-based nutrition, I thought
• 46:52
  well maybe that's the direction I'll go.
• 46:54
  And then when I really analyzed it I thought Need Marketing in
• 46:58
  that industry. That's that's they need the
• 47:00
  skill set that I bring to the experience and so when we did
• 47:04
  this Summit just about a month ago, it was several months in
• 47:08
  the workings, but I brought together the top 10 marketers or
• 47:12
  two top 11 marketers within that industry.
• 47:14
  And I thought why not have a vegan marketing Summit and it's
• 47:18
  like, oh, that makes sense. And that literally, because of
• 47:22
  my Decades of experience that literally put me on the map,
• 47:26
  very quickly because I had the The formula.
• 47:28
  And all I had to do is shift the market.
• 47:30
  So it wasn't like, I was a newbie on the Block and I had no
• 47:33
  idea what I was doing. I took a formula that worked in
• 47:36
  other Industries and I transferred it over so that's
• 47:39
  why it's been working. So well.
• 47:41
  So in answer to your question, I don't know if it was that she
• 47:44
  didn't realize how big the market was or that she was
• 47:47
  afraid that I would lose money, but it was, you know, and that's
• 47:51
  where you have to trust your instinct and somebody can give
• 47:54
  you advice and if it just doesn't fit, you have to say,
• 47:57
  You for your advice but I really you know God bless you.
• 48:02
  Yeah I think I think it's really important what you said as well
• 48:05
  but she's a she's the owner of seven figure business and most
• 48:08
  people might look at that and go oh well clearly she must be
• 48:11
  right then you have to listen to her and it's like yeah but she's
• 48:14
  a second figure business owner for a particular field that
• 48:20
  might have nothing to do or be in any way connected.
• 48:22
  Yeah, it's like everyone does what makes sense for them and I
• 48:26
  to be honest, I think it's the same.
• 48:27
  As as just giving out advice, I am careful with giving out
• 48:34
  advice. I always preface it by saying,
• 48:36
  this is what I think this is, what I've learned.
• 48:40
  Not this is what you should do. I'm saying this is what I think.
• 48:43
  I mean, I think there are some things that apply to all of us
• 48:46
  but then there are a lot of things that only apply to
• 48:50
  specific types of people. Absolutely.
• 48:52
  Yeah, I mean it's like I think if you're going to get,
• 48:55
  especially if you're going to give advice to a friend, Fellow
• 48:57
  business colleague, you have to give them advice.
• 49:00
  Yeah, it makes sense for them. You have to know them.
• 49:03
  I actually, yeah, I stopped doing that a long time ago.
• 49:06
  It's like because I used to think that I had the answers for
• 49:10
  everybody, and I quickly found out I didn't.
• 49:13
  And now kind of my rule of thumb, is, if we have a contract
• 49:17
  and you're saying, give me advice, I'll give you advise
• 49:19
  otherwise. It's like, you know what, I'm
• 49:21
  not going to. I'm not going to meddle in your
• 49:23
  business and you don't meddle in mind.
• 49:24
  And again, it doesn't matter if it's politics, religion, And
• 49:27
  sexuality, you know, lifestyle eating habits.
• 49:33
  And it's always so interesting when people find out, you know,
• 49:35
  that I've made certain lifestyle choices around my food and
• 49:39
  immediately, they'll go. Oh, I'm sorry, I'm not a vegan.
• 49:42
  It's like, I don't care. I didn't I don't expect you to
• 49:44
  be, you know. It's like you did again.
• 49:47
  You do you I'll do me. What would you say the biggest
• 49:51
  misconceptions about vegan life? That we don't get enough
• 49:56
  protein. Is that number one hands down?
• 49:59
  That's the the one. And there's actually more
• 50:01
  protein and beans and legumes. And greens than there is in meat
• 50:05
  and you know, that a lot of the hype that we've been fed
• 50:09
  literally around the kind of protein.
• 50:11
  We need has been funded by the beef manufacturers
• 50:16
  manufacturers, the dairy manufacturers.
• 50:18
  There's a lot of money that has gone into the propaganda and so
• 50:22
  we don't need as much protein as we've been led to believe.
• 50:25
  And we do get enough protein as vegans.
• 50:29
  I have friends, that are pro bodybuilders that are vegans
• 50:33
  Yeah, it's amazing. What people can pull off with a
• 50:36
  vegan lifestyle? And it this what you said, kind
• 50:39
  of reminds me of something. I remember seeing a documentary
• 50:41
  about is he but McDonald's or Coca-Cola, can't remember which
• 50:46
  company it was, but it was a major company.
• 50:49
  And this particular company was known for making a really
• 50:53
  unhealthy product that you can't medically justify as being
• 50:59
  healthy in any way, you just can't.
• 51:02
  But They employ doctors this company employees Doctors
• 51:07
  medical professionals to create. Essentially think pieces or
• 51:13
  articles about these products saying, how they can be used as
• 51:18
  part of a healthy lifestyle and stuff and basically they're
• 51:21
  paying them to lie. Yeah.
• 51:23
  And if I correct, it sounds the same as what you're saying with.
• 51:26
  I mean, okay, you were talking more about propaganda but like
• 51:28
  it's the same Principle as that. You are paying these people to
• 51:31
  say something negative or to seis to support a product that
• 51:35
  you can't really support in a particular way like, you know,
• 51:37
  okay, this is a healthy product. No, it's not, you know what I
• 51:40
  mean? Like, Everyone knows Coca-Cola
• 51:42
  is not is not healthy, right? We do we all accept that but I'd
• 51:45
  still there's that marketing out there.
• 51:50
  That absolutely fake science hundred percent.
• 51:53
  Yeah, you are 100% correct on that and like when there's a
• 51:57
  report that comes out that states, you know, that milk does
• 52:01
  a body good or whatever. The thing that we learned when I
• 52:05
  went through the E, Cornell University course is to follow
• 52:09
  the whole research. Checked and look at where the
• 52:12
  funding came from and 99% of the time.
• 52:15
  It's funded by the very people that it's touting the benefits
• 52:18
  of and a great example I you I don't think you have this in the
• 52:22
  UK but in the u.s. Food and Drug manufacturers can
• 52:26
  actually advertised on TV where one of two countries where and
• 52:30
  you wouldn't believe the number of prescription drug ads that we
• 52:33
  have in depending, on the time of day, is the type of drug.
• 52:36
  And I talked to my doctor about that.
• 52:37
  I said, do you notice an uptick in the number of people that are
• 52:41
  asking? In for a particular drug based
• 52:42
  on the campaign, she goes all the time because people will
• 52:45
  come in and they have all these ailments that they didn't have
• 52:48
  the last time they were here, but because the drug
• 52:50
  manufacturer said. So if you're feeling a lower
• 52:52
  back pain in your left foot is twisted, a little to the left
• 52:55
  and blah, blah blah. Then you need this drug and it's
• 52:58
  kind of like, oh my gosh, they're brainwashing people into
• 53:02
  needing these drugs and what would just blows me away?
• 53:06
  I did it one day. I did a straw poll kind of thing
• 53:09
  where I was counting the number of ads.
• 53:11
  In an hour for an hour program, there were 28 ads and thirty
• 53:15
  percent of them were for prescription drugs.
• 53:18
  The other 30 to 35 percent were for fast, food restaurants with
• 53:22
  meat and cheese and they would do this commercial with a meat
• 53:25
  and cheese product like McDonald's, for example.
• 53:28
  And the next commercial is, do you have an acid or do you have
• 53:32
  upset? No, but I'm like, oh my gosh,
• 53:35
  and people are so clueless and they're clueless until it's
• 53:40
  brought to their attention. In.
• 53:41
  And then they go. Wow, you're right.
• 53:44
  You know, so a lot of it is just doing what we can to raise
• 53:47
  awareness. Like with what you do, you're
• 53:49
  raising awareness with all different topics and with what I
• 53:52
  do, I'm raising awareness and to let it fall where it may, you
• 53:56
  know, just keep doing what we do and that's why we've been given
• 53:59
  the Gift of Gab and the gift of being on podcast because I truly
• 54:03
  believe it is a gift. I don't think everybody has the
• 54:06
  desire or the capability to do it say that.
• 54:11
  We don't always realize how much time and effort goes into
• 54:14
  podcasting, like cheese in the description.
• 54:36
  You must be 100% void of all animal and dairy.
• 54:39
  I mean, that's kind of the leading Line and I get people
• 54:42
  who will contact me to be on my show.
• 54:44
  And first question, I ask them is, are you 100% Boyd of animal
• 54:48
  and dairy? Well about 95% not going to be
• 54:52
  on my show. And I had a woman yesterday on
• 54:55
  LinkedIn that sent me the name of somebody.
• 54:57
  She goes, this person should be on your show, they're vegan.
• 55:00
  I said, okay, great have them, contact me and we'll set them up
• 55:02
  for a pre-interview and then three minutes later, she sends
• 55:07
  me another name and then she sends me another name and I
• 55:09
  said, whoa, whoa, whoa, I said, wait a minute.
• 55:11
  I said I'm not going to just put these people on my show, they
• 55:13
  have to have a pre-interview and they have to be vegan and it's
• 55:17
  kind of like she was just thrown a bunch of mud at the wall and
• 55:20
  it and I got irritated because it's like do you realize how
• 55:23
  much work goes into a show and truthfully Christian people
• 55:27
  don't, I mean there's the fighting the right guests,
• 55:30
  there's the interview time, there's the editing time,
• 55:34
  there's the marketing time there.
• 55:35
  There's the design work for the banner art.
• 55:38
  I mean, it, For me, I don't know about you but let's say it's a
• 55:43
  half hour show that can be several hours worth of work
• 55:47
  because I also do a blog post with mine.
• 55:49
  I don't just do the episode and I'm rethinking that is a matter
• 55:53
  of fact because I'm thinking that's where the majority of the
• 55:55
  time goes. So what would you say is the
• 55:59
  time frame when you do an interview, how much time would
• 56:02
  go into an hour. For example, just for the
• 56:06
  research, I mean that depends, you know, some people I find the
• 56:10
  Earth. A lot easier to research because
• 56:12
  it's how transparent someone is online about you, this helps.
• 56:17
  Yeah. Yeah.
• 56:18
  Well, you know, I mean, you're a businesswoman, so, you know,
• 56:21
  that's a good, you know what I mean?
• 56:26
  And a certain amount of questions that I have will be
• 56:29
  based around things. You might have already written
• 56:31
  or or obvious questions. Other things will come from my
• 56:34
  own mind of like, what I want to ask etcetera, Etc.
• 56:38
  Sometimes I have situations where I I don't know what to ask
• 56:42
  someone and I started working on generic questions just in case.
• 56:46
  Yeah, I get in one of those situations, but sometimes people
• 56:49
  are not very forthcoming with this stuff and even, that's
• 56:52
  because they're not very willing to divulge that information, or
• 56:56
  maybe they don't know how to Market themselves.
• 56:57
  It could be many reasons for that, right, right?
• 57:01
  It's different every time it really is, right?
• 57:04
  Right. Well, you're right about the
• 57:05
  research because, you know, it's like for me it's pretty easy to
• 57:09
  research, the kinds of guests that I have.
• 57:11
  We're in the past. I used to have more of a generic
• 57:13
  type show and it was about marketing businesses.
• 57:16
  And I usually brought people on the show that I was fascinated
• 57:21
  by because I thought, huh? I want what what would I want to
• 57:24
  ask this person? If I was sitting across from
• 57:26
  them having a cup of coffee and just you know pick their brain
• 57:29
  and those were the kinds of questions I would ask.
• 57:31
  Kind of like what we're doing here.
• 57:32
  We're having a conversation and now it's like, I look at the
• 57:36
  different Factions of the vegan and plant-based movement.
• 57:41
  It's like, what do I really want to know that would benefit my
• 57:44
  community and raise awareness? Because that's a big one for me
• 57:48
  is I'm very committed to raising awareness around, especially the
• 57:52
  kindness to animals and the environment.
• 57:54
  Those are two really huge ones for me.
• 57:56
  Why do your guests have to be 100% vegan?
• 58:00
  Like is that like a morale thing?
• 58:03
  Or is that just because there's a conflict of interest?
• 58:06
  Like what? Why not have for it?
• 58:08
  Instance, like debate type episodes or something like that.
• 58:12
  You know, I'll go on other people's shows and have that
• 58:15
  that kind of discussion. But for my show, I have branded
• 58:17
  it that way. So it's really about a branding,
• 58:20
  and it's about really staying aligned with the whole vegan
• 58:23
  message, so it really was a conscious choice that I made and
• 58:29
  I thought that one through because I actually had somebody
• 58:32
  who said, well why don't you bring in somebody who runs a
• 58:34
  factory farm and I said I couldn't have that discussion.
• 58:37
  I just couldn't have At discussion, but as far as like,
• 58:40
  because there's part of it is to show through proof of
• 58:44
  conversation that you can be super, super, super healthy, by
• 58:49
  making that lifestyle Choice. Like I interviewed one
• 58:52
  gentleman, he lost about 160 pounds, he reversed six
• 58:56
  diseases. He was diabetic, he was near
• 59:00
  blind. He they were going to amputate
• 59:02
  his leg. I mean, the whole nine yard, all
• 59:04
  because of his eating patterns, the McDonald's type food.
• 59:08
  It's and he reversed everything with a plant-based vegan diet.
• 59:12
  And so that's the kind of information.
• 59:14
  I want to bring to people to show that no matter where you're
• 59:17
  at in life. You can turn your health around
• 59:19
  in most cases. I'm not saying 100%.
• 59:22
  There's some things that you just can't reverse, but a lot of
• 59:26
  the diseases that we've come to accept, as normal and victim of
• 59:32
  circumstances, kind of diseases. It's through food choices.
• 59:36
  And for people to understand, Then, in many cases, it's not
• 59:39
  their fault because the food manufacturers, truly have
• 59:43
  scientifically designed the food for people to get addicted to
• 59:46
  it. There's a really good book out
• 59:48
  called salt sugar, fat by Michael moss, and it explains
• 59:52
  the product. It's shocking, you know?
• 59:53
  And that's that's what I think for me.
• 59:56
  Why it's so important to have it where they're 100% void of
• 59:59
  animal and dairy, it's shocking. When you start finding out what
• 1:00:03
  the truth is, it's like if we think we're being lied to right
• 1:00:06
  now with a lot of what's going on with, Pandemic.
• 1:00:08
  Because there's people that think we're being lied to and I
• 1:00:11
  happen to be in that camp. I think a lot of, you know, the
• 1:00:13
  I think it's a true pandemic, but I also think there's a lot
• 1:00:16
  of it but that's a whole different discussion.
• 1:00:18
  And I don't want to get you booted off of YouTube, but the,
• 1:00:23
  the lies we've been told around our food consumption in our
• 1:00:26
  Healthcare and especially in the United States.
• 1:00:29
  It's it's sad, it's sad, because people are dying as a result of
• 1:00:33
  it. Once is of a long answer, to a
• 1:00:36
  short question again. No I love it.
• 1:00:39
  I love it. It's brilliant.
• 1:00:40
  But I love episodes like this. Get to sit by.
• 1:00:43
  See this is the thing about me. I like as much as I can have a
• 1:00:47
  conversation and talk and blah blah blah and I love to do that.
• 1:00:52
  I love to listen. Like one thing I learned
• 1:00:54
  recently is save all my talking for my live streams in my
• 1:00:57
  podcast. I just listened and it's
• 1:00:59
  enjoyable for me. I learned something.
• 1:01:01
  I, you know, I just have to steer the conversation.
• 1:01:04
  And sometimes I have to talk more.
• 1:01:05
  If my guest is, maybe that more introverted or something.
• 1:01:09
  But yeah, I'm a little introverted, you know, nothing.
• 1:01:14
  You know, at times, I actually am.
• 1:01:15
  I live out in a rural community and there's times I'm quite
• 1:01:19
  content not being around people. I just go run your the river.
• 1:01:22
  I take my dogs out and, you know, it's like, I've got a
• 1:01:25
  little bit of property. We've got horses, chickens, all
• 1:01:28
  that, and it's like, there are plenty of occasions where I much
• 1:01:32
  prefer to be with my aunt. Most then to be around a lot of
• 1:01:35
  people. Oh, I totally understand that.
• 1:01:37
  I think most of our list. This were agree with that.
• 1:01:41
  Yeah, yeah. Anyway yeah.
• 1:01:44
  One thing I really want to know because I've had a few vegan
• 1:01:48
  people on my show before and never really got around to
• 1:01:52
  asking this question, because I'm trying to kind of gradually,
• 1:01:56
  like, I'm more like I haven't got to the vegetarian or vegan
• 1:02:00
  side of things because I'm just, I'm just poor.
• 1:02:02
  That's what it is. I'm And now I'm working towards
• 1:02:05
  it. And I will do it on there
• 1:02:07
  because I love animals but that's that's my situation.
• 1:02:11
  But who cares? But so it's so it's Financial
• 1:02:13
  for you, right? It's for those with me.
• 1:02:15
  Yeah, okay, I'm getting it now before.
• 1:02:17
  Okay, before you ask the question, did you know that it's
• 1:02:20
  actually less expensive to eat a whole food plant-based diet than
• 1:02:24
  it is, to eat a carnivore diet? And it's because what a lot of
• 1:02:27
  people do is they buy the processed foods that are vegan.
• 1:02:31
  If you ate beans, legumes salads, Vegetables, fruits and
• 1:02:35
  you really like avocados and that's, it's actually less
• 1:02:39
  expensive that way than it is to eat the traditional diet.
• 1:02:42
  So your question maybe I haven't done enough research but like
• 1:02:48
  some of the stuff. I don't know any UK like
• 1:02:51
  avocados, for instance not cheap.
• 1:02:53
  It depends on sourcing. It depends on trade costs.
• 1:03:02
  There are elements to this to change that you know, for
• 1:03:04
  instance there might be certain things that are cheaper in
• 1:03:07
  America because they're sourced either closely.
• 1:03:10
  You know. For instance if some of the
• 1:03:12
  things are transported from south to North or from Canada to
• 1:03:17
  America Etc, that that changes thing.
• 1:03:19
  So, You know, if that is to your point, but know what I really
• 1:03:23
  want to know is what are the key kind of differences between
• 1:03:31
  being vegetarian and vegan that obviously I know that obvious
• 1:03:35
  ones being like the dietary dish changes.
• 1:03:37
  But one thing I've always wanted to do is kind of transition and
• 1:03:42
  I would generally be happy being a vegetarian but I know that
• 1:03:45
  there's some vegans that feel very strongly against that even
• 1:03:48
  and I just wanted to know the difference.
• 1:03:49
  Is there? Get your opinion?
• 1:03:51
  You know, that that's a really good question and I had that
• 1:03:54
  same question early on because I assumed if you were vegetarian
• 1:03:57
  that man vegan and I, you know, they're apples and oranges.
• 1:04:00
  And I say anything that minimizes harm to the planet and
• 1:04:04
  the Animals is a move in the right direction and we have to
• 1:04:07
  go at whatever Pace works for us.
• 1:04:11
  The difference is that vegetarians will consume some
• 1:04:15
  Dairy and some meat like a lot of vegetarians might be
• 1:04:18
  pescatarian where they eat fish. Fish or they might eat chicken.
• 1:04:21
  Thinking chicken is healthier than beef.
• 1:04:23
  I mean, we could do a whole show on the health aspects, but
• 1:04:27
  chicken is actually a very dirty meat to eat because of the way
• 1:04:31
  that the chickens are raised in most cases but some vegetarians
• 1:04:36
  eat eggs thinking that again, that's a healthier choice when
• 1:04:40
  not necessarily because of the confinement of the the chickens
• 1:04:45
  but it has to do with the food choices and a philosophy when Is
• 1:04:50
  truly a vegan, it's a philosophy.
• 1:04:52
  It's not just a diet. And a lot of people assume that
• 1:04:55
  a vegan is that's about being on a diet.
• 1:04:58
  It's not, it's a philosophy plant-based eating.
• 1:05:01
  That's more of a diet than it is a philosophy.
• 1:05:04
  So it really is the types of foods that somebody will put
• 1:05:08
  into their diet but a couple of really good books that I would
• 1:05:12
  recommend and I think you would enjoy these Christian one is
• 1:05:15
  called Eat to Live by dr. Joel Fuhrman that's eat to live
• 1:05:18
  by dr. Joel A firm and it'll give you a
• 1:05:20
  real good insight into the health benefits of a plant-based
• 1:05:23
  diet because you can pay now or pay later with your health.
• 1:05:27
  I mean, that's the bottom line. The another really good book is
• 1:05:31
  the world. Peace diet by dr.
• 1:05:33
  Will Tuttle, and he talks about the energy of what we put into
• 1:05:36
  our body that it doesn't. Just stop at us.
• 1:05:39
  You know, getting heart disease and Cancers and weight gain.
• 1:05:42
  It also goes into our emotions in our spiritual side and those
• 1:05:47
  would be to starting places a Good book that I just read as
• 1:05:51
  diet for a new America and I've read dozens of books.
• 1:05:55
  I've watched a lot of the documentaries and sometimes I
• 1:05:58
  actually sit there and I'm just, like, I'm mortified with what
• 1:06:02
  I'm seeing or reading because it's like, how could I have been
• 1:06:05
  so blind? And I've worked in the pet
• 1:06:07
  industry. I had quite a few clients that
• 1:06:09
  were in the pet industry and here on the one hand, I do
• 1:06:13
  animal rescue, I work in the pet industry and I talked about Care
• 1:06:17
  for Animals and I was consuming animals and the day that At that
• 1:06:20
  hit me. I mean, it really.
• 1:06:21
  It just like this overwhelming. Feeling of sadness.
• 1:06:24
  Hit me. Like oh my gosh.
• 1:06:27
  All that time. I was so out of alignment and so
• 1:06:31
  I think Christian the bottom line for anything we do in life,
• 1:06:34
  whether it's about are eating, whether it's our spiritual
• 1:06:37
  practices, whether it's the way we treat people how we run a
• 1:06:40
  business, it's about how aligned are we with what we say is true,
• 1:06:44
  and are we truly walking the talk?
• 1:06:49
  What would you say, the biggest or most important things that
• 1:06:53
  the vegan life has taught you compassion?
• 1:06:58
  I had truly compassion for animals and how wrong I was for
• 1:07:03
  so many years. I mean, I feel like just a sense
• 1:07:07
  of sadness right now, as I share that because I love animals and
• 1:07:11
  I rescue animals. And, as I've learned the truth,
• 1:07:14
  I used to be one of those that don't show me.
• 1:07:16
  I don't want to see that, I don't want to see what's really
• 1:07:18
  going on, because if I know the truth, then I have to do
• 1:07:21
  something about it. And and so for me, the thing,
• 1:07:25
  the greatest thing I've learned is true.
• 1:07:28
  Deep compassion and how truly connected we are to not just
• 1:07:32
  other people, but two animals and one of the reasons we have
• 1:07:36
  so much, anger and violence and Chaos in the world today is
• 1:07:39
  because people are consuming that when they eat animal
• 1:07:44
  products, I mean you can't, you can't avoid that.
• 1:07:49
  Thanks for sharing. Let's talk a bit about your sort
• 1:07:54
  of experiences as a keynote speaker in public speaker.
• 1:07:56
  So what would you say your favorite experiences as a public
• 1:07:59
  speaker? You know, I the favorite thing
• 1:08:04
  is just the connection to an audience because there's there's
• 1:08:09
  something really exciting about being in front of an audience.
• 1:08:11
  And and with the words you speak in the passion, you have you
• 1:08:16
  kind of move the audience along to a roller coaster of emotions.
• 1:08:19
  It's like and having an impact on people in a way that you
• 1:08:25
  don't even know that you're having like, it could be years
• 1:08:28
  later. Somebody reaches out to you and
• 1:08:31
  says, you know, I heard You at the ibps a conference and when
• 1:08:35
  you said such and such whatever it was, I said, this is the
• 1:08:39
  impact it had in. It's like, oh my gosh.
• 1:08:43
  I would say that just, I can't really think of too many bad
• 1:08:50
  experiences. I had.
• 1:08:51
  I did have one bad experience where I was hired to speak to a
• 1:08:54
  Boys and Girls Club supposedly. Well, it turns out I was
• 1:08:58
  speaking to a group of very, very, very, very, very, very
• 1:09:01
  wealthy people, they drove up and limousines had Furs on, and
• 1:09:04
  like the old old money from this particular area in our country,
• 1:09:08
  and they basically brought me in just as entertainment.
• 1:09:12
  They didn't bring me in to really make Difference for the
• 1:09:14
  boys and girls club and it was nothing.
• 1:09:18
  I said landed, right? They took everything the wrong
• 1:09:21
  way, they were like real, stuffy, and it was the worst
• 1:09:24
  experience. And I at the time I think I got
• 1:09:26
  paid pretty substantial amount of money and I kept thinking
• 1:09:30
  they're paying me that much and in my head while I'm presenting
• 1:09:34
  I'm like this is like the worst experience I've ever had.
• 1:09:37
  I can't wait till this is over and it was just it was a
• 1:09:40
  terrible terrible experience and I had to step back and go.
• 1:09:43
  How did that happen? Because I did my due diligence
• 1:09:46
  but it just didn't work out. But for the most part just
• 1:09:49
  connecting with an audience. If they give you a little
• 1:09:53
  feedback afterwards, they said I thought was that.
• 1:09:56
  They actually, they actually thought I was on stage cussing
• 1:09:59
  and everything. I mean, and I said, did you
• 1:10:01
  videotape this? And they said, yes, I said do me
• 1:10:03
  a favor and play it back and tell me where I said those
• 1:10:08
  things because I did not say that I was telling a story about
• 1:10:11
  when my dad had a heart attack and he In the hospital and
• 1:10:15
  there's a whole story around you know, he was in a coma for four
• 1:10:17
  weeks and when he came out of the coma, some of the things
• 1:10:20
  that he said, nothing pornographic at all nothing.
• 1:10:23
  I mean it was all about loving his family and this map, they
• 1:10:27
  heard me say something that was so off the wall and it this
• 1:10:30
  meeting planner said one of the bankers heard that and I'm like
• 1:10:33
  could you do me a favor and watch the video?
• 1:10:36
  She goes, we have no purpose for you anymore.
• 1:10:38
  She goes. We're done.
• 1:10:39
  And I'm like, wow. I mean it was just I was
• 1:10:43
  devastated and I was ready to give up being a speaker because
• 1:10:46
  of it. And what this is another thing
• 1:10:48
  I've learned Christian one, bad experience does not define who
• 1:10:51
  you are. I mean, if you're in business
• 1:10:53
  long enough, if you do enough podcast shows, if you do enough
• 1:10:56
  speaking engagements, if you write enough blog posts, there's
• 1:10:59
  going to be times that you might miss the mark and you might get
• 1:11:03
  feedback from people that it hurts your feelings.
• 1:11:06
  It and it hits you to the core that doesn't Define who you are.
• 1:11:10
  It's really stepping back and just say no, What can I learn
• 1:11:13
  from that? And did I really have a part in
• 1:11:16
  that going south? You know, I needed to hear.
• 1:11:19
  Thank you. I'm sure many of my listings
• 1:11:23
  needed to hear that too. What advice could you give to
• 1:11:27
  aspiring public speakers? Well, one is to know the
• 1:11:32
  difference between a public speaker and a professional
• 1:11:34
  speaker. A public speaker is somebody who
• 1:11:36
  goes out and they speak at church, or they speak to their
• 1:11:39
  rotary club or whomever they speak and they may not get paid
• 1:11:42
  and that's it's a very honorable thing to do.
• 1:11:44
  I mean, I've been a public speaker for years.
• 1:11:46
  A professional speaker is somebody who actually gets paid
• 1:11:49
  to speak and there's the distinction, the one thing that
• 1:11:54
  I could recommend is to know your audience, do a pre audience
• 1:11:59
  interview with the meeting planner, depending on the type
• 1:12:03
  of Engagement I did. I usually would ask to be, given
• 1:12:06
  a list of names of, let's say, when I worked with corporations,
• 1:12:10
  I'd say, I want a group of people that are in the Entry
• 1:12:13
  level positions, give me four or five names of people I can talk
• 1:12:16
  to. I want people in executive
• 1:12:18
  positions because when they're paying you the kind of money
• 1:12:20
  that I would get paid to do an engagement, you want to do your
• 1:12:23
  research, like you do for your show, and I would actually get
• 1:12:26
  on the phone for a few minutes with people and just say, tell
• 1:12:29
  me what, your best experience with the company is didn't tell
• 1:12:31
  me what your worst experience has been and with entry level
• 1:12:34
  people, what's your relationship with upper management?
• 1:12:38
  Do they treat you with respect. So I would actually gather
• 1:12:40
  information and be able to create a presentation that was
• 1:12:44
  customized to what their true needs were rather than just
• 1:12:47
  going in and doing a canned presentation.
• 1:12:51
  Thanks for sharing. What would you say is the best
• 1:12:56
  piece of advice you've ever been given?
• 1:12:58
  And why, you know, I thank you for asking that and tomorrow
• 1:13:04
  marks the 10 year anniversary of my mother's passing and and my
• 1:13:07
  mother was a very understood, thank you.
• 1:13:09
  She was very understated in her power.
• 1:13:11
  She actually had grown up in Belgium during the war.
• 1:13:13
  So she was in occupied Belgium by the Nazis.
• 1:13:16
  And in many ways, she lived a very timid Life.
• 1:13:20
  But, in many ways, she was just a strong strong woman and her.
• 1:13:25
  Number one, bit of advice to me, was always tell the truth.
• 1:13:28
  So you never have to look over your shoulder and wonder what
• 1:13:31
  you said. And it was like, huh?
• 1:13:33
  And so, the best piece of advice, I got was from my mother
• 1:13:36
  to always be truthful. Now, have I always been not
• 1:13:40
  necessarily, you know, I have kind of a dark side to my past.
• 1:13:44
  I've been 38 years sober and in my drinking and drugging days,
• 1:13:48
  trust me, I would love Lion running mid Run and Gun to do
• 1:13:51
  anything. I could to get the drugs and
• 1:13:52
  alcohol. But now I live a very aligned
• 1:13:55
  life and a lot of the wisdom, my mother taught me stays with me.
• 1:14:00
  And as I move towards the date of her passing, it's like she's
• 1:14:04
  very present in my life. Thank you for sharing.
• 1:14:09
  If you're happy to speak about it, obviously you mentioned that
• 1:14:13
  you that's in your past, you know, you overcome some, some
• 1:14:16
  things there, how did you get to the point where you kind of
• 1:14:20
  changed all that? Like because I feel like a lot
• 1:14:23
  of these things tend to conflict with each other.
• 1:14:26
  You know you don't just become a successful business person
• 1:14:29
  overnight, you don't just give up drinking drugs, like these
• 1:14:32
  things are a process and that normally there's a series of
• 1:14:35
  events that occur the Get to that point where like I have to
• 1:14:38
  make this change. How did you kind of make that
• 1:14:42
  change and and so change your mindset?
• 1:14:45
  That that is a really, really nice question and it was a
• 1:14:49
  process and I got kicked out of a lot of places.
• 1:14:53
  I ended up on the streets. I actually was the one point.
• 1:14:56
  Yeah, and I basically was not welcome virtually anywhere.
• 1:15:03
  I had been people just didn't want me around because I was a
• 1:15:06
  very Obnoxious Drinker, I was very violent.
• 1:15:10
  I was, you know, complete opposite of who I am today and
• 1:15:15
  it was just there comes a point when you're literally taken to
• 1:15:19
  your knees in life with maybe it's not drugs and alcohol, it
• 1:15:22
  might be in the way you have relationships.
• 1:15:24
  It might be in what you're doing in business.
• 1:15:26
  That things just aren't working in.
• 1:15:28
  I think that there are times that we are literally brought to
• 1:15:31
  our knees and that's our opportunity to say I surrender.
• 1:15:35
  I can't do this anymore. And for me it was actually life
• 1:15:39
  just quit working. It was like I didn't want to be
• 1:15:43
  around but I couldn't even do that.
• 1:15:45
  I mean, I trust me, I tried. I mean I tried to get out of
• 1:15:48
  here many times and I was such a failure I couldn't even succeed
• 1:15:51
  at that. I mean that's the way my
• 1:15:53
  thinking was at the time and it was like okay this is this is
• 1:15:58
  where I'm at in life. I can't keep living like this
• 1:16:01
  and it was kind of getting to a point of being sick and tired of
• 1:16:04
  being sick and tired and I can remember it well of being alone
• 1:16:10
  with myself and hearing the things that people had said to
• 1:16:13
  me. And that's why you never know.
• 1:16:15
  When you say something to somebody that years later, it
• 1:16:19
  will come to them and they'll say, wow, five years ago, I was
• 1:16:22
  being told that you need to get your life together and you're
• 1:16:26
  not a good person to be around and, you know, but I just, I was
• 1:16:31
  done. It was like, that's it.
• 1:16:33
  I'm done. And was it easy?
• 1:16:35
  No. Not at all.
• 1:16:36
  I mean, you know, when Your whole life is ingrained in in
• 1:16:39
  drugs and alcohol and the kind of people that you hang around
• 1:16:42
  with when you do that and the behaviors that you have, it's
• 1:16:47
  about going through a complete 360 in your life.
• 1:16:52
  Thank you so much for sharing this amazing thing.
• 1:16:54
  I know exactly where you're coming from.
• 1:16:58
  I don't know what it is about the past two or three years.
• 1:17:02
  Maybe I just have a lot of time to think, but exact same exact
• 1:17:06
  thing, you know, I think a lot about my previous relationship
• 1:17:10
  and yeah, my ex-girlfriend was a very, very smart woman is a
• 1:17:15
  smart woman. So, and every now, and again,
• 1:17:20
  like something she says, is said, will come back to me and
• 1:17:24
  there was something I remember we were having an argument one
• 1:17:26
  time and she kind of just stopped me and just said, like,
• 1:17:32
  This is your life right now. Is this what you want your life
• 1:17:35
  to be? This is your life right now and
• 1:17:37
  I didn't really like gauge at the time which is like it hit me
• 1:17:41
  at the time but then years later I look at it and I'm like she's
• 1:17:46
  like she's trying to like wake me up like, you know, stop being
• 1:17:50
  in that kind of Headspace that I was in right.
• 1:17:55
  And I feel like it's only in the past couple of years that I've
• 1:17:57
  really started. I've changed my mindset.
• 1:18:01
  You know, I used to be a negative person years ago and
• 1:18:04
  now I'm a positive person. And same thing for me, it was a
• 1:18:07
  process. You know, I've made mistakes,
• 1:18:09
  I've hurt people of said the wrong things done the wrong
• 1:18:12
  things and you eventually you get to the point where you start
• 1:18:19
  doing the right things, you start making the right
• 1:18:22
  decisions. You know, doing your best, I
• 1:18:27
  think. Yeah and I think when we get to
• 1:18:29
  a point that it's more painful to keep doing what we're doing,
• 1:18:32
  then to make the change because again, like we started our
• 1:18:36
  conversation about change that people don't want to change, but
• 1:18:40
  change is a part of life and it's the same with as I look at
• 1:18:47
  the day-to-day choices around how I take care of myself.
• 1:18:50
  You know, that exercise is really important, meditation is
• 1:18:53
  important. Important and there are days
• 1:18:57
  that I don't feel like going out on a run when it's 35 degrees
• 1:19:00
  out. And I'm like, okay I don't know
• 1:19:02
  what that would be in Celsius but it's pretty darn cold and
• 1:19:06
  there's that part of me saying okay just for today, I won't do
• 1:19:10
  it. It's like today is your life.
• 1:19:12
  This is it right here in the decisions you make today, create
• 1:19:15
  what's going to happen tomorrow? And so as I as I look at what
• 1:19:21
  the alternative is for me, like choosing not to drink.
• 1:19:24
  No, my life is a lot of people. They, when they go into
• 1:19:27
  recovery, they say if I drink, I die.
• 1:19:29
  If I drink, I die. And I used to say, I would be so
• 1:19:31
  lucky. I'm going to live and I'm going
• 1:19:33
  to live in a hell and I don't want to live in that hell
• 1:19:36
  because it's like that is just a real dark place to be.
• 1:19:40
  And so it's the same with the lifestyle choices around food
• 1:19:45
  and exercise that I see the people who have not made that
• 1:19:48
  decision and I see how they're living.
• 1:19:50
  I see the disease they have and it's always kind of refreshing
• 1:19:54
  like I broke my wrist and I went to have the surgery done the
• 1:19:58
  surgeon goes you know you're one of the healthiest people that
• 1:20:00
  I've ever seen and it's like thank you.
• 1:20:02
  And yet a lot of doctors are not taught about nutrition.
• 1:20:08
  So a lot of doctors don't even know how to advise their
• 1:20:10
  patients and patients have given their power away to the medical
• 1:20:13
  profession. So I think really what it is
• 1:20:16
  Christian is looking at the life that we choose to have what in a
• 1:20:20
  perfect world, how would our life be and you know, put the
• 1:20:22
  money aside and put all the external.
• 1:20:24
  Annals aside. But what's the feeling we would
• 1:20:26
  have? What kind of relationships would
• 1:20:28
  we have? How would we feel about
• 1:20:30
  ourselves and based on that? What are the decisions?
• 1:20:33
  And the actions? We need to take on a daily basis
• 1:20:36
  and again, I don't think anybody does it perfectly because, you
• 1:20:39
  know, there's times that I definitely don't do it perfectly
• 1:20:42
  and other times. I do it pretty darn good but
• 1:20:44
  it's just really making conscious choices around the
• 1:20:47
  actions. We take the sheriff and he could
• 1:20:51
  be like, in business to, okay? If I know that when I pick up
• 1:20:54
  The phone and I call people. And if I call for people, and I
• 1:20:57
  usually get a contract, one of those people is going to give me
• 1:21:00
  a contract and I, you know, I just called it to have a
• 1:21:03
  conversation, huh? Wouldn't it make sense?
• 1:21:05
  If business was slow that I might pick up the phone, just to
• 1:21:07
  have a conversation. But, you know, so it's the same
• 1:21:10
  in business. I mean, people have the strategy
• 1:21:12
  or like running a podcast show, there's consistency, that's
• 1:21:16
  involved in it and if we go 30 days, without putting an episode
• 1:21:19
  up, we're going to lose some of our listenership.
• 1:21:21
  So it's that consistency, even if we're busy, Izzy and it's
• 1:21:25
  like 10:00 at night, and we know that we need to drop the
• 1:21:27
  episode. The next day, we better stay up
• 1:21:30
  and get it done, or manage our time better.
• 1:21:32
  So a lot of it is being more empowered in the choices we make
• 1:21:36
  and quit blaming other people and quit blaming, you know, this
• 1:21:39
  that and the other for why things are the way they are and
• 1:21:41
  just strip away, the things that we don't need to be doing,
• 1:21:45
  completely agree with you. What's the biggest life lesson
• 1:21:49
  that you've learned so far? Wow.
• 1:21:55
  I think the biggest life lesson that I've learned is, the more I
• 1:21:57
  learn the more, I know the less I know.
• 1:22:00
  It's like, there's always more to know and and it's really
• 1:22:02
  important for me to have a connection to a higher power and
• 1:22:06
  to realize that I don't have all the answers but in thank you so
• 1:22:11
  much for sharing that and as we draw things to a close, do you
• 1:22:15
  have any upcoming projects or some final thoughts that you'd
• 1:22:18
  like to share with other students?
• 1:22:20
  Oh you know I am working on a project to completely
• 1:22:23
  rebranding. I met with my it team, they're
• 1:22:26
  all over the the states we met yesterday and we're doing a
• 1:22:29
  whole rebranding on my website and we're actually stripping
• 1:22:33
  away, a lot of the old stuff and and just tighten things up, I'm
• 1:22:37
  working on a book called vegan visibility and I You know I love
• 1:22:41
  writing and so that book may turn more into a philosophy
• 1:22:45
  around business and being aligned in business but it's
• 1:22:48
  probably going to be called vegan visibility and how to
• 1:22:51
  really take a company into a more visible realm.
• 1:22:57
  So I have a book coming up. I have I'm in discussions with a
• 1:23:01
  vegan publisher right now of partnering with her company
• 1:23:05
  where I do the marketing for the clients and she does the
• 1:23:07
  publishing. So got quite a few projects.
• 1:23:10
  In the works. Those projects and thank you so
• 1:23:14
  much for being on the show. It's been an absolute pleasure.
• 1:23:17
  It's been delightful. Thank you.
• 1:23:19
  And to all the listeners of the Christian re podcast be safe, be
• 1:23:23
  well, and I'll see you in the next one.