 Hi, this is George Kao, and I'm so happy to be here today with Jen Loudon. Hi, Jen. Hi, George. Thanks for doing this. So Jen is actually one of my clients, and she's actually the only client that I'm doing Facebook ads for at this time. I teach Facebook ads, and I help clients learn how to do them, but she is the one person I'm actually doing them for. She has an exciting business, and she has some great offerings, which we'll talk about later. What I wanted Jen to do in this video is to share with you all a sort of her tips on how to be consistent and joyful in our content projects, whether it's writing a book or just staying consistent with your blog posts or videos or creating an online course, something like that, because Jen has so much experience with that kind of stuff. So before we go into it, Jen, let me actually read your bio out for everyone. Yeah, because we could really go back to how long I've been doing this and not make me feel old, but make me feel experienced. Why? Why? Yeah, why? Okay, so here's the official bio, I'll just read it out loud here. As a personal growth pioneer, Jennifer Loudon helped launch the concept of self-care, which a lot of you totally value. So now you know how whom it was popularized by. With her first best-selling book, The Woman's Comfort Book, and she has gone on to pen six more personal growth books with almost a million copies in print in nine languages. She leads writing retreats internationally, both in the U.S. and U.S. Mexico primarily, is a woman's book coach and has been quoted in Bernice Brown's work and even sat on Oprah's couch. That's amazing. So, Jen, I mean, I'll just let you take over from here, I mean, with your experience in doing this and, of course, helping thousands of people get consistent, passionate, joyful with their content. Where do we start? How do we do it? Well, we've got to start with our own personal why. And for some people, this is easy, right? They're like, I know why I'm, for example, writing the new book that I'm writing. I know it's because I deeply, I'm so passionate and have been for 28, 30 years of all of these books and courses and retreats and everything, of really liberating women from whatever limits them. But I also know my deep why is I want to be, I want to be out there again on stages. I used to do a lot of keynotes, a lot of media, a lot of, I had my own radio show. And in the last 10 years, that hasn't been where I want to be. So one of my, to my other deep why is really personal. I mean, they're both really personal. So the first thing we have to start with is what is your deep why? And some people are really afraid of this, right? They're afraid to own why they want to do something, especially if it's I want to make a lot of money. I want to make enough money that I can leave my job that I'm not excited about or that I feel, you know, hemden by. But it without a deep why and regularly connecting to that why everybody, you can't just put it in a drawer. It is not one of those silly mission statements, right, that nobody ever reads. It's up on the wall somewhere of a corporation. It's really what drives you. So that's the first thing. And you can do it for every blog post you do, every course you do, a podcast, you need it for everything. And you know, I like I love what you say, you know, mission statement, people put it away. So what's, what's something we how, how do we connect with our deep why? I mean, yeah, well, like, for example, I'm like, I remember, you know, you know, I mean, the law of attraction, you know, popular, it's like, you write down what you want, and you can like read, read, read it, you know, day and night, three times a day or whatever it is. But like, you know, that's one method of doing it, maybe. But how do you connect with your deep why or how have you seen some of your clients do that? Well, I asked them to, at first, I think, and we'll do this in my upcoming mastermind right off the bat. So the first thing I asked them to do is just think about it. Like, so many people haven't actually just taken the time to go, why am I doing this? There's so much noise out there about why you should do, say an online course or why you should write a book. When I'm coaching someone one on one as a book coach, that's the first, why are you doing this? Why do you want to write a book? Another way to phrase it is, what's in it for you? Or what do you want this project to do for you? Sometimes I'll give people a list of possible why's, leave a legacy, tell my story to my family, pass on a body of work, make a lot of money, learn a craft. Some people want to, for example, come and write a book with me, not because they want to be on the best seller list or even get a traditional publishing deal because they want to really crack the code. And how do they write a great memoir? How do they write a great book that passes on a body of knowledge? So having some things to choose from, doing some journaling. I'm a big believer in giving people what I call trickster prompts. I do that with the writer's oasis of relief to kind of unlock what might be hidden from you. But it's got to come from within and it's not attached to a particular outcome and that's where the law of attraction and I will be part in every single way. But thinking about the things you want to have or the outcomes you want, actually, I think, especially for women, take them away from their deep soulful why, we can get so attached to getting that outcome that we can lose the thing that's going to keep us consistently creating, which is that why? That's awesome. So then after we do that, and remember, we're going to be touching this why every time. So my blog does a lot of different things. I write a piece almost every week, occasionally I skip a week because I feel burned out or I'm inspired. We've been sending a lot of other emails to the list. But every time I sit down, I'm like, why am I writing this? Why am I filling people's email box with my words? What do I want it to do for my business? What's the deep why in my heart? So you can certainly apply this with just a few moments thought to small bits of content as well. But then you've got to flip it around. And very kindly, you have to ask the question, why should my people care? Now, what we often do is ask this question, really mean, right? Well, I said, anybody can. It's all been done before. It doesn't matter. I have nothing original to say. And then we're on the couch watching Netflix, right? And eating salty, crunchy snacks. But instead, what we have to do is take this deep why and then connect it to the people that we want to reach, the people we want to influence, which isn't everybody. Now, I have a very particular, I have four women who I have worked with, either in retreats or my mastermind or at the Writers Oasis. And they are in my mind regularly. They are the women that I'm reaching for and to and wanting to serve with this book. And this is so important, especially when you're writing something more personal. I have a failed memoir that I spent four years, 500 pages on that pieces of will be in this new book, but it completely failed. And one of the reasons George has failed was because I didn't ask, why should my people care? I was so into my own why, right? It's like I crawled up inside my why and spent way too much time there. So we need both. And they'll create a tension that stretches us, right? The deep why keeps us true, you know? And if you're a writer, that really helps you stay true with your voice, right? You don't try to be Cheryl Strait. You don't try to be, I'm looking up at my books, right? Ray Bradbury, Wendell Berry, Mark Nippo. I love that. You keep honing back in what's mine to say and my way to say it. And voice is such an important part of being a successful content creator. Yeah, and I love what you're saying. It's like this tension. I like this image of, and you know, kind of tension creates power, right? Like, you know, and between our deep why and why should the audience care? And I like that you're saying, you know, a lot of times we ask that question, why should anybody care? Why bother? Right, why bother? The title of the book. And so how do we, I love that you have these several kind of women ideal readers, ideal customers, clients in mind. Okay, so a lot of folks watching this night, some of them know who their ideal client is, but for somebody who is starting out, they can imagine themselves being a great writer one day or aspiring to be here. How do we start with figuring out, I know this could be a whole eight hour conversation, but what's like one thing we could do to like, well, is it somebody we already know? Like, how do you advise people? Well, I think the first thing is, what I see with a lot of the women I work with is that you really have to let yourself realize that your work is important enough to connect to other people. I have, I've worked with one writer over years, we would have years where we didn't work together for 17 years, 17 years it took me to get her to take her work seriously. And she is shopping a book to publishers that I really believe is gonna get published. She did my mastermind last year, I think it was that intensive working together for a whole year that really changed things for her. She's a doctor, she's very accomplished, deep spiritual life, you know, amazing woman, but owning the fact that there was somebody else on the other end that was gonna read her words with such a struggle. So that's the first thing, will you let yourself be seen? Will you let yourself be intimate with these readers? And will you let their needs and concerns come into your space? There's something very selfish about being a creator and there's something very generous. And again, we have to balance the two. So that's the first thing that they really find we have to work on a lot. And then it really depends what your style is. You know, if you're, you know, a writer working on a book, one of the questions I might give you is, you know, let me just look at my question. Where is it? What before your reader comes to this book, right? They find it on Amazon, they find it, you know, on the bookshelf in an independent bookstore, they find it, you know, on your blog, what's going on in their life? What's their problem? What's their ink? What's their longing that has made them search for this? Write a couple of pages about it, put yourself in their shoes. So that's a great imaginary exercise for some people. Other people, like go out there and start hanging around where the people are that you wanna influence, that you wanna help, or that you wanna light up with your podcast or teach with your course. Get into some Facebook groups and just read what's going on in their lives, what resonates with you. Don't do that thing where, well, I should help that person, right? That's the kiss of death. That means you're gonna leave your wire, you're giving up that tension. You have to be willing to go, well, that's really a problem, but I'm not interested in solving that. Or that's really a need out there, but I got nothing to say about it. That's the way it is. Where are the people hanging out? What are they saying? What are the language of their music? The other thing you can do if you have an existing business is interview people, get intimate with them. We send out a survey every couple of years, which takes me a couple of years to go through because we get so many responses. And I'm always like, oh my God, there's so much here. But you can have three conversations and record them, record them with people and just be curious. What do they say that jibes with what you're interested in and your diploma? Yeah, that's fantastic. So yeah, these are great. I really hope people will maybe rewind and take one of these exercises to really go into it and do it. And we'll talk later about how you have various ways to support people to stay on the path and do a game clarity. So let's talk a bit about, well, got these ideas, got the why. And on that, so how do we organize? How do we organize? I mean, all these ideas, I mean, you're writing a book, you've got pages from here, pages from there, any tips on that? Yeah, a couple of really important things. First of all, organizing your work is part of content creation. I get this message so often from my people that if they're not generating content, if they're not generating new words, it's a day that they didn't do any work. No, no, I might spend an entire writing period going back and doing what I call a reverse outline for everything I've written, which is doing bullet points in Scrivener, a program that I use, of what's actually in that chapter. So I can look at it at a glance so I don't overwrite stuff a second time or repeat myself. That's part of writing. Taking the time to set up a system that works for you is writing, it is content creation. Here's the thing, there's no perfect system. And I see people time and time again, start using one system and then abandon it because somebody mentioned something on Facebook and off they go to download that software. And instead you have to find a system that's good enough for the way your mind works. So I have some pretty big learning disabilities. So it's really taken me a long time to figure out what are the systems that work so that I don't get that terrible feeling that I have an idea, but I don't know where to put it because that when that happens to your brain, what your brain does, is it basically, it's like that automatic vacuum cleaner, what are those called? Roombas? It gets caught in the corner and tries to keep, it can't go anywhere. Your mind needs to have a place to put stuff and your mind needs to know you can go back and find it. And where you, so yeah, how do you capture? I can't believe it. Yeah, and this just works for me, it's not perfect, but I use three different things and they each have a purpose. So I use Scribner for my book. It has a big learning curve. A lot of people hate it. A simpler version that I haven't used but some of my clients love is called Ulysses. Ulysses and both of these are pretty inexpensive. I think Scribner's 45 bucks. Ulysses has a less of a learning curve, I'm told. So everything about my book goes there. So for example, last night, I'm on my desktop right now. I have a laptop downstairs. I was on my laptop and I read an article and like that article, I need to remember that. I need to have it for my book. It's like stirring something in me. So I send myself a link and then I'll go in the next day when I'm done with my writing period for the day and I'll make sure that I put anything I've sent myself an email into Scribner, right? So it's all in one place. I don't leave it in my email, I don't put it in place else. I use Evernote for all my teaching. I teach writing retreats and my mastermind, all my marketing information, everything to do with that I know is in Evernote with including lots and lots of links to articles and videos and stuff. And then the third thing I use is Google Drive and that's for everything I have to share with you, George, with my team. So blog posts, marketing copy, right? So I'll have the marketing research and raw thoughts in Evernote but when I go to write the copy I make sure I go to Google Drive. And that's what, so my little mind goes, writing a blog post, go to Google Drive, right? Oh, working on the Oasis material for the week, go to Evernote. Clipping something about marketing can go in Evernote. I'm not gonna look for it in Google Drive. It's more, it's gonna feed my ideas that then become the copy of the email. That's fantastic. So it's like, you know where to look for things. Exactly. That's therefore it's the same place where you put things. Exactly. And let me tell you the learning curve of sticking with that, it was like, I don't know. It was like cooking for me. I don't like to cook. It was really hard because my little mind just wants to go, oh, just put it anywhere for right now. Right, for right now. I'll remember. Don't! That's your discipline. And once you get over that habit and you really establish where, then you'll stop doing it. But here's the other thing you can't do. And I see this a lot with my clients who are writing memoirs. They're like, but I have to go find everything and put it in Scrivener or put it in Evernote. No, no, no, no. You may have 50 years of journals. Find what you need to get the first draft done. Leave double question marks or brackets for what you don't know where it is. You will save yourself months, if not years of time. Absolutely, yeah. So let's kind of wrap up on these tips with, how do we make realistic consistent progress on all these different things? It's my favorite thing to talk about. Although clearly I shouldn't have coffee before I do these interviews. No, you please. So the biggest reason your mind procrastinates, your brain procrastinates from making regular content is it doesn't know what it's going to work on when you sit down and it doesn't know when you're going to work. If you can be disciplined in a gentle loving way with yourself about always knowing where you're gonna start, even if you don't stick with that idea and when you're specifically going to work, you will have so much more consistent, not magic, but much more consistent content creation. So when I finish, for example, working on my book for the day, my goal is about 600 words a day, I make sure I know what I'm gonna write next. I make a note to myself. I sit and think about it for a moment. If I'm not entirely sure and I've run out of writing time for that morning, I put it on my to-do list. Think about what you're gonna write next. I think about it when I go out for my run. I read some books that I have this huge pile of books over here that I'm working on, a huge pile of books over here. For my book, I take a few of them to bed. Give yourself time and a clear place to begin. Even if it's just, I'm gonna begin talking, I'm gonna begin this podcast, writing this podcast episode up by listing 10 reasons why I wanna have George on my podcast. That's fine. But your mind then has something to start with. Your mind hates the unknown. And that's why it decides to clean the toilet instead. The other thing is, when are you gonna work? The worst thing you can do is go through the day going, I'm gonna work on my content sometime today. It's like it hangs over your head, it drains your energy, it makes you feel crappy about yourself. Instead, I'm gonna write first day, I'm gonna write at 8 a.m. or I'm gonna write before I do anything else in the morning while I entertain my coffee or I'm gonna write when I get back from my run or I'm gonna write after the kids are doing their homework. It doesn't have to be a time in other words. But be really clear, repeat it to yourself. Get it in your head. I am committed to this. Share it with someone else, your partner, your best friend, your coach. Yeah, that's awesome. I love it, I love it. I totally agree with you on these things. So we have a couple minutes. I wanna make sure people know how they can work with you. You've got these different levels that people can kind of access your work. So where do you wanna start on that? Well, the easiest, least expensive, and most incredible, I think thing you can do is join the Writers Oasis. I do a weekly Friday fresh audio every week and it's about 30 so minutes. And it takes you into yourself, helps you get current with yourself, decide your goals. What are you gonna write or what are you gonna create? It's for creators of all time. And we have a special guest every month and a live call. And I also create extra resources for writers on elements and pieces of craft. So that's a super, super inexpensive way to work. Yeah, and I wanna mention, well, since I know about your launches, I'm involved in them, Writers Oasis is typically, it's typically not open for registration. Right. But, and actually just recently it had a launch. So it's technically closed now, but when you do interviews like this, you do open up a special kind of a page where people can register. So those who are watching this, you can register for Writers Oasis right now. And I'm sure I'll put a link somewhere in the notes of the video. So be sure to look for that and check it out. Cause you're George's friend. Yes. Yeah. The second way to work with me, there's a couple of spots open in my July Retrieved in Taos. It's usually sold out, but we have to get a bunch of people move around into other retreats, it was very unusual. So I think we have two or four spots open in July and that is a truly transformational self-care, get a lot of work done, meet incredible women, be in a magical historical house that we take over, eat incredible food, dance in the morning, do yoga in the afternoon. And then the last thing is my very small group, private mastermind group for a small group of people. And that's opening up her registration just this week and has three different levels. And it's for people who are working on any kind of non-fiction project from self-help book, thought leader book, memoir. And I'm gonna take you through a lot of the processes that I touched on here and help you do something that you could never do. If you go to one of those, just write a book, channel a book in a weekend, you'll write a lot of words but you will never end up with something that's gonna connect to that person who needs your work. Yeah, yeah. And of course, being part of a mastermind means that as you see others becoming more empowered to do things, of course that energy spills over to you as well and there's that kind of group energy. And it's so true when we read each other's work with very careful guidelines, no criticism but feedback reflecting. And in the last year I did this mastermind, so many of the women said, so many great things and so many great things happened but that was one of them. Like I didn't give up because I had to read and take care of these other women and then I saw them doing it so I kept doing it. Yeah, awesome, awesome. Well, thank you, Jen, for the work that you do, the energy and the love that you give to your audience and to those who are watching this. And yeah, so folks, be sure to check out the links in, you know, attach this video and thank Jen for showing up here and sharing with us. Thank you, George, thank you for all your support. You're an incredible coach. Thank you, Jen, appreciate it. All right, see you soon.