Latest / The Book Deal / Jessica Box on portfolio careers for creatives, coaching, growing your author business, managing your time and social media

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Jessica Box on portfolio careers for creatives, coaching, growing your author business, managing your time and social media · The Book Deal

• 0:09
  Tina Strachan: This is the Book Deal podcast where you will discover the inspiring stories, the authors behind your favorite books.
• 0:15
  Tina Strachan: No matter what sage of writing you are at, we've got you covered.
• 0:19
  Tina Strachan: I'm Tina Strachan.
• 0:20
  Tina Strachan: And I'm Madeleine Cleary.
• 0:21
  Tina Strachan: And join us as we pull back the curtain of published authors one deal at a time.
• 0:29
  Madeleine Cleary: The book Deal podcast acknowledges the traditional owners, the land and waters, which it's recorded on.
• 0:35
  Madeleine Cleary: And pays respect to their elders past, present, and emerging.
• 0:42
  Madeleine Cleary: Jessica Box is an award-winning growth, executive leading product, marketing, and insights in plus$1 billion valued tech companies.
• 0:50
  Madeleine Cleary: She's the founder of Matched a knowledge sharing marketplace with 250 plus vetted advisors and coaches.
• 0:56
  Madeleine Cleary: She successfully grew Link Tree from 2 million to 45 million customers and helped Slack, Optimizely, and Braintree launch in Australia.
• 1:04
  Madeleine Cleary: She's also driven change for women in tech as managing Director of Girls in Tech Australia.
• 1:09
  Madeleine Cleary: Jessica also happens to be my best friend, and I could not be a prouder friend.
• 1:14
  Madeleine Cleary: See, how does Jessica's experience intersect with writing?
• 1:17
  Madeleine Cleary: Jessica and I have had long chats recently about the business side of.
• 1:21
  Madeleine Cleary: Being an author and what it means to wear many hats.
• 1:24
  Madeleine Cleary: With Jessica's experience, growth, and creating authentic connections in the business world, I felt it an imperative to share her excellent advice with other writers.
• 1:33
  Madeleine Cleary: We chat about the role of storytelling, understanding your why.
• 1:37
  Madeleine Cleary: Social media and content creation, coaching, how to manage your time while wearing many hats, and how to understand your own value proposition.
• 1:46
  Madeleine Cleary: So make sure you time box this episode into your schedule writers.
• 1:49
  Madeleine Cleary: It's a great one.
• 1:55
  Madeleine Cleary: Hello Jessica.
• 1:56
  Madeleine Cleary: Hi Madeleine.
• 1:58
  Madeleine Cleary: This is really exciting to have you on the podcast today.
• 2:01
  Jessica Box: I'm really excited to be here, long time listener and follower of all the amazing people that have been on the podcast.
• 2:07
  Jessica Box: It feels I've got a like slight imposter syndrome being here as someone who is, um.
• 2:13
  Jessica Box: Not necessarily a published writer or focusing on that at the moment.
• 2:18
  Madeleine Cleary: Wow.
• 2:18
  Madeleine Cleary: Well, I mean, you are, you've been to so many different book events with me as well.
• 2:22
  Madeleine Cleary: You're like my, my book companion when we go to different types of launches and events.
• 2:28
  Madeleine Cleary: And I feel like you're already part of the writing community and you are my best friend as well.
• 2:33
  Jessica Box: And I, I have always been an avid reader.
• 2:35
  Jessica Box: Um, so does.
• 2:37
  Jessica Box: There's something about the study of books that I, I love and yeah, I mean, I would love to write a book one day.
• 2:42
  Jessica Box: So
• 2:42
  Madeleine Cleary: do you remember when we first met?
• 2:44
  Madeleine Cleary: Oh.
• 2:47
  Madeleine Cleary: I dunno if I do.
• 2:49
  Madeleine Cleary: Gee.
• 2:49
  Madeleine Cleary: Wasn't very memorable.
• 2:50
  Madeleine Cleary: I thought that it should be, but I remember actually, I remember this very beautiful, tall, redhead girl walking down the corridor in year seven and I thought, oh, she's confident she's going somewhere.
• 3:04
  Madeleine Cleary: I wanna be her friend.
• 3:06
  Madeleine Cleary: And so thank you for being my friend.
• 3:08
  Jessica Box: Oh my God, that's so good.
• 3:10
  Jessica Box: I love that.
• 3:12
  Jessica Box: I do.
• 3:12
  Jessica Box: I do remember you.
• 3:13
  Jessica Box: I don't remember this specific moment because you have the best hair ever.
• 3:17
  Jessica Box: And I remember thinking, oh my gosh, how does she have the most amazing hair?
• 3:21
  Jessica Box: And how do you like maintain it because it's so volumous and luscious and lovely.
• 3:26
  Jessica Box: Lovely.
• 3:26
  Jessica Box: Um.
• 3:27
  Madeleine Cleary: I
• 3:27
  Jessica Box: think we connected
• 3:28
  Madeleine Cleary: over hair.
• 3:29
  Madeleine Cleary: That's wonderful for those.
• 3:31
  Madeleine Cleary: Um, you'll have to Google it if you're listening.
• 3:33
  Madeleine Cleary: Um, Jess has the most beautiful red hair and we, we are always very jealous of Jess's hair.
• 3:39
  Madeleine Cleary: So I'm actually interested, Jess,'cause I mean, people were probably wondering why, why is, um, why is Jessica Box on the podcast and because obviously our.
• 3:47
  Madeleine Cleary: Podcast is to help motivate, encourage, inspiring, aspiring writers and debut writers.
• 3:52
  Madeleine Cleary: Um, but we've had some really good chats in the last few months, I think.
• 3:57
  Madeleine Cleary: And you, you provide such good advice to me about, um, in, you know, being not just an author, but I think being a, a business owner and a sole trader and, and how to present yourself and building a profile because that has been something that you've been working on for so much in the last few years.
• 4:13
  Madeleine Cleary: Um, so I thought it would be fantastic for you to come on and really help, I suppose, other writers who are looking at building, and this is something that you've said, and I was like, okay, we have to talk about this.
• 4:24
  Madeleine Cleary: Building a portfolio career, which is such an interesting term.
• 4:29
  Madeleine Cleary: Hmm.
• 4:29
  Madeleine Cleary: Yes.
• 4:30
  Madeleine Cleary: I guess going back to year seven, like did you ever think that.
• 4:35
  Madeleine Cleary: Year seven Jessica Box would be able to, what would she think about looking at your career now, how many years after?
• 4:42
  Madeleine Cleary: I actually don't wanna admit how many years it's been since year seven.
• 4:44
  Madeleine Cleary: It's probably been 20.
• 4:47
  Jessica Box: Oh golly.
• 4:49
  Jessica Box: Yeah, it would've been far out.
• 4:52
  Jessica Box: Uh, I think it's, do you know, I don't think she could have conceptualized where I would be today, um, at all.
• 4:57
  Jessica Box: And I remember, and you've had the fortunate opportunity of doing this, but I went back to Avalara, our high school, um, to speak to the year eights and year nines, and it made me really think about.
• 5:09
  Jessica Box: What I needed to hear at that point in my, um, schooling journey to really think about not just, you know, the outcome of a specific career title per se, but the things that really l lit me up and, and my fire and like kind of following passions rather than just following like some form of, you know, I wanna be a teacher or I wanna be a doctor, et cetera.
• 5:31
  Jessica Box: And I think back to, um, our career guidance counselor, I remember.
• 5:34
  Jessica Box: Sitting in his room like so vividly him looking at my subjects and going, oh, okay, so you've got like science and like methods maths and like I did, you know, biology, chemistry, methods, maths.
• 5:47
  Jessica Box: Oh, but you also have like drama and literature.
• 5:50
  Jessica Box: Um, well, so obviously you have to be a doctor or a lawyer and I just, I remember sitting there going, I didn't really know how to respond because neither of those resonated me.
• 5:59
  Jessica Box: I didn't with me, and I didn't really know what other options there were.
• 6:03
  Jessica Box: What's really interesting now reflecting on, you know, if you were to see those on paper, um, it's the perfect synergy for someone who goes into tech because mm-hmm.
• 6:12
  Jessica Box: The, the creative like, um, uh, you know, right brain side, but also with the left brain kind of analytical, strategic thinking, you know, problem solving, um, toolkit.
• 6:23
  Jessica Box: And so I think if I was to.
• 6:26
  Jessica Box: Like say something to my 13-year-old self, it would be just back your instincts.
• 6:29
  Jessica Box: Because my instincts were screaming at me at the time that, oh, none of this is right.
• 6:33
  Jessica Box: And I remember before, um, uh, the final day when, um, uni selections were due, I had, um, uh, physiotherapy as what I was gonna do up until I remember that
• 6:46
  Nobody: I.
• 6:52
  Madeleine Cleary: You, you are a creative at heart, Jess.
• 6:55
  Madeleine Cleary: You've always been creative.
• 6:57
  Madeleine Cleary: You've, um, you're, you're an excellent writer yourself.
• 6:59
  Madeleine Cleary: I remember reading your creative pieces in, in year 12 Lit.
• 7:03
  Madeleine Cleary: Um, your, uh, we were both massive drama nerds.
• 7:06
  Madeleine Cleary: Um, in year 12.
• 7:08
  Madeleine Cleary: Um, we were part of a very small group of drama students, um, and we loved it, and that's where we really bonded.
• 7:15
  Madeleine Cleary: And so I think, and you've really.
• 7:18
  Madeleine Cleary: Brought that creativity to the roles that you've done throughout your entire career and now as the CEO, um, and co-founder of Matched as well.
• 7:26
  Madeleine Cleary: Um, because I think perform there is, there is a performance element in everything that you do.
• 7:31
  Madeleine Cleary: Mm-hmm.
• 7:32
  Madeleine Cleary: And it's definitely something that writers have to think about as well.
• 7:34
  Madeleine Cleary: Like, I know you, 12 drama for me has held me in really good stead.
• 7:38
  Jessica Box: Yeah.
• 7:39
  Jessica Box: Yeah, it's, I feel like it's, um, knowing how to tell a really good story.
• 7:43
  Jessica Box: I think it sets you in good stead regardless of what career you're in, whether it's about yourself or whether it's about a company.
• 7:48
  Jessica Box: So, mm, I really like my whole career has been at the intersection of what I would say is tech and, um, impact.
• 7:55
  Jessica Box: And I really have centered a lot of my decisions around what I want do and like where I wanna spend my time on how can I leave the world a better place.
• 8:02
  Jessica Box: And I think there's so much of.
• 8:04
  Jessica Box: Tech that is unknown when you're not deep working with engineers and product designers and all these things that, you know, I have the pleasure of working with every day, but all the decisions that I've made across my career have been, how can I do that?
• 8:16
  Jessica Box: And I think such an important part of that is, you know, uh, being able to communicate the story behind the why.
• 8:23
  Jessica Box: And so, um, I think when I first started my career, I didn't really.
• 8:27
  Jessica Box: There's this concept called the Five Whys, um, by Simon Sinek.
• 8:31
  Jessica Box: And, um, basically it takes you like one layer deeper each time, so you get to the real heart of, of the.
• 8:37
  Jessica Box: True why?
• 8:38
  Jessica Box: And so when we were building Match, we started with, oh, we're gonna build like a, a tech product that helps people connect, which at the surface level it's like, okay, cool, what this does nothing for.
• 8:48
  Jessica Box: Um, and then you go a layer deeper and it's like, oh, why are people connecting?
• 8:51
  Jessica Box: Oh, it's because they, you know, wanna be able to try, try and find true, meaningful, um, uh, authentic.
• 8:58
  Jessica Box: Um, purpose led conversations with others and learn from each other, et cetera.
• 9:02
  Jessica Box: And then it's like, okay, why do they wanna do that?
• 9:04
  Jessica Box: Um, oh, it's because it's really hard to get access to the right type of information, all the right people, because, um, it's such a privileged opportunity to be able to connect with different people.
• 9:13
  Jessica Box: And then the final ways, you know, um, you wanna unlock knowledge that you have never had.
• 9:18
  Jessica Box: So.
• 9:19
  Jessica Box: I get, and I'm saying this because obviously as writers and everyone listening, so much of how you tell stories is, is getting to the heart of the, the true why rather than the on the surface.
• 9:30
  Jessica Box: And I think, um, the journey to founding match and kind of how, how we got to the true why, and I've always wanted to be an entrepreneur and start my own business.
• 9:38
  Jessica Box: I've always dabbled in starting things myself, but this was the true.
• 9:41
  Jessica Box: The first time that I had an idea that I put in my phone that screamed at me on a Sunday morning, and I just, it poured outta me and I went and I got to the why straight away.
• 9:50
  Jessica Box: And I knew that it would be something that would motivate me, um, for many years to come.
• 9:55
  Jessica Box: So I say that because it's like I had to find the story that connected with me the most, um, in order to start a business.
• 10:00
  Jessica Box: And I think us sharing that story for Match with, um, the world is, is allowing us to really create a amazing community.
• 10:09
  Jessica Box: So.
• 10:10
  Jessica Box: Anyway.
• 10:11
  Madeleine Cleary: That's so interesting.
• 10:12
  Madeleine Cleary: I'm, I wanna take that away.
• 10:14
  Madeleine Cleary: 'cause I think that often writers to put things into perspective because, you know, there's, um, it's a really tough industry, the creative industry and, and often getting to the heart of why we do what we do.
• 10:30
  Madeleine Cleary: It holds us in really good stead.
• 10:32
  Madeleine Cleary: It builds resilience, I think, and it makes us truly understand our purpose and what we're contributing to.
• 10:39
  Madeleine Cleary: Mm.
• 10:39
  Madeleine Cleary: And so I think applying though that sort of layered why, why are we doing it?
• 10:43
  Madeleine Cleary: Why do we write, oh, well, we enjoy it, but why?
• 10:46
  Madeleine Cleary: Why, why?
• 10:47
  Madeleine Cleary: I think that's really helpful because there is so much rejection and um mm-hmm.
• 10:53
  Madeleine Cleary: You know, even if you've published a novel, if it's not considered a bestseller and it, you, you're, you, you get like, you know, a solid four weeks out in publicity and then some things and it, you feel a little bit flat.
• 11:05
  Madeleine Cleary: But I think being able to tell that and craft that narrative, I think is really, really important.
• 11:10
  Madeleine Cleary: And yes, storytelling is really, really important as well.
• 11:14
  Madeleine Cleary: In building your brand and, and that people talk about this in, in the author world about having an authentic brand, and it's often really hard to understand what that is.
• 11:24
  Jessica Box: Yeah, and it helps, I think the, the depth of the why helps you weather the storms.
• 11:28
  Jessica Box: Like I would say, there's been so many times where I went, okay, I am not cut out for this.
• 11:33
  Jessica Box: I'm gonna give up.
• 11:34
  Jessica Box: Um, and anchoring on that is it gives you a higher purpose or a higher order thinking.
• 11:39
  Jessica Box: Um, and like, you know, rider, you've got your own, you are your own business, like you are the business.
• 11:44
  Jessica Box: Mm-hmm.
• 11:45
  Jessica Box: Um, so to think about it in that way, but take it a layer deeper into the true purpose.
• 11:50
  Jessica Box: As you say, will connect you more, um, strongly to the why, but then also like to help you weather all of the, um, challenges, because of course, everyone always has challenges and setbacks.
• 12:02
  Madeleine Cleary: Mm-hmm.
• 12:03
  Madeleine Cleary: So in terms of your career,'cause you've all, you were saying that tech is the perfect fit for you.
• 12:08
  Madeleine Cleary: Was that when you, when you were doing your performing arts degree, was that a natural thing for you to fall into tech or did it take some time?
• 12:17
  Jessica Box: It definitely took time and I think I, and I, I'm a big fan of not saying that I, people are lucky.
• 12:24
  Jessica Box: I think luck is, um, not, it.
• 12:27
  Jessica Box: I think you work really hard and then you create opportunities that, um, you know, you naturally attract because of hard work.
• 12:34
  Jessica Box: Like, I worked, I worked really, really, really hard.
• 12:37
  Jessica Box: Um, and then I think I said yes to a lot of opportunities.
• 12:40
  Jessica Box: And so when I was in performing outside, I mean, this was like, you know, at the start of.
• 12:44
  Jessica Box: The iPhone coming out.
• 12:45
  Jessica Box: I was always the person that had like the latest tech you were.
• 12:47
  Jessica Box: Um, and I was draw, I was drawn to, I think it's just like the way it connected people, um, and the opportunities that you had to access information.
• 12:56
  Jessica Box: Which is funny because Match is whole purposes around around that now, really.
• 13:00
  Jessica Box: Um, uh, and yeah, I think I just also, like, I, you know, I did.
• 13:04
  Jessica Box: Masters, which you pushed me to do.
• 13:07
  Jessica Box: Um,'cause I finished performing arts and I was really lost and I kind of went, you know, I love this part of storytelling, but I'm super analytical that my dad is a, a very like, um, uh, analytical person.
• 13:17
  Jessica Box: My mom's a creative.
• 13:18
  Jessica Box: And so I'm the intersection of two of those people.
• 13:20
  Jessica Box: And I'd lent so heavily into my creative side for so long.
• 13:23
  Jessica Box: Um, I danced for 20 years.
• 13:25
  Jessica Box: There was just like so much of that.
• 13:26
  Jessica Box: Um, and then I lent.
• 13:28
  Jessica Box: I started to lean a little bit more into my analytical side and I realized that I really loved it.
• 13:32
  Jessica Box: Um, and the intersection of the two is tech.
• 13:35
  Jessica Box: So, um, I like formally, uh, my kind of area of expertise, um, in tech is growth, which is, um.
• 13:44
  Jessica Box: Effectively, how do you help a company access and, um, serve really specific subset of customers, um, which obviously lots of writers need to do, um, as you are picking their, picking, you know, um, your genre, and then also specifically the, um, you know, target audience because you can't hit everyone with Yes.
• 14:03
  Jessica Box: What you're writing.
• 14:04
  Madeleine Cleary: So, so that's so interesting, Jess, because, um, as creatives.
• 14:08
  Madeleine Cleary: We often don't think about these types of business side of being an author and the business side doesn't, isn't necessarily something that comes very naturally to authors, particularly because a lot of authors are quite introverted.
• 14:22
  Madeleine Cleary: Um, our preference is to stay home and.
• 14:26
  Madeleine Cleary: Be on our couch or on our study or wherever we write, huddled in our words.
• 14:30
  Madeleine Cleary: And then suddenly we are meant to have a profile We are meant to look at, you know, um, pushing our work and communicating and connecting and attending events and building something that's meaningful and authentic, whatever that means.
• 14:44
  Madeleine Cleary: So what advice would you say about how you, how we grow, um, our business as authors?
• 14:51
  Jessica Box: I think it has to be anchored in, um, the authenticity, right?
• 14:55
  Jessica Box: I think even more so now.
• 14:56
  Jessica Box: So growth as a discipline for a long time was like paid advertising, looking at data and going, okay, how do you like target a specific subset of customers with a message?
• 15:06
  Jessica Box: Yeah.
• 15:06
  Jessica Box: And also
• 15:06
  Madeleine Cleary: with no money as well.
• 15:07
  Madeleine Cleary: Yeah.
• 15:09
  Jessica Box: Which you can do that.
• 15:10
  Jessica Box: Uh, but do you know.
• 15:11
  Jessica Box: Um, changing and I, my most recent executive role, um, before starting Match was at tre and I was the first, um, leadership hire outside of the founders.
• 15:19
  Jessica Box: So it was a wild time.
• 15:20
  Jessica Box: The company had no, like, was starting to generate revenue, but hadn't TA taken on what I would call like venture capital funding, which then accelerates growth.
• 15:28
  Jessica Box: So I had gone through this stage of like just throwing a lot of money at, um, bringing in customers, which is really interesting.
• 15:35
  Jessica Box: Obviously it works, but what's happening now in a world of AI is, um.
• 15:39
  Jessica Box: All of the existing channels are breaking.
• 15:42
  Jessica Box: What's been really interesting lately is, um, there's reports coming out of like businesses and companies spending 70% less on their paid advertising in the last quarter alone, um, because it's not working.
• 15:54
  Jessica Box: So, um, and I say that because as writers, like you are generating content.
• 16:00
  Jessica Box: Um, not only, I mean obviously you're creating, um, uh, amazing whether it's manuscripts or publishing novels, but then you have this extra layer where you need to create content to share Yeah.
• 16:11
  Jessica Box: Your amazing manuscripts and novels.
• 16:12
  Jessica Box: And so at TRE we worked really closely with creators, but from all different varying areas, um, whether that.
• 16:19
  Jessica Box: Musicians who, you know, created music and then trying to disseminate, um, whether it is actual, you know, artists like, um, you know, fine artists who are then kind of, um, you know, publishing and, um, sharing their art online and then, you know, um, doing some, you know, different versions of how they, um, you know, tailor specific, um, pieces to their audience.
• 16:37
  Jessica Box: But the reason I say that is probably breaking it down into two parts.
• 16:41
  Jessica Box: Like you've got your craft that you.
• 16:42
  Jessica Box: I'm so passionate about that you wanna spend all your time on, um, uh, but then you have this whole other thing is like you need to then communicate with others to sell and like be able to, um, generate revenue off the back of your art.
• 16:55
  Jessica Box: And I think that tension is really, really strong because I would imagine you'd wanna spend most of your time just writing and, but then it's so critical to be able to, um.
• 17:06
  Jessica Box: Build a business around yourself that is authentic to you.
• 17:09
  Jessica Box: So my, my tip is like, get to the heart of like the, the values of what makes you, you, like you, I mean you, you know how to write and structure a really good story, but there's this kind of concept of your personal value proposition.
• 17:21
  Jessica Box: So what is your value that you generate?
• 17:23
  Jessica Box: Like you, for example, you obviously, um, have published your first, um, book this year.
• 17:28
  Jessica Box: Um, but you've spent so much time prior to that.
• 17:31
  Jessica Box: Um.
• 17:32
  Jessica Box: Like thinking through, okay, I am an historical fiction writer.
• 17:35
  Jessica Box: This is the area that I wanna be known for.
• 17:38
  Jessica Box: How do I spread the message out of me as a historical fiction writer?
• 17:42
  Jessica Box: And then naturally, when you publish a book, it fits within that view of you.
• 17:46
  Jessica Box: Mm-hmm.
• 17:46
  Jessica Box: And so I think what people don't do well is.
• 17:49
  Jessica Box: Think about being really deliberate around who they are and what they wanna be known for.
• 17:53
  Jessica Box: Um, and then testing that.
• 17:55
  Jessica Box: So doing, you know, it getting really granular here.
• 17:58
  Jessica Box: Oh no, we love this.
• 17:59
  Jessica Box: This is so good.
• 18:00
  Nobody: This is so helpful.
• 18:02
  Jessica Box: Getting really granular, but like piece to camera.
• 18:03
  Jessica Box: So everyone loves, there's this like, shift, getting back to the AI piece.
• 18:07
  Jessica Box: Yeah.
• 18:07
  Jessica Box: Um, is there's this real shift of, um, towards authenticity and trust.
• 18:11
  Jessica Box: I think trust in particular because we're flooded with synthetic content where, um, people are.
• 18:17
  Jessica Box: Using AI to create things.
• 18:19
  Jessica Box: And you can tell, like it's, it's very obvious.
• 18:22
  Madeleine Cleary: Yeah.
• 18:22
  Madeleine Cleary: And I'm, I'm finding that in my feed where things just don't look right and then you, you start to doubt.
• 18:27
  Madeleine Cleary: You're like, wait, is this AI or is this a real person?
• 18:29
  Jessica Box: Yeah, absolutely.
• 18:31
  Jessica Box: And it's, and so that, this happened recently, I saw Janine Alice, who's the founder of Boost.
• 18:35
  Jessica Box: Um.
• 18:37
  Jessica Box: Juice.
• 18:37
  Jessica Box: Yes.
• 18:37
  Jessica Box: Um, drinks.
• 18:38
  Jessica Box: She, um, shared a piece to camera saying, I've started to see my own face pop up in my feed, and it's not me.
• 18:45
  Jessica Box: Um, I am communicating with all of you to let you know that these channels are my only channels that I put myself on.
• 18:52
  Jessica Box: So as people have influence, um, start to be kind of used in a, like, you know, whether it's chat JPT or Claude or whatever platform, um, that expands out into, I mean, it's already there in terms of.
• 19:03
  Jessica Box: You know, name, image likeness is what I would call this, where people can take that and then go into chat gpt chat chat GPT and say, oh, create me a piece of content like Janine Dallas would, and with Janine Alice's face.
• 19:14
  Jessica Box: And then it spits it out and so frightening.
• 19:17
  Jessica Box: It is, it's quite frightening.
• 19:19
  Jessica Box: Um, and the reason I say this is because it's so important that, um, people.
• 19:24
  Jessica Box: People are connecting with authentic content right now.
• 19:26
  Jessica Box: And the trust piece is, um, so important.
• 19:29
  Jessica Box: So this like in-person events, in-person connection.
• 19:31
  Jessica Box: Mm-hmm.
• 19:32
  Jessica Box: I think we're gonna see a big flock back to that because there's this level of trust.
• 19:35
  Jessica Box: So if you're investing in any area, it's like your piece to camera, like you as a person talking, which is really hard.
• 19:41
  Jessica Box: I, I mean, I personally struggle with, so I, I find I have to like work myself up to it.
• 19:48
  Jessica Box: And my co-founder, Susan and I, we've started this like, we're actually doing like quasi podcast.
• 19:53
  Jessica Box: Style.
• 19:54
  Jessica Box: Um, in person sessions where we talk to each other and then we turn them into little videos because
• 20:00
  Madeleine Cleary: Oh, that's much, much better.
• 20:00
  Madeleine Cleary: That's actually better.
• 20:00
  Madeleine Cleary: 'cause I find it really dif, I, I actually don't do it that, what do you call it?
• 20:04
  Madeleine Cleary: Piece, what is it?
• 20:05
  Madeleine Cleary: Piece to
• 20:05
  Jessica Box: camera.
• 20:06
  Jessica Box: Piece to camera.
• 20:06
  Jessica Box: So you talk to the camera, but you talk to each other.
• 20:09
  Jessica Box: So like we doing, but we sit in front of each other and then we have two cameras, one facing.
• 20:14
  Jessica Box: Each, each other.
• 20:15
  Jessica Box: Mm-hmm.
• 20:15
  Jessica Box: Then we talk to each other so it's more authentic.
• 20:17
  Jessica Box: It's like this, but then you stitch it together and there's like tools we call, use a platform called V that mm-hmm.
• 20:22
  Jessica Box: Um, basically, well this is the good part of ai.
• 20:24
  Jessica Box: It like takes our content and pulls out the best snippets, um, into like one or two minute bites.
• 20:29
  Jessica Box: Um, so anyway, that, all of that is to say, I think there's this giant shift happening and then this concept of like.
• 20:35
  Jessica Box: We're talking about profile, but really it's a brand.
• 20:37
  Jessica Box: Um, uh, in our world, what's happening right now is everyone is investing really heavily in brands, um, like tech companies.
• 20:45
  Jessica Box: It's the, the thing that you own.
• 20:47
  Jessica Box: Because so much of what's changing is like, you actually don't own that all that much.
• 20:50
  Jessica Box: Like you don't own your audience if you're paying for it from Meta or Instagram or et cetera.
• 20:55
  Jessica Box: Um, but your brand is something that you own and you can communicate the message and, you know, the investment is, you know, starting to pay off for people who do that.
• 21:03
  Madeleine Cleary: That's so interesting.
• 21:05
  Madeleine Cleary: I didn't actually really think about that.
• 21:07
  Madeleine Cleary: That you don't own your, own, your audience.
• 21:09
  Madeleine Cleary: If your audience is purely on Instagram or TikTok.
• 21:12
  Madeleine Cleary: Yeah,
• 21:13
  Nobody: because
• 21:13
  Madeleine Cleary: it's, it's, you are using a platform and they are on a platform.
• 21:17
  Nobody: Yeah.
• 21:17
  Nobody: But,
• 21:18
  Madeleine Cleary: but if you are out and about in events, if you are attending and people are turning up for you, reading your book, consuming your content, providing feedback to you, that's different.
• 21:28
  Madeleine Cleary: Like you, you do own that more, I think.
• 21:31
  Jessica Box: Absolutely, and like newsletters and things like that, like I really push people to do that because you've got email addresses, you've got like, you can actually communicate directly.
• 21:39
  Jessica Box: Whereas in a social sense, you're also beholden to the algorithm.
• 21:42
  Jessica Box: So like, I think there's something like, at the moment, only 10 to 20% of your audience.
• 21:46
  Jessica Box: Who actually follow you will see your content.
• 21:48
  Jessica Box: So even then, it's like a lower percentage.
• 21:51
  Jessica Box: Um, and I've got a very funny story about owning audience.
• 21:54
  Jessica Box: When I was at Ree, um, and it was uh, super Bowl Sunday in the us Uh, we all got up on Monday, um, morning, and Elon Musk was, had just taken over Twitter, um, and.
• 22:07
  Jessica Box: He, uh, Twitter had shut down access to Link Tree on, um, all on on Twitter, full stop.
• 22:13
  Jessica Box: No one could click out to a link tree link at all.
• 22:17
  Jessica Box: Um, and so all of our creators like flooded.
• 22:22
  Jessica Box: Um, well now called X.
• 22:24
  Jessica Box: Still Twitter to me, but, um, uh, saying, you know, what's happening?
• 22:28
  Jessica Box: Um, blah, blah, blah.
• 22:29
  Jessica Box: And there was this like published piece, like in, you know, ts and Cs have been updated on, um, Twitter.
• 22:34
  Jessica Box: Um, you know, these types of external links are not allowed anymore.
• 22:38
  Jessica Box: Um, and so we all like, even an instant there goes your whole modus operandi, right?
• 22:43
  Jessica Box: It wasn't even Link Tree, it was more the creators, like all their audience.
• 22:46
  Jessica Box: They couldn't ca uh, you know, um, access their audience.
• 22:50
  Jessica Box: Um, and so we had this, like this Monday morning in the US Sunday night, um, Monday morning in Australia, Sunday.
• 22:55
  Jessica Box: Um, super Bowl like Elon Musk is at the Super Bowl.
• 22:58
  Jessica Box: Um, and, um, we all get on this crisis call and then we realize quite quickly that it's gonna be.
• 23:04
  Jessica Box: Overturned, right.
• 23:05
  Jessica Box: Um, and you could just like, from a legal perspective, we had a general counselor who was super amazing, got on the call and basically said, yeah, no, it's gonna get overturned.
• 23:12
  Jessica Box: So what we actually did, and this is a good lesson in like capturing moments, um, we went, okay, so we've got like high volumes of traffic coming to Link Tree, the website.
• 23:21
  Jessica Box: To see what's going on because it's everywhere.
• 23:24
  Jessica Box: Mm.
• 23:24
  Jessica Box: Um, and how do we kind of like, own a really interesting narrative or voice within all of this?
• 23:30
  Jessica Box: And so Alex, the CEO of Blink Tree, um, has a Tesla.
• 23:33
  Jessica Box: And so, um, I was on a call and I said, how about we like get cheeky and actually just say, um, don't make me sell my Tesla at Elon Musk and.
• 23:43
  Jessica Box: And that was what he did, and it ended up on the, uh, like a headline in the Sydney Morning Herald and a whole bunch of stuff.
• 23:48
  Jessica Box: Um, so I say this because like the owning the audience piece is like, it's so volatile, but then you can also, like, there's ways to kind of be creative that generate a lot of like, interest in those moments as well.
• 23:59
  Jessica Box: So,
• 24:00
  Madeleine Cleary: well, it reminds me of when, um.
• 24:02
  Madeleine Cleary: Um, I can't remember if it, was it Donald Trump that just closed?
• 24:05
  Madeleine Cleary: Well, no, it wasn't Donald Trump.
• 24:06
  Madeleine Cleary: It wasn't the TikTok got banned in the US for last four days or something.
• 24:10
  Madeleine Cleary: Yeah.
• 24:11
  Madeleine Cleary: And then Donald Trump said he would overturn it.
• 24:12
  Madeleine Cleary: I think if he was elected
• 24:14
  Jessica Box: the us like all the, all the execs in the US have this big sweeping, like we'll just knock everything out.
• 24:19
  Jessica Box: And then they, and it's obviously some, a lot of it's share price.
• 24:22
  Jessica Box: Um, but some of it, yeah.
• 24:24
  Madeleine Cleary: But isn't it amazing that TikTok could just turn off their, their, you know, creators in the US for that?
• 24:30
  Madeleine Cleary: Oh, was it global or No, I think it was just in the us, wasn't it?
• 24:33
  Madeleine Cleary: Yeah.
• 24:34
  Madeleine Cleary: And then suddenly all these people on their platform is gone and, and it goes dark and you know, you don't, you don't have that control.
• 24:43
  Madeleine Cleary: Um, but you're right, everyone says that.
• 24:45
  Madeleine Cleary: Um.
• 24:46
  Madeleine Cleary: Newsletters and substack are really good, like creating that.
• 24:49
  Madeleine Cleary: I just find, um, it's really hard because, and this is something I really wanted to talk to you about.
• 24:54
  Madeleine Cleary: He's trying to balance where you put your energies into.
• 24:57
  Nobody: Yeah.
• 24:57
  Madeleine Cleary: cause you know, you, you do have so many different priorities and often for me, my substack goes to the lowest.
• 25:06
  Madeleine Cleary: Yeah.
• 25:07
  Madeleine Cleary: And so perhaps this is like a good idea that maybe to move towards, like talking about creating a portfolio career and, Hmm.
• 25:15
  Madeleine Cleary: One that's sustainable.
• 25:17
  Madeleine Cleary: Yeah, I think sustainable is probably one of the key words.
• 25:20
  Madeleine Cleary: Um, yeah, because, and I'll actually maybe tell us a little bit about what, what the concept is and then we can have that chat.
• 25:28
  Jessica Box: Yeah.
• 25:28
  Jessica Box: So, um, I would describe portfolio career as.
• 25:33
  Jessica Box: Having a collection of things that you are passionate about and being able to monetize, um, from multiple of them.
• 25:40
  Jessica Box: So typically you would think about full-time job as where you get your money.
• 25:43
  Jessica Box: Mm-hmm.
• 25:44
  Jessica Box: Um, what is changing is, um, people, while people are looking for more optionality, uh, in where they generate their income from, but they're also leaning more heavily into purpose.
• 25:55
  Jessica Box: So obviously.
• 25:56
  Jessica Box: Um, lots of writers and emerging writers listening to this like you are, I would imagine you're very passionate about your writing, but you also are probably in a job that sustains your life, um, or, you know, pays bills.
• 26:08
  Jessica Box: And I think the concept of portfolio career is breaking that down into, okay, um, how do I have a collection of things that I'm passionate about and also brings in.
• 26:19
  Jessica Box: Uh, income that I can capture value from is, is effectively what I would call that.
• 26:24
  Jessica Box: So I've always been, and then there's another funny word for this that I would call a slasher.
• 26:28
  Jessica Box: So as in like, I am a CEO slash a co-founder slash an advisor slash a board director slash a wife slash um, a dog mom to my dog whiskey.
• 26:39
  Jessica Box: Um, and, and the whole concept of that is, um, being able to put.
• 26:44
  Jessica Box: It, put all the things out there and I have my coach, um, we call these, um, wearing the hats.
• 26:50
  Jessica Box: And so I have like a, you know, a bucket for each of my different hats and the energy that I want to, um, kind of put into, into each.
• 26:57
  Jessica Box: And I think what happens is when you start building out something like this concept conceptually as a portfolio career, it can be really overwhelming because you think that you have to give equal energy to all the things, um, which is just not, yes, that's what I'm finding.
• 27:09
  Jessica Box: It's really tough
• 27:10
  Madeleine Cleary: one.
• 27:10
  Madeleine Cleary: 'cause I mean, for writers we also wear many hats.
• 27:13
  Madeleine Cleary: We are.
• 27:14
  Madeleine Cleary: The author.
• 27:15
  Madeleine Cleary: Yeah.
• 27:15
  Madeleine Cleary: And like you said, we've got the day job, but we also do other things like we might do, like at the moment it's book week is on.
• 27:20
  Madeleine Cleary: So yeah.
• 27:21
  Madeleine Cleary: A lot of authors are out in schools.
• 27:23
  Madeleine Cleary: They're doing running workshops.
• 27:25
  Madeleine Cleary: Um, we do library events, we do speaking events and keynotes.
• 27:29
  Madeleine Cleary: We are attend writers festivals.
• 27:32
  Madeleine Cleary: Um, we run podcasts, we mm-hmm.
• 27:35
  Madeleine Cleary: You know, so we, we do have lots of hats.
• 27:37
  Madeleine Cleary: Um, and.
• 27:39
  Madeleine Cleary: And it is, I think, yeah, if you've got any tips on how you like Yeah.
• 27:44
  Madeleine Cleary: How do you avoid burnout?
• 27:46
  Jessica Box: Yeah, so I've got, I've got two things that I've, I'm, and I will say I'm not always good at this.
• 27:51
  Jessica Box: Like, I, I think it, it, there's periods of time, like probably right now I'm flying to Europe on Sunday and, and I've struck, I've structured exactly how I'm gonna operate the three and a half weeks so that I get downtime.
• 28:03
  Jessica Box: So there's seven days where I'm gonna be fully offline Anyway, this is like a good lead into one of the, um.
• 28:09
  Jessica Box: Pieces, which is time boxing.
• 28:10
  Jessica Box: Mm-hmm.
• 28:10
  Jessica Box: I think being really specific, and this is a, like I talk, I, and I, I'll get really detailed on this'cause I take it to the extreme.
• 28:17
  Jessica Box: My calendar, yes.
• 28:19
  Jessica Box: My calendar is like a series of time boxes.
• 28:23
  Jessica Box: So when I've got a task that I need to, I think there's this like, um.
• 28:26
  Jessica Box: Theory that like you, if you, if you don't time box, you'll just let it fill as much time as is allocated.
• 28:32
  Jessica Box: Whereas if you put in like say a half an hour, I'm gonna spend half an hour on that, that specific time, then you either like, it gives you the correct waiting for an item.
• 28:41
  Jessica Box: So I'll give you an example that literally after this I've got two one hour time blocks, um, for things that I need to do.
• 28:47
  Jessica Box: One of them is like just kind of wrapping up and making sure I send out like all my last, um.
• 28:51
  Jessica Box: Emails before I head off, and then I've gotta review a specific document for a company that I advise.
• 28:56
  Jessica Box: And so if I like didn't put say 45 minutes in, I could just end up spending three hours on it.
• 29:01
  Jessica Box: Mm-hmm.
• 29:02
  Jessica Box: Um, and so it also from a cognitive load perspective means I don't have to keep creating to-do lists.
• 29:07
  Jessica Box: So I just like map it all out at the start of the week and I go, yep.
• 29:11
  Jessica Box: So that's my time boxing there.
• 29:12
  Jessica Box: Um, I will say it's like so structured.
• 29:15
  Jessica Box: Um, and so I'm, my thing is.
• 29:18
  Jessica Box: Where I need rest or like a reset.
• 29:20
  Jessica Box: My thing about travel is that it's the total opposite.
• 29:23
  Jessica Box: So I love like spending time totally unstructured'cause I'm so structured in, um, like, you know, day to day.
• 29:31
  Madeleine Cleary: Jess, you've just changed my life, I think.
• 29:35
  Madeleine Cleary: This is actually so useful and helpful.
• 29:39
  Madeleine Cleary: I am boxing because I'm just sitting here going, oh my God, this is gonna change everything for me.
• 29:46
  Madeleine Cleary: Because I think the problem, and particularly for me and probably for other writers, is that anything that takes us away from the writing, I feel incredibly guilty about.
• 29:56
  Nobody: Yeah.
• 29:56
  Madeleine Cleary: And so, and I feel, and I beat myself up about it.
• 30:00
  Madeleine Cleary: However, if you put scheduled time in your week or over the next, or over a couple of weeks and say, okay, I'm going to, like, I need to set aside time to read a book and prepare for an author interview.
• 30:14
  Madeleine Cleary: Mm.
• 30:14
  Madeleine Cleary: This is the allocated time that I'm gonna do, do it in.
• 30:17
  Madeleine Cleary: Yeah.
• 30:17
  Madeleine Cleary: And, and that's, and that's.
• 30:19
  Madeleine Cleary: Set and done, and I'm not gonna feel guilty if I can't do the writing around that because you've gone in and you've allocated it.
• 30:25
  Madeleine Cleary: Yeah.
• 30:26
  Madeleine Cleary: Like I think that's super, super helpful.
• 30:28
  Madeleine Cleary: And I also think that you are right about, if you don't allocate time to a task, you can just absolutely fill whatever time you have.
• 30:36
  Madeleine Cleary: Mm.
• 30:36
  Madeleine Cleary: I find that with writing, this is something Tina, my co-host has said that.
• 30:40
  Madeleine Cleary: She has a block.
• 30:41
  Madeleine Cleary: She has a one hour block in the morning for her writing.
• 30:44
  Madeleine Cleary: Mm.
• 30:44
  Madeleine Cleary: And she'll smash her writing.
• 30:45
  Madeleine Cleary: She will not do anything else.
• 30:47
  Madeleine Cleary: That's all she'll focus on.
• 30:49
  Madeleine Cleary: And I've started to employ that because I found with my writing, I would just, if I had three or four hours, I would just kind of pick up other things and not focus.
• 30:59
  Madeleine Cleary: Mm.
• 30:59
  Madeleine Cleary: But if you do it in like blocks and chunks, I think it's so much better and better for your focus.
• 31:05
  Jessica Box: That's it.
• 31:05
  Jessica Box: I was about to say, and something that you were touching on there is, it's like once it's in there, then you don't have to think about it.
• 31:11
  Jessica Box: Mm-hmm.
• 31:11
  Jessica Box: Because there's something to be said about ju like the juggle of all the balls.
• 31:16
  Jessica Box: If all the balls are in the air, then you, you're thinking about'em all at the same time, rather than going, okay.
• 31:21
  Jessica Box: I know that say on a Friday, every Friday I have one hour block where I think about social media and then I spend, I schedule my content and then I'm done.
• 31:30
  Jessica Box: Mm-hmm.
• 31:31
  Jessica Box: And or you have like a one hour block where you shoot your content and then those types of things.
• 31:36
  Jessica Box: Um, because particularly when it's things that like don't give you the same energy, you wanna make sure that you're not just like, to your point, feeling guilty about like doing other things, but it's all got a specific time.
• 31:47
  Jessica Box: The other part is like not pretending like you shouldn't be doing it, because I think, I think you can give yourself your internal monologue where it's like, oh, but like, no, I don't need to do that.
• 31:56
  Jessica Box: But you actually do.
• 31:57
  Jessica Box: So allocating the time means that.
• 32:00
  Jessica Box: You know, it's got a time and a space for it to exist, rather than you feeling like, oh, well no, I shouldn't be doing that.
• 32:11
  Holly Cardamone: Hello, my name is Holly Cardamone and I am so excited to speak to you about my upcoming debut novel.
• 32:17
  Holly Cardamone: Summer in Between.
• 32:18
  Holly Cardamone: Summer In Between is a young adult contemporary novel about a firecracker, bookworm and neander little surfer, and one unforgettable summer.
• 32:26
  Holly Cardamone: So imagine if looking for Ellie Brandy and puberty blues had a book, baby, that's my novel, but in a little more detail.
• 32:32
  Holly Cardamone: It's New Year's Day, and Kat is 17 and lives in Baters Cove, a small beach town, 90 minutes from the city.
• 32:38
  Holly Cardamone: It's a town where testosterone mixes freely with casual and overt racism, and she honestly cannot wait to get out.
• 32:45
  Holly Cardamone: Now, Kat has a chaotic, noisy family, including an imposing interfering nonna, two boisterous younger brothers and parents who are continually flirty with each other to the point of get a room.
• 32:55
  Holly Cardamone: She has friends that she adores, but they're scattered hundreds of kilometers apart and her only contact with them for the summer is online.
• 33:02
  Holly Cardamone: Kat is obsessed with her upcoming year 12 studies.
• 33:05
  Holly Cardamone: She believes that they'll make or break her future.
• 33:07
  Holly Cardamone: She honestly sees that the marks that she gets at the end of year 12 will be her ticket out of town.
• 33:13
  Holly Cardamone: So she has a plan and that's to study hard, get into university and get out of bat's Cove.
• 33:19
  Holly Cardamone: And part of her plan is to avoid the local Neanderthals, the surfers who take over the beach, including their king Paul, light wood, who is the hottest of the hot.
• 33:29
  Holly Cardamone: Paul is someone who's been on cat's periphery for years.
• 33:32
  Holly Cardamone: He can eat fur without a splash.
• 33:34
  Holly Cardamone: He loves music and making playlists, and he's had his own hopes and dreams thwarted.
• 33:38
  Holly Cardamone: Everyone loves Paul except for Kat.
• 33:40
  Holly Cardamone: She's completely immune to his charms and she thinks he'd have a crack at a stop sign for.
• 33:44
  Holly Cardamone: Looked at him the right way.
• 33:46
  Holly Cardamone: So summer's becoming very interesting and confusing when Paul starts working for cat's Dad, a cat's house for the entire summer.
• 33:53
  Holly Cardamone: So throw in a beach party or two night markets.
• 33:56
  Holly Cardamone: Gelato cliff jumping into the ocean.
• 33:59
  Holly Cardamone: And we have somewhere in between.
• 34:01
  Holly Cardamone: Thank you so much Madeleine and Tina for the opportunity to chat to you.
• 34:09
  Madeleine Cleary: This is so good.
• 34:11
  Madeleine Cleary: I'm going to implement, I'm so excited about this.
• 34:14
  Madeleine Cleary: This is gonna change everything and this is much more healthy, I think.
• 34:18
  Madeleine Cleary: And I guess you do have to allocate time to, to.
• 34:22
  Madeleine Cleary: Time box.
• 34:23
  Madeleine Cleary: Right?
• 34:23
  Madeleine Cleary: Like you do have to put in the effort to do that as well.
• 34:26
  Jessica Box: Yeah.
• 34:26
  Jessica Box: My favorite time to do that is on a Monday morning.
• 34:29
  Jessica Box: So I do some of it on Sunday, but I'm pre, I'm like a, I'm very rigorous calendar person and I have, there's another hot tip, um, color coding, um, brings me joy that it makes my husband fearful when he looks at my calendar.
• 34:43
  Jessica Box: But I feel like everything's got its place.
• 34:45
  Jessica Box: So, and so I have all my personal things in there.
• 34:47
  Jessica Box: And then each of my like advisory things like matches.
• 34:50
  Jessica Box: You know, orange.
• 34:51
  Jessica Box: Oh, I can send you a screenshot of what it looks like, but it's, it's all got different colors.
• 34:55
  Jessica Box: Um, and it's helpful to me because then when I look at my calendar at a glance, I can see like where I'm allocating my time.
• 35:01
  Jessica Box: And if I've got too much advisory on one day, I can tell my brain's gonna context switch too much.
• 35:05
  Jessica Box: And so then I go, oh, well I need, I can't do that today.
• 35:08
  Jessica Box: I'll move it to another day.
• 35:10
  Madeleine Cleary: Oh, this is brilliant.
• 35:11
  Madeleine Cleary: I love this.
• 35:12
  Madeleine Cleary: I'm gonna,
• 35:13
  Jessica Box: I'm so excited.
• 35:15
  Jessica Box: Okay.
• 35:15
  Jessica Box: This is great for type A people.
• 35:18
  Madeleine Cleary: It's so, so good.
• 35:19
  Madeleine Cleary: And, um.
• 35:20
  Madeleine Cleary: I just, I I think you are, uh, spot on or too about allocating time for social media content.
• 35:25
  Madeleine Cleary: 'cause social media, I know we just, we touched on it just before, but I, I think it's good to come back to it.
• 35:30
  Madeleine Cleary: Um,'cause it is like a, that's another hat that authors have to wear and not necessarily one that we're really good at.
• 35:38
  Madeleine Cleary: Mm.
• 35:38
  Madeleine Cleary: So I guess if you've got any tips about.
• 35:41
  Madeleine Cleary: What can we, what can we do?
• 35:43
  Madeleine Cleary: And we were just talking before about how we might be flipping back to more of that face-to-face in-person stuff, but I still think it's gonna play a role in future
• 35:52
  Nobody: Yeah.
• 35:52
  Nobody: For
• 35:52
  Madeleine Cleary: creatives as well.
• 35:53
  Madeleine Cleary: So do you have any tips about, maybe it's coming back to what you were saying earlier about looking at the whys as well, like looking at why we do it.
• 36:03
  Nobody: Um,
• 36:03
  Madeleine Cleary: are we doing it to try and sell books?
• 36:05
  Madeleine Cleary: 'cause it's probably not.
• 36:07
  Madeleine Cleary: Very good to sell books, but you know, is it to build connection?
• 36:10
  Madeleine Cleary: So how do we, how do authors get joy from social media?
• 36:17
  Madeleine Cleary: How do we create boundaries around social media and what, yeah, what tips do you have for us?
• 36:22
  Jessica Box: Yes.
• 36:23
  Jessica Box: So I think eight is connected to the five why's.
• 36:26
  Jessica Box: And I would say my number one thing is to find your unique voice.
• 36:30
  Jessica Box: Um, and I feel like that would resonate really well with writers.
• 36:34
  Jessica Box: 'cause it's like you've gotta find your writing voice.
• 36:36
  Jessica Box: Yes.
• 36:36
  Jessica Box: But you also have to find your unique social media voice and it, this one needs to be at the intersection of what you'd love and what people wanna hear.
• 36:45
  Jessica Box: What I mean, I've never heard
• 36:46
  Madeleine Cleary: that before.
• 36:46
  Madeleine Cleary: That's so good.
• 36:48
  Jessica Box: Yeah.
• 36:49
  Jessica Box: So what you love, but.
• 36:51
  Jessica Box: Is obviously if you just talk about what you love, then you know, you may not find the right audience, you might not care.
• 36:56
  Jessica Box: Yeah.
• 36:56
  Jessica Box: But the second part is like, people act, what do people actually want to hear about?
• 37:00
  Jessica Box: Um, and you know, I would say if, if I was picking, and there's two parts to this, it's like you can't picking a channel to start with.
• 37:09
  Jessica Box: Like just pick one, don't try and do everything.
• 37:11
  Jessica Box: Mm-hmm.
• 37:12
  Jessica Box: Pick one that you're gonna focus on.
• 37:13
  Jessica Box: And then, you know, there's this concept of habit stacking where you repeat the habit and you.
• 37:17
  Jessica Box: Kind of bundle it in with other things.
• 37:18
  Jessica Box: So if you're like writing at the end of writing, maybe you like wanna do a reflection on how that session went and then you share that publicly as an example.
• 37:27
  Jessica Box: Mm-hmm.
• 37:28
  Jessica Box: Um, and I would recommend, if you're gonna pick one, would be TikTok.
• 37:33
  Jessica Box: Um, because there's so much opportunity for authentic content, it's also growing rapidly.
• 37:39
  Jessica Box: You can also share your tiktoks on Instagram and it still does quite well.
• 37:42
  Jessica Box: So that type of content.
• 37:44
  Jessica Box: The kind of piece to camera that I was talking about where you talk at the camera, um, is what's resonating really strongly.
• 37:51
  Jessica Box: Mm-hmm.
• 37:51
  Jessica Box: So, um, and I think, you know, not everyone is gonna be comfortable with that because, um, you know, it takes a little bit of time to be able to feel comfortable.
• 38:01
  Jessica Box: But I would say starting with like the interview piece, so find someone who is maybe a writer that is going on the same journey as you.
• 38:07
  Jessica Box: And just have a, have a yap, have a conversation with each other and record it and see how it goes.
• 38:12
  Jessica Box: Um.
• 38:13
  Jessica Box: And yeah, I think TikTok in particular, I mean, you know, book talk in general is like such a big area, um, that people are, are resonating with.
• 38:23
  Jessica Box: I, I feel like this year has been the biggest book week in Australia.
• 38:26
  Jessica Box: I think there's so much happening from a connectedness to, like, storytelling at the moment that, um, finding your unique voice in that.
• 38:35
  Jessica Box: Um, and then the specific audience that people wanna hear.
• 38:38
  Jessica Box: I feel like that's a nice way to think about you're actually generating value for people like you are.
• 38:42
  Jessica Box: People want to listen to you rather than it just being, I'm selling my book, it, think about it like, okay, it's, it's almost like, and this is like very, um, marketing type structures, but it's like a funnel.
• 38:54
  Jessica Box: It is a funnel is conceptually a funnel.
• 38:56
  Jessica Box: So you've got your audience at the top, they're like unaware of you, they don't know you.
• 38:59
  Jessica Box: Um, and then as you.
• 39:00
  Jessica Box: Like they typically people need to hear from you about between four to five times to then know who you are.
• 39:07
  Jessica Box: And so the repetition is super important.
• 39:09
  Jessica Box: Um, and the consistency.
• 39:10
  Jessica Box: So finding something that you wanna talk about that you can be consistent with, and then hitting the same message a few times means that then people are gonna connect with you.
• 39:19
  Jessica Box: Um, and so I think.
• 39:21
  Jessica Box: Yeah, really allocating the time to just think about the purpose and the like, getting connected to what you're gonna say and taking it away from just selling books because people are gonna buy your books if they're connecting with you and telling, uh, and um, hearing from you.
• 39:34
  Jessica Box: Like you would, you would know this from all the events that you've done and you share the story and then everyone's like, okay, I'm gonna, I wanna read the book.
• 39:40
  Jessica Box: 'cause the story is so amazing.
• 39:41
  Jessica Box: That's the way to think about this.
• 39:44
  Jessica Box: Like, don't think about it as like, oh, I've just got it.
• 39:46
  Jessica Box: Do this post,'cause it's gonna sell me like five books.
• 39:48
  Jessica Box: Think about it as I've got a story to share, um, and I'm gonna share it.
• 39:52
  Jessica Box: And then the outcome from that is naturally, obviously books get sold.
• 39:58
  Madeleine Cleary: I'm not sure, Jess, if you can see my soul dying.
• 40:05
  Jessica Box: Yeah, I, I know that I've told you to go on TikTok before and you have not wanted to do that, but it is, it's definitely the one, I think it's, I think it's more authentic than Instagram as well.
• 40:13
  Jessica Box: Instagram's become very, so first Facebook was very businessy and then everyone went to Instagram to become like, be all personal and then.
• 40:21
  Jessica Box: Um, Instagram started to become businessy and everyone wanted TikTok to be all personal.
• 40:26
  Jessica Box: So we're going through this journey of like, each channel is kind of changing.
• 40:30
  Jessica Box: Um, chat.
• 40:30
  Jessica Box: GPT is gonna be the next one.
• 40:32
  Jessica Box: Um,
• 40:33
  Madeleine Cleary: oh, like as in community, in connection on chat, GPT,
• 40:36
  Jessica Box: it'll be the next, what I would call distribution channel.
• 40:39
  Jessica Box: So how people, um, find you.
• 40:42
  Jessica Box: How, how will that work?
• 40:44
  Jessica Box: I mean, so 70 700 million people are using chat GPT per week.
• 40:50
  Madeleine Cleary: Geez, that's insane.
• 40:52
  Jessica Box: They haven't done this yet.
• 40:53
  Jessica Box: Like this is what, like, so in my, in my tech circles, we're in very big in an echo chamber at the moment.
• 40:59
  Jessica Box: Um, but yeah, so the way that Instagram and TikTok emerged, um, as channels, um, there's a similar pattern happening with chat GPT where they didn't nec they're not gonna, it's obviously not gonna be a social media channel, um, in the same way, but.
• 41:13
  Jessica Box: Um, each person is individually browsing, um, more akin to a Google I would say, um, than a, um, than a Instagram or TikTok.
• 41:23
  Madeleine Cleary: That, that kind of slightly frighten frightens me.
• 41:26
  Madeleine Cleary: 'cause I know how much AI hallucinate answers and responses.
• 41:30
  Madeleine Cleary: So it's almost like that misinformation is really, really frightening.
• 41:33
  Madeleine Cleary: I actually, you know how you Google stuff and it comes up automatically with the AI response.
• 41:38
  Madeleine Cleary: I ignore it because I just find that a lot of the times it's wrong.
• 41:43
  Jessica Box: It is.
• 41:43
  Jessica Box: I, I agree with you and I think, I think Google's not, we can get all technical, but Google's not trained on the same level of data that chat GT is.
• 41:52
  Jessica Box: So chat GT is holding things back deliberately to get to a certain level from a tech perspective.
• 41:58
  Jessica Box: Then when they're there, I think they'll become like akin to an apple, um, where they launch apps and have.
• 42:05
  Jessica Box: A marketplace where companies can build on top of chat GBT, so mm-hmm.
• 42:09
  Jessica Box: Anyway, this is so
• 42:09
  Madeleine Cleary: interesting.
• 42:10
  Madeleine Cleary: Um, I've actually had quite a few chats about, um, the future I suppose, of creating connections.
• 42:16
  Madeleine Cleary: 'cause I guess what we're talking about is connection and, uh, we will talk about matched and how that's creating connections.
• 42:23
  Nobody: Mm-hmm.
• 42:23
  Nobody: Um,
• 42:23
  Madeleine Cleary: and.
• 42:24
  Madeleine Cleary: You know, the way that people connect now is probably gonna be very different to the way people connect in five years and Instagram and TikTok, they're such good, you know, connection tools and I've definitely enjoyed the part of social media in connecting with other authors and readers.
• 42:41
  Madeleine Cleary: That's been the best part.
• 42:42
  Madeleine Cleary: Mm.
• 42:43
  Madeleine Cleary: Um, um, but, uh, you know, chatting with other people, a lot of people are saying, because AI.
• 42:50
  Madeleine Cleary: Is, you know, we are not sure whether content is AI generated or not.
• 42:53
  Madeleine Cleary: 'cause I think humans still wanna connect with humans.
• 42:56
  Madeleine Cleary: They don't wanna connect with AI driven content.
• 42:58
  Madeleine Cleary: Yeah.
• 42:58
  Madeleine Cleary: On social media that they might be moving to platforms like Discord, where they can create groups very much about focused issue areas that they enjoy, like key issue areas that they enjoy.
• 43:10
  Madeleine Cleary: Yeah.
• 43:10
  Madeleine Cleary: It goes back to what we were saying about those in-person things, and I quite, I, I think that's quite good, but, um mm-hmm.
• 43:17
  Madeleine Cleary: So interested in your thoughts on that, but another thing as well, another reflection.
• 43:21
  Madeleine Cleary: Um, so Ally Parker, who you, you know, um, she's a friend of the podcast.
• 43:26
  Madeleine Cleary: Um, she was, she's been saying to me that I need to get onto TikTok.
• 43:30
  Madeleine Cleary: And I was talking to, we did an event last night together, and I was, it's, it's really interesting.
• 43:34
  Madeleine Cleary: I've done two events now with Ally in the last couple of weeks.
• 43:37
  Madeleine Cleary: Ally's really good on TikTok.
• 43:39
  Nobody: Mm.
• 43:39
  Madeleine Cleary: So for those who want a good example of, she's fantastic.
• 43:44
  Madeleine Cleary: Very authentic.
• 43:45
  Madeleine Cleary: Yeah.
• 43:45
  Madeleine Cleary: Um.
• 43:46
  Madeleine Cleary: Interestingly, a lot of the events that I attend, like, um, book events, it's attended by a certain kind of age group, I suppose, tends to be older women.
• 43:57
  Madeleine Cleary: Um, but when I have been going to the events with Ali, um, she attracts a younger.
• 44:02
  Madeleine Cleary: Audience because she's on TikTok and a lot of them are.
• 44:05
  Madeleine Cleary: And they said, they tell me like, oh, we, I found Ali on TikTok.
• 44:09
  Madeleine Cleary: Um, and so we've got now, and the positives of this is we've got this younger community reading, historical fiction, consuming this kind of content, which is different'cause I think traditionally.
• 44:21
  Madeleine Cleary: Tick book talkers are consuming, like romantic and fantasy and that, and romance and things like that.
• 44:26
  Madeleine Cleary: But now they're consuming historical fiction and they're coming together to these in-person events.
• 44:31
  Madeleine Cleary: They know each other, they're, they've got this nice community.
• 44:35
  Madeleine Cleary: They're talking about books, and that's a really positive, I think, from them.
• 44:39
  Jessica Box: Yeah, it is.
• 44:39
  Jessica Box: I, I fully agree.
• 44:40
  Jessica Box: I think, um, what you're talking about is, I would say the concept of discovery and like the discovery happening, where it happens matters.
• 44:49
  Jessica Box: And I think discovery on TikTok is so deep in community, like it's.
• 44:54
  Jessica Box: So everyone's very open.
• 44:55
  Jessica Box: There's no kind of like, you know, you see a lot of polish on Instagram.
• 44:59
  Jessica Box: Um, on TikTok there's a lot of authenticity, and so people connect more deeply faster.
• 45:03
  Jessica Box: So I am not surprised, like Ali spending time there is ge generating like a, you know, there's a bit of like cult following that happens on TikTok when, when people, when people like, see two of your videos.
• 45:14
  Jessica Box: This comes back to this funnel that I mentioned.
• 45:16
  Jessica Box: I think it's two or three, and then like, they follow you, then they're hooked.
• 45:19
  Jessica Box: If someone follows you on TikTok, they're like a really high.
• 45:23
  Jessica Box: Um, uh, a high value subscriber or person that, like, they're part of your community.
• 45:28
  Jessica Box: So, um, yeah, it is really, it's really interesting.
• 45:32
  Jessica Box: But to your point, I think there's.
• 45:34
  Jessica Box: This concept of community is shifting so much.
• 45:36
  Jessica Box: Um, and I think, yeah, we're going to have this, we're gonna have be quite binary.
• 45:41
  Jessica Box: I think it'll be like everything happening on AI or everything happening in person.
• 45:45
  Jessica Box: I think there's gonna be this move to people wanting to connect with a real human.
• 45:50
  Jessica Box: Um, first.
• 45:51
  Jessica Box: Yeah.
• 45:51
  Madeleine Cleary: Like I'm all here for it.
• 45:52
  Madeleine Cleary: You know me.
• 45:53
  Madeleine Cleary: I like to connect people that, that's like big things.
• 45:57
  Madeleine Cleary: I think that's probably why we're such good friends, because we've always.
• 46:01
  Madeleine Cleary: Um, wanted to connect people and, and, um, maintain really good connections with people.
• 46:07
  Madeleine Cleary: And I think that's, you know, something that we really enjoy.
• 46:11
  Madeleine Cleary: So let's then talk about matched in that vein.
• 46:14
  Madeleine Cleary: Mm-hmm.
• 46:14
  Madeleine Cleary: Because, um, I wanna hear what.
• 46:18
  Madeleine Cleary: I know we heard about some of the whys, but tell us what your vision and goals are for matched.
• 46:23
  Jessica Box: Yeah, so, um, matched is a knowledge sharing platform.
• 46:26
  Jessica Box: So really what we do is, uh, we connect learners with trainers based on their goals.
• 46:31
  Jessica Box: So, um, someone comes into match and they set a goal of, I wanna find a new role, or I wanna write a novel, or I wanna publish my first novel.
• 46:41
  Jessica Box: Uh, and then we match.
• 46:42
  Jessica Box: Them with the coaches, advisors, trainers, um, to help them get there.
• 46:46
  Jessica Box: And so, uh, what that really means in practice is you can go like deep in a live one-on-one session to this point around kind of this live connection piece.
• 46:55
  Jessica Box: Um, or you can do kind of, um, offline reviews of.
• 46:59
  Jessica Box: Work, one of those is what I've got this morning.
• 47:02
  Jessica Box: Um, or, you know, um, reviews of writing if you're, if you're a, um, writer.
• 47:06
  Jessica Box: And, um, what's really amazing about that is, you know, so much of how we get access to people and, and I guess the original vision behind Match is how do we make knowledge more accessible and mm-hmm.
• 47:16
  Jessica Box: Um, we wanna really be socioeconomic equalizer.
• 47:19
  Jessica Box: So what that means is, regardless of your background, you can come to Match and you can find someone and connect with them.
• 47:25
  Jessica Box: Um, where for so long, you know.
• 47:27
  Jessica Box: Access to really experienced people is based on who you know and your networks.
• 47:32
  Jessica Box: Um, and so really what we want match to be is you, you know, it's your own network.
• 47:36
  Jessica Box: Your, you can build your own personal board of, of advisors, your personal community around you, um, regardless of your goals as they change over time.
• 47:44
  Jessica Box: So say you publish a novel, um, then you've got different goals.
• 47:46
  Jessica Box: You may be doing your second novel or, um, there's different things that you need at different points in your journey.
• 47:51
  Jessica Box: And so we wanna be the place that people go to to access that knowledge.
• 47:55
  Madeleine Cleary: I, I love this.
• 47:56
  Madeleine Cleary: And I think it's a really important thing to have, um, guidance even after you've published your book, um, because it's different to having an agent or a publisher.
• 48:07
  Madeleine Cleary: This is someone who is really invested in your, your long-term career as whatever you wanna be, and you can really set those standards.
• 48:16
  Madeleine Cleary: So I wanna talk briefly about.
• 48:20
  Madeleine Cleary: What it means to be a good trainer or coach, because I think it's something that a lot of authors consider offering as a service, but perhaps.
• 48:29
  Madeleine Cleary: Uh, to have too much imposter syndrome to say, I I can help other riders.
• 48:35
  Jessica Box: Yes.
• 48:35
  Jessica Box: I think it's, um, it's very normal.
• 48:37
  Jessica Box: It's, it's like until you start doing it and it feels a little bit uncomfortable, you feel a bit like, not preachy, but like, you're kind of like, do I have the right to say this to other people?
• 48:47
  Jessica Box: And it's like, yes, because you know, what, do you know what's really interesting about.
• 48:50
  Jessica Box: Being a really good coach, um, you learn from that experience as much as the other person does.
• 48:55
  Jessica Box: So I think if you go into it with that mindset of your learning of how to pass your skills onto others, then it's as valuable for you as it is for the person, um, you are supporting.
• 49:05
  Jessica Box: And so I think what makes a really good coach is self-awareness.
• 49:08
  Jessica Box: Um, uh, really clear understanding of where you can add value.
• 49:13
  Jessica Box: That's something we can help with.
• 49:14
  Jessica Box: So, um, there's sometimes, like, you know, you know that you've got a whole bunch of like skills, um, and then we call this concept, um, skill stacking.
• 49:21
  Jessica Box: So what, what is your skill stack that you then can then communicate out?
• 49:26
  Jessica Box: So say that, for example, would be like you.
• 49:29
  Jessica Box: Reviews of writing, um, like certain type of words, like structural narratives, I would imagine how to think about that.
• 49:36
  Jessica Box: Um, and then actual, just kind of live one-on-one knowledge sharing.
• 49:39
  Jessica Box: So, you know, this podcast is a great example.
• 49:41
  Jessica Box: There's so much like value that you are sharing on the whole journey of how you, um, uh, you know, emerging writer publish a novel the whole way through.
• 49:50
  Jessica Box: How to get access to, um, publishers in general, other.
• 49:53
  Jessica Box: Optional paths.
• 49:54
  Jessica Box: Um, being able to talk to someone one-on-one about that and like personalizing it specifically, um, is really, really great.
• 50:01
  Jessica Box: And I think we're starting to see, um, thanks a lot to you.
• 50:04
  Jessica Box: You're our first, um, writer to sign up to match.
• 50:07
  Jessica Box: Um, and we've now, um, literally as of next week we'll be onboarding our, our first cohort of writers, um, because exciting.
• 50:15
  Jessica Box: Yeah, and I think it's, it's, as I mentioned, this intersection around, um, business people kind of figuring out what they wanna do next.
• 50:22
  Jessica Box: Like, I would love to do a nonfiction, um, uh, book at some point in my journey, but I, oh, publishers,
• 50:29
  Madeleine Cleary: if you're listening, this has a great profile, a
• 50:33
  Jessica Box: great story to tell.
• 50:34
  Jessica Box: Oh, I mean, I just wouldn't even know where to start.
• 50:36
  Jessica Box: So I would be the, like a captive audience.
• 50:38
  Jessica Box: And I think it's this self-awareness, right?
• 50:40
  Jessica Box: Of, you know, writers don't, you may not feel like you've got.
• 50:44
  Jessica Box: Um, the knowledge to share, but like me saying this, obviously I'm very experienced in my area, but I'm super aware that I have no knowledge in this area.
• 50:51
  Jessica Box: So you do, you know so much about your area, so don't like discount that that's valuable to someone who, you know, has, has never touched it.
• 50:59
  Jessica Box: And I actually have quite a lot of people message me being like, do, are there writers onm matched?
• 51:02
  Jessica Box: Like, I'm thinking about doing a novel, blah, blah, blah.
• 51:05
  Jessica Box: Um.
• 51:06
  Jessica Box: So, yeah, I would say like being, just putting yourself out there and testing it out and it doesn't, if it doesn't work, it's fine.
• 51:11
  Jessica Box: Like it's, it's like, you know, having the conversations with people, it helps you sharpen your tools as well, like understanding what's happening, um, how people think about, you know, their own narrative structures.
• 51:22
  Jessica Box: It makes you kind of keep your tools sharp as well.
• 51:24
  Jessica Box: Hmm.
• 51:25
  Madeleine Cleary: This is fantastic.
• 51:25
  Madeleine Cleary: So are you looking at getting onboarding more riders in future?
• 51:30
  Jessica Box: Yeah, I think we'll, um, do this first cohort and then Yeah.
• 51:33
  Jessica Box: Where, um, we take trainer applications, um, all the time.
• 51:37
  Jessica Box: Yep.
• 51:37
  Jessica Box: But, um, yeah, if people wanna drop me an email or send me a message, but how do people
• 51:40
  Madeleine Cleary: get into contact with you, Jess?
• 51:42
  Jessica Box: Yeah.
• 51:42
  Jessica Box: Drop me a message on the matched Insta.
• 51:44
  Jessica Box: I think that might be.
• 51:45
  Jessica Box: Best one, or TikTok if you really want to.
• 51:46
  Jessica Box: But, um, um, yeah, send me message on the match Instagram, um, which is that, what's the handle for Yeah, match at at match Community.
• 51:54
  Jessica Box: Um,
• 51:54
  Madeleine Cleary: okay.
• 51:55
  Madeleine Cleary: We'll, we'll make sure it's in the show notes for everyone as well.
• 51:57
  Madeleine Cleary: So, um, if you wanna get into contact with Jess, it's, it's an amazing platform and Jess is an amazing woman.
• 52:04
  Madeleine Cleary: Mm-hmm.
• 52:04
  Madeleine Cleary: Um, and.
• 52:05
  Madeleine Cleary: Her background.
• 52:06
  Madeleine Cleary: We haven't even touched on all the incredible things that she has done in her career.
• 52:10
  Madeleine Cleary: But having a woman like Jess who's, um, been able to really craft a career in tech, it's, it's, it's not an easy thing that you've done, Jess, and I'm what, I'm probably one of the best, the most proudest friends ever.
• 52:26
  Madeleine Cleary: I mean, I'm the most proud of you, so
• 52:28
  Nobody: let that catch out.
• 52:29
  Madeleine Cleary: Well, our little year seven, um, selves, how proud would they be looking at us now?
• 52:34
  Madeleine Cleary: Or 20
• 52:36
  Jessica Box: years on.
• 52:37
  Jessica Box: That's crazy.
• 52:38
  Jessica Box: I feel like it's, yeah, you just couldn't even dream it up.
• 52:40
  Jessica Box: I think that's so much about like the journey, right?
• 52:41
  Jessica Box: You just make decisions and take the opportunities as you go.
• 52:44
  Jessica Box: Mm-hmm.
• 52:44
  Madeleine Cleary: Exactly.
• 52:45
  Madeleine Cleary: I feel like there's so much more to talk about, so we might need to get you back on for a part two later down the track.
• 52:51
  Madeleine Cleary: Um, Jeff, because there's so much, I've just.
• 52:53
  Madeleine Cleary: Had so much from this.
• 52:54
  Madeleine Cleary: Um, we always finish though on one top tip.
• 52:58
  Madeleine Cleary: Um, is there something that you wanna leave all the writers, um, with, um, at the end of this, Jessica?
• 53:06
  Jessica Box: Yeah, I think, um, we talk a lot about this kind of burnout.
• 53:10
  Jessica Box: The, the feeling, the pressure to do everything and do it all.
• 53:14
  Jessica Box: Um, and my tip is you can do it all, just not all at once and.
• 53:20
  Jessica Box: Pick the sequencing.
• 53:22
  Jessica Box: So the order, not the activity.
• 53:24
  Jessica Box: So you don't need to chop things out.
• 53:26
  Jessica Box: I think it's finding the right order to do the things in and saying no to some things doesn't mean that you can't bring them back down the track.
• 53:33
  Jessica Box: And building a company is like this.
• 53:36
  Jessica Box: Um, you know, at each stage of a company, the company looks different and you as writers are each mini companies, so it's.
• 53:44
  Jessica Box: It's this, you know, portfolio career.
• 53:45
  Jessica Box: But um, yeah, the sequencing is important so you can't run all the way to the finish line.
• 53:50
  Jessica Box: We'll start at the finishing line, right?
• 53:52
  Jessica Box: You have to start at the start and the journey is so much of how you get there.
• 53:55
  Jessica Box: So yeah, do
• 53:57
  Madeleine Cleary: it all.
• 53:58
  Madeleine Cleary: That's a great tip and it reminds me of some That was really good advice.
• 53:59
  Madeleine Cleary: You provided me and you, I mean, you provide me with great top tips.
• 54:03
  Madeleine Cleary: Always.
• 54:04
  Madeleine Cleary: It's very helpful to have a friend like genocide would highly recommend it.
• 54:09
  Madeleine Cleary: You gave me this image and you're, you're always a good storyteller, but you gave me this image of, um, the plastic place.
• 54:16
  Tina Strachan: I was gonna say that.
• 54:17
  Tina Strachan: Yeah.
• 54:18
  Tina Strachan: Tell us about that.
• 54:20
  Jessica Box: Yeah, so someone actually said this to me, which is a, is a very visual way of thinking about what I just said, which is, um.
• 54:26
  Jessica Box: You if you're spinning all the plates, one of them needs to be plastic, um, which I love because obviously if they fall, the plastic one doesn't break.
• 54:34
  Jessica Box: Um, and so find your, find your plastic plate
• 54:37
  Madeleine Cleary: and it can be a few plastic plates perhaps as well.
• 54:40
  Madeleine Cleary: Yeah.
• 54:40
  Madeleine Cleary: In different periods of your life.
• 54:42
  Madeleine Cleary: Um, Jessica Box, thank you so much for joining us on the book Deal podcast.
• 54:46
  Madeleine Cleary: This I'm gonna take so much away from this.
• 54:49
  Jessica Box: Thank you.
• 54:49
  Jessica Box: It's been a joy and yeah, I'm obviously happy to help and, and speak to anyone about how they set up.
• 54:54
  Jessica Box: Themselves as a business.
• 54:55
  Jessica Box: So
• 54:56
  Madeleine Cleary: yeah, please do reach out to Jess.
• 54:58
  Madeleine Cleary: Um, and um, yeah, we'll get you back on for part two.
• 55:01
  Madeleine Cleary: Thanks so much and enjoy your holiday.
• 55:03
  Madeleine Cleary: Thank you.
• 55:04
  Madeleine Cleary: I'm excited.
• 55:09
  Thank you for listening to the book Deal podcast.
• 55:12
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• 55:20
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