Each one of us is a born writer. We are all born creative. We all started as creative beings. And we remain creative beings until the end. But all too often, life gets in the way. Writing can be a very challenging process. We must meet deadlines and produce work that our readers will appreciate. Each of us faces the difficulty of marketing versus creating. It takes discipline to write even when there is little external reward. Particular qualities must be nourished to realize the determination required of a person with a successful mindset in achieving creative success. Every person is creative in their own way. Taking the time to encourage and nourish your creativity may produce a larger positive effect than you may be able to imagine. Kent Sanders, the Founder & CEO of Inkwell Ghostwriting, talks about being a ghostwriter, an author, and a coach in helping businesses establish influence, authority, and credibility in their field. Check out this episode with Kent Sanders to learn more about developing mindset and productivity to unleash creative potential, and impact lives through writing and creativity. Connect with Kent: Kent Sanders | Unlock Your Creative Genius - Unlock Your Creative Genius https://Inkwellghostwriting.com Kent Sanders https://instagram.com/kentsanders Connect with Cory and Ron: Head over to Https://profitswithpodcasts.com to find out more about how your can easily launch and monetize a podcast. Or maybe you would like to learn more by jumping on a call with the guys? Just book a time that works for you! https://calendly.com/hindsighthacking/connect?back=1&month=2020-11 And you can find Cory and Ron on a few social channels! https://follow.cool https://www.facebook.com/coryecarter Or you just want to check out their websites: Https://gethhm.com Https://impactorsmastermind.com
Welcome back to Hindsight HacKing 2022! This is our first recorded interview of the new year and you are all in for treat!
Have you ever thought about how great it would be to have your own published book but you never starter the project because you don't see yourself as a writer or maybe you just don't think you have the time?
Well put your mind at ease because Kent is here to tell you that you are a writer and that you do have the time!
Kent Sanders is the founder of Inkwell Ghostwriting, which helps leaders grow their business through books and other content. He is also the host of The Daily Writer podcast, which helps writers cultivate the habits for creative success, and leads the Daily Writer Community, a membership group for writers. In addition, Kent is author of The Artist’s Suitcase: 26 Essentials for the Creative Journey.
Connect with Kent:
Kent Sanders | Unlock Your Creative Genius - Unlock Your Creative Genius
https://Inkwellghostwriting.com
Kent Sanders
https://instagram.com/kentsanders
Connect with Cory and Ron:
Head over to Https://profitswithpodcasts.com to find out more about how your can easily launch and monetize a podcast.
Or maybe you would like to learn more by jumping on a call with the guys? Just book a time that works for you!
https://calendly.com/hindsighthacking/connect?back=1&month=2020-11
And you can find Cory and Ron on a few social channels!
https://follow.cool
https://www.facebook.com/coryecarter
Or you just want to check out their websites:
Https://gethhm.com
Https://impactorsmastermind.com
[00:00:00] CORY: All right, everybody. Welcome back. And today you get to learn a little bit about being a ghostwriter about being an author, but there's so many good nuggets in here on that. Like we just had to talk about it before we introduced everybody to our, our guest
[00:00:15] RON: oh my gosh. Well one just how he goes through the mindset, how he talks about the importance of getting to know him, his clients personally, and really putting them in their shoes. But the mindset piece of really understanding. Who you truly are, even if you don't feel you're good at it yet. Right? So he, he uses the words. You are a writer and he gives a ton of different examples where even I'm a writer or you're a writer, even though I would never say I was a writer, but you know what, he explains it in such a way that I almost believed it myself.
[00:00:49] CORY: Yeah. Like I left this conversation believing I can write a book right before the conversation. I was like, you know, we should, [00:01:00] but I don't know if I could. And so like having that conversation and understanding it is all of the mindset and we do this with podcasting, with other clients, like it's just, it's in every training program, there's a vert. There's gotta be some little bit of mindset. So I like, it's just so key the way he mentioned it in regards to being a writer. And if you take out the word writer to insert, whatever thing is like, it's just, it's so good. So people get to learn about that. And then, you know, as you mentioned, he gets to notice clients, but part of that process of getting to know the client is he understands their goals and their reasons. For wanting to write a book. And so yes, you get to hear about that again for writing a book, but take out writing a book and get to know your clients to understand the reason for X, right.
[00:01:48] RON: Exactly And that's what I valued so much in that conversation. And I hope you guys get as much out of it as we did
[00:01:55] CORY: yep. All right, let's get to the show.
[00:01:59] [00:02:00] Welcome to Hindsight Hacking, I'm cory Carter
[00:02:16] RON: And I'm Ron Cool on this podcast we've packed. Hundreds of entrepreneurs. Hindsight tells you. With better foresight. Now, guys, if you want to know all about what we can do to help you focus on being you head over to get hhm.com, keep pushing through those ups and downs that we all will have.
[00:02:35] CORY: We're still going to have amazing conversations with amazing people. Hindsight hacking boils down to amazing conversations with some amazing people
[00:02:53] all right, everybody. Welcome back to another upset of hindsight hacking. And as we record this, this is [00:03:00] the first interview recorded of 2022. Not necessarily the first interview that you'll hear live on the podcast world, but definitely the first one recorded. So Kent with Sanders. Welcome to the show. Thank you so much for being here. Thanks for being the first guest of 2022, but whoever who, if you're out there and you're like who's Kent who's Kent Sanders. He is the founder of Inc well ghost writing, which helps leaders grow their business through books and other content. He is the host of the daily writer podcast. And as of this recording has over 625 episodes, which is just incredible. And that helps writers, cultivate habits and creative success. And leads the daily rider community, a membership group for writers. So, first of all, I know Ron and I like to get some free coaching. So that's why you're here. You're here to share your knowledge, to help run an eye down this path. And again, thanks so much for being here
[00:03:57] KENT: thank you. Thank you, gentlemen. It's great to be here. [00:04:00] And by the way, Corey, don't let the secret out about why we do podcasting. That's exactly the reason I do a podcast as well. The, your free coaching from people who are smarter than me in specific areas. So you've let the cat out of the bag.
[00:04:11] RON: Right right you have to be able to sort of, it's funny because if you go back and listen to our show and we had like all these different people on for awhile, because we had all these different interests. How do we learn about that? Let's bring them on the show. Right we're going to ask about that, right? Yeah. We love doing that. And if we can give some knowledge back out to somebody that needs it, it's great. But ghost writing, that's one of those things that I know I wanted to write a book and it's. Scary in my mind, because one grammar is hard. Grammar is hard for me. My wife corrects my text messages sometimes because I don't do punctuations and text messages. It's just a really long run on Sentence and I go, it's a text message. She goes, no, that's just how you write on everything. And I'm like, right, right. That's exactly what I [00:05:00] do, but it's the text message. So it shouldn't matter. So like, I would love to just kind of dive in and start talking a little bit about what you do and how you help people.
[00:05:07] KENT: Sure. What I do is a couple of different things. There are really two sides of my business and at least that's the way that I think. So the main site, and I kind of called this the day job side, because this takes up the bulk of my time and energy is ghostwriting books for people. And typically I do two kinds of books. One is what I would call it, inspirational memoirs, which is somebody wants to tell their story and they have certain things that they want to, that they want to communicate through that story. And so my job is to find what are the threads running through their story? And sometimes they have a specific idea about that, about what that is sometimes. My job is to find those threads and help organize their story into consumable chunks for people. Sometimes it takes on more of a nonfictiony kind of a thing with stories. Sometimes it's more of a story with teaching elements combined. It just totally depends on the project. So that's kind of the bulk of what. The other side of what I do. And I think of this as kind of my side hustle in a way is [00:06:00] as you, as you mentioned, Cory, I run a podcast called the daily writer, and I also run a community, a membership community for writers called the daily rider community. And this is all about helping writers develop habits. So I used to be a college professor and I did that for a really long time. Honestly, I'm a writer and a teacher at heart. And if I was just doing ghost writing, I think I would be unhappy because I love helping writers. So the other side of my business with the daily writers' stuff is helping people develop those habits to overcome their limiting beliefs and their fears and to get organized around the writing. So that's basically what I spend my time doing.
[00:06:32] CORY: I love it, love it. So, I mean, at first I heard how, you know, Ron and I, we try to talk about every one of us. We do a business too. You make a little money with that business. Like we all make money. It's like, you got to feed your family. You got to keep the roof, but. We definitely want to make sure to have people that are out to create an impact and that daily writer, that teacher, that professor in you, it sounds like you're out trying to make an [00:07:00] impact with the writing community. And so I love that commend you on that, and we need more people like that in their you know, niches that they're, that they teach in and do stuff in. So, but my question to you is with the daily writer, you know, and, and to, to either someone like Iran that wants to write a book, but doesn't really know where to start or someone like, like my wife, I mean, she's been wanting to be an author for her entire life and is afraid to start. Right? Like what's w how do you get people over that hump to truly just put that pen to paper and start moving?
[00:07:32] KENT: You know, that's a really good question, Corey, and I would say, In my experience, there are two main reasons. There are two main things that keep people from writing a book. And I know writing can take all kinds of forms. You know, podcasting is a form of content creation, blogging articles, social media, all that stuff. But here, we're talking specifically about books, I guess. So there are two main things that I see really keep people from writing. One is the fact that they don't think of themselves as a writer. And the other part of it is just the time element because writing does take time [00:08:00] and a lot of people feel like they don't have time. So I honestly feel like the first, my first order of business, whatever I'm working with, somebody on a coaching kind of deal, or whether I'm ghostwriting a book for somebody now, which, which tiny decided it is kind of funny sometimes working with ghost writing clients, because you would think that there wouldn't be any fear in that process because they're hiring me to basically write the book for them. But there still is because they're still putting a book out into the world, even though they have my help doing it. There's still a lot of fear around that process. Okay. So I have to approach it really the same way and just, you know, making sure I tell people I'm proud of them. They're doing something really cool. They're, they're taking a big step, et cetera, et cetera. So my first order of business, no matter what my capacity and working with somebody is, is to tell them that they are a writer and a writer by definition is a person who writes. And every day people are writing stuff. You're writing social media posts, you're writing text messages, you know, and Ron, even if your wife corrects those tech textiles, You're still writing those messages. You're writing emails, you're writing [00:09:00] letters, you're writing all kinds of stuff. So people are writing. It's just, it's not the idea of you becoming a writer. It's really more of the fact of your just you're embracing the fact that you already are a writer. It's it's you acknowledging the fact that yeah, you are. And all that a book is, is a collection of chapter. Really? That's all that a book is if you can write 3000 words of content and most people are doing that every week, if you're writing blogs and social media and, or podcast stuff, I mean, you're already doing the work. So it's just a matter of kind of acknowledging that, yes, you are a writer, but that's my first order of business. Then with the timeline. I just try to help people see that you do have time to write a book. You may not have a lot of time, but it's oftentimes not a matter of some big, massive change. It's oftentimes just a matter of writing in 15 minute or 30 minute chunks, getting organized, developing that daily habit and getting the work done because you can't have a book unless you get the writing done. You can hire it done. Of course, but most people don't want to do that. They want to write their own book. So if I can help people just develop that daily habit of [00:10:00] writing a little bit at a time. Then eventually you're going to have a whole book's worth of content and then you can kind of go from there. So those are the two main, main ways that I really try to help people they're in the beginning stages of the process.
[00:10:10] RON: So I heard that I'm a writer and I need to let the wife know that I'm a very abstract writer and she needs to respect that.
[00:10:18] KENT: You are a writer.
[00:10:21] RON: I mean, I'm just going to say I am an abstract writer so I there's no grammar rules for me cause I like abstract art. So I'm just going to put that into the grammar. It's abstract grammer but, but back to a serious question, like, as you were talking and ghost writing and you're, you're helping these clients and you're writing their stories, like I'm a very empathetic person. Like how do you like put yourself in their shoes to write their story?
[00:10:47] KENT: That is a really, really good question. And I love that question because that is for me, one of the most enjoyable parts of this process, sometimes people ask me, why would you want to write somebody as book, but not get credit for it there there's a whole complex series of answers to that [00:11:00] question, which I can get into if you want to. But essentially the thing is I really, I enjoy the challenge of getting to know somebody and finding out what is their story really about and how do I write in their voice? So we spend a lot of time on a call calls, typically, not, not always, but most of the time I spend a lot of time with the client getting to know who they are. Sometimes I stuck them on social. If they've written other stuff or been on podcast, I go through all that stuff and I try to get a sense of who they are as a person and what their priorities are. And particularly when it comes to their voice, I try to pay attention to how they communicate. So then this is going to be, this is probably going to sound very geeky to most people but I really pay attention to things like, do they speak in shorter, long sentences? Are they a very punchy, direct kind of a communicator or are they a little bit more academic and a little bit more abstract? How, you know, if you were to verbally write out what they're saying, what would it look like on paper? Is it short and punchy? Is it like. And flowing, is it, how do they communicate to the world? And I really pay attention to those things that I try to mimic that as I'm writing, in fact, I had [00:12:00] a call yesterday with a client and, and I tell people the biggest compliment that you can give me is if you read something that I write for you and you say, that sounds like me, or if you have somebody read it, and that person says, that really sounds like you so and so that means I've done my job as, as a ghost ghostwriter for somebody. So I just try to get to know the person to, and then try to translate those emotions and that style of communication into the written word. It doesn't happen in the first draft, always there's, there's always adjustments and changes that need to be made, but that's what I try to do. And I look at it. I look at it. It's just a big challenge. It's kinda like a big puzzle piece. And I just enjoyed the challenge of trying to figure that out and trying to essentially put on a costume and write as if I'm playing that role of who that person is.
[00:12:42] CORY: That's cool. I love it. And it's so funny. I mean, Ron and I, again, similar mindset to. All those services that we offer regarding branding and funnel design and, and podcasts stuff. Like we don't necessarily want people to be like, oh, Ron or Cory did that. We want them to be [00:13:00] like, oh man, that was from that person. Right. Like, that's that person's personality and all that fun stuff. So love it. Love it. All right. So. With ghost writing. I mean the empathy piece, like that was, that was a really good question, Ron, by the way, I like that piece. I love that question. But so with ghost writing, what's the kind of on the, the technical side, right? Like somebody hires you to, let's say, do a fiction book or whatever. Is it like you sit down with that person in the room and get to know them or do you spend. Two weeks, like researching the CA the, the topic that they want, as well as them to learn how they speak and how they write and how they communicate as you were just talking about, like, what's kind of that process to really understand that topic that you're going to be writing on.
[00:13:49] KENT: Well, every project is a little bit different, but in general, whenever I first talk with somebody we spend about two or three or sometimes four weeks, you know, again, it all depends on the [00:14:00] specific. But we spend a few weeks typically thinking about what are their goals for the book? What are their life and business goals? How does the book fit into that? Because you can hire a writer just to bang out words. I mean, that's, that can be actually very cheap to do. Writers are a dime a dozen, and I'll be the first to admit that. But I think it is much harder to find a writer who takes into account. What are your goals for the project? What do you want that project to achieve for you? And then I try to construct that project according to what they want it to accomplish for them for example, I'll give you two different examples of projects over the last year. Two kind of contracting projects. One is a project I'm doing for somebody. They don't really have any business goals for this project. They just want to write a book. They've got some ideas they want to get out there and they don't really have any clearly defined goals for the business aspect of it. And that is totally okay. It's just something that they want to do and kind of put out to the world and see what else. Sometimes they can go to the other end of the spectrum, where somebody has very specific goals for the book too, to help achieve for [00:15:00] them. It can be monetary goals, it could be getting clients or customers. It can be building an email list or it could be getting a message out into the world and building their speaking business, whatever that is. So I try really hard upfront in the process to get a super clear idea about what do they want this book to achieve for them? Who's the audience, you know, who are the targets? What problem are you solving for them? Because the book, a nonfiction book is all about solving a problem for somebody. And if you can't define what that problem is and how you're going to communicate your solution to that problem in the book, then, you know, you've got to stop and figure that stuff out. Right. I feel like that's really, really what. So that's, that's kinda what we spend the first chunk of that, of that time doing is before we even get into the writing as defining, uh, what all those things are and what this book is, is going to be who it's going to be for. What's the message. How are we going to outline it? What do you want it to achieve for you? All those kinds of things? Because once we do that, we have a super clear direction about where we're going. How long it's going to take to get there. You know, what, what's the journey going to look like along [00:16:00] the way and all those kinds of things.
[00:16:02] RON: Have you had anybody after you've gone through that process? I use the word squirrel, like squirrel on even like, okay, here's the book I wanted. You guys agree on the book you're working on it. They're like, you know what I decided. That isn't what I want to do. It's more this based on our conversation and you had to like start all over.
[00:16:21] KENT: I haven't ever had to start all over, but I have had situations before where we get into a project and then they want to take a little bit of a left turn, not a hard left turn, but a little bit of a going in a slightly different direction. I can usually accommodate. But I feel like if when that happens with a project, you know, it's always easy to blame clients. You know, clients are an easy scapegoat for things, any of us, you know, who do client work and, you know, it's super common for us to go well there, the client doesn't know what they want or the client, this is the client that, but the reality of it is that if I have done a good job up front, that shouldn't happen in the. Middle of the project. If I have helped them to be clear on what we're accomplishing with this [00:17:00] book, if I have done my homework on the back end or the front end, rather than that shouldn't happen, but we're all human. Sometimes we do have the squirrel syndrome and things like that happen. So whenever things like that do happen, we just have to stop and kind of reassess. And, and sometimes it does require like, Hey, this is going to take extra time. We're going to have to go back and redo stuff. You know, we may have to change our contract. I try not to do that kind of a thing, because that's very frustrating to a client, but right. I think just good communication helps typically to prevent that kind of thing happening, but, you know, we're all human and we all change our minds part way through things and, you know, life happens.
[00:17:35] RON: Not that That's ever happened to us what so ever. . A completely random question that popped up for no reason.
[00:17:44] CORY: Yeah, definitely. Definitely didn't happen today at all today, whatsoever or yesterday. Oh man. You you've done a lot of ghostwriting and that's, that's the main business with inkwell, but I know you have a couple of [00:18:00] your own pieces that you've authored that do have your name tied to it. Uh, so talk, talk to us about that different process at different minds. Where your name is actually on the book. How do you do that differently versus when you're doing the study and to speak as someone else, like I would get so confused. I just, I just think I would be so confused if I'm like, well, let me write as Ron, but then let me write as Corey and I'm going to write as Kent and, and then like, I just, I don't know how it, how you could do it. Like it, it blows my mind a little bit, Ken.
[00:18:29] KENT: I don't know. I don't know why exactly, but it just, it doesn't feel like a struggle to me to go back and forth between two or three different projects. I'm not sure why that is. It may just be that I'm weird that way, which is entirely possible. I'm sure my wife and son would probably back me up on that claim and I'm just a little different, but I remember in high school I was into theater and band and music a lot. I'm kind of an artist at heart honestly and I loved being in plays and musicals because you get to put on different costume, you get to pretend like you're [00:19:00] somebody else. And I remember in 10th grade we did this play in high school. It was fool's written by Neil Simon. And I had had the lead role. They should never have cast me in that role because I couldn't memorize all the lines. And I did a terrible job. I remember playing this, I think it was like a Russian or Eastern European or something school teacher. He was like the main character. And it's so fun to, to be able to play that role and to kind of put on that costume. And you become that person for. And I love stepping into those different roles and, and being able to do that for people. One thing that really helps though, is I try to be really organized with my projects. I use the Scrivener app for all my writing that allows you to keep as many notes as you want to about projects. And, you know, I've, I keep call transcripts and all the raw material in those things. But when I go to my own projects, essentially, I follow the very same process for, for writing books. I get clear on who am I writing for? What do I want to accomplish with this project? What's the outline and all that stuff. Essentially, I have followed the exact same book development process, whether it's my own stuff, whether it's a coaching deal where the [00:20:00] client's doing the writing, but I'm coaching them or whether it's just straight up ghost writing. So it's all kind of the same to me, essentially.
[00:20:06] RON: I totally agree with Corey, like I get lost in my own thoughts. Let alone trying to be somebody. Like it's easy graphically for me to do that because there's more words like I can graphically brand something in Sam brand for a client all day long, you know, but when it comes to actual words and spelling, like I'm going to struggle with that all day long. Right. For me. I know there's certain things that I love that we do for clients over other things. Like, what's your favorite thing you do? Is it ghostwriting? Is it helping someone else write their book and you're just coaching them? Like, what's your favorite part of what you do?
[00:20:40] KENT: Boy, that's a great question. If I had to boil it down to one or two things, I love creating content. I love writing my own stuff and getting my own stuff out there of course but I really, really love coaching. And then there's a coaching aspect to everything that I do, whether it's running my membership community, whether it's creating a podcast or coaching [00:21:00] somebody, no, that's literally. But there's a lot of coaching also in ghost writing because it isn't just about the words.
[00:21:06] It's also about helping the client to see what's possible with the book. And I approach it in a very collaborative way. So it's not like they're just saying, okay, here's a check, go off and write the book and I'll see you in six months, I approach it in a very collaborative way. So essentially we're kind of like co-authors, and that's the way that I look at it because they are giving me the content and the stories, but I'm kind of framing the content. I'm shaping the words and the stories and. But I'm not creating it totally from scratch typically. So I look at it at an, in a very sort of collaborative way, and I really enjoy sitting down with clients and just talking with them and talking about their goals and helping to, to coach them and encourage them and hopefully inspire them. Along the way. So for me, coaching, I just, I really, really love doing that.
[00:21:47] CORY: Perfect. All right. So let's shift a little bit to podcasting in general and talk about the daily writer podcast over 600 episodes. It's, it's definitely a daily [00:22:00] thing that has, you know, short ones to long ones. It looks like you do some interviews. And so it's a mix, right? Like it's a gamut of different things. Tell us why the daily writer tell us why the daily podcast and just a little bit about the show
[00:22:13] KENT: so the, the show for me is a mix of different things that I'm trying to accomplish. One is I love networking and connecting with people. If I can honestly say most of the good things in my business, particularly connecting with people on networking and ghostwriting clients and referrals, all that stuff that is all come partly because of my podcast. My podcast has played a really central. And helping me build a business, not just because I'm putting stuff out into the world through a podcast, but it's really the relationships, the networking that's been absolutely critical. So I love to chat with people. I love to talk to people who are smarter than me, which is not hard to come across. Cause I feel like most people are so a lot smarter than me I understand that impulse cause I'm like, you know, I, I only kind of have it symbols full worth of knowledge, but there's a whole ocean full of knowledge out there. So I'm going to do a podcast, talk to people. So [00:23:00] that's part of the reason that I do a podcast, at least as far as the interviews go. And then sometimes on the Sunday episodes, I'll do a longer episode where I'm teaching about something or I'm kind of reflecting on something or whatever. I look at those episodes kind of like my playground or my workshop. It's sort of a testing ground for me just to try Ideas i. And if I've got an idea about something else, I'll sometimes do a solo episode about it to see if the content sticks or if it's any good, or if people like it, sometimes they do. Sometimes they don't, you know, the great thing about a podcast is you can just kind of experiment and see what works and what people. And the download numbers don't lie. You can immediately see what people are listening to and what they're not listening to. That's what I love about podcasting is the, you know, the proof is right there, but then also the, the weekday episodes for me are a way to, again, test that ideas, but I'm also being more strategic with those then the weekend stuff, because I'm working on a book called the daily writer. It's similar in style to, I don't know if you guys are familiar with Ryan holiday in his book, the daily stoic, it's kind of like a daily devotional type of a [00:24:00] deal. So since November of 2020, those weekday episodes have been these short one to two minutes deals and those are basically the daily entries that are going to be a part of my daily rider book that comes out this October. I'm about two thirds to three quarters of the way through producing drafts of that content. So that's essentially why I do a daily show is to connect with people, test out ideas, but also to create content that I'm using for books. So the podcast is kind of like a first draft of that material for me
[00:24:29] RON: I love that, I love that. Looking at your podcast as an extension of your business. Cause that's kind of what we teach people. It's like, Hey, it's an asset, right? Like you had something that was, that was actually pretty vital. You're able to play and see what sticks. Um, in a very easy format and if it sticks, that could be more parts of your business. Then in turn, you're not creating a bunch of stuff and seeing if it actually sticks [00:25:00] before. So I love that. And I would love for you to just kind of talk a little bit more about the numbers. Don't lie, just like you said, and we have one client who does phenomenally well with pet pictures. Like her business is pet photography and she has a podcast around pet photography and it's, it's blown up. Like it's, it's, it's amazing how well it's done, but it's, it's a very visual based product. Yeah. She's taken to a podcast. And that was cause Corey talked to her about it. Right? And so for you, yours is also a very visual based thing that someone holds up, they read, how are you translating that? And getting people to understand the podcast actually is helping people get to that.
[00:25:44] KENT: Well, for me, I, again, I look at the podcast as kind of a first draft of material so when I stepped back and I think about what are the, what are the two things that get me the most results, it's relationships and networking and referrals and [00:26:00] communication, and you know, all those things. And then it's content. And for somebody that's in my kind of a business, you know, have a writing business, that's also consistent. It's kind of consistent courses and not have a membership and some other affiliates and that kind of stuff. But for me, There, the content has to drive everything. So I just think of the podcast as kind of the first draft of, of stuff. And, you know, I experiment with material and things like that. That to me is the first place where I create stuff. And then it can go into books. It can go into future courses. It can go into stuff in my membership. Sometimes I test that stuff on my membership community, on our group calls that I'll then use on the podcast. So. Kind of both ways. I look at both of those things. It's just kind of workshops where I'm testing out ideas and concepts and stuff like that. And then I, then it all flows toward books or other kinds of stuff that'll be published elsewhere. And, but it can also be vice versa. If I put out a little book on something, then I can use that material as the basis for podcast episodes. So to me, it's all basically cross-pollination, it's all transferable, [00:27:00] but at the end of the day, the podcast is the hub around which everything else sort of relates.
[00:27:04] CORY: Yeah, love it. And we, and again, like our whole social media, like everything, we start with the. And then filters from there, whether it be trainings or promotions or social media posts or any of that stuff, right. It all starts with the podcast. And so this is so fun to have this conversation, but I would like to talk and hear about a specific episode you did last October. Okay. October 20, 21. How to be,
[00:27:30] KENT: I have no idea what you're going to say. , I have no idea what you're going with this.
[00:27:37] CORY: Well, let's go. This is good. How to be a 10 year overnight success? I'd love to, you know, all three of us. We're no spring chickens. You, you started your business. You know, just, if you go to your website, people can, can see this, that you were in your thirties when you decided that you needed to make a change. And then, you know, Eventually you left everything to go full [00:28:00] time. Things started blowing up like it is Ron. And I have this exact same story, but I'd love to hear that about that episode specifically, how to be a 10 year overnight success. And what you, what did you talk about in there?
[00:28:12] KENT: Oh gosh, it's such a, a long and complicated in my mind. It's a long and at times a convoluted kind of a story. Really it started out with just having some fun with blogging way back when probably more than 10 years ago. I remember doing a couple of blogs, probably back around 2007, eight or nine, something like that. When I first started getting into this kind of stuff, just for fun. I had no intentions of making a business out of it, but I made so many mistakes and I changed, you know, what I was writing about so many times and just spun my wheels for years and years with no results at all, because I had no idea what I was doing what I wanted out of the process, but something happened in the year 2015 that, well, actually two things happened around 20 14, 20 15. That really kind of kicked us into, into gear a little bit for me. One was that I started a podcast and I began to do interviews with people. And [00:29:00] I think anybody who gets into podcasting, particularly if you do interviews, you find out how addictive it is and how cool. 'cause you get to have these conversations and you put stuff out there and people are downloading and downloading it and listening to it. And you're like, oh my gosh, this is really, really cool. You have your own platform and listeners and all that stuff. So I began to see the power of that. Although at the time, I wasn't sure how it was going to use that. Also that same year I published my first book. That was a book on Evernote, actually. Which is no longer available because it's really out of date. That was with a small actually Christian digital publisher. And I think I sold like 15 copies of it. It was some ridiculously low. round But it was my first book and I was very proud of it that led to my second book, which is called the artist suitcase. And, and that kinda got me rolling on the publishing train, which, you know, once you have a book out there that again is really addictive as well. Cause you're like, oh my gosh, people are buying this. And now I have kind of this new authority in people's eyes, at least a little bit maybe, and you have a little bit of [00:30:00] success and it's, it's really, really cool. But then in 2015 we had. I don't know any other way to say it, except at our, at the small college where I taught, we just had kind of a blow up. We had a lot of people who left that year. There was a lot of internal issues. And even though I love my job, I was getting kind of tired of what I was teaching. And for me, I just decided that if I was going to make a transition, at some point, I wanted to do it on my own terms and in my own way. And at that point, I just determined to build a business out of. Whatever that took. And however long it took, because I knew I would eventually want to leave that job or the school would close. And in fact, that school is closing at the end of this semester. So really I made a transition last year and I got out just in time, to be honest with you. Yeah. So I started doing freelancing, continued with podcasting, writing my own stuff and made a ton of mistakes along the way. And then eventually that built up to something that was approaching a full-time income and made sure we had, you know, like Dave Ramsey Says a few months of savings in the bank. And [00:31:00] I made sure that I had consistent income with my business and then was able to make that transition last year. I think it was in June. I was officially done with my job. So there's a lot of details I'm leaving out of that, but it was just a long journey where I screwed up a lot of stuff, but I had a vision of what I wanted to achieve and I could see that it was possible because other people were doing the same thing. And I just determined I was going to put in the work and make it happen. Eventually I figured out what I was doing to, to at least some degree. And here we are today.
[00:31:29] CORY: Love it, love it. So I know normally Ron would be going right now, but I'm interrupting him. So we could, I just, you know, hindsight hacking, we, our goal is to hack highly successful entrepreneurs, hindsight to give our listeners clear foresight. And so just with listening to that answer, uh, about the ten-year overnight success, like in hindsight, is there like one thing, because you made all the mistakes and that led you to this point. So I get that, but is there like one thing. That you just wish you would have started sooner or that you could've done differently [00:32:00] to get you to where you are sooner or whatever that answer might be is there's just that one thing you're like, oh, in hindsight, I would have done this a little bit differently.
[00:32:07] KENT: Yeah. In hindsight, I wouldn't have started a bunch of side businesses that didn't work. I should've just stuck with. And if my wife was here, she would second that with a very loud, amen. Because she had been telling me for years and I mean, literally for years, she's like, you really need to focus on writing. That's your main thing. That's, that's your most marketable skill. That's what you love doing the most. But for some reason, I was just afraid of doing it. And I don't, I can't give you a reason why I just resisted doing for a really, really long. So even after my second book came out and I was making a little bit of money doing stuff like podcast show notes and some lower paying kind of freelance work. There was one summer that I started an Amazon FBA business, you know, where you're going around doing arbitrage and you're selling books and you're shipping them. And for me, it was a complete disaster because I actually ended up paying Amazon to destroy [00:33:00] hundreds and hundreds of my own books, because they were going to charge me to keep storing them. They weren't selling, but they want to charge me to keep storing themselves. Then they said, basically either you have to pay us to ship the books back to you, or you have to pay us to destroy him. And it was way cheaper just to destroy it. I know that sounds completely insane, but you know, I totally failed at that particular business. Some people do very well at it, but I didn't, there was one summer I tried to get into consulting and that was a business consulting, which I had zero business doing anything with that at the time another summer, I got into a network marketing thing for a couple of months and lost a couple thousand dollars on that. Cause I just was a complete failure at it. So I kept having like these failures over and over again. Meanwhile, I loved writing. My podcast was going with. And, you know, in hindsight, looking back, I just go, why didn't I just listen to my wife and just do the writing thing I could have been, I could have been successful at this way sooner.
[00:33:54] RON: She's going to listen to this and she's just going to play that over and over again,
[00:33:58] KENT: probably , [00:34:00] but I think that does go back to a principle of, there are certain people that you have in your life who know you really well, whether it's a spouse, uh, it may be a mentor or a really close friend or people in a mastermind, something like that. And they know us better than we think that they do many times. And I think it's important to listen to their counsel and wisdom about maybe the directions that we should go and what our main gifting is and what are our main marketable skills that we can build a business around. Because sometimes we really resist those things and we want to run away from them because we're scared of success because we're too comfortable in even we might be miserable, but we're so comfortable in that misery. It's, you know, the fear of doing something different. Hasn't quite gotten us out of that, that comfortable misery yet so I was saying in hindsight, I should've just listened to my wife earlier. That's the problem. I had. Number one, insight that
[00:34:52] CORY: I think all of us would probably listen to that.
[00:34:56] KENT: I'm not going to tell her I did this podcast. That way she won't have the ammunition. [00:35:00]
[00:35:00] RON: Well, just so you know, we'll make a little snippet of that and we'll just
[00:35:05] KENT: tag her on social media
[00:35:06] RON: right right and then she'll just she'll have it. It'll be good.
[00:35:09] KENT: She knows she was right I don't have to tell her
[00:35:11] RON: well, it's, it's hilarious. You know, it goes back to there's people out there that love you, that wants what's best for you. Yeah, absolutely. And you don't tend to listen. And the other piece is writing came easy to use, so maybe you didn't necessarily understand it didn't come easy for everybody.
[00:35:28] KENT: Right. Right. But I still struggle with that. I mean, and I'm sure you guys both know what this is. Like sometimes people ask you a question. That seems very simplistic and rudimentary to you. And internally, sometimes you go, well, doesn't everybody know that, you know, stuff about websites or traffic or other kinds of technical things. And you're like, that's kind of an intern. You don't say it, but internally you think that's kind of a really basic question. You don't really know that. And sometimes people ask me stuff about publishing. You know, writing or book outlining or whatever. And I'm like, [00:36:00] wow, I'm kind of surprised you didn't know that, but they didn't, they don't know that because they're not a complete door collect guy, him. They don't think about this stuff 24 7.
[00:36:06] CORY: So yeah, it's so funny. I mean, and that's, that was our experience of like what really led Ron and I to down the path of podcasting. It was, we, we hired some, a coach to help us get things launched and do it the right way and all that fun stuff. And then all of a sudden we're getting pitched to, for them to make the graphic, cover art for us. And Ron's like, oh, I know how to do that. That's easy. So don't worry about that. And then we're getting pitched to do the audio editing and we're like, oh, we can figure that out. We got that. And all these, all these things, and it was just like, it was easy to us, but people don't launch for podcasting because of those challenges and or your case. People don't write books. Because they see the challenges, but if we all just understood, if we want to write a book, this understood that comment that you made at the start is you are around. Right. Like, you've got that mindset. You are a writer, and once we can get that in our [00:37:00] heads, then we can get that out there and run. And I all the time, like what our whole goal of our business and podcasting world is to help people get their message out there. Right. But you just do the same thing just with, with, uh, the books and, and, you know, the fact that you've been right for people. There's a whole nother battle. You know, we can Ron and I I haven't figured out how to record for people. Otherwise we'd be doing that.
[00:37:22] RON: Just be doing that ourselves Right.
[00:37:23] KENT: You really go to the podcast, I guess.
[00:37:26] RON: Yeah, it goes podcasting. Hi, I'm so-and-so right. It's it's different. That's the only thing we tell people, like the one thing we can do for you is actually record. We can do everything. Out there, but we can't record. We need you to just go record just like you, you can write a book for someone, but if they never get on a phone call with you to have a conversation, can't write the book. It's simple. Right? There's still that element of that person's story that, that involvement that they need, even though you're making it painless, [00:38:00] there still has to be involvement on the other party
[00:38:02] KENT: There has to, there has to, and I think the best books come whenever people are involved and I've done books before where the client wasn't very involved, they basically say, Hey go off and here's a topic and we'll do a couple of calls, but go, go off and write the book. And I think many times those books are not as good as when the client is really involved. Because it doesn't have the client's input and their voice into it. Those are my favorite kind of books to write. They do take more time and they're more, I'm not going to use the word hassle because that's not what I mean, but they're, they're more involved on my end because we're doing a lot of calls and all that stuff. But I think it just makes a better book whenever that person is more involved in the process, but it takes time. It takes scheduling. It does take work on there end
[00:38:43] RON: no, I love it. Uh, okay. So I know there's people out there that are probably listening that either a need to go straighter wants to write a book or anything you've said resonates with them. How do they get in touch with you? How do they get involved?
[00:38:56] KENT: So the best way is to shoot me an email. Probably I know that sounds kind of old [00:39:00] school and they can get in touch with me at Kent, at Kent sanders.net. And if they're looking to have a ghost writing done, I'm always happy to chat about that. I also have a couple other ghostwriters that I know, I know this is like a completely bad business practice, like promoting competition, but in a ghost writing space, I don't really believe in competition because there's so much business to go around. And one of the most fun, fun things to me is to be able to refer people to beginning ghost writer, friends of mine, who, you know, they're not as their pricing is going to be a lot lower than mine, but they're still going to do a good job on those. It's fun now to be able to have resources that I can, that I can point people to, if they're not in my budget. Or whatever that actually brings me a lot of joy. I know that sounds weird, but it just kind of does. So for, yeah, for, for ghost writing, they can just email me or you can also go to my website, kent@kentsanders.net. I'm currently redoing all my website. So it looks kind of jenky at the moment, but yeah, those are, those are a couple of good ways as well as my podcast, which is the [00:40:00] daily writer that's not a podcast for ghostwriting clients, but it's just a writing show. So if anybody wants to learn better habits of writing, maybe get inspired with short episodes or, or longer interviews. That's a great place to go as well.
[00:40:13] CORY: Nice. And then you've got the community and Facebook, right? Like the daily writer daily writer Facebook group, or is it daily writer community? I forget what, what it was
[00:40:22] KENT: It's the daily writer, community, and for anybody who wants to find out more about that, you can go to daily writer life.com and there's a community that you can join. It's a very active community. It's not a huge community, but it's really super involved. And we have calls every week where we have guests come in sometimes, or we have. Really almost like mastermind sessions or we're helping work through problem this past week, we did a session on goal setting for the year. So we help people to dream about what do they want to accomplish this year with their books and with their writing business. So, yeah, it's a lot of fun.
[00:40:51] CORY: Nice. All right, Ken, thanks for the free coaching today. It's been a blast
[00:40:55] KENT: My pleasure. Totally. My pleasure.
[00:40:57] CORY: You'll probably see me in the daily rider community, [00:41:00] Facebook group, and I'll make sure to leave a link for, for anybody that hears this and wants to join me in there. But yeah, I love when you get like-minded people and we do different things, but I just feel like we're, we're three peas in a pod here and to help people and there's the abundance mindset, right? Like there's enough work to go around. There's tons of other podcast agencies out there. If, if you, if we're not the right fit someone else's right. Like, you know what I mean? Like there's just, there's enough to go around out there. And so I, thanks for sharing all that with us.
[00:41:32] KENT: Totally. My pleasure. And I do want to acknowledge the work that you both are doing with your agency podcasting is smoking hot right now, somehow that came off weirder than I imagined in my head. But you know what I mean? It's, you know, podcasts is very popular right now and for good reason, because it's a great way to connect with people. So the work that you both are doing is so critical and so important. I can't emphasize enough the importance of having a show and obviously you guys both make that happen for people. So keep up the great work.
[00:41:58] CORY: Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. I think [00:42:00] there's another clip, right? Uh, the importance of having a show, right? Like I think
[00:42:03] RON: I was gonna, I was gonna do a dad joke about three peas in a pod cast.
[00:42:09] KENT: I like that. Dad jokes are awesome.
[00:42:15] RON: Well, thanks for joining us today.
[00:42:16] KENT: Totally. My pleasure.
[00:42:18] CORY: All right, Ron, you know, that was, I think the perfect interview to start 2022. off People have different goals. People want to get out there. People definitely continue to share their message or start a show. And Kent just said that as well. So it's not just us that believe in a show, even authors, even writers need to have that, but before we get too far ahead of ourselves, I assume we got a couple of takeaways.
[00:42:43] RON: Yes. We got two first one, help your clients develop successful. I don't care what you do. I don't care what you're selling, and if you help them develop successful habits, they're going to be success. And they're going to attribute you to their success, which then [00:43:00] you're going to have retention of your client base longer. So that's Number two podcasting is a great way to build your business. And if you don't have a podcast and you just listen to podcasts like Cory did before we had our podcasts, I implore you to start your show, get your message out there because this little show has changed Cory and I's lives forever. And if you don't know how to do that, we got some guys that can help you if you go to profits with podcasts.com tells you all about it, you can go to get hhm.com, check it out, but we will be there to help you get your message out
[00:43:39] CORY: yes. And that was, I mean, that was definitely yes, a shameless plug for profits with podcasts, because that's how we can have help, but get your message out there. I mean, whether you're writing a book, writing a blog, doing a Facebook group or have a show like, and the one thing that I took. Kent uses his show [00:44:00] as a testing ground yeah, like that's the easiest spot. Just go record it and forget about it. And it doesn't stress, no stress on it. And they're like, oh, that is really good. I should do a training on that. Or that is really good. I should write a book on it or a blog or whatever, like. There's so many things you can do that. If you have a podcast, you can use it as that testing ground and keep things simple. It doesn't take a lot of time. It go look at Ken's shows like he has two minute episodes, just talk with a given one little tip, right?
[00:44:31] Like there's different things. So keeping that testing ground I thought was, was a really, really cool idea. So. All right, everyone. Thank you so much for being here.
[00:44:39] RON: Bye Guys
[00:44:40] CORY: did you know that hindsight acting media agency? We do all things podcasts from launch if you're already doing 10,000 downloads in a week, we handle everything. All you have to do is record it and forget it guys. If you're launching a podcast, get with these
[00:44:54] FEMALE: guys, I could not honestly hit the charts without them.
[00:44:57] MALE: I'm not getting paid for this, but working [00:45:00] with both of you, the professionalism and the system that you guys had for launch the podcast you guys killed it.
[00:45:07] RON: We want to help the impactors create an impact by just letting you be you and not worry about all this other crazy stuff. Connect with us. All the links will be in the. Do you next time go create an impact.