The Heart Of Show Business With Alexia Melocchi
Step into the bold and unfiltered world of show business with Alexia Melocchi—PGA producer, international distributor, author, and 30-year Hollywood insider.
This is your backstage pass to the mindset, tactics, and truth behind how Hollywood really works. Through raw and inspiring conversations with A-list creators, business leaders, and global thought shapers, you'll discover the real strategies that lead to lasting success—on and off the screen.
From insider tips to soulful storytelling, each episode is a masterclass in making your mark—not just in showbiz, but in every area of life.
The Heart Of Show Business With Alexia Melocchi
A new vision for Faith-Based Films- with Chevonne O'Shaughnessy
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New Season Premiere! With a portfolio that shifts from high-octane action films to heartwarming, inspirational family stories. I sit down with my longtime friend and industry powerhouse, Chevonne O' Shaughnessy from ACI Inspires. As the co founder of ACI with indie sales agent and producer George Shamieh, she believes audiences are craving Christian-themed, uplifting content in today's world filled with turmoil. But Chevonne has a plan: producing ten movies within eighteen months.
You will love the back story on how the Love Finds You book series turned into a major hit for UP TV and how Chevonne overcame initial rejections to leveraging dating sites and Christian bookstores for its promotion. Despite the channel's pivot to a younger demographic, ACI broke viewership records and learned invaluable lessons about staying ahead of market trends. This episode offers a behind-the-scenes look at the bittersweet reality of changing management and the relentless drive to remain relevant in a constantly evolving industry.
Our conversation doesn't stop at domestic success; we explore the complexities of international markets and the importance of owning intellectual property. Learn how we navigated the challenges of producing and distributing films globally, including innovative tactics like dubbing foreign series into English and harnessing AI technology for production efficiency. Additionally, we shed light on the unique hurdles faced by women in executive roles and the significance of teamwork. This is a truly enlightening and inspiring listen for anyone interested in the dynamic world of entertainment.
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Welcome to the heart of show business. I am your host, alexia Melocchi. I believe in great storytelling and that every successful artist has a deep desire to express something from the heart to create a ripple effect in our society. Emotion and entertainment are closely tied together. Emotion and entertainment are closely tied together. My guests and I want to give you insider access to how the film, television and music industry works. We will cover dreams come true, the road less traveled journey beginnings and a lot of insight and inspiration in between. I am a successful film and television entrepreneur who came to America as a teenager to pursue my show business dreams. Are you ready for some unfiltered real talk with entertainment visionaries from all over the world? Then let's roll sound and action. I am so thrilled, to all my listeners, of the Heart of Show Business, we are kicking off this new season. I can't believe it.
Speaker 1Season eight strong with an ultimate boss babe. Because she is a babe, she's not just a boss and she's also a good friend. I wouldn't call her boss lady. Maybe Boss babe might be a little offensive, but boss babe, boss lady, you define it however you want it. Boss babe might be a little offensive, but you know, boss babe, boss lady, you define it however you want it, but you know she's also a wonderful friend and her and I have been in this international sales world for God knows how many decades we're not going to age ourselves. Shauna C from ACI, which is now called ACI, inspires as well, which is a powerhouse company. She's been around well probably as much as long as I have been. I'm just going to say it. We met a long time ago, I think, ken 1990. I'm going to date us right now.
Speaker 2You're one of the first people I met in my first Ken, and that was a long time ago, yeah, and you were with George, who is your partner. At that time I wasn't when you and I met. Oh wow, I was with Quest Entertainment from Florida when we first met and then, a year later, I was with George at PM. But we first met with that Quest.
Speaker 1Goodness See, she has a better memory than I am Because this lady she works out, she's sharp, she looks amazing every time we fly to festivals. But I mean, this lady is a powerhouse. I'm not even going to tell you she's done 176 movies with PM and Entertainment. She was partners with George Shami Wonderful, human, incredible person, so kind and so old school in a good way and then together in circa 2000, if I don't have it wrong, they formed ACI and they kind of shifted a little bit. They were doing a lot of action stuff which I remember, but then they shifted more into the inspirational Christian world. But then they shifted more into the inspirational Christian world and obviously they had some of the biggest hits for UP Channel, for Hallmark, I mean, you name it. They just started their own streaming platform which we're going to talk about, and you know, Siobhan also, of course, teaches distribution. Every once in a while she offers to Chapman, which I love. I get all my interns at Chapman and she's also on the board of directors for a while for women in film.
Speaker 1So welcome to my was what was not anymore yeah, but she was past and she was so, which is wonderful, and of course, she keeps on producing movies. She is on the road right now to make 10 movies this year, right, if I'm not 18?
Speaker 1months 18 months. Oh my God, the race for 10 movies in 18 months. I love challenges. So, siobhan, I'm just going to come out and say it. Like why do you think people are embracing more and more Christian theme, inspirational family storytelling? Before it was to be let's give us an action or a horror movie, but now people are gravitating more towards this type of stories. What do you think that is?
Speaker 2I think it's, first of all, I think it's timing. I think there's been so much news on bad stuff. You know, the things that are happening in the world between Ukraine, I mean. We can go on and on about the news and the different places, that destruction. Every morning you wake up and you see it that people are just wanting some place that they can sit down as a family. You know, and I think one of the reasons I kind of started the inspiration.
Speaker 2I can just tell you my own story, and you know how much we work and at the time we were selling the world, you know, and I'd go to the markets and I had a daughter and I'm thinking I'm leaving in front of the television and she's sitting at Disney and I'm thinking, oh my God, she's good. You know, I can, I can leave her without really paying attention because I have to work. And then when I started watching it, I sat down with her and I started looking at all the innuendos they were saying and the stuff they were kind of putting subliminally. Nothing was in your face but subliminally. And I said to myself you know, we had done this for so long and we had kind of a voice. You know, I knew we knew all the buyers worldwide, as you did, and I was saying, george, if we're going to do this, I'd rather do something a little different. And when we first started, I mean I don't know if you remember Cindy and Bond and I started in 2008. I mean it was the year of horror movies, animals coming out, some of the sci-fi movies, and when they walked into our booth it was letters to God to save a life. You know, we have Noah's and people would walk in and they'd walk out. Then they come back in and they're looking at it going, what's this? They had never seen any buyer with this type of product before. And they're looking at it going what's this? They had never seen any buyer with this type of product before. And they're like and the action's gone. Now, the action was gone. It was just a different outlet that I thought really needed and we really got some really great titles. I mean, they didn't know the foreign market and we started creating it and started seeing where the numbers were at.
Speaker 2We also learned for the international market not so much domestic market that it had to be toned down a little bit more for the international market. That, if you're that's what you call the more inspirational. Because if it's going to to religious, the channels can't put it on because then you're deciding one religion over another. So we would do, let's say, a religious movie, would have it with the priest or he'd be talking for the bible. We do that same scene, exact time frame, but make it with a friend and not open the bible. So it was maybe decided to have more of a seed planter so we could go both ways than having it kind of converting. So we learned those things as we went along and that was more. My direction was more of a seed planter and let people make their decisions. That's why we changed American cinnamon spires yeah, I love the seed planter stuff.
Speaker 1And it's true because my friend Barbara Mach, who of course you know too, when she was creating this content and she started this channel for a little bit until she retired from the business and she was saying, alexia, there's all these rules, like if you are in Brazil you can't show people drinking, but then in South Africa you cannot. You must put the Bible at least one thing, like every territory had a little rule to make it accessible. So I love the fact that you created the content your way, by covering also all this potential of people saying no and making sure that they don't say no, right.
Speaker 2I have two versions. Two versions yes.
Speaker 1Oh, I love it. So obviously, your first financiers, the first people backing you up, the first channels, where the traditional, the up TV, the hallmarks yes, all of those people Was there, like, was it, was there a space for a movie to do well? Or you know what was, would say like the one that you did, that did the most internationally, where you were actually surprised and like, wow, I really did some solid numbers here. Didn't see this coming.
Speaker 2I would say it was probably the first one Sydney and I made together and George produced. It was called Love Finds you in Sugar Creek and it was the first time we got into the channels. And I know, alexi, you know we were big, but when I went to go we had our own home video line where we were part of PM Entertainment. And then when we started American Cinema, when I started going to the American channels domestically, they kept on looking at me who are you? We don't know who you are, even though we made over 176 films and so forth To us, to them, we were that foreign entity and I'm like but I make my movies in the United States, but they didn't want to let us in.
Speaker 2You know, I went to Hallmark the first time with a script that we had thought was going to be perfect for them, and they looked and they go. Well, what viewers are you bringing me? What do you bring me different that I can't do myself? And or is it you bringing me? What do you bring me different that I can't do myself? And I remember looking and going well, I'm not Hallmark, I'm just a producer, and they're like well, there's a lot of producers and I have a lot of people making already for us. So what are you bringing to me? That's different. And I remember walking out, going shoot, I have to be a producer, I have to be the marketer, I have to find the people that they are. Wow, I was just like so disillusioned, what am I going to do now?
Navigating the Entertainment Industry Market
Speaker 2So that's when we went to books and I found a series of books with Guy Post, and Guy Post, remember, was that kind of reader's digest that you would go to at the dentist or you go to the gym, sometimes you'd see him. They used to do a mailing to five million people monthly, monthly at that time. So I remember, went back to homework. I was feeling really good about myself. Look, I got, I got this script and it says this it has all the beats that you want and it's based on books, it's the number one books of the guideposts and they do a monthly newsletter to five million people. And they still said no to me. So that's when I went to up tv and up tv liked the whole fact, because before up tv was up, tv was gmc and that's what's called the gospel music channel. And that's when I met charlie and brad siegel and brad siegel liked the whole thing with Guidepost. So we got our permission for our first movie.
Speaker 2So we were excited because the Love Find you series was a series of 50 books. It was Love Find you in every state of the union, so we had 50 books to go with. So if this one did well, we had IP for another 49 books. So it was each of the states was a story. So Love Finds you in Sugar Creek and it's an Amish one. The town of Sugar Creek is Amish, between English and Amish, and we started producing it. We were wrapped and we call up the channel or the channel calls me. Sorry, they call me and they said Shavonne, we just had a meeting.
Speaker 2We want to change our market viewers. Right now we're going 50 and above, but we want to hit the 25 to 45 year olds. So our numbers are really skewing that. We have to hit that market and I'm looking going what. Their whole channel is 50 and above. Their whole viewership was 15 above. Now they're only going to count numbers if they hit the 25 to 45 year olds.
Speaker 2You know, and I was like, oh my gosh. And then I'm sitting on the plane after they said this to me and I'm like, well, the guidepost people are 15 above too, and I I was going to think, you know, I'm calm here, I got that and then, but if they're not going to quantify them as numbers for the channel, what am I going to do? And I have this, one of my first, and if I don't do, well, that's 49 books already gone. So I'm sitting on the plane and I'm like, oh my gosh, what am I going to do? What am I going to do? And, gosh, what am I going to do? What am I going to do? And you know, you get inspiration when you're in your desperate times. And all of a sudden I said what's the name of your story, siobhan? And I said love, find you.
Speaker 2And I hit all the dating sites. And I'm talking at the dating site. So I had Christian Mingo, I had matchcom, I had jdate anything that was a dating one I hit. But you could put skins around the screens of the websites at that time for free, they didn't charge you to do it. So I put on every single one of them and did some advertising, put the trailers on it, and then we did our own social media. Not social media at that time wasn't social media.
Speaker 2But we were doing a lot of advertising, we were doing radio talk shows. We had gone to the christian bookstores that we knew about these books too, so they were very excited. So we called brad, george and I called brad and charlie and we said you know what? We think this movie's going to two million views. And brad starts laughing. He starts going george and siobhan. Let me give you the reality of our channel to date. Okay, the highest rated movie we've had to date has been passion of the christ on easter, and that has only done 700,000 views. Do you really believe you're going to beat Jesus? Wow, and I'm sitting there going. Okay, no, I'm going. How could I do that? But we aired and with seven runs we ended up doing the highest rated movie I think still today for them, which was 4.7 million views 4.7 but, that's people did.
Speaker 1Jesus teaches about love and that's exactly and it was love and everything.
Speaker 2So they thought it was anomaly. Then they didn't think it would happen again, so they gave me another. One was about love find you in charm. We did again another 4.7, and then they gave us one more and it was love find you in valentine. And we even did more because it was a valentine's day movie. So and then of course, management changes and they want to bring their own people. So you're out.
Speaker 1What an incredible story.
Speaker 1I'm like mouth aghast, but I do have to say and I always say that to everyone everybody has this myth about sales agents and international sellers and you know, we all know, that many of them are going to drop like flies.
Speaker 1I hate to say this, but unless they keep up with the times. And what I loved about your company is that you have been even before, even as PM you always looking at your audience. You weren't looking just at the distributor and how much am I going to get out of this distributor, but you were looking at the audience and, as you can see, you were ahead of the times because you did your own social media before it was called social media, while so many companies today they don't even look at that stuff. They don't think, like you just said, can I go dating sites, love dating sites? Can I get some promo? Can I get an audience? So it's a testimony to your resilience, but also how you're still around in the marketplace because you're doing something that you believe in, obviously because you have your own set of values. You wouldn't be selling something you don't believe in. But also you are pivoting with the times. That is so essential right now, no matter what you do, right, right.
Speaker 2You have to. But at the same time, I think what I try to even teach when I go down to Chapman do you know how to get your viewers to come? Who are you making this movie for? You know a lot of the kids, even you, a lot of the producers we talked to. Oh, you, just I made it and the people are going to show up. Well, why would the people show up if you don't know how to get to them? So it's kind of like the same talk that Hallmark did with me. What are you bringing me that I can have as my hook to be able to get people to come to the channel? We all need something, yeah.
Speaker 1Yeah, and now, of course, you're doing yet another pivot that we just talked about offline, but the necessity has come more than ever for companies like yours, who have such an incredible amount of content, to have their own platform. Because if you're going to be financing your own content and they're not paying you enough to be owned by someone else, tell me a little bit like what's happening there, because people need to know. They think, oh, I was going to pick a movie with Hallmarkmark, they're just gonna beat me five million dollars and I'm just gonna be swimming in it, not true, not true, not true.
Speaker 2It's not just hallmark, it's all the channels. Right now they don't have money or they're dividing it up or they're paying in four years time. So you're like, okay, well, I'm financing you for four years, um, but it's we. We were smart enough, I think way before COVID even started. We started our own YouTube channel and in the beginning you're overwhelmed because I think we had 80 titles at that time and they say you had to have about enough product to go every year I mean once a day, so you need to have about 200 titles. And I'm like I don't have 200 titles. How am I going to get these 200 titles? But we did it, we jumped in and, of course, now we're over 348 plus 17 series on it. Um, we are almost 700 000 views I mean subscribers um, it's going great.
Speaker 2We started our own fast channels called aci on the go. It's all clean. Content is kind of the same thing that I've said. We're staying with the same theme on it. They're mainly romances that a family can sit down and watch a movie together instead of one dad going to one room, mom going to another and the kids sitting on their iPads. This kind of channel is just bringing families together to have that fun time together, and they don't have to worry, grandma can be there too. So it's just having that family time that I think we all are really missing right now.
Speaker 1What a beautiful initiative and is. Is this just content that you're producing in-house or are you open also to filmmakers bringing you things? Forget the international, because that's hard sometimes to deal with being on the go.
Speaker 2Yeah, well, during the COVID we had taken on a lot of the up TV titles that were from Aspire and we learned that black content was doing really well. So we went to the same kind of theory and also got some black content from South Africa that we're distributing on there as well, as long as TV series. We got a fun TV series that was in BET in South Africa. Black tax was a family, a mother and a child, have the parents move in with them and all the chaos that happens with it. But it's the same same kind of content, but also for black viewers to have the same sit down with family and watch it without having to worry that's great.
Speaker 1And how does somebody how, of course, because my so many of my listeners are aspiring filmmakers and writers and everything how does somebody come to you, what is the proper etiquette to pitch you a script, an idea, a project in production? Do you even open those doors? Or are you getting a little bit more picky? Because they want to have hope? We're going to give them some hope of course.
Engaging With International Entertainment Markets
Speaker 2I mean, um, I, if you're going to look, if you're going to pitch me something, please look at the website. I don't do horror or as a no, I really don't do thrillers. If your story is a romance, it is. They thought that it's clean and there's no kissing, there's no nudity, there's all that kind of stuff, no bad language. Then you can pitch it to me. But don't send me a script. Please, just send me five pages. I can look at the five pages and, um, come back with you and say if this is a work or it won't work.
Speaker 2At the moment, as we said, we got 10 titles for the nx 18 months. A lot of my funding's already taken up for right now, so we're just trying to do. I have one in Brazil that's like a car racing that we're doing. I have one in Hungary that's a romance one, but it's royalty and it's still black. I have one that we're doing in Sugar Creek, ohio. We're doing Sugar Creek Amish Mysteries. So we got two of those. I have one in Kentucky and one in Kansas City, and Christmas will be too. So it's they fall into those lines of movies.
Speaker 1I love that and of course it makes sense because, especially since you're doing it on your own this time, so that you can own your IP and have it forever and ever, you want to be a little bit more selective and you want to see also how your own title performs and all that, which I'm sure they're going to do. Great, because you know what you're doing. So I'm not worried about you or any of us who've been around the block. But are international markets still necessary, because I have so many people go oh, I'm going to go to UFM, I'm going to go here, I'm going to go there. Are they necessary for us, the executives, and are they necessary for the filmmaker who wants to learn how the business truly works? It's a bit of a two part.
Speaker 2I know I used to love having the producers or the filmmakers that we were dealing with come to the market so they could hear what we're hearing, because sometimes George and I would come back and we'd say you know, if you just did this, it probably would be a little better.
Speaker 2But if they heard it from the buyers themselves directly, it made things easier. Right now the foreign market is just so hard. You know, the platforms have grown here in the united states, but they really haven't done that yet in europe, and with the studios keeping their own product, it made these foreign territories make so much of their own content. Yeah, so right now, instead of france buying american, they're making their own french movies, the spain's the same thing, they're making the same kind of content we were selling to them, but they're making in spanish, they're making in castilian or whatever, and france is making the french with french actors. So it's making it harder for us to sell in those territories, because it started from the majors when they started doing their own platforms, so they internally had to change. So what we're doing for us to grow, of course, our channel and to get more, we're taking some series from different territories and we're doubling into English. Oh okay, that's great. That's another way we're going to be growing too.
Speaker 1That's a brilliant idea, so that it's not just Netflix that scoops every foreign language rom-com or everything up. I think that's great. Are we wanting to have less markets in general, because of course, people don't know how expensive it is for companies like yours, or even myself as somebody who's kind of a multi-hyphenate, to attend? Does it make sense to have those markets for relationships building now that we have Zoom and we can kind of still see each other without getting on a plane?
Speaker 2I think it's. I think I think at least me personally. I mean, I used to spend almost $250,000, $300,000 a year just on booth space, both going to the attendance and everything, and the numbers are not there. The numbers are not coming back with the quantity that we would need or the sales to even cover it. So I think I'm going to go to half those markets. So you still do need a one.
Speaker 2Sit down, sit down, talk to people, find out new things that are coming up. Like we said, we're starting not only a youtube channel. We start our own fast channel so we have aci on the go fast. When new technology or new things start coming up, at least when we're at a market, you hear about those things. You get to stay up to date. Um, I made my whole office do an ai class, so we're up on ai. We're using ai also in our filmmaking. We're making a racing car one and, and there's cameras now where you can put the visual effects in the screen right away, with it already going on, that you can see it when we're filming it. So it's helping the production and also it's making me just even metadata titles between Spanish, french, english. Getting all that together is now more systematic and using AI makes me grow exponentially where before I would have to hire so many more people. I don't need more people. I can keep it with the same people I have and still be able to grow. Yeah.
Speaker 1I have to say I love AI. Like I said, it helps me so much to even clean up my log lines you know, clean up my writer client stuff when it comes in, when it gets covered. I said, listen, I mean, it even created an image for my podcast. I hit my hundred episodes and I'm like I went into the chat to be like, can you create me an image that celebrates a hundred episodes? And boom, it spit out this beautiful thing that I, like an artist, couldn't have done a better job and I was like, well, thank you, you just saved me $300 of like paying somebody, especially when you're on a budget.
Speaker 1And I feel what you said about the markets, it makes total sense, my God is obviously TV. The TV markets are going to be more hotter than the film ones because TV now is expanding into film. So most of those buyers that they used to just be film, they also are starting to attend television because it is streaming. Most of the world is streaming. Do you feel that the TV markets now, like the NAPIs and the MIPCOMs and MTVs, are becoming a little bit more logical to attend than would be, say, just the film market?
Speaker 2Well, as Mipcom is upon us. I've been talking to some of my buyers and the one thing because it was always Mipcom, the American film market, and since the American film market was not that great last year and now this year it's all the way in Vegas a lot of the people, even from the United States, who used to come to the American film market because they would come to LA and do some other business while we were there so they could get this meeting done, another meeting done and go to the American film market. Now that it's in Vegas they're not coming at all, they're just going to go MIPCOM. So I'm finding so many more people attending MIPCOM than even attending the American Film Market this year.
Speaker 1Wow, Good to know. I'm only going to go for a couple of days, I think. Especially on top of it's the election. Nothing to say for my friends in play and everybody who's in the board. But I'm like guys, on election day we're going to start a film market. Everybody's glued to their TV see what's going on and our country's still going to be there and we're not going to get political. But it's true, I mean there's a lot going on. I'm looking at NatP Global right now. You know, in Miami. You know again, because there's so much crossover. I think you did attend.
Speaker 2I always attend. I always attend NatP. Natp has always been a good one for us because, again, we also have a Spanish channel. It's called ACI Siempre Contigo. So we've been in the Spanish market. We have over 100 of our titles already dumped into Spanish. But it was the Americans were there. You know, I would see all the American channels, I'd see MTV, I'd see Hallmark, I would see BET, I would see all the huge ones in the FT Wow, not just the latins. So I was like, oh, this is great for US.
Speaker 1Wow, wow. And let me ask you something, because you've been around and obviously the world have changed towards women, especially in executive positions. Do you still? Do you still? Obviously because you were partnered with a male, which always helps, you know, george was quite something, and so you two blended your personalities perfectly, you know, because you had the feminine energy and, of course, you had the masculine energy. Do you think it's still an issue for a woman to run her own company and be seen and respected the same way as a man would be, for example?
Speaker 2Well, again, I think I have an advantage because I was a team, and the one thing that George did right from the beginning and I was even looking going, what are you doing was he always made us sit together. We were a unified unit, even doing sales. It wasn't like Siobhan did these territories and he did these territories. We did all the territories together, and even on the territories that did not want to talk to me, such as Japan or Korea, they'd say that oh no, I don't want to talk with a woman. George would talk to them, but he made sure that I was sitting right there and I was present in every single meeting. So he never turned around and said Siobhan, don't be here, even when they would ask for it not to happen. So now, then they got used to me being there as well, and now that George has passed away, they're all being just as sweet.
Speaker 2I think it's always easier as a male and female, as a team, to do it. Cindy, when we did mission together, even though George was behind us, it was fun being two girls running a company together, but we also knew that we always had George there too if we needed him. But he let us be out there, but it's easier. A male and female.
Speaker 1I agree. I agree, we got to call the elephant in our room and at the same time, like you said, if you have good business ethics and you know what you're doing, they're still going to. Eventually they will respect you, even in those territories that are a little bit more male driven. I remember my mom and I back in the day when we had our own sales company. We had a movie that turned out to be a disaster and we returned it. It was actually to Gaga. We returned the money because they pre-bought something and when we got it delivered it was like the biggest piece of crap ever and I felt really bad about them and we literally wrote them a check and we gave them the money back. And from that moment, from that moment, every time like Gaga would see us walking by in the hallways, there were always hugs and kisses. They're like Japanese. Don't do that. You know what?
Speaker 1I'm saying they don't do that you know, saying they don't do that, but they just. I was like, wow, you see, like the little things that go the long way and I think if you have a strong business sense and ethics and morals and what's right, sooner or later you're going to be recognized, in spite of whether you are right and male sex. So you've been doing a lot of I've been looking at your social media. You've been doing a lot of I've been looking at your social media. I've been doing a lot of soul searching. Now that you're not so you're not in touch, obviously, with your higher self and with your spirituality and your god and all of that but you've been doing a lot of soul searching. Is there any like fun takeaways? Well, not fun. Maybe it wasn't fun, it was a journey, but that you, you kind of felt like you grew into the Siobhan 2.0 through something. Was there something that brought you to the next level as a human?
Speaker 2I think you know, when George got sick and he got staged for esophageal cancer, it was a shock and going through. It's a privilege almost being with somebody till the end of them passing. But he gave me the time to really because we thought it was going to be within well six months when they first gave him the diagnosis and I was privileged enough to have three years for it almost between three and a half years to him. He gave me that time to give me the time to start to learn by myself, to go to the markets by myself, because it had always been us two, so that people could start seeing that it's not just us two together, it's going to be me and I'm going to have to start handling it. So he gave me that time and I had his ear and he was calling me every day. So it gave me the privilege to step into me and to know how I can do this by myself.
Speaker 2It's still scary. I mean there's a lot of department. You know the financial department was Georgia's. I didn't step in it, so now I'm handling all of it by myself now. So it's a challenge sometimes and I sometimes have to deep breathe and say I think we all have to take a breath.
Speaker 1I think it all comes down to taking a moment.
Speaker 1That's why churches existed to begin with this even to have that moment of solitude where you're just with yourself and you're reflecting on things and you're asking for help from wherever. But you're also on things and you're asking for help from wherever, but you're also taking the moment to center yourself. And it's just so important in our business and in life to always centered and always know that there is a greater purpose for everything. I mean, I'm learning it myself all the time. Whenever there's something that leaves my life, I know that it's making room for something greater for me. I may not see it now, but I will see it eventually, right? Yes, yeah, oh gosh, it's been so great to have you on my show. I'm going to ask you, you know, my little final questions. Devon defined herself in three words, or window number two. There is a specific, whether it's it's a psalm quote or whether it's a life mantra or something that you kind of go to in a moment where you might feel a little lost, a little dark or you cannot.
Speaker 2There's a quote I would say that marcus aurelius once said and the marcus aurelius says you can't control what other people think you can, oh, how they receive the information. The only thing you can control is how you try to say it. So I try to say things in such a way that people will get it in a good way, but sometimes there's just no way that you can control how they interpret what you said. So I try to be softer with my words because, you know, in the beginning we were, you know, working so hard with all those buyers. Sometimes we're a little strong. So now I'm trying to be a little softer.
Speaker 1It's not like give me the money or get out of here.
Speaker 2And I always had to be the bad cop with George. George was always the good. Oh Shaban, why are you being so tough?
Speaker 1Oh my gosh, and you know what? Everybody's got their own private suffering. Nobody really knows. You know, sometimes I look at someone and I'm like, oh my gosh, they were so mean to me. And then I'm finding out six months later that they were going through something personal and deeply, you know, hurtful and trying, and then you go OK, then it's not about me, it's about what they're going through. And, yeah, thank you for quoting the Romans. Thank you for giving it. Yes, I am Italian. Thank you for quoting the Romans. Yes, I love it. It's been such a great conversation, siobhan and I also.
Speaker 1For everybody who's listening, please do subscribe, rate and review if you enjoyed this episode, and, of course, in my show notes, as it will be in my social media, because I love to do my little audiogram stories about episodes that are about to happen and are about to come. Please do follow Siobhan on her Instagram. I'll drop all the notes. Please do also check out the YouTube channel for ACI Inspires and also their on-the-go one. I'll be dropping all the info about how to sign up so that you can keep on watching inspirational content that is going to make us all feel good and have some hope for humanity, because, all deep down. We're all good people and I think the more we highlight that in our world, there will be less conflict, there will be less anger, there will be a lot less of the bad stuff, and this is a little pollyanna moment for me, but hey, it is what it is right.
Speaker 1Thank you so much, siobhan, and, yes, I can't wait to see all, of course, your entire slate, and I'll be one of those people getting into your channel and watching your content, because that's what I stand for. So, thanks over and out to everyone there's the heart of show business and make sure you check out future episode. Hopefully you'll love all my other guests. Bye, future episode. Hopefully you'll love all my other guests. Bye. Thank you for listening to this week's episode of the heart of show business. If you enjoyed it, please share it with a friend. You can also subscribe, rate and review the show on your favorite podcast player. If you have any questions or comments or feedback for us, you can reach me directly at theheartofshowbusinesscom.