🎙️ Episode 26: AMA - The Revenge

You asked. We answered. No scripts, no prep, no re-dos – just honest, off-the-cuff responses to the questions you’ve been sending our way.

In this AMA episode, we dive into whatever you threw at us: business, branding, visibility, mindset, the messy bits, the funny bits, and the “oh god, did we really just say that?” bits. It’s raw, it’s real, and it’s absolutely Awesomely Off-Topic.

We also put out the call for your next round of questions. If you want us to cover something in a future AMA episode – whether it’s practical, personal or downright bizarre – send it over. We’re game.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:04

Awesome we off topic podcast where we don't look grand and everything else we're not supposed to play. Now we're talking lecture node, male coaches, creators, and chaos navigators. Let's go! Episode 26, then of Awesome Way Off Topic, and we thought we'd give you another Ask Me Anything round. Because do you remember last time we invited you to ask us questions on anything you like? Well, we've got loads and loads and loads of.

SPEAKER_01 0:34

Loads of questions. What we're going to talk about this time, Taz. I haven't quite we haven't rehearsed this as usual, so I don't know what's going to come up, but you've got a few there, haven't you? That you're going to.

SPEAKER_00 0:41

We've got quite a few that that we didn't use last time because we ran out of time. That was squeaky chair again by it was making an entrance. Shall we just um crack on with them ash? Okay, go on then. So at in no particular order, our first question is from the lovely Claire Pritchard, who says, This one's for you, I think, Asher. Okay. What would you say to someone that was dodgy about writing a book because of dyslexia and not understanding punctuation or paragraphs or anything other than getting the words on the page?

SPEAKER_01 1:15

I'd say there's a great opportunity to create something amazing, and it doesn't necessarily have to be initially in that written form. It could be something that you could do very easily using the it's your squeaky chair. Something you could do using voice notes on your phone. I often talk about that with my clients, but start there and just get down, not necessarily on paper at this stage, but in a voice note what you want to talk about and what the key points are for your book, and then we'll work with you on getting that together so you can create something for paper-based format and also with an ebook. Anything and everything is possible. So there's lots of opportunities to do that. I'd say don't let it put you off. Um there's lots of ways we can work together on that. I think the main thing is there's so much in there that needs to come out, and whatever way that is right for you will work for you initially may well be voice notes. I'd say start there, and then we can work on the punctuation and everything else together. We can also talk about how you want to present that book, whether you want to address that and some of the the challenges, the unique challenges that you've had in creating the book, too. There's a lot of potential there for educating other people and um showing people what what your um experience has been like creating a book. So I would say don't let that put you off. There's loads of opportunity, and particularly now with technology, we can do so much where you can work with it, you can work to your strengths. Nobody knows your story like you, and so therefore we find a way to make it work for you and for your readership too. Okay. And also with Audible, of course, we can have you know, you can also have an audible version of your book, which I absolutely love. A lot of people don't do that now, they won't actually have a print necessarily print, just a printed version. They'll have a book that's um going to be read out as well. Who's gonna create who's gonna tell your story? Maybe you do the voiceover for your own story. That's another thing that you could consider. Lots of opportunities. Yeah, perfect. Okay, thank you.

SPEAKER_00 3:16

Well, you're not answering that one, I think. No, that one can be yours. All right then. Hopefully, maybe. Okay, so our next question is from Catherine Bellchambers. Hello, lovely Catherine. Hi, Catherine. Catherine is asking, how do I recognise when the problem is self-sabotage rather than bad luck? Over to you. You can answer that one. Well, the first question I'd ask is whether bad luck actually exists. Does good luck exist? Or do we just create the situations that we want? I don't know. I'm not quite sure how you'd frame bad luck or good luck. Um, but is it self-sabotage? Well, it depends how far into the woo and into manifestation we want to go, isn't it? Because if you've been in a negative mindset, and guess what, negative things keep happening, so the stuff that we're calling bad luck, is that happening because we're in a negative mindset? Or to look at it if with even more of a left brain spin, is this stuff that would be happening anyway, but you are noticing it far more and it's feeling far bigger because you're not in the best state of mind? So the first step I would say is what can you do to improve your mindset regardless? Improving your mindset is always a good way to look about things and to look at things. And is it self-sabotage? Is there anything you could have done to prevent it? Is there anything that you could be doing to reframe it so that it doesn't feel quite as shitty? Is there another angle you could approach this from? Or the this thing, this piece of bad luck that's happened, what does that make possible for you? So I don't know, let's let's pick a really obvious scenario that let's say somebody's just been made redundant on the face of it, that might feel like bad luck. But what if it's somebody who's done nothing but complain about their job for the past five years, has hated it, felt stuck, and has always wanted to start their own business but has been too afraid to do so. Now all of a sudden there's there's an opportunity. There's a great example, that one that happened to me. Exactly that. Yeah. Uh what about you, Ash? What how how would you recognise when the problem's self-sabotage rather than bad luck?

SPEAKER_01 5:16

Because I will always have a thousand reasons for why it's happened to me. And I'll start beating myself up verbally, mentally, emotionally. That for me is a real sign that actually I need to just take a step, take a breath, take a step back, look at it. Where's your evidence for that? Where's your evidence? And that those three little words make such a big difference to me. It's one of the things I I work with quite a bit now, and it helps me enormously. So if I'm doing that and I'm coming up with a thousand and one reasons for that, then I need to look at that and go back to basics, you know, how am I feeling? And also, where am I feeling that in my physical body? So it's a weird one, but I think that's kind of that's helps with my intuition about where I am on that scale of things that in that moment. What can I do to kind of readdress that and as you said, put a more positive reframe on it because it's so easy to go, we can go so down that track of negative things happening to us and woe is me, and then getting into that it's my fault and I don't like myself and all of that self-hurting, self-harming language and speech patterns. And when we get to that point, we've got to really kind of go back, back, back, right back to the beginning, haven't we, to start on reframing it positively. So I don't know if that helps, but I that's what one of the things that I do, it's looking out for those little signs that I'm I'm not helping myself in the best way, really early on in that process, so that otherwise it's a bit like an out-of-control train going down the track, isn't it? I can't stop it. So trying to trace it right back to its origin so I can I can slow it down right at the beginning.

SPEAKER_00 6:51

It's about patterns as well, isn't it? If you look back over your life or over a particular period of time, is this a pattern that keeps recurring? Yeah. And if it's a pattern that keeps recurring, then okay, look at that. Is there a common link between it all? Is there can you see any any chain going through there that it's time to break? But the other point, of course, and I'm not necessarily applying this to you, Catherine, I'm just thinking outside of the box a little bit now, is to look at why somebody might be asking that question in the first place. Um is this self-sabotage or am I just really, really unlucky? Because either one of those could be coming from quite a dark place in terms of our thoughts. So the other thing to check in with for anyone asking this question is what's making me ask this question? What do I want to get from it? And am I coming at this from a place of everything that happens to me is bad? And if it's self-sabotage, then I'm bad too. So we we really need to check in with questions like that as well and make sure that we're not just trying to find another way, unconsciously or consciously, to beat ourselves up more.

SPEAKER_01 7:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 8:00

What if we take whether it was self-sabotage or bad luck out of the equation entirely and just go into okay, why does this happen for me? What can I learn from this? How can I grow from this? What does this make possible? Because maybe if we can just start to try and look at it from a more positive point of view, and I get that, you know, some situations it's hard to find any positive from it, particularly if it's something like, I don't know, the loss of a loved one. Or you know, we talked about redundancy before, but some people really struggle with that one. Sometimes it's hard to find any positive spin on anything, and I don't believe that we should be pushing it right all the way through to kind of toxic posity and go, well it's happened for a reason. I don't necessarily believe everything happens for a do I? I believe we can find a reason for everything. No, there's a better way of saying this. We can find a way to grow from everything. That might not be why it's happened. So I don't necessarily believe that we can find a reason for every for everything in that kind of glib Facebook graphic kind of way. But I do believe, and it might not be straight away, we might be too raw at first, I do believe we can find a way to learn and grow from everything. And I also believe it's really, really important to find a way to learn to be kinder to ourselves. And maybe if we can get ourselves into the head and heart space where we're able to at least find the learning, the growth, the opportunity, even if that's just the opportunity to to learn and to develop our wisdom. And if we can learn to be kinder to ourselves in the process, then maybe we might not be as focused on whether we're sabotaging or whether it's bad luck. Because if we change our mindset enough, then we wouldn't be self-sabotaging in the first place. And anything that feels like bad luck, we might be thinking that's really shit. But here's how I can at least grow from it, or here's how I can at least, when the dust has settled and I've had time to heal, help other people who might be going through the same through my own experiences. Beautifully put. I think. Well, sending you big hugs from here.

SPEAKER_01 10:19

Yeah. Thank you for the question.

SPEAKER_00 10:21

Okay, uh question from another lovely lady. They're all lovely people on our on our podcast, aren't they? This is one of your clients, Asha, Sangita, Sangita Dewan. How how to push through procrastination? Hi, Sangita, lovely to hear from you. Thank you for the question. This question, of course, came in before I was calling procrastinate procrastination I can't say it, procrastination, procrastination in our well it is a bit crap when you're an obstacles episode.

SPEAKER_01 10:49

I think how to push through it. I think it's first to address the point that you may actually be in the midst of it, you may be experiencing that, you may be adding to that experience, to your own experience. That's acknowledgement, isn't it? That's for me, that's the first step. Actually being brave enough to not even to admit to recognise those signs that maybe you are in that procrastination mode. Because that's you know, that's that's a big one, I think, to actually just start to get to come to terms with it a bit. And then why are you smiling at me like that?

SPEAKER_00 11:19

You know my views on on procrastination, you carry on, you're far gentler than I am.

SPEAKER_01 11:23

No, I just I think sometimes we it's like anything, it's habit forming, isn't it? Procrastination can be this is gonna sound really weird. If this rings a bell to anybody else, you know, please let me know. But sometimes when you're in that place of procrastination, there's a there's a sense of comfort in it. Because it kind of allows you to just sit in that space of like, oh, you know, I can't can't quite get everything done, I can't get things done, and I I set out with the best intentions, but nothing ever kind of you know comes to fruition and blah blah blah, and I'm not as good as so-and-so down, you know, them doing that, and they they've already done it, and blah all of this, all of those excuses. So to actually admit that recognise that you may be in the middle of that, that's quite an admission. From that point of honesty with yourself, that's the first and foremost, that's the most important thing, being honest with yourself is the first step to actually making changes and choosing having take uh deciding to make a different choice to actually act on that. And action is action, isn't it? Procrastination actually is the antithesis or the opposite to action. You sit in stuff, I just see that as kind of you can just sit there and gather dust, you know, like a an old an old Victorian book on a bookshelf somewhere that's not been picked up in like six hundred years. Go on, Taz, you're itching to get in there. Go on, I was gonna No I don't think I'm being particularly kind, I'm just being a big thing.

SPEAKER_00 12:51

I'm trying to say send send waves of kindness and love through the airwaves before I say this. Good cup and I don't believe there's any such thing as procrastination.

SPEAKER_01 13:01

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 13:02

I believe procrastination is the acceptable public-facing word we use when we know we're avoiding shit. So why would we that's kind of what I said? Why wouldn't we want to call it procrastination? You know. It's quite a nice sounding vo word. But don't don't call it a rose if it's a pile of dung. You know, if you are sitting and avoiding something, then look at number one, why you're avoiding it. If it's something you really, really, really, really, really don't want to do, then either outsource that shit to somebody who'd enjoy it, or if it's something that you really have to do and you can't reframe it into something that you might find some enjoyment or growth or learning in doing it, and you can't get past that the starting block, then find a coach, a friend, a mentor, somebody who will just hold your hand and help you get past that first hurdle. Well, that'll do then. I was getting around to that. That was a beautiful response you gave.

SPEAKER_01 13:58

I don't know, but maybe I'm procrastinating in the way that I report.

SPEAKER_00 14:01

I think people use the word procrastination because it gives them an excuse to sit in there.

SPEAKER_01 14:05

Yeah, I get it. Yeah, and I said to you, there is a comfort in that. There is definitely a comfort of familiarity in that procrastination, and then an ex an excuse, a reason to beat yourself up.

SPEAKER_00 14:17

Yeah, and calling calling it procrastination gives us permission to do it more. If we stopped being able to give it that nice pretty word and started saying, don't want to do that, so I haven't been doing it. Then would you do it any faster? Yeah. I think using the word procrastination excuses our behaviour a lot. Yeah. And it gives us a reason to gather. We can't help it, we're just a procrastinator. Or we ruminate a lot. We're just ruminating or procrastinating. You see, people have said before, do you procrastinate? Oh, say no, I don't procrastinate, but sometimes I'll lose hours playing on a game because I don't want to do my invoices or something. But that's the difference. I wouldn't call it procrastination. I was gonna say, because that's a form of that word that doesn't that you don't like. But one when you take own absolute ownership and look at why it is you're doing that.

SPEAKER_01 15:12

Okay, so let's take an example then of me procrastinating. What could it be? Uh I know, so one of the things that I've said this year is I wanted to do, I've done a bit of but not enough of, yeah, is sorting out my accounts so that I don't send them over about this time of year or maybe a bit later, usually just before we break up for Christmas for the end of year tax review with my accountant. So I said, right, if I did that on a monthly basis, because soon we're gonna have to do it quarterly anyway, yeah. Um so if I do that on a monthly basis, you're probably looking at no more than maybe a couple of hours work, if that, not even that. So it's you know, it's an Excel sheet basically with a few bits of extra bits thrown in. Have I done that?

unknown 15:50

No.

SPEAKER_01 15:51

Not procrastinated about it, I've talked a good talk. And if I I'm being perfectly honest now, if I was in a company in a business environment, I'd probably say, Oh, yeah, yeah, I've talked about doing that. Yeah, I've done a bit of that now. Have I? No. So that procrastination just goes on and on and on and on. Yeah. So that's a great example, isn't it? Yeah. Of where I've just wasted all that energy and talking the talk about not actually actioning it and doing it. So there you go. Hands up.

SPEAKER_00 16:18

Right? I'm guilty. Okay, so what are you gonna do about it? Um and you know I know that one. I used to get myself ridiculously stressed about doing the accounts because I used to do exactly that and sit on it and sit on it and sit on it and not do it through the year, and then be in a massive panic, going, Oh god, what was this expense for? I can't remember. So I've changed that. There are still a bit I'll I will still be doing my mileage mostly last minute. I mean I've got it most in my diary, but I'll still be working that out last minute. But mine's probably about as streamlined as it can get now.

SPEAKER_01 16:50

Yeah, whereas I'm not.

SPEAKER_00 16:51

But what's different? What's what what are you gonna do about it? I know that if I was doing what you're doing to handle it, I would be qu proc procrastinating too.

SPEAKER_01 16:59

Use that word then.

SPEAKER_00 17:00

I would be avoiding making excuses and then getting cross about it because I was stressed about it too.

SPEAKER_01 17:07

Because I've got in the habit of coming up with I can come up with so many great excuses. I could reel off, I bet you I could reel off ten reasons why I can't do it at the moment. I'm not going to, but I could.

SPEAKER_00 17:19

Okay. On a scale of one to ten, when you sit and think about that, what's your average stress level per month when you if you were thinking about having not done your your accounting?

SPEAKER_01 17:32

If I'm honest, not too bad at this moment. The reason being, because most of it is electronic now anyway, which makes a difference. If you'd asked me that even five or six years ago, yeah, I would have been bricking it by now. Because it meant lots of paper receipts of everything. And what I used to do, I did the class here, I'm sure everybody other everybody else, lots of other people for honestly classes, have done that, particularly if you've been running a business for a while, where you've got paper receipts, and I would literally just bung them in a big envelope and then usually this time of year I'd get that envelope out and then I'd put them. I hadn't even put them into month by month, and then I'd have to go through all of them individually and input onto the system, put it into an Excel, all of that stuff. Now of course I don't need to do that as much. Okay. So that so I'm not as well.

SPEAKER_00 18:20

So you've no paper receipts that you need to put in there? I've got a few, but not too much. Do you know where they are? Kind of. And when it comes to time to do your accounts, will you be able to immediately put your hands on them? I hope so, if they're where I think they are.

SPEAKER_01 18:36

But yeah, I see your point. So yeah, procrastination again, isn't it?

SPEAKER_00 18:40

Yeah. So when it comes to actually having to do it on a scale of one to ten, with ten being through the roof, where will your where will your stress and anxiety levels be?

SPEAKER_01 18:50

They'll go up and down a bit, but usually the worst they'll be now is probably about a seven or an eight. Right.

SPEAKER_00 18:56

So then if that were me, I'd have to go, how much is that worth to me?

SPEAKER_01 19:03

Right.

SPEAKER_00 19:03

So one of the things I do that you don't do is I've got that accounting software where whenever I get a paper receipt or a or or an electronic receipt, I just forward it to a particular email and it automatically gets logged in my accounts. And I think that costs about an extra, I don't know, 20 quid a month or something, wasn't it, when you looked at it?

SPEAKER_01 19:22

This is but I'm laughing because I'm such not that I'm a tightwood or anything, but I'll go 20 quid a month. Oh, I could use that for I don't know, booking a room like this, for instance, for my podcast. But for me, that was such a stress. Which is such a stress.

SPEAKER_00 19:35

But since I've done that, you know how much I used to get into a pickle at accounts time, and I mean really seriously going to really dark places levels of stress about it.

SPEAKER_01 19:45

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 19:46

So for me, that however extra it was, and I don't think I even got a choice with it, I was just told what was going on to it, and when we switched accountants, and that immediately made a difference because I've now just got into the habit of when I pay for petrol, I take a picture of the receipt and immediately email it. If I buy something and it's a business expense, I take a picture of the receipt, I email it. If um a receipt comes in electronically, I automatically forward it.

SPEAKER_01 20:14

Yeah. But creating a new positive habit.

SPEAKER_00 20:19

But I think where you might fall down, because I know I do as well, is I don't do my mileage regularly. That's not going to be too difficult for me to do at the end of the year. But if I did that regularly as well, that would make it easier. But your di your difficulty, I think you'll find, because we're wired quite similarly in this way, is if you just say I'll schedule some time out for that once a month, for instance, you're not going to do it. And if you look at your habits and you're honest with yourself, you know you're not going to do it. So therefore, either if it's not that much of a stress, bite the bullet and accept you're always going to do it last minute, or go, it's an extra 20 quid or whatever a month, get into the habit of doing that, and then I literally just get a WhatsApp from my accountant who will say, Can you send me over your bank details and bank and PayPal between this date and this date? And that's usually all I have to send. That's it. Occasionally I'll get a qu query, what was this for? Yeah. Okay, it was for that. Done. There's no end of your scuffle about apart from mileage. Yeah. No, okay. So it's it's for me a quick one is how much is it if I were com if I were to convert the anxiety and the worry to money, is it bigger or is it is it larger or lesser than that extra that it would cost for the quick books? And for me, if I would be willing to pay somebody 20 quid a month to alleviate my accounting stress, I'd go, well, that's a no-brainer. So it depends how big the issue is for you.

SPEAKER_01 21:48

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I like that. So so that procrastination, pushing through it, is just do, isn't it?

SPEAKER_00 21:54

It's about action, taking action. But would you say I'm procrastinating about it, or would you say I'm putting it off because I don't want to do it?

SPEAKER_01 22:02

I'm putting it off because I don't want to do it. Yeah. I've got far more sexy things like one-to-one's with my clients and and helping them create their books and hearing their stories and I've got far sexier things to do than than doing my accounts like, I don't know, watching paint dry.

SPEAKER_00 22:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 22:19

Yeah.

unknown 22:19

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 22:20

So I think discipline, it's discipline.

SPEAKER_00 22:22

I think for everyone out there, that's a really good thing that I I I started to teach myself some years back now, how much would I pay for somebody to get rid of this stress or whatever it happened to be? Can I outsource it for more or less than that? And then make it happen. And if you haven't got the cash yet to do that, if it's that much of a an uh of a stress, right, okay. What do I need to do in order to bring in that extra amount of cash regularly to clear that off my desk? And do that. But don't pick something you're gonna in air quotes procrastinate about.

SPEAKER_01 22:58

You said that word, you put it in air quotes though, so it's okay. Yeah. I hope that answers your question, Sangita. I also hope it's giving you a bit of a giggle saying. Yeah, exactly. We hope you're smiling at the end of that one, but thank you for your question.

SPEAKER_00 23:10

Okay, um right, question from Claire Crockett. This is definitely one for you, Asher.

SPEAKER_01 23:15

Right.

SPEAKER_00 23:16

Why do Asher Thornton Clearwater's boobs squeak?

SPEAKER_01 23:19

Well, actually, I think technically it wasn't my boobs, I think it was actually my bra. Ever had a squeaky bra?

SPEAKER_00 23:27

If anyone is lost Oh yeah, just to keep it. In one of our earlier podcast episodes, Asher kept having a bit of a glitch because she insisted that her boobs were squeaking and she thought the microphone was picking it up.

SPEAKER_01 23:38

Yeah, I did have that squeaky boob boob squeaky bra issue actually, which then was because I was worried about the sound and how much would be picked up on the mics. Was that one we had fairy mic? Fairy Mike. Fairy Mike and my squeaky boobs. That could be the name of a book. Fairy Mike and the Squeaky Boobs. Yeah, it could be a pot band, couldn't it? Yes. Maybe not. Okay. So it's a great answer, and I hope you enjoy that, Claire. So, yes.

SPEAKER_00 24:06

Um, more serious question from Claire Crockett. Oh, okay. What the lovely, lovely Claire Crockett. Claire Crockett is one of the people on our big one and the bigger one, who's one of our wisdom keepers, one of our assistants on the group. She's been with us for many, many years now. About 75 years, I think she's been on the big one.

SPEAKER_01 24:22

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 24:22

She's bloody brilliant, we love her to bits. We would be lost without her and all the other wisdom keepers and all the other people who've been on the big one with us for so long now. Um, okay, what is the key empowerment lesson you would like to see rolled out in schools? Oh my goodness.

SPEAKER_01 24:38

I think it's what we spoke about in an earlier podcast, which is the attentions that we talk about in the medicine work that we do. Yeah. Um because we often say there's so many incredible teachings around, and that is empowerment work. Yeah. I think it's about it's about those, isn't it? Which if you listen to podcast number goodness me, it was a couple before this one, Taz, I think, wasn't it, when we were talking about that? And they are incredible for just everyday life. They will change your life if you just adopt those and bring those into your life, it will make such a difference. Yeah. Would you agree, or would you go somewhere else with it?

SPEAKER_00 25:16

Definitely, I'd love to see those taught in school. Um, there's another two for me as well. Um first one, it's it's another thing we teach on the big one, and that is that if somebody is getting under your skin or you have an issue with someone, get into the place of we would say the place the place of the chief, so the place where you are as aligned with your higher self as you possibly can be, your sovereign self, um, in your kind of place of absolute truth and non-judgmental, in that place of an autopsy without blame, and go and speak to that person one-to-one, and just say, hey, I'm experiencing this, can we talk about it? Because they might be feeling the same way about you, or it might be that you are inadvertently pushing one another's buttons because you're seeing something in them that reminds you of something you don't like about yourself, or it could be that there's something else you need to learn from one another, so that rather than backbiting and bullying and talking behind people's backs, if there's somebody that for whatever reason you have some kind of issue with, go and have a kind and open conversation with them and sort it out between yourselves. And if you can't, then you know, bring somebody you both trust in to mediate. But the first step is talk to them. Um, but the other big thing, I mean obviously that'll have to be installed from from younger children, but that's a kind of older children thing to put into into practice, I would think. Um, but the other thing I've talked about this a lot before, uh, and it's kind of semantics, but I would love to see schools teaching kids the difference between judgment and discernment. Um we all hear that thing about never judge a book by its cover, but of course we all do absolutely judge books by their covers. Yeah. We all pick up a book and go, I don't fancy that, don't like the don't like the feel of the cover, I don't like the colours, I don't like the name of the author, I don't like the title, I don't like the description, that's just not my bag. Whatever. So we do judge books by their covers. But it's the way we sit with the word judgment, isn't it? Isn't it? Judgment is such carries such heavy negative connotations for us.

SPEAKER_01 27:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 27:26

Whereas if we look at a book and just discern that in that moment that's not for us, you're not saying the book's shit. You're not saying the cover the design of the cover is tripe, you're not saying that the author is bad or the content is drivel, you're just saying that you you you are discerning that right now it's n it's not tickling your fancy. So, if we learned that when people appear to not like us, it's not because they're judging us and going, you're shit, you're horrible. They're just discerning that for whatever reason they're not gelling with you. The difference between judgment and discernment, if we could all get over our fear of being judged, not just as kids but as adults, the fear of judgment holds people back so much, and hey, I've been there too.

SPEAKER_01 28:10

Yeah, definitely.

SPEAKER_00 28:10

But if we could stop seeing it as judgment and recognise that we all make discernments every day, and there's no weight to that. It's just, you know, go and stand in front of your wardrobe every day if you've got a wardrobe or a floor drobe like ours. What piece of clot what item of clothing are you feeling drawn to want to to wear today? Some one day he might really want to wear blue. Doesn't mean there's anything wrong with the red hoodie, but right now what you need is blue, or vice versa.

SPEAKER_01 28:37

Comes that would make such a difference, wouldn't it, for us personally and professionally in our businesses to get out of that comfort zone, and suddenly that comfort zone would be so much bigger than the way to advance.

SPEAKER_00 28:54

It's just discernment. You know, which is the movie you want to watch most at the moment? One of you haven't decided not to watch a movie because you don't like one of the leads, or that you want to watch a movie because you do like one of the leads. You probably don't know that person, never met them. Doesn't mean they're horrible. Just for whatever reason, they're not pushing the right buttons for you.

SPEAKER_01 29:14

That's for me, isn't it? Often I know I've done that where we add two and two together and make 96 and convince ourselves that the world is out and doesn't like us. Nobody loves me, nobody cares about me, blah blah blah. They're all sitting in judgment of me, and then we get caught in the judgment track. Judgment and that holds us back big time. That's a good one. I like that one. Yeah. Hope that helps, Claire. There you go.

SPEAKER_00 29:34

Thank you very much. What about everybody listening? By the way, if you've got ideas about any of these questions we're being asked and you want to um share your thoughts, find us, send us a message on social or email us. Right, uh lovely question from lovely Heather Odling. If you could go back to your 21 year old self, what are you telling her?

SPEAKER_01 29:55

Oh, it's so cliche, but believe in yourself and do what you You want to do not what you think other people want you to do. Be clear on you know and try things. There's no such thing as it's a life experience, it's no right and wrong, but just try stuff and see if it's for you. There's no shame in that. You can change course and direction without beating yourself up about it afterwards. I definitely say that. What about you? It goes better. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:22

Simple as that. Hang in there. It gets better.

SPEAKER_01 30:25

Nice. I like that.

SPEAKER_00 30:27

Thank you, Heather. Okay, um rattling through these now. One from lovely Tammy Townsender. Don't not call anybody lovely now because I've said it a few times. Everybody's lovely. Everybody's now got to be lovely. They are. I mean they are anyway. You all are lovely. Um Tammy asks, What hobbies do you enjoy?

SPEAKER_01 30:46

Go and see the lionesses, play football, and go learn. Anything that's to do with um sporty type stuff. I love watching I'm a frustrated football fan. Anybody that's been following this podcast for a while will know that and read some of my posts on social. Um I love watching sport, um, athletics, football. I'm learning a bit more about rugby since the women's uh World Cup rugby.

SPEAKER_00 31:12

I've been trying to teach you rugby for years.

SPEAKER_01 31:14

I know. I'm still my first love will always be football. Um what else? What else? I love anything to do with wildlife, going to um wildlife parks, seeing going out and just walking in the woods and seeing squirrels and birds and all of that stuff, being outdoors is my kind of thing. I love walking to places I know and places I don't know so well. Going up, you know, mountains and stuff occasionally very taking my time, even going up Glastonbury Tour is amazing just to look at the views. Um anything spiritual in terms of yeah, walking around somewhere like Glastonbury, and yeah, it's a bit cheesy sometimes and a bit, you know, but it I love it and I love the just people watching that you get from that as well. People watching and good food. I love good food. So is that a hobby? Can eating good food be a hobby? I guess it can.

SPEAKER_00 32:03

Oh, so many. It depends what mood I'm in, actually. Um I'm quite crafty. I have a I have a craft studio where you will sometimes find me making stuff. Um we've I've done everything from berthing drums through to painting, modelling, whittling. I sometimes make um carved wooden staves, staffs, all kinds of things like that. Um reading. I love a good piece of um the the there's quite a trend at the moment with with Greek myths being retold.

SPEAKER_01 32:37

Yeah, a lot of books aren't there, right?

SPEAKER_00 32:39

I lo I'm loving all of those, and I love a bit of fanfic as well. I've actually written a bit, but um yeah, I'm not telling you what my pen name was or where you can find it. Um what else? Yeah, ancient sites. I can properly nerd out about ancient sites and Greek mythology too. So yeah, I'll I'll often be found where where there's the time wandering around somewhere like Averebury or one of the many lesser known stone circles and sites and cairns around the UK. There are some beautiful, beautiful sites that not a lot of people have heard about. So yeah, that would that would be it, I think. Yeah. And writing fiction sometimes too. Yeah. Yeah. Okay, thank you. Right, we're into a few more businessy prompts now. Oh bless her, the lovely Verity Tiff has sent us a uh a smorgasbord of business questions.

SPEAKER_01 33:28

Oh, okay, go on. Let's try one.

SPEAKER_00 33:30

I'm gonna try and find the one that's gonna be easy enough to answer on here. Um let's have a look. What's the best way to turn a single blog or post into lots of micro content?

SPEAKER_01 33:45

Oh goodness me, the best way for me personally, and it doesn't work for everybody, but for me, whenever I do that, if I if I'm looking at a blog, I'll look at the key themes in that blog, and good, I do it the old-fashioned way very often. I'll sometimes I'll even print it out, but I'll highlight the bits, the key phrases, words, the topics within that blog that I could kind of work on and create something else from. So it's almost like they're the content prompt for me. So that would be one blog, and from one blog you're gonna get an idea, at least one other idea for another blog and another blog and another blog. Um, lots of microcontent. So one sentence, have a look at those blogs and look at one sentence or one paragraph that in that moment for you, and this is gonna sound a bit woo, really calls to you. It's for whatever reason you're thinking, oh yeah, yeah, did I write that? Okay, what can I do with that? And then expand it from there. That can be a really quick, easy way to do it. You don't have to print it out, that's just me being a bit old-fashioned, but you can just look at it on online wherever it may be and take a different approach with it and use it almost like that paragraph as a content prompt for something else. Um, and also, yeah, and that's micro content. It could be that just one of those phrases or words could be one of those Facebook posts, you know, when you just have a with the colour background and you just pull that out. I've done that, you'll see me doing that quite regularly, where I'll look at an old blog or an old piece of content, and I'll from that old piece of content, which was perhaps I don't know, 200 words, 150 words, you can get like a dozen little pieces of content for those lovely little Facebook posts.

SPEAKER_00 35:16

Well, pull some single quotes from it and drop them onto a graphic. You can use something like I hate Canva with a passion, but you could use something like Canva or Photoshop or PixelMater if you're more into the kind of graphics packages I'm into, um, to use a to create a quotes graphic, either with a picture of you or a picture of a, I don't know, some some of the places that you take tours around and just stick your words on top of a on top of a photo and write a little post to go with it. And again with books, of course. With books as well, isn't it? Totally. Once you've written a whole book, there's so many ways you can turn that into content. You can take a picture of the screen while you're writing it and use teaser posts of that photo of your laptop with some of it on the screen.

SPEAKER_01 35:55

Take an image of yourself, get somebody to take a picture of you, looking at the screen with you with them behind you.

SPEAKER_00 36:08

That's a nice little bit, speed that up. Um you can take a photo of the cover, you can take a um a screenshot of the the PDF when it's already almost ready to go with the print marks on it and use that as a teaser. You can, when you've got the actual book in your hand, what if you video thumbing through it at speed and use that? Or go into Canva and search the templates for book marketing.

SPEAKER_01 36:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 36:34

And use one of those. We've got into book a bit, that's me. I've taken stuff like a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of a little bit so to go back onto it, yeah. Um, define best, what's the best way to turn a single blog or post into lots of micro content? It depends where you are. We can do it the old-fashioned way. So remember that Ash and I both trained wordsmiths essentially. We've both been trained as journalists and editors and sub-editors and feature writers. So it might be a bit easier for us, I don't know. Um, but one of the things you can do, depending on how well you've trained your AI or particularly your chat GPT, particularly if you've got your privacy settings on because you don't want everybody just getting access to your work, you could take that whole post, drop it into your chat GPT, and say, hey, here's a post I've written. Can you please look at that and suggest lots of pieces of micro content from this one post or blog? And let chat GPT come up with some some ideas that that you might miss. In fact, I might try that later and see what it comes up with. Good one.

SPEAKER_01 37:28

You can report back on a future episode.

SPEAKER_00 37:30

That'd be cool. Yeah. Hope that helps Verity. Thanks for your question. Let's see what else can loads from Verity. Okay, one from the lovely Jody Fraser. What's a myth about personal development or empowerment that you wish people would stop believing?

SPEAKER_01 37:46

Go on, you can do that. No, you go first. I go first. No, go on.

SPEAKER_00 37:49

Oh, so many. Go on.

SPEAKER_01 37:50

Um numbers I want you to, and then I'll be inspired by you.

SPEAKER_00 37:54

Oh, that it doesn't last. Um I we try our absolute best on our programmes to make sure that we're really embedding ways for people to allow the teachings that they need in that moment to filter through and last. But I hear a lot of people saying personal development wouldn't doesn't last. There's there's a lovely zigzig, tried that again as I'm a professional speaker, you know. There's a lovely zig ziggler quote that goes something along the lines of um, and I'm paraphrasing here, people say personal development doesn't work. Well, neither does showering, that's why we're we recommend you do it regularly. So that and my personal bugbear over the past couple of years is the amount of um in air quotes influencers out there who are trying to portray this idea of personal development and those in the personal development world, i.e. coaches, um, that everybody needs to be aiming for six and seven figure businesses. Now it seems to be aimed at coaches a lot, but also at lots of solopreneurs, so people with micro businesses, sole traders, and this idea that you should be earning thousands within the first six months, and it's all absolute bollocks. I hate it, I hate, hate, hate it. Um every now and then you get a unicorn. But most of the time, for a usual for a for a usual business and all run-of-the-mill business, which is you know, any business we're running, it generally takes three to five years to see any decent levels of profit. Not making any money at all, but any decent levels of profit over and above that that you're investing to get to the point where you can pay yourself a decent wage or decent dividends, whichever way you do it. Um I wish people would stop thinking that there's instant success. And I wish the people who are peddling that, and they're peddling it only for one reason, because if they sell something that is a if they sell an impossible dream and people believe it, they're gonna give them the money.

SPEAKER_01 39:55

I've got a similar one for that as well. I've got a similar leading on from that, also that that misconception that suddenly it's a book is gonna be the answer to everything. Yes, writing a book can open so many doors in so many ways, but you know what, it doesn't finish once you've published it. There's not this magical pill that you take alongside it that says you're now going to be a star and attract thousands and thousands of pounds into your business every month without some work around it. It doesn't stop. The book is just the beginning, the first part when it's first published. It's what you do with it afterwards as well. It's not just about it's on the shelf and you've got it to, you know, to add to your ego collection because you've you've published a book, but actually it's about making it work for you long term, and that's where I enjoy working with clients. Often we revisit a book maybe they've written five or so years ago, maybe longer, but there'll still be some gems in there. Sometimes it just needs a bit of a refresh, but it's not always the answer to all your worries or your your belief that you can you can make it, and you think if you have a book, it's gonna answer all those questions. It won't, but it's a lovely stepping stone, it's what you do with it afterwards, it's not just about the publication of that book. It's an amazing achievement to write a book, absolutely 100%, and I will bang on about it forever and a day. But it's just the starting point. What else is it gonna lead to? Well, it's gonna lead to all lots of opportunities as long as you keep it on the boil, exactly that yeah.

SPEAKER_00 41:14

Um, another one that's just popping up for me as well, which is the idea that and again, particularly coaches, have all that shit together, have everything sorted out, and that we should never talk about anything that isn't perfectly fake book or Instagram ready. This idea that we need to portray that we have the perfect lives in order for people to want to work with us, I absolutely abhor it. It creates nothing but pressure for the for the coaches, they don't have any way to share when they're going through a shit time because they're not allowed to have a shit time because they're a coach and they shouldn't have a shit time. And also, when people do follow that chocolate box bullshit, all they're doing to people looking in, they're not making people want to work with them, they're making people, they're leading people to feel even worse about their own lot because you can't compare to perfection, and perfection doesn't exist. So I think the whole concept that a coach or someone in personal development has all their shit together, never loses their tail, never has a bad day, needs to be canned. It's like saying that a plumber never gets a burst radiator or a mechanics car never breaks down, or that I don't know, a seamstress never loses a button. What absolute tosh. Yeah, and I think the more we keep it real, the more we help people to recognise that we all have shit days. Um the only difference with us is that we have the tools that help us get out of that shitty mindset, perhaps faster than those who don't. That's all. Love it. Cool. Okay, thank you, Jodie. Right, that's time for it. Thanks, Jodie. That sounds good. So one more time. Let's see. Let's see what we can find. Okay. She's scrolling and scrolling, I'm looking very talk amongst yourselves. Talk amongst yourselves.

SPEAKER_01 43:06

You better have another one now, Taz. You've got a whole list of them now, so you've just got to choose. Oh no. You should just go.

SPEAKER_00 43:14

Asher Singh asks, the lovely Asher Singh asks.

SPEAKER_01 43:17

Hi, Asher. From Asher.

SPEAKER_00 43:20

Oh, there's so many different ones. She's going to be a little bit more than a little bit more than a little bit.

SPEAKER_01 43:22

We have done from Asher last time, didn't we? Or is that the is that the episode that we lost?

SPEAKER_00 43:26

Yeah, we started to record this before and we lost it halfway through. Right. If someone had little money and was not super techie and they wanted to build a side hustle or a small business in today's world, how would they start if they wanted to get to 2k per month?

SPEAKER_01 43:45

Goodness may it's well the answer is it's got to be getting yourself online if you're not online initially, hasn't it? You've got to go online, I think. That's the easiest and quickest and arguably cheapest way to get in front of an audience before you start getting into all the techie stuff and the segmentation and all of that stuff with your marketing. And just start talking about your story, the reason for why you're doing it, why you're so passionate about what you're about to launch, how can it how can it help other people? How can you serve how you'll be serving others and helping others?

SPEAKER_00 44:16

That I would start there, would you? Everybody has something in their knowledge banks or experience banks that somebody else wants or needs. So how do you monetize that? Because we could talk there's there's loads of ways to make some money quickly. So um if they're not techie, then the f the number one thing actually, let me just back back to the thing. I suppose yeah, even going on social would be a bit techie. Let me just back to it. Let me just roll back this a little bit. The first thing I would do is stop people using the word techie, because techie has become an umbrella, universal word that stops people from looking at anything they don't yet understand.

SPEAKER_01 44:51

That's that's where I went, I think where I answered that, because to me being on social isn't a techie techie.

SPEAKER_00 44:56

No, but a lot of people will say, Oh no, it's tech, I hate tech. If you talk about AI, I hate tech. If you talk about chat GPT, which is part of AI, yeah, I hate tech.

SPEAKER_01 45:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 45:05

So you've got to get over that and stop seeing anything that requires a a a smartphone or a PC or a laptop as tech for starters. It's a huge, huge. You need to get over with that. That's the way the world is moving. So stop calling everything tech, start seeing that the social media, there are programmes like Microsoft Word, all the basic stuff, or notes on your phone that are don't call them tech. If tech for you is the the the word that triggers avoidance, stop using the word tech and stop seeing it all as tech.

SPEAKER_01 45:37

I love that. I thought that if you could just change the wording, the phrasing around something, how that could suddenly take away some of those self- those limited beliefs.

SPEAKER_00 45:45

Because here's the thing, I don't think I'm techie, but you would say I was techy.

SPEAKER_01 45:49

I always say you're the you're the geeky one and the techie one in the family.

SPEAKER_00 45:52

But I'm not because tech for me means getting actually inside the brain of the computer.

SPEAKER_01 45:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 45:58

Or knowing which parts to replace, or being able to build a PC from scratch. I've no idea about any of that. I have to go and research and find my way through. But yeah, pieces of kit, I can geek out on something like a new microphone or a new gimbal, or oh, what's the latest piece of AI software and how can I make that really accessible for other people? Yeah. Then yeah, I can geek out on that, but I don't see that as tech. The bit at the other end where the beautiful boffins are creating the AI to then make it appear through a user interface and make it accessible for us, that bit they do is the tech. For me, I'm just using Chat GPT. And I think Chat GPT opens up all kinds of possibilities for people to really easily make money, and that's without even thinking about some of the other um tech out there. If you just look at Chat GPT, that will open up avenues of earning really easily once you get your head around it and you know how to use it, and it is not difficult, and we need to not be calling it tech. So it's changing our use that we use, isn't it?

SPEAKER_01 47:03

What a difference that would make if we could do that and adopt a new way of describing things and experiencing things, that takes a lot of the fear, the worry about out of it, doesn't it? That I can't I can't do this or whatever. That takes a lot of.

SPEAKER_00 47:16

How many people who say they're not tacky drive a car?

SPEAKER_01 47:18

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 47:20

Yeah, particularly more modern cars. Is there anything more techy than a car? They're full of electric bits all over the place. There's a light on there. What does that mean? It looks like a splitty spaceship.

SPEAKER_01 47:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 47:29

How many people who are not techie watch TV? It's tech. Yeah.

unknown 47:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 47:35

You know, we take it to the nth degree. Have a phone. Stop calling it techie. Good point. One to think about, I should definitely. Get the block out of the way. 2k a month, not difficult. But you've got to pick a lane and hunker down doing it. Whether you're going one to many or you're coming up with a low-cost pro with a product that doesn't cost you anything but time to put it together, which is going to be an electronic one, and put it out online.

SPEAKER_01 48:02

That's coming back to that again, isn't it? So you've got something that, you know, there's that classic adage that, you know, make money while you sleep. That's something that can be just sitting there doing that for you on the days when, I don't know, for whatever reason you can't sit in front of a your laptop or a lot of it. Unless you want to be out and about doing stuff.

SPEAKER_00 48:19

Yeah. Unless you have a big chunk of money to put down on something like reselling products, for instance. This is trying to avoid the tech now. Unless you have a chunk of money to buy into something that is existing and already there. If you are talking about creating a side hustle without having to spend out, then unless you want to go and, you know, pick strawberries on your weekends, when it's strawberry season, which is backbreaking work and probably not going to make you 2K regularly, or you're not going to go and do nude modelling for an art class, I don't think that would bring you anywhere near 2K either. Most of the time you need to get your head around some of the um apps and opportunities that are out there that exist that would allow you to create electronic products which won't cost you anything other than time or to find a way to monetize that thing that you are passionate about and sell that knowledge either in books, in electronic format, in coaching, in training, in electronic learning sessions, whatever it happens to be. Or of course you can go and look at multi-level marketing or something like that. But if you're only going to do it part-time, you might struggle to hit 2k a month doing it. Find out what it is that's blocking you and get it out of the way. And the number one blocker I see in a lot of people is I'm not techie. Techie is not the problem, the mindset is the problem.

SPEAKER_01 49:45

Such a I love that approach. Thank you, Teddy.

SPEAKER_00 49:47

There you go. Hope that helps, Asher. There you go. I think that's us about out of time. So we'll do another Ask Me Anything episode soon. So do ask. Please do send us your questions. Find us on social media, send us a question. So this is for your next AMA episode. Get as cheeky as you like.

SPEAKER_01 50:05

Or we might be asking for trouble then.

SPEAKER_00 50:07

No bad, ask anything you like, and we will pick the best for one of our next AMA episodes. Look forward to it. Yeah. So until next time, we will see you next Tuesday.

SPEAKER_01 50:22

You've been listening to Awesome New Off Topic. Follow or subscribe to make sure you don't miss the next one. We're Adrick Millwater and Taz Thornton, and we'll be back soon.