In this episode, Doreen Ritchie, life coach, shares the importance of taking responsibility for your life, how to make better decisions and how to create your own prosperity and happiness.
Resources mentioned
Contact: www.DoreenRichiecoaching.com
Book: Activate Your Life Volume Two
3 Key Points
You have to grow yourself to grow your business.
We’re the ones who create the reality around us and are therefore responsible for our happiness.
We live in the present only.
Transcript
Ellen: Hi and welcome to Episode 86. Today my guest is Doreen Richie. Doreen is a life coach operating in Belfast, Northern Ireland. She’s had a long career in business and finance, which has always involved dealing with people and developing them to their full potential.
She’s an intuitive and empathic coach, and gains deep satisfaction from knowing she has enabled people to change direction or resolve life problems, which she also did for herself and turned her life around into one of daily joy and fulfillment by changing her way of thinking about the world. In the present. She is presenting a course at Queens university Belfast on the inside out view of reality. And in December, 2019, she coauthored a book on coaching called Activate Your Life Volume Two. And in her free time, she loves to travel to Italy with her Italian partner and spending time with her three sons and families. So welcome to the call today.
Doreen: Hi Ellen. Thanks for inviting me.
[01:51] Ellen: Yes. I am happy to have you. It’s so much fun being online and just meeting people from all over the world.
Doreen: Yeah. Yeah. And I’ve been doing a lot of that because I am in lots of networking groups and sort of being different places in Europe, and I’ve been different places in America and England and so on. And it’s been great for meeting different people. Yeah.
Ellen: Yeah. It’s so funny. Sometimes, I get in these conversations with people and we get into the politics, and then we have these long discussions, and they want to know about America and what’s going on, and how crazy we are.
[02:23] Doreen: I think we had that discussion before, didn’t we?
Ellen: Yeah, we did, but I’ve also had it with some other ones. Yeah. So, why don’t you tell us more about your story of transformation?
Doreen: Well, yes. Well, as you said, there I was in business and finance for years, and unfortunately, in a bit of an unhappy marriage and so on. Anyway, I have three sons, I raised three sons. I had a good job, but one day, I was driving to work just before Christmas and my car was hit by a huge Lauri and my car was a write-off, but I only had a whiplash.
And the people who were digging me out of the car, one of them said to me, “Well, somebody up there was looking out for you today because you really should be dead.” And I’m not religious at all. So, I said, “No, I, I don’t believe that somebody was looking out for me. What would the purpose be, you know, to look up?” And he said, “Well, maybe your purpose was just to live your life.”
[03:20]: So, I said, “Right, okay,” Got to the hospital and so on; a couple of days later, I’m lying in hospital and it sort of hits me, “You know, excuse me. That was the universe tapping you on the shoulder door, Doreen and saying, ‘It’s time to start living your life.’” Because before that, I was basically existing, you know, get up in the morning, do everything, go to work full time, come back, bring the kids back, do everything again, see them at the weekends. And as I said, wasn’t in a happy marriage. So, I made a decision to actually get divorced, change my life, get a better job, which I did, and then a couple of years after that, I started on my self-development journey, and it was fantastic; there were synergies all over the place.
And then, I decided that actually I was going to leave the corporate world and develop myself a bit more become a life coach, so that I could give back basically what I had learned, but to women like myself, and also men who, who were at that stage in their life, like maybe at a crossroads, maybe overwhelmed, maybe, you know, terrible anxiety and so on, and not knowing how to get out of that. Maybe there were stuck on fulfilled whatever. And that’s what I do basically. And those are the people who come to me. And I can tell them, “Listen, you need to live your life now because this is all we have.”
And secondly, listen, “If I can do it, you can do it and I’ll help.” So, that’s my why. I look at these people as they transform in front of my eyes. And I think, “Yes, that’s it. That’s why somebody was looking out for me that morning and the universe tapped me on the shoulder.” So, that’s why I’m here.
[04:56] Ellen: Yeah. I see that a lot when people say, you know what’s the reason that you coach? And actually, there was just a post like this the other day. And you know, the number one thing is it’s that moment where you see that transformation or you see that aha.
Doreen: The light bulb.
Ellen: Yeah, the light bulb goes off and they get it. And yeah, so sometimes, people will say, “Well, what was your win for the week?” And last week, my win was that I had a tough client, someone was a tough cookie, and she was skeptical. But she did one call with me. She said, “One call I’ll do.” And there was that moment towards the end when she goes, “Oh my God.” And then she goes, “You know, I know how exciting this is cause I’m a coach too,” And so, we were laughing about it, but yeah. But yeah, you can’t do it for yourself.
[05:50] Doreen: Yeah, no. Exactly. You can’t. But it is so true that because I teach people a different way of thinking whenever they actually get it the first time and and they think about something, have an insight about something, which is their own truth. I know that no matter what else they may do or think, they will never change that they can’t change it once you knew something, you knew it. You know what I mean? Once you’ve gathered an insight about a truth, you can’t not have the insight. So, forever after they’re going to think differently because of what we’ve talked about and what we’ve done through coaching. And that to me is absolutely brilliant. I mean, I just absolutely live for that. So, like yourself,
[06:29] Ellen: So, do you ever have people though, where it’s like, they get the insight, but they still keep doing the same behaviors?
Doreen: Well, yes, because sometimes, it is difficult to apply it. You know what I mean? That’s what a lot of the coaching is about. Let’s take a situation. How would you respond to that situation? Well, let’s think about it a different way. Now let’s see if you make that in the next week or two, and then tell me how you managed it. And so, there’ll be looking like for the situation, if you know what I mean, and they’ll go, “Hmm, maybe this is something I could try this and see if I feel better about it.” And then when it works, they’re all sort of, “Oh my goodness, that’s brilliant.” And they come back and tell me, “Guess what? This happened and I did this. And like you said, and it worked,” and you know, so absolutely.
[07:10] Ellen: Well, you know, I was on a call the other day, and I had never heard anybody do it like this. They had a program, and they were talking about how, you have to grow yourself to grow your business. And the way they had set up the program was it was six weeks and you had to commit to, I don’t know if it was every single day or it was every day, every business day, five days a week. I don’t know which one it was, but the way that it was set up was if you didn’t show up, then you got docked. And if you got docked three times, you literally got shut out of the program, and you had to go for a week and deal with yourself before you could come back, and their idea was thee have to be carrots and sticks for changing your behavior, so what do you think about that idea? No?
[08:10] Doreen: I don’t know. Well, I certainly wouldn’t do that with someone. I have had people who were very intransigent and did not actually want to admit that perhaps, it was something within themselves that was keeping them back. It was always somebody else’s fault or circumstances or poor them or they were the victims. And when I tried obviously what I’m saying to them that we’re not victims because actually we’re the ones who create the reality around us. It isn’t anything to do with something I’d say to you-that can’t cause you to feel anything. What causes you to feel something is what the thoughts are that you’re having about the situation I assigned you. So, you can’t blame anybody else. You have to take responsibility for your thoughts and your feelings because it’s coming from you. And it’s beholden you to actually be aware of what you’re thinking, be aware of where that comes from, and be aware of how you’re talking to yourself in order to make yourself feel better.
[09:04]: And once you take responsibility for that, you find that it’s easier to respond rather than react and (inaudible). So basically, we go through all that, but I certainly wouldn’t cut someone out. I have had, say, people took maybe two, maybe three sessions for them to be able to open up and be vulnerable enough to say, “Yes, I knew I’m doing this to myself. Yes, I understand I’m doing this to myself. I understand it’s my responsibility to be happy. It’s not anybody else’s responsibility to make me happy.” And I think once then people do get that then they go on, you know, that’s quite fast after that. But sometimes, it is a long lead-in because they’re just not ready to admit to themselves that maybe it’s something in them, you know?
[09:51] Ellen: Yeah. I’m wondering if, do you think that by changing your outside environment, though, it can make your inside environment better?
Doreen: Well, I always say, I’m a very pragmatic person and I always say to people, “We are living in the present moment.” But if you’re in a situation, for example, at work where, I mean, obviously there are things you’d maybe have to share an office with people who are awful or whatever- you don’t get on with them, you have to address that. So, if you can change the situation, as in can you change your position in the office? Can you change your office? Cause you can’t change anybody else, don’t forget.
Ellen: Right.
Doreen: If you can change something about it, that makes you feel better then do that. If you can’t or you’ve done it and you can’t take anymore, can you accept the situation where you are? Right?
[10:41] Ellen: And if not become an entrepreneur.
Doreen: You can’t, exactly, remove yourself from the situation. And it’s the same, like in a marriage, if you’re in a toxic relationship, can you change just something about it that will help you feel better? Yes, that’s great. If you can’t do anymore, can you accept the way it is? If not, remove yourself from the situation, cause it’s just destroying your soul. And like I said to you, we don’t have very long to live. You know, we really don’t. We only, you know, it’s so short, it goes past too quickly. Your duty to yourself is to live every moment to the best of your ability, to make yourself as happy as possible, and take the opportunities there. And if you’re not in the right mindset, you don’t see the opportunities. So, you need to be aware. And then once your mindset changes, once you were aware of where everything’s coming from, where your thoughts are coming from and who you really are, then you’ll see the opportunities and you’ll be able to take them.
[11:38] Ellen: Yeah. As you were talking, I was thinking, is there a possibility sometimes that you think you’ve accepted something and you haven’t and you really don’t know that you’re doing that?
Doreen: Yeah. and the signal, as in all things, it’s how you feel because it’s like a feedback loop. So, if you feel bad in any way, if you’re anxious or you’re angry or you’re, whatever, that feeling has information on it. And it’s telling you your thoughts aren’t right. It’s telling you to think about what you’re actually telling yourself. So, you might be saying on the surface, “Yes, it’s fine. I can accept all this toxicity, in my workplace or in my mind or whatever and I’m fine,” but inside you’ll know, you feel terrible. You feel anxious. You’re not eating properly. You’re not sleeping, whatever. So, that is what you have to listen to. That is, you’re innate wisdom telling you this is not good for you.
Ellen: Yeah.
Doreen: You need to start thinking again, what are you saying to yourself about this?
And that’s what we do in coaching.
[12:43] Ellen: Uh-huh. Yeah. The reason I asked you to go back a minute to what I was saying before, the reason I asked you about changing the outside to change in the inside, because we have an interesting situation. I was telling you before we got on the call that we’ve had a very long journey back from the 2008 recession. And then, I had major surgery. I was very sick. And then, my husband had over five years, two major surgeries. And so, our life became a mess, you know, financially we lost everything and just couldn’t get what am I trying to say? Oh, like the credit score was trashed and just everything was just a mess, you know? And we couldn’t get a place to live. We’d been kicked out of where we were, not of anything that was our fault.
[13:33]: They had bootlegged these units under this mansion and the neighbors found out and they told the city, and then they kicked everybody out. So, at that point, we just didn’t have a lot of extra cash laying around to start up. And we ended up being homeless, like so many entrepreneurs. And, we were like staying here, staying there, trying to figure out, what we were going to do, where we were going to go, how it was going to work out. And we ended up at this hotel in San Diego, and it was supposed to be for like six months. And then, it was a year and two years and three years. And we just kept staying. And it was like, it was comfy because when the COVID hit, we didn’t have to worry about toilet paper; they gave us the toilet paper, you know, and maid service and all this stuff.
[14:21]: And so, it just kinda got comfortable, but it, but in a way, but in an uncomfortable way, if that makes any sense, you know, it’s like, it’s not normal and all that and it’s not what you’re used to and it’s not really what you would have chosen, but there it is. So anyway, we finally got our act together. I had been rebuilding my credit the last few years and just, just working on everything, my business, my mindset, everything. And finally, , it all came together and we went to look at this place and I didn’t even realize how unhappy I was until we walked into this place and it was gorgeous. Right? And it was not perfect, not everything we had wanted on our checklist, but almost everything. And at that moment it was like, this huge wave just came over me. It was like, “Oh my God.”
1[5:15] Doreen: Because you put up with things, do you accept things until you’ve reached a point? And if you’re becoming more aware of how you’re feeling and how you’re thinking, you become aware that no, you can’t accept anymore. You can’t change anybody else or you can’t maybe change the circumstances immediately, but you can change how you look at it.
[15:36] Ellen: Right, and sometimes, it’s interesting because as many times as we had tried and hadn’t worked out this time the synchronicity of everything was amazing. But aside from that, it was like first that the TV wasn’t working, and then they started on the pool and the Jack hammer right outside our window for days and weeks and all that. And then, all of a sudden there was just more music playing from other units, more than usual, it just got to that point where, like you were saying, “Enough, enough”.
Doreen: Exactly.
Ellen: Yeah. It’s like just not comfortable at all anymore.
[16:12] Doreen: Yeah. And you see, you don’t grow until you come outside your comfort zone, as you know. You’re inside your comfort zone. And it’s quite expandable, you know? because I mean, you look at abused women who stay in marriages and things.
Ellen: Oh yeah.
Doreen: That’s unfortunately, the way they look at that is it’s a known risk. It’s a known horribleness. If you know what I mean.
Ellen: Yeah.
Doreen: And something beside that you see is unknown and it’s not, and believe it or not they feel safer within this terrible situation than they think they would do outside. And so, they get this comfort bubble; I don’t mean they’re comfortable.
Ellen: Yeah, yeah.
Doreen: But it’s a known risk. It’s a known thing.
Ellen: Natalie Wood actually said that. Natalie Wood, in an interview, said she would rather, because she went back to RJ, and she said something about like, “I’d rather be with the devil I know, than the devil I don’t.”
Doreen: Than the devil you don’t, exactly.
Ellen: Whoa…
Doreen: Yeah, and it’s very, very normal. You know, it’s like us with COVID at the moment. For example, I’ve had lots of people come to me, my clients and other people just talking, and they’re very afraid of this uncertainty, and they’re going, “But everything’s so uncertain, everything’s so uncertain, we’re so afraid of it.” And I’m going, “No, life is uncertain.” You’ve baked everything in your life is uncertain up until now. But because you know what, a bit better than COVID, because we’ve met the situation before it’s a known risk and so, you forget about it and you go through this delusion that you’re in control, right?
So, you get into the car every day. You don’t think of the thousands of accidents and the people who’ve been killed.
Ellen: Right.
Doreen: You just get into the car. Right? Because you’re quite used to it. Right? You accept that risk. You internalize it.
Ellen: And you think, “It’s not going to happen to me.”
Doreen: Exactly. But because we don’t know at the beginning, we didn’t know what was going to happen with COVID. That’s why people really got terribly, terribly afraid.
Ellen: Well, yeah. And that’s why a lot of people had died because they didn’t think it was going to happen to them.
Doreen: Exactly. Exactly. Because we’re not aware of, we weren’t aware of the risks necessarily. We didn’t think we could control anything. When in actual fact, we did control, we could control. All you had to do was follow the distancing, masks, and it was completely within your control to not get it.
Ellen: But, so many people won’t do it.
Doreen: Yeah, exactly.
Ellen: They just won’t do it. I don’t get it, but whatever.
Doreen: So that’s it. So, if you’re not in control and you’re uncertain about things, but like you say, if you knew the risk, then you don’t take it under your notice. If you know what I mean.
[18:46] Ellen: Well, let’s talk about risk and business. Because for me, like, I was really naive when I started my business. I had no business experience. I knew nothing about business. I had been in the music business for twenty years in my beautiful world-class home studio, making music, and then you know, we would go and have meetings with people with the songs. And that was pretty much it most of the time; it was just hanging out in the studio and making music. So, it was really fun, but it wasn’t really, I didn’t really have to worry about business. But my dad was a lawyer, but he was an entrepreneur on the side. He always had some side deal going, something. But because of my naivety I guess, I always thought I can do anything. I can do whatever I want and it’s going to happen.
[19:32]: And then as you go through life and things don’t happen, you learn to keep going. But then when I got into business, we took some really big risks. And because of the recession we lost, and we weren’t alone. I did a book called How to Crush it in Business Without Crushing your Spirit, How Entrepreneurs can Overcome Depression and Find Success and I was shocked. Almost every story had an element of it from the recession in 2008 that affected people’s lives.
But as you get older, it, it gets harder to take the risks. I mean, on the one hand, you have more knowledge, so you take better risks. But on the other hand, you do get, at least we did, we got more scared because it took so long to get it back. And it’s like you said, life is just not that long.
[20:22] Doreen: Exactly. They’re in those kinds of situations. But the point that I would make to them is during coaching and so on, when we realize, what I say to you is we live in the present moment. That’s it. That’s where our lived experiences. And even the scientists are saying “We’re living in a thought- generated perception of reality.” And the thing is that we don’t know what’s going to happen. Obviously, we don’t know, we don’t talk crystal bowl.
Ellen: Right.
Doreen: But what we do have is what in (inaudible) , we are capable of. So, we have resilience, we have strength and courage and wisdom, compassion, and love and so on. And most people don’t understand quite how much of that. They don’t understand who they really are. They don’t understand that they have all this strength to draw on until they’re in extremes, really, you know? People who have put up with lots of things, and then suddenly something terrible happens and they rise to the occasion.
Ellen: Right.
Doreen: You’ve always got that. You don’t have to wait until an extremist you’ve got at now. And what I’m saying to people is get in touch with that. Look at things in a certain way that a challenge or a difficulty or a problem is not insurmountable; behind every challenge or difficulty there’s an opportunity; behind every terrible, devastating thing that happens to you there’s an opportunity. And whenever you learn to look at it and be aware of things like that, you see the opportunities to come out of it. So, if you were to sit down very calmly, because the natural thing is the human being is being calm and creative and hopeful and optimistic, right? And when you can get yourself into that state through things that I would teach when I was coaching, you naturally make better decisions because you naturally are aware of the opportunities that are available, or that may be available if you had got it in a certain way. So, therefore, when you’re calm and in control, and you’ve got clarity around your thinking, you make better decisions.
[22:21]: Well, how do you suggest people get that?
Doreen: Well, come to me for coaching. Of course, first of all, but yes, you need to, yeah, you need to remain into the present moment. You need to remain in the present moment as much as possible. You need to be aware of how you’re thinking and how it makes you feel. You need to be aware of where that comes from.
For example, if you have limiting beliefs and you’re self-sabotaging or whatever, you know? Or, your mindset, right. Money has completely skewed. Again, we need to go through the procedure. “What are you feeling? Well, what’s making you think? Well, what story are you telling? Where’s that coming from? Is that when you were seven or was that when you were fourteen and the teacher said you’ll never make anything of yourself? Or, was that your parents putting you down or was that a boyfriend who was really bad to you. Where’s it coming from? Can we go back and look at that and change the story?” Right?
[23:09] Ellen: Yeah. The thing that I find with myself is that there’s a part of me that will do things and it thinks it’s keeping me safe.
Doreen: That’s your brain, Listen your brain evolved to keep me safe, but we don’t have saber-tooth tigers hanging over us anymore.
Ellen: Right. But that’s the way that’s the brain is still there. So, 60,000 thoughts we get a day right from the brain and probably 40,000 of them are negative and keeping your safe thoughts.
Ellen: So frustrating.
Doreen: Yeah. So, we pay attention to that, but you know, what you pay attention to becomes your reality.
[23:46] Ellen: Yeah. You know, it’s funny too, because again, to go back to the apartment, cause that’s on my mind right now because we’re moving. So, I talked to my two best friends last night and I told them, and they know how long we’ve been going through this, trying to get this together and everything. And both of them were like, “Oh, that’s so exciting.” And I’m like, “Oh my God.” You know? Cause we were like, should we do this? Should we not do this?
Doreen: Well, that’s fear.
Ellen: Right. Yeah. And there was that moment where I said, well, and this is funny too, because like I grew up upper middle class. I mean a lot of things that I’ve been so humbled by what we’ve been through that before I took for granted, like having a washing machine and a dryer and a regular Internet, like where we are now, I don’t have regular Internet.
I have to use a jet pack and it’s very cumbersome and it’s very expensive.
Doreen: Yeah.
Ellen: But anyway, so all of a sudden, I was like, “You know, I can get excited about the washer and dryer and the Internet, or I can get completely freaked out about getting back into a contract,” which I don’t like, this is going to happen and that’s going to happen if you don’t know all that, all that stuff. So yeah. So yeah. I mean what you focus on and boy, I get that lesson over and over and over, what you focus on.
[25:01] Doreen: Cause it is a lesson. And, you’ll keep getting it over and over and over until you get it until you absolutely totally believe that that’s what’s happening. And then you’ll move on to another lesson. Right? It’s all about growth. We’re here to grow. We’re here to become more mature in our souls and things, you know? So basically, you will be fed that lesson over and over again. But I was going to say, when you were talking about fears, the other side of fear is excitement.
Ellen: Right?
Doreen: It’s practically, exactly the same. It’s practically, exactly the same physical connotation in your body chemical-wise as fear. But it’s your change of attitude. So, you can choose the attitude. “This is awful. Why am I having to do this? This is outside my comfort zone. Oh, my goodness. I’m never going to do this properly,” or whatever.“This is going to fail.”
Or, you can choose the opposite, same set of circumstances. Or, you can choose the attitude. “Oh, my goodness. What a challenge I am so looking forward to meeting this challenge and seeing the opportunities that come out of it. Oh, my goodness. I’m so curious as to see how I’ll perform. This is wonderful. It’s so exciting to be alive!” Now, which one makes you feel better? The circumstances don’t change. Well, your attitude to the circumstances. It’s the way you tell the story about the circumstances. And that’s what makes you change.
[26:16] Ellen: Except when you’re aware of something, you can change it.
Doreen: Yeah. You mean like you were saying before, it’s not just always changing your attitudes sometimes it’s just changing…
Doreen: No, no. But what I mean is if you can’t change the circumstance, something’s happened, right, you’ve crashed or something else has happened. You don’t have any control over that, but you don’t need to have control over that. You have control over your attitude towards it. That can make you feel better or not better.
[26:47] Ellen: Do you have any final tips for people on how they can, I don’t know, get started, like what they need to change?
Doreen: Well, what they. need to change…
Ellen: Or, look at differently?
Doreen: You need to bring yourself into the present moment. You need to be aware that your thoughts are the most powerful things in the world, right? Thought is so powerful. And if you knew how powerful, you’d never thinking of the negative thoughts. What you actually pay attention to becomes your reality. So, be very careful that you pay attention to things that are positive, that are affirmative, and that are self-affirming. And also understand that you are far, far more than what you see in the mirror or your business that you have, or whatever. You’re far, far more than that. Everybody has strengths, resilience, courage, wisdom, use it, listen to it, get in touch with yourself and listen to what it’s telling you. Yeah, that’s what I would say.
[27:46] Ellen: So, how can people reach you?
Doreen: Well, I might be where on, on social media, I have my website is www.DoreenRichiecoaching.com. I’m on LinkedIn at linkedin.com/in/doreen-ritchie-belfast-life-coach I’m on Facebook at facebook.com/Doreen.Ritchie.LifeCoach : I’m on Instagram is at instagram.com/lifecoachbelfast. So, you know, if you want to find me, you’ll find me there. Usually, I’m on LinkedIn every day, so. Oh, okay.
[28:10] Ellen: Good to know. Yeah. I’m more of a Facebook girl than a LinkedIn person. But I do go there every day too, just to check in. But yeah. And so, for my listeners, you said you had something.
Doreen: Special? Yes. If anybody would like to come for coaching, I’m offering 10% off. If you could say you listen to me on here.
Ellen: Okay. Okay. Well, thanks so much for coming on.
Doreen: Thank you for having me.
Ellen: Yeah. It’s great to get to know
Doreen: And good luck in your and your new venture.
[28:41] Ellen: Thank you. I’m so funny. I’m so superstitious. It’s like, it seems like every time I go, like Murphy’s law, like I’ll say something in my newsletter, like this is happening or that’s happening. It never happens. So, this time I said, “Well, you know, we’re looking into moving. I didn’t say I was pretty sure at that point, we were going to get it, but I wouldn’t say, “We’re moving.”
Doreen: In case you jinx it?
Ellen: Right.
Doreen: If it’s for you, it won’t go by you, as my granny would have said, my Scottish granny would’ve said. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[29:17] Ellen: I’ve been doing now is Books Open Doors™ Insights. And I’ve been doing a little training every week. And this week, I was asking my followers in my Facebook group, if I should keep this the way it is or if I should change the structure again, because what’s happening is that you can only put much in the title. And so, people are only seeing what the interview is and they’re not even seeing what the Books Open Doors™ insights is, so, I’m thinking that I might do something here that’s a lot shorter, so, that’s what I’m thinking of doing. And so, to get that started, what I’m going to talk about today just for a minute is letting you know that there is a site called HelpAReporter.com. The short is Haro H A R O and you can sign up for it.
[30:15]: It’s free to do this. And you become a person that they want to talk to when they’re doing a story and they need quotes and information and statistics, whatever it is they’re looking for. And so, I’ve been following that and I’ve been responding to a few of them. You want to be really specific when you do this. So, you only want to take the ones that are right in your wheelhouse, the ones that you can absolutely answer really well, maybe, especially ones where you have something of interest to say that’s maybe a little different than what other people say. And obviously, you want to use it really to move your business forward. So, I don’t want people to use it to just make it another thing that they have to do. I really want you to use it strategically.
[31:02]: But when I decided to start using it, I did a little research. And one of the things I found was that they were saying, ”Oh, well, if it says it’s anonymous, don’t answer those because you don’t know where they’re going.” So, I was asking my friends on Facebook, what their thoughts were and people didn’t think that was an issue. So, that was just one article that I’d read that said that. But one of my friends said that she had actually gotten quoted on Oprah from one of these, yeah from one of these asks. So that’s why I say, I think it’s a really cool thing, but some days I don’t see any that I would answer. And some days maybe it’s one, and then another day, maybe it’s three, but you really want to follow the directions and you really want to go and Google it; read a few articles on it.
[31:50]: What they’ll do is they’ll tell you exactly how to fill it out, so that there’s kind of like a structure. So anyway, so that’s it for today. To get the transcripts go to https://booksopendoors.com/podcast. You’re also welcome to join our Facebook group of visionary speakers and coaches and heart-centered entrepreneurs and authors who want to self-publish and use their book to make a bigger impact, more money and a lasting legacy. And by the way, this is our 101st podcast. So, for those of you who have been on the journey with me, I want to thank you for being one of our listeners. And I was hoping to have a little party, but then the move got in the way, so it’s going to be postponed, but we’ll see what happens.
[32:43]: If you want to write your book the fast and easy way, you’re welcome to join our waitlist for the next 5 Day Bestseller Breakthrough Challenge. I said it was coming up in April because of the move and some other things that happened. I’ve had to postpone that; it’s probably going to be more into the summer, but you can get on the waitlist at www.bestsellerbreakthrough.com. And if you’re ready to get your feet wet right now, get started, be sure to pick up a copy of the Book Planner Secrets on the podcast page A Simple 4-Step Guide to Writing a Bestseller at again, https://booksopendoors.com/podcast. For anything else, you can reach me at Ellen@booksopendoors.com. So, ‘til next time, Bye-bye.
THANKS FOR LISTENING!
To share your thoughts and comments:
- Join us in our Facebook Group!
- Share this show on social media!
To help out the show:
0 Comments