225: How To Become A Paid Writer: Landing Magazine Deals And Publishing Your Own Book

Leigh: 0:00

So I offered them like hey, would you like a workshop on writing, either pitching or book writing or something that augments only business? Because the truth is, for people who are running businesses they're talking about CEOs and people who are running businesses writing articles or writing books are a great way to get visibility.

Camille: 0:31

So you want to make an impact. You're thinking about starting a business, sharing your voice. How do women do it that handle motherhood, family and still chase after those dreams? We'll listen each week as we dive into the stories of women who know this is Call Me CEO. Welcome back everyone to Call Me CEO. This is your host, camille Walker, and here we celebrate women and mothers building businesses that really make change and also to give you encouragement to know that you are capable of doing incredible things. And today we are going to be talking with Leigh Shulman, who is an author and author mentor, and she helps women, specifically to help them understand that they have what it takes to share a story and that it doesn't have to be an all or nothing, a perfect story, a monumental movie, earth shattering story to be worthy of writing and to also be worthy of sharing and making a change in the world. So thank you so much, lee, for being on the show today.

Leigh: 1:35

Thank you for having me here. It's really great to finally meet you after following you online for a while.

Camille: 1:42

Oh, thank you. I appreciate that too. I feel like it's so fun to sit down and have real face-to-face conversation like this, because sometimes, when you're in the ethers of the internet, it feels like you're talking into the void or you're just not sure who's connecting or listening, and so I love making one-on-one connections. So tell us more about you, and you're calling from Argentina, which is so cool.

Leigh: 2:09

Tell us about where you're from, a little bit about you and your family and what you do, Sure. So I'm in Argentina now, but I've traveled. I've traveled and moved around quite a bit. I was born in South Africa. My family moved to the US when I was little and I won't go through all the places that I've lived and all the places we've been, but it's been a lot and I like the change and I like moving around.

Leigh: 2:29

And when my daughter we lived in New York before we started traveling full time and my daughter was about two and really it was because getting into school was such a lot of pressure I just felt like a two-year-old shouldn't have to go through that to get into school, because we were in Brooklyn and it was like play dates To get into school. It was like I had to write an essay and there was a play date and a psychological play date and then a psychological evaluation and then it was $20,000 to send a two-year-old to school. Wow, and I just felt like that's a lot. That's a lot for an adult.

Leigh: 3:07

No, two-year-old should have to deal with that and not knowing that there was a specific route we were going loosened us up to say we don't really want to stay in Brooklyn anymore. So why don't we sell everything and just travel for a while? And obviously that one sentence why don't you sell everything? And travel moves a lot faster than the process of actually making that decision and doing that. But we ended up moving around to a lot of different places and eventually made our way to Argentina, where we've been for about 15 years now Wow, 15 years.

Leigh: 3:42

So you've raised your kids there then, yeah, I guess we did my oldest, the one who's two when we left New York. She's in college now in Argentina, and then we have a 10-year-old also. But while we were traveling I didn't really. I didn't want to be pregnant and traveling and not know what was going on. So we ended up settling here and then, after we were certain we were going to stay, that's when we're like all right, we want another kid. Yes, all right, let's do this here. And then how that really set into what I do now.

Leigh: 4:12

I've been writing for as long as I could remember, but I didn't really take, and I even went to grad school. I have a master's in creative writing and literature and but I don't think I really took it seriously until we started traveling. And that was when I started writing for magazines and I got a position as an editor for an online magazine and it just kept growing. From there I started teaching people how to write books, writing my own books, and then eventually, when I started seeing that sort of these patterns, that that what kind of gets in the way for when we write and we want to tell a story, I built a community out of it to say it's funny, because it came out of seeing how people connect on Facebook, where someone will ask a question, particularly in a Facebook group, and everybody wants to jump in and help.

Leigh: 5:01

But Facebook, in an online time, can sometimes get nasty or people don't have to, they don't have to stand behind what they say, or you get distracted and then you spent two hours doing something you didn't mean to do, yeah, so I created a space where, among other things, we have a forum where we can support each other, create accountability, and it doesn't happen that nobody the sunset, nobody people may tell you the truth about something, but it's always going to be in a way that helps you as opposed to tears you down, and you don't waste time. You don't waste time in the community either.

Camille: 5:39

I love that. So let's talk about writing as a career really quick, because as you were traveling, were you doing traveling articles for magazines, or what kind of articles were you doing I was?

Leigh: 5:52

Yes, so while we were traveling I was, I was writing about travel and also about parenting and how to parent, why you should travel with your kids, and different things that I was seeing are articles about, oh, we just went to this place and here's what we did, or I think it was a blog post for different travel magazines and travel blogs too. And I mean, the funny thing is that at the time I wasn't very directed about it because I didn't really know what I was doing, so I was just figuring it out as it went along. And it was also early on in travel blogging. And I think that with me, dawn, a lot of people I had a lot of friends that I met online who were also travelers, who were like, why don't you try this? Why don't you try this?

Leigh: 6:34

And that happened. There's actually a website called Uncornered Market and the people who run it basically said to me like, oh, I know this person, you should chat with her. They might be looking for writers at this magazine. So I did, and then I just I ended up being an editor. Oddly, they never told me this. It was the life section, but they meant it to be a mom blog, but they never told me that until I've been doing it for a year.

Leigh: 7:00

So it was more about what does it mean to travel, whether it's not gear, but how do you travel? What are our stories? And there was a lot of. How do you travel with kids and what does it mean to have kids in there too?

Camille: 7:12

Do you feel like that's still something that is viable for someone to do if they're wanting to pick up and do travel, editing or writing for magazines? I think it is.

Leigh: 7:24

I think it is still viable to write for magazines. Write for magazines about the topics that you are good at, and what I mean by good at is broad, because I think what we were saying before, that people have a tendency to discount their abilities and what they know. So if I say write about things that you know about or that you enjoy writing about, I think a lot of people say I haven't done much about it. But that's not what I mean. It's what is it that you want to write about? And then you can learn. You can always learn and expand your scope, but you have to know what you actually want, because if you're writing about radios and you have no interest in it, what's the point? But if you want to write about parenting, and maybe you're thinking about becoming a parent, that there's already something to say there and you can always find something to pitch.

Leigh: 8:10

I think the big difference between how I think it makes sense to try to make a living with writing for magazines now versus when I started, when I and actually that's very much the core of the book that I wrote based on it's called the writing, the writer's roadmap um, I was all over the place and I would try this and I would try that and do all these different things, but ultimately what they did was spread me too thin and I could definitely say spreading yourself too fast, something writers do a lot, I think creatives in general we have a tendency to do that. We have shiny object syndrome. We're like, oh, this is a great idea and it's great to develop ideas what I call the chaos and creativity and delve into all these ideas you have, but then you really want to choose a few that you really focused on and see them to the end. So now when I work with people who want to pitch and make money pitching and writing for magazines, it's a lot more targeted. Just a few things that I would say copy editing or copy writing where you're writing for a magazine or writing for a business will pay more than, say, pitching an article to a commercial publication.

Leigh: 9:23

Or when you pitch. A lot of times people think, oh, I'll pitch and do something for free just to get my name out there and you can do that. But my feeling is, if you're going to pitch, why not pitch where you could make more money? You might as well start, because the worst thing that happens is you say no and you move somewhere else. But if you pitch to a place that's not going to pay you anything, so great you have a byline but you're not being paid, so you might as well try.

Camille: 9:48

Absolutely so. What would be for someone that is considering that and maybe we're going to talk about books in a minute but for the magazine piece, what is a good place to start? If you're thinking I want to write for magazines and you have no connections, like what would be a good first step?

Leigh: 10:05

Okay. So the first step is read magazines. That would be the first step because you want to pitch places where you know what they write and you know what you put in there. And I always say to people pitch magazines that you like reading, which makes sense. But a lot of times people don't think of that, because when you love a magazine, a lot of times I think people count themselves out and like, oh, they won't accept me. You don't know, you have no idea, and I've worked with people where they might've come into it like that and the next thing they're being, they're pitching everywhere and they're writing everywhere and they're doing exactly what they want to do because they tried. So I have to start with the magazine do you love and then go online and find out how to pitch them and literally it's submission, name of magazine and you just Google that and you'll generally find the information that you need. All right. So pitching how to pitch, what to pitch, where to pitch there's also questions, like I'd say.

Leigh: 11:03

The biggest obstacle most people have when they start pitching is the difference between a topic and a story. Surfing in Columbia is a topic. This particular beach, that where people love to learn how to surf is a story when you're creating more of an image where someone can literally say, oh, I want to learn how to surf, I would love to go there. I bet that's a perfect place to go, whereas surfing in Columbia is so broad. Even if you're an expert at that, a magazine won't really know what you want to say. So you can really and that what that also does is surfing in Columbia could become 30 different stories that you could pitch to different magazines and different art for different reasons Columbia in the summer versus one in the winter.

Leigh: 11:51

And I think there's a lot of brainstorming that happens from that. Well, what could you write? What could it be? And it's, I think, one of the times that having too many ideas, where you're overwhelmed and shiny object syndrome when it comes to pitching, is probably one of the best times, because you're like, oh, this idea, and then this idea and written this idea, and then you go back and, one by one, you start pitching them and then, okay, how do you learn to what are the audience of it?

Leigh: 12:17

um, again, google is your friend, there's lots of places where you can learn the basics of pitching. There's also I have, I have, I give a lot. I give a lot of courses on pitching. I have resources on pitching and lots of other people do too. There's enough information out there that you can learn. Yeah, but you have to trust yourself. Trust yourself, it's like my, my, I repeat that all the time. Trust yourself, you'll figure it out.

Camille: 12:44

I love that mantra because I think a lot of times, like you say, it's just a matter of doing the legwork, of putting yourself out there and saying I'm just going to do this.

Camille: 12:52

When I coach people and they have sometimes, because of my background, I coach people on sponsorships how do you pitch a sponsor and what I suggest to them is that you think of it almost like a game, like you gamify it in a way where you're going to put out so many numbers in a week so that you get to so many numbers by the month, and then at that point it can become a numbers game where it's more about what is the output that you're putting out and then what you're getting back in is the bonus, or it's almost like you're challenging yourself with the part you can control. And if you look at it that way of I have something to share, I have value, this is something that would be really helpful to people. Then it becomes less about rejection, and I think that when I get stuck or wound up in rejection, that's when I start to shut down. Would you agree with that?

Leigh: 13:47

Yeah, Absolutely A hundred percent. And what you were saying about putting it out there and turning it into a numbers game, that's literally what I say to people about pitching too Weirder. The goal is to send it out. It's not to get the answer of the no. The goal is to send it out because eventually you will get there. But and even if you let's say you're getting all no's, then that's a sign to say, oh, let me look at my process getting all no's. Then that's a sign to say, oh, let me look at my process, what's not working in this process and get more in some location.

Leigh: 14:18

I think often we have a tendency to go to, oh, there's a problem with me. Or when you said you have to learn to value yourself, and say I don't have something of value here, let me offer it. Sometimes people do show complete lack of value in you. That's some way of saying it. There was once I asked I won't get into who they are, but there was a business that started up, something called Outsiders, and they were bringing all these people to do co-working, like long-term co-working, but then it's the next time. So I offered them like, hey, would you like a workshop on writing, either pitching or book writing or something that can. That augments only business, because the truth is, for people who are running businesses they're talking about CEOs and people who are running businesses writing articles or writing books are a great way to get visibility. It seemed like a good match and the way they treated me was like oh silly her, which to me was all right.

Leigh: 15:13

I don't want to work with you. I don't want to work with somebody who treats me like that. I want to work with people who value me and treat me that I will treat you with respect and I value you and your work and your opinion and your expertise. But I need that too, because there's no way to have. It's not pleasant. It's unpleasant to live like that. Who wants that in your life? Don't you want to? It's not pleasant. It's unpleasant to live like that. Who wants that in your life? Don't you want to?

Camille: 15:39

it's not enjoyable, it's not fun work and let alone it's not going to move you forward in the way that you want it to move you forward. That's such a good point because I think that anything we do in our work, or the way that we make money or we are helping other people or we're writing the article, it's energy that we're putting out into the world and if we're not matching that with energy that is appreciative or values or honors that energy we're putting out, it's not a good fit, it's not a good match and so that's bad for both parties. I think Right. So I'm curious about shifting a little bit into books, because that is something that comes up a lot.

Camille: 16:12

People are wanting to start a podcast and they want to write a book. That's very, I would say, a new check mark or feather in the bonnet, so to speak, and writing a book. I think you're right with building authority and having that visibility and that storytelling. Take me through the process of what a book writer, especially as a business owner a lot of women listening are business owners. Let's say that they have an idea of something that they would want to write a book about. How do they know if it's a viable idea, number one or a good idea, which I think? I know what you're going to say to that, but let's just put it there. And then number two what are the steps of getting to the place of, like self-publishing versus finding a publisher, versus do I do Amazon or do I do it a more traditional way? What are your thoughts on that?

Leigh: 17:04

Okay. So starting off, is an idea viable, okay. So whether or not it's viable, there are two ways to look at that. There is when you said you think you know what I'm going to say. I think there is a sense where we will discount our stories and what we have to offer early on, and I am very big in no, don't do that, don't discount it, let's talk about it. And I do that in my community. I do that one-on-one with people all the time where, no, don't shut. It is, if you're writing a nonfiction book, that's a base that is meant to be authority for your business. That is very much what you would write about and what's needed.

Leigh: 18:01

So, for example, again, my book for writers, because one of the things I did for writers is because it's so easy to not have a plan with writing that I built one for myself I mean, I was years ago was part of a business mastermind where they use the ODS on the objectives, goals, strategies and measures that tool that small businesses use. So I adapted that for writers and the real key is to not be writing seven things at once or 20 things at once and have a million ideas but you never finished anything, but instead have a real plan that has an objective, that has a mission, it has very clear goals, it has clear core values, and so you're building a business plan around your writing. And I was doing that in my community and I was doing that with other people, and people couldn't ask any questions about it. So I'm like, instead of answering the question over and over, let me just write a book about it. So that's where my first book came from, and so I'm going to skip over the actual writing and I'll get to that in just a second.

Leigh: 18:59

Now let's say you'd have a book and you're going to decide between self-publishing and traditional publishing. Traditional publishing it's more of a game, and not necessarily the game that you were talking about in terms of a numbers game. There's so many elements that are involved in traditional publishing that you have agents and publishers who have years of experience, not just knowing what books people want, which is definitely part of it but also what works in the business of publishing. And so when I talk about the business of writing, I'm talking about an individual who's creating a business around their writing. When they talk about the business of writing, they're talking about the business of how you write a book, sell it and then have it on shelves all over the United States, which are two very different processes.

Camille: 19:47

Okay, I hear what you're saying.

Leigh: 19:49

So whether or not your idea has legs doesn't necessarily mean self-publishing. Sorry, then, that traditional publishing will take it, because there's. I know that my don't. And I actually have a book on rejection that I wrote that I want to self-publish relatively soon. I'm not, I don't. My book actually was.

Leigh: 20:10

I found an agent and she started sending it out and I don't know if it was the timing or what it was, because my agent was like this is going to sell really quickly and then no one wanted it, whereas everyone I talked to, one-on-one or in groups, they bought that book, they want to see it. So will that necessarily want to self-publish? Will that translate into sales? Actually, I think yes it will, because I know it's something that people need, I know it's something that people want, I know it's things that everyone that I work with grapples with on some level. So there is a space for it. There just may not be a space for a major publisher to take it and publish it right now, because a sense, these days the business of writing and publishing is more about what your platform is and they want people with massive platforms and they'll almost say no right from the beginning.

Leigh: 21:03

But okay, so the process of writing the book and that really goes down to sit down and write, just sit down and start reading, just getting your thoughts on paper and recognize that there's a translation process Like what you've had going on in your head.

Leigh: 21:18

Getting it on paper may not feel as smooth as it does when you're working with somebody one-on-one and be okay with that, be okay for a while with that sense of awkwardness and kind of feeling uncomfortable with it because it's part of writing and it's part of that chaos that I keep talking about. But then on my website, if you go to my website, I have a part, a section, for writing resources and I have writing guides and there's a writing that there for fiction and there's one for non-fiction and I just go download it and works, it's fine. I call it the five-step cheat sheet to write your book and it really. It takes you step-by-step through getting the basics on paper so that initial it adds some order to that initial translation process of getting it out of your brain and onto paper, which then you can start to fill out and build it into the book that you want it to be.

Camille: 22:09

I love that, having a resource for breaking it down, just the skeleton of it. I actually have a friend that just wrote a book a few months ago and she did an audio dump where she just took a whole day and she had someone with her to help ask those questions and she recorded audio and she wrote it in a day, which is amazing and very unique to her. I don't know that everyone could do that, because that's a lot, but she said it just flowed out of her, which is amazing and very unique to her. I don't know that everyone could do that, because that's a lot, but she said it just flowed out of her, which is really cool. I feel like if you have a mentor whether it's like a written outline or you want to record it with audio, which is awesome that's an option. Sometimes we do flow differently, but I think having a mentor in either scenario is a really good idea, because sometimes it can get you thinking of something in a way that you wouldn't have already thought of on your own.

Leigh: 22:57

Absolutely.

Leigh: 22:58

I've seen that happen before, which I mean it was her book, a nonfiction book, because when you're, when you've been doing something, you're thinking about something, but particularly if you've been applying and implementing it with yourself or with other people, the process and for nonfiction books, tend to be more process driven.

Leigh: 23:15

There have been many times, but the first time it happened was like amazing, where I sat down with somebody and we had a one hour one-on-one and in that time we basically sat down and outlined her entire book based on what was already in her head. It was just me asking questions. She had the full book and she knew exactly what she wanted to do with it and exactly where she wanted to go. And now she just had to sit on the blanks. And I suspect a lot of the people that you work with or we listen to your podcast are in that space where you've been doing something. You're an expert, you know what the process is, what the where people get stuck, where the obstacles are, what people tell themselves or how to get past them, and so it becomes really easy to write the book.

Leigh: 24:03

Yeah, but I think yes, having a structure really helps that or having somebody to balance it out with you really helps that. And I have to say I actually have a page on my website that's specifically for your podcast listeners, that, if they want to, it's a form and you send in an email and it's just to say, hey, let's have a chat if you want to talk about what you want in your book, and then you can decide what you want. If we chat, you decide after that what you want to do. Oh, that's awesome.

Camille: 24:30

Yeah, I think it's really interesting, especially for people who have been on stages or taken people through a transformation of some kind, or whether it's your own personal story, that you've been writing a book your whole life. It's really just putting it into a format that can be digestible for someone else picking up the book and taking that journey with you, which I think is really empowering. So, as far as using your book as a tool for business growth, what are some best practices that you've seen for people taking their ideas, putting it into a book and then using it to grow their business?

Leigh: 25:06

So, when you have a book and you want to help it develop authority, you want to reach more people, because Amazon has a bigger reach than probably most of us. The reason a book is so good, I think there's two sides to it. One side of it is it's a tool, and it's a really fascinating and really strong marketing tool really powerful marketing tool where you have no idea where your book was going to go. You have no idea who's going to find it. You just know that you've put your information there and it will make its way out there. So that's when it comes to your book. It's about giving it to people, sharing it, putting it in your bio, putting it in your bio lens, putting it in your email signature and just really letting it go out and see where it ends up.

Leigh: 25:51

The other part of writing a book that I just find really powerful is it directs you to your next step, because I saw with okay, so for my writer's roadmap. That's what the writer's roadmap paving your way to your ideal writing life one of the biggest obstacles to all of that. So people would make their plans and they would write their when they're in in that plan. I'm like okay to. To begin with, there's three goals, maybe three main projects.

Leigh: 26:18

So maybe your goal is I'm going to write a book, I'm going to look for my clients and I'm going to build my writing platform, and you don't go and do a million other projects. You really allow that to stick. Or maybe you're okay, I've just written a book. I want to. Now it's time to get it out there, so I'm going to market it. What am I going to market it? How am I developing my platform? But what would happen and I saw this happen quite often is people would get so scared of rejection that they would have the whole plan. They'd have all the information, they'd have all these pinions.

Leigh: 26:53

They'd have all this information but then they wouldn't take it to the next step because they were so concerned about rejection. Because they you know, I always say this like you reject yourself before you've had a chance to be rejected. Like, oh no, that'll never happen. Or that magazine is too, it's too big a name for me. Or, yeah, I wrote this book, but I'm not going to query it because they're going to say no. And so I wrote an entire book on a generation that starts with it literally starts that some like pre-history, where, like where this impetus for fear of rejection comes from?

Leigh: 27:23

And I work through the educate. That's the first section I work through. Our education system is based on pass or fail or, in our education system, depending on where you are, on a scale of one to 10, six is failing, whereas when you're pinching, if a person got 60% of their pitches accepted, that just doesn't even happen. Like that's way beyond the percentages that people ever get. If you're getting 20% of your pitches accepted, which is deep failure in school, you're getting 20% of your opinions accepted, which is deep failure in school, you're doing really well. The same thing, I'm sure, with when you're talking about partnerships and sponsorships you don't have 70 to 80 to 90% of people being like yeah, I would love to work with you, and if you are, it means you're not aiming high enough.

Leigh: 28:11

So that level of so-called success is actually saying you're not putting yourself out there enough, whereas that's not the case in school. We take our 90s or 95s or 98 and go I got an A, and that does not set us up well for rejection, as opposed to rejection being a place of learning. And then most of the book are these what I call tools. It's a toolbox of different ways you can approach rejection so you can make it work for you. How do you learn from rejection? How do you take the next step? And there's I think there were 18 different tools in it, and so of course you can't. You're not like just like any toolbox. You're not going to go in any toolbox, take everything in it, and it's hard to reuse them all.

Camille: 28:52

Use the ones that work for you so you can see how my first book led directly to my second book. Yeah, that's really interesting. So, for your perspective with helping people to write these books, would you say that it's less about selling great numbers of these books and more about using it as an asset for business growth?

Leigh: 29:17

I think it's both. I think it depends who you are and what your goals are, and that always goes back to what's your plan, what's your business plan, what is it you want? If your business plan is, I'm going to write and sell, publish this book, and I want to sell like this book and I want to sell, like you know, 500,000 copies and that serves your bigger plan than it is about numbers. If it's for me, I self-published because I really wanted to have a book where people would ask me a question and I'd be like here's my book, you can have it. Or to have something that's out there in the world that's representing my work when I'm not there. That's another role for it, so it really depends on it. For me, it always goes down to what is it that you want and what is your plan, and then, how does this fit as a tool for your overall goals.

Camille: 30:04

Yeah, I like that. That's really cool. So, with everyone that you have helped to write a book, Do you have a story that you could share with us, of success, of someone that you saw who maybe doubted themselves and then was able to put a book out into the world?

Leigh: 30:21

I would say there's so many different people and there's so many different types of success and different things. But I think, because I've worked with people at so many different stages of their writing process, I don't think there's somebody who came to me or she wanted to write a book about. It's funny I'm having like I'm thinking of so many different things that I'm having trouble focusing on it, but I want to first, if it's okay, I want to first tell one story a person who her book. If it's okay, I want to first tell one story of a person who her book. She had an idea for a book that was fantastic and beautiful. People would hear about the idea and agents and publishers would come to her and say when you write this book, let me know. And we wrote it and we had. She was ready for her almost final draft and then she disappeared Right and it was a beautiful book and it actually related to what's going on in Israel and Palestine right now and it was a story about connection and how people can work together, which you can see, how people would want to know more about that and then also how relevant it would be now, and then she was supposed to come back to me with her fully written, taking notes on it and working on it, and she was supposed to make some edits and then come back to me. And I was curious about her for two years and after two years she said she came back. She said I'm still working on it, I'll get back to you and that was maybe four years ago and I hadn't heard from her since. And that book has a place. Like that book has a place and like it still has a place and like it still has a place. It had a place on. It has a place now. The world is waiting for that book and it's it. I I can't stop thinking about it is write your book, finish your book.

Leigh: 32:10

Then on the other side and one that that what I think is an element of success there's a woman that I worked with, who she did write a book and in the process of us working together to talk about mindset and different elements that we always talk about Mindset and how to move forward and how to craft a book and how to do all these different things, what she did finish it and now she's querying the book.

Leigh: 32:35

But what also happens in that process is she realized she wanted to do travel writing and completely shifted her career and is now a full-time travel writer, writing for a different magazine. She lives in Costa Rica and she basically represents. She's from the US but lives in Costa Rica, is now a representative for Costa Rica. She's planned on moving somewhere else for a while, so she really took writing and all the things that we did together for her book and then there were a lot of other questions about how to write this and how will I do that. That sort of talked to me about a more holistic writing life and all the different elements, because writing a book is one element and she completely changed everything she wanted to deal with. Now she is travel and writing about her travel and helping people do what she does, which is you want to retire to another country, you want to travel full-time.

Camille: 33:27

Here's how so I recall that success story yeah, oh, I love both of those and it's. I can tell that your heart is really in it thinking about that. That would be heartbreaking to see such a beautiful story be just sitting on the shelf, so to speak. Get it out, because it would help so many people and I think, at the end of the day, that's the message for this episode is that there's a story within you and something of value that you have to share, and those stories are waiting to come out. So I know that you Leigh have some programs that you can tell us about, where you help people to do that.

Leigh: 34:04

So I work with people in different ways. So one of the main ways that I work with people is through my writing community. That's called the Inspired Writer Community and it's a place. It's another toolbox. I'm very big on the idea of toolboxes because the idea is you create your plan, you know what you want, you know what's best for you, you create a plan and then you use the different elements of the toolbox to make that plan happen and part of that is accountability communities or those are very big and important elements of it.

Leigh: 34:34

And a mindset, shifting your mindset from oh I don't know if I can do this too. I mean, I'm gonna try and see where I go and be open to the possibilities at the end of it, because, as we were talking, I'm gonna move back and blow it into what we're saying, as we were talking about putting a book out there and bringing rejection. Let's say you write a book and you put it out there, or you go for a sponsorship and you get one. You don't know where you're going to grow past that, because you won't know until you see how people relate to what you've put out there. So if you cut yourself off before you put it out there, you've tried, you've just cut it off you don't even know what you've cut off yet. Okay, so that's the community and it's all about the possibilities here.

Leigh: 35:20

What are you? What amazing things can you do? And then I also work with people one-on-one to write books and also to put together and writing roadmaps, and so that really pounds into. So I'm working with a woman now where she left her full-time job. She'd been working at Fitch at for 25 years and left. She gave notice that she's still on the job and now she is. She has a year to set things up for herself as a writer. So that's what we're working on now and it's really exciting to see that. So I work with people to write books and to work with people to figure out what their writing life is going to be and how that's going to fit into their lives, and and then I run writing retreats. So where I live in Argentina, people come here and spend a week A nice mix of travel, being at Spat and getting and believing in yourself and your story.

Camille: 36:08

Oh, that's awesome. I love to wrap up my show with two questions. One this is like a three in one is what are you reading, writing or listening to? So that's your first, and then the second is a motherhood moment that you want to share, and it could be related to your business. It could be something sentimental, funny.

Leigh: 36:27

Whatever you want to share okay, what I'm reading right now. What I'm reading right now is what is it? Demon copper, copperfield, copperfield? And I am struggling, I am really struggling. That doesn't happen because it's about like 11 year old. Right now I'm still on the third of the way through and it's 11 year old boy and everything goes wrong for him. And actually I've been on threads and I asked for book recommendations. I've been slowly working my way through all the book, like literally hundreds and hundreds of book recommendations. I've been slowly working my way through all the book, like literally hundreds and hundreds of book recommendations. I remember this book and I'm just having such a hard time with it, and it's called demon copperfield, demon copperfield, demon copperfield by barbara king solver. Okay, well, I don't know if I do not read, which I don't do very often I don't know how to do not finish it yeah, we'll

Leigh: 37:16

see, and what I've been writing right now, which is very close to my heart. I wrote it's a sort of the final draft of a book that I've been working on. It's a ya book. I write non-fiction and that serves my business and I self-publish it. But then I really I've just fallen into writing ya fiction because I just enjoy it. I just enjoy where it comes from and it's fun and I get to explore.

Leigh: 37:42

And this one takes place 300 years in the future where I live in Argentina, so in the mountains, in the Andes Mountains in Argentina. But the key of it is it's plants, in a way that the movie Fantastic Beasts really they have all those fantastic and but the key of it is it's plants Like in a way that fantastic like the movie Fantastic Beasts, like they have all those fantastic beasts. This one it's all about the plants, and so I used to study herbal medicine and but the plants, like they are alive, like there are a lot of plants are alive, but they take on a life of their own and their actual characters and they do stuff and they get involved in things and it's just really fun to write. So I I had finished it, sent it out for publication, got a full bunch of notes back on that. I got rejected, got a bunch of notes and now I'm doing the next draft and then the mother of it moment. Okay, so this is a life is messy, kind of mother moment. Yeah, these get get chaotic really quickly.

Camille: 38:38

Is there anything else other than life is messy? I don't know.

Leigh: 38:43

I think that's yeah, I think that's how it has to be, because in those messy moments, that's where the most revelation and creativity comes from. Knowing what you're doing all the time is overrated. I think when I look at my life and I was saying when I started writing I had no idea what I're doing, all the time is overrated. I think when I look at my life and I was saying when I started writing, I had no idea what I was doing.

Leigh: 39:07

I feel like the best things that are in my life now began with I had no idea what I'm doing and just let's say I said I'll figure it out is my latest mantra. Okay, I'll figure it out. And that applies to anything like yeah, we thought we you were when we first moved here. We got stranded in the desert and she laid our car broke down in the middle of the desert. There was no one around, so it flies down, so literally, we'll figure it out. And a bus came by, a tour bus came by. I know I couldn't believe it.

Leigh: 39:32

We had to break down in the middle of the desert or challenge to be a tourist route and all these people came out of the bus and they pushed our car out of the sand because we were stopped and then we went. We finished the tour with them because we're not going to try that again.

Leigh: 39:46

but so it applies again. It applies to writing books, it applies to traveling the world, it applies to everything. But yesterday my son, charlie he's he had two friends over and, I think, really busy getting prepared for this, this writing event that I told you about. That I'm doing November just as an introduction to people, to the community, and you can probably send things out and see the kind of workshops I do and see if it's for you. So I've been busy. I walked in my office and I went down and checking what's going on and all of a sudden I saw William had like fireworks in his hand and he started trying and a lighter and I started trying to light it what in your house?

Leigh: 40:24

yes, in our house like where did he get the fireworks? How, what? This is a kid. He's so funny. He's a really good friend of my son, he's Charlie's really good friend and he's the kind of kid that always found stuff that he didn't know he had or that he thought he lost and he'd never see again, and it ends up in his hand, yeah. So he was like yeah, he tried to like one of the. It's a little one, but I still didn't buy it and thankfully they didn't. There were some not bottle rockets, you know, they were bottle rockets that were much bigger. We must have bought them, for somebody must have bought them for New Year's and they've been uncovered. So I don't know how we found them. Oh my gosh.

Leigh: 41:02

You're like don't touch that. I know, I know, and they were thankfully not lit. They were trying to light them but they were like little things, like sparklers, and all over the house.

Camille: 41:15

Fun. Oh, that's hilarious. It was yesterday. Oh, that's so funny. This has been so enlightening. I feel like if you are wanting to write a story, you have an idea within you. Reach out to Lee. She'll do a free discovery call with you. We'll make sure to put the links in the description of the show notes below, and if you found this episode helpful, please leave a five-star rating and review. Any review and rating for the podcast helps other people to see it and discover it and to find inspiration to chase after their dreams too. So, leigh, thank you so much for being on the show today. Hey CEOs, thank you so much for spending your time with me. If you found this episode inspiring or helpful, please let me know in a comment. In a five-star review, you could have the chance of being a featured review on an upcoming episode. Continue the conversation on Instagram at callmeCEOPodcast and remember you are the boss.