SPEAKER_01 0:00

Hey, I'm Lauren.

SPEAKER_00 0:02

And I'm Matthew.

SPEAKER_01 0:03

And this is Publish and Prosper.

SPEAKER_00 0:06

We're publishing technology and marketing alive. Welcome back to Publish and Prosper. Today we are discussing why time is not real.

SPEAKER_01 0:23

Time has never been real. Time is a social construct.

SPEAKER_00 0:26

And Lauren and I have found yet another area that we disagree on.

SPEAKER_01 0:32

I mean, you could have more time if we all just mutually agreed as a society to invent more time. We are the ones that arbitrarily set the rules of minutes, hours, days.

SPEAKER_00 0:48

No.

SPEAKER_01 0:48

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 0:49

It's based on rotations around the sun.

SPEAKER_01 0:52

Well, why don't what if a day was two rotations around the sun instead of just one?

SPEAKER_00 0:58

I don't know. I I still think we'd some of us would still be pressed for time.

SPEAKER_01 1:03

Always.

SPEAKER_00 1:04

Maybe it's poor time management on my part.

SPEAKER_01 1:06

There's definitely that.

SPEAKER_00 1:07

I need to learn to say no more often.

SPEAKER_01 1:09

Oh, God's same.

SPEAKER_00 1:10

Does all this sound familiar?

SPEAKER_01 1:11

Yeah, it really does.

SPEAKER_00 1:13

Yeah. In some ways, you and I are way too much alike. And in other ways, probably couldn't be more different.

SPEAKER_01 1:21

It's a healthy mix.

SPEAKER_00 1:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:23

Well, how many uh how many rotations around the sun has it been since we started this podcast?

SPEAKER_00 1:30

Three.

SPEAKER_01 1:31

Three whole rotations.

SPEAKER_00 1:33

That's right. I forgot.

SPEAKER_01 1:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:35

Three-year anniversary.

SPEAKER_01 1:36

Yes, it is.

SPEAKER_00 1:36

That's right. Three years. We are officially toddlers.

unknown 1:41

Oh.

SPEAKER_01 1:41

We're past the terrible twos.

SPEAKER_00 1:44

I well, I would argue we're still in the That's true. Depending on how you define that. But we are we are officially toddlers and no longer newborns in the podcast business.

SPEAKER_01 1:53

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 1:54

So three years. Actually, what was the there's I don't know if the stat's still the same. Do you remember this? Like there was always that stat floating around years ago. Yeah. Most podcasts don't make it past 10 episodes or it's either 10 episodes or 10 months. I don't remember. One or the other.

SPEAKER_01 2:09

I think it's 10 episodes. I think it's something like 50% of podcasts don't make it past the first 10 episodes. Something like that.

SPEAKER_00 2:16

Yeah. So which is eerily similar to divorce statistics. 50% of marriages end in divorce.

SPEAKER_01 2:22

Now, how many, how many divorces were caused by podcasts?

SPEAKER_00 2:25

Yeah. Well, there you go. That's maybe there's correlation there.

SPEAKER_01 2:29

There is.

SPEAKER_00 2:29

People who podcast together end up getting divorced. There is 50% of the time.

SPEAKER_01 2:34

I mean, I know that um uh Karen Kilgareth and Georgia Hardstark, the My Favorite Murder hosts, at least at some point during their tenure as hosts of that podcast, they have done like partners counseling. Like they've done like not couple therapy, but like, yes, they they have done like like combined therapy specifically to make them better like co-hosts together.

SPEAKER_00 3:02

So I better never get an invitation from you for that.

SPEAKER_01 3:05

Absolutely not.

SPEAKER_00 3:07

All right, let's um let's put this train back on the track.

SPEAKER_01 3:12

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 3:12

Three years today.

SPEAKER_01 3:13

Sure is. Yeah, give or take a day or two.

SPEAKER_00 3:16

Remember, time isn't real, so I don't, you know, at least according to you.

SPEAKER_01 3:20

Close enough. Yeah. Close enough. It is it is three years. We've been doing this for three years. We have not uh crashed and burned yet. So I'd say job well done.

SPEAKER_00 3:31

Job well done, arguably. Yep, yes. Uh to that end, we are going to talk about today some of the best professional advice we've ever received, whether that's from colleagues, people in the podcast industry, people in the publishing industry, friends, friends of friends, characters on TV, wherever, right? What's the best professional advice we've received so far in our careers as whatever we call ourselves?

SPEAKER_01 4:07

As whatever it is that we're doing.

SPEAKER_00 4:09

Changes by day.

SPEAKER_01 4:10

I also want you to know that I um absolutely restrained myself from putting Taylor Swift lyrics in there.

SPEAKER_00 4:19

I you know what? When I looked in the outline, I was like, wow. I consider zero Taylor Swift in there. And I was like, you know what? What she's gonna do is just load it up at the end. Because you know, I look in there ahead of time.

SPEAKER_01 4:35

I do.

SPEAKER_00 4:36

I thought you were gonna ambush me. Like, we're gonna sit down and I'll look at the outline, and then all of a sudden it's like 15 Taylor Swift quotes and a bunch of stuff from you know, my chemical romance or my favorite murder or my something or other, whatever it is you yeah.

SPEAKER_01 4:51

I well, I I refrained. I did not, I thought about it. I read through her commencement speech from the YU 2022 uh that she was given an honorary doctorate. So I thought about quoting my my personal therapist, Dr. Taylor Allison Swift, but I refrained.

SPEAKER_00 5:14

I'm not a hater of Taylor Swift, by the way. I'm really not. No, I know. I'm I'm very impartial, but I do like do these honorary doctorate degrees, are they are they actually worth anything?

SPEAKER_01 5:27

No.

SPEAKER_00 5:28

Like I've never really talked to anybody about this never, but it always infuriates me when I hear somebody's been given an honorary doctorate. Because we all know what it takes to get one. I assume they were mostly just symbolic in nature, like no, but do we know like for sure there's no actual like benefits carried by this thing? I mean, what and so why do they even do it?

SPEAKER_01 5:50

Uh I think probably marketing, honestly. I think it's publicity, I think it's the school wise publicity.

SPEAKER_00 5:56

I hate it. I hate it.

SPEAKER_01 5:58

Yeah, I know.

SPEAKER_00 5:59

I I'd love an honorary doctorate.

SPEAKER_01 6:01

Yeah, give me one, please. But no, I I also think about that a lot where I'm like, oh, because I like I have friends that have worked very, very hard to get doctorates.

SPEAKER_00 6:10

Yeah, I was gonna say, I don't know about you, but the thought about staying in school to get a doctorate when I was in college, I couldn't think of anything I I would have liked less.

SPEAKER_01 6:18

No, my master's was enough. And um and and that wasn't even a real master's, so it's fine.

SPEAKER_00 6:26

Was it honorary? Did somebody give you an honorary master's?

SPEAKER_01 6:29

I have an MFA in creative writing.

SPEAKER_00 6:30

Oh, I see what you mean. Okay, I spent it is real. I spent two years. It's not offend anybody out there.

SPEAKER_01 6:34

No, no, no, no, no, no. It's I I did I did spend two years in in like a postgraduate program.

SPEAKER_00 6:40

Gotcha. I get what you mean. Yeah, I got it.

SPEAKER_01 6:43

It was fun.

SPEAKER_00 6:44

Okay. Well, some advice that uh that we received one time that I'm actually not it's not part of this, but in lieu of the transition here, we did receive some advice one time from a friend of ours named Grant who said we should learn how to stay on on track. Um, so in the spirit of that piece of advice, we're gonna get back on track once again. Sounds great. Um one of my choices was our current CEO, uh, his name is CP. Uh, one of his mantras, one of the things that he really instills upon us um is to identify what you care about and let that guide you every day. Um and for me, like I wake up or I was waking up all the time, every day. Like, okay, what do I have to do today? And like in my head, I'm prioritizing it. And I'm usually prioritizing it, not always on something arbitrary necessarily, but for whatever reason, I would prioritize things and in the way that I thought they need to be. And these were like tasks or things I'd do that day at work, or you know, if it's I gotta get up, I gotta get the kids to school, I gotta get in the office, and I've got these three things. And it was always very much task-oriented without a whole lot of thought about, you know, all of these tasks that I'm doing every day. Are they do they count towards things that I actually care about? Like, and that works for for work, professional life, and personal. Like when you say what do you care about, you tend to just think about personal life. If I asked you what do you care about, you would rattle off a bunch of stuff like your cat rose, Taylor Swift, making bracelet, like all kinds of things.

SPEAKER_01 8:25

Disney.

SPEAKER_00 8:26

You pro exactly. You probably wouldn't say anything related to work because we just don't, most of the time we don't think that way. But then when I started thinking that way about work stuff, like what do I care about this week at work or this month or this quarter or this day? Like, what do I care about? Today do I care about people? Do I want to focus my day on my people? Like, today do I care about Ebida and bottom line and the things that I'm doing today, are they contributing towards that? Or this week or this month or this quarter? So reframing again what I actually care about and letting that drive what I do each day was actually really helpful. And it in a weird sort of way, I would come into the office every day less stressed and still do, if you can believe that. So that was my first one.

SPEAKER_01 9:19

Well, thank you, CP, for for passing on that advice to Matt.

SPEAKER_00 9:24

Maybe secretly he knew that if he taught me that, you guys would have an easier life. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 9:30

You know, I think so. I actually I tried really hard not to look at which uh what advice you put in here because I wanted to like kind of be surprised by it, even when I copied it over. So I I genuinely like I didn't really see that. I I think there's like a kind of gonna be a similar thread between the advice that we chose in general that we want to share here. Um and like I think one of the similarities that we're gonna see with all of these is that or at least I'm gonna make the claim that I think a lot of the best professional advice that we've received is also life advice. Like it's yeah, it's applicable in in multiple ways. And when you understand how to translate it into the different areas of your life and apply it in those different situations, that's when it becomes really helpful in like all manner.

SPEAKER_00 10:28

Yeah, that makes sense.

SPEAKER_01 10:29

Yeah. Um, because that that was also, you know, when I was going through putting together what I wanted to include in here, every conference that we go to, I I keep like one running dock of like all the notes that I take at different sessions and and stuff like that. And I do often write like quote, like I'll direct quote that a speaker says or something. And I was going through some of those just to see if anything jumped out at me that I wanted to add in here. And there was one, and I read so many of them, so I'm sorry if I'm misquoting this. But it was about uh how they create content before they consume content.

SPEAKER_00 11:08

Oh, that's Joe Plitz.

SPEAKER_01 11:10

Is it that's a that's a Joe? Which makes a lot of sense, honestly. But that, you know, first thing that if you if your plan for the day, if your goal for the day is to create content, is to create something of your own, do that before you consume anybody else's content.

SPEAKER_00 11:25

Which is Yeah, it's it's based upon the idea that may have come from um Chanel or Jay Okunzo, which was build your own empire before you build somebody else's. It's kind of the same thing, right? So most people, you know, especially younger people, wake up and and one of the first things they do is they start scrolling Instagram or TikTok or fake or whatever your thing is, right? Um, and in consuming content that's not yours or or not creating, and consuming first, you're building somebody else's empire. So it's kind of the same idea versus like waking up doing whatever your morning routine is and then maybe writing or creating a piece of even a small piece of content or contributing to a larger piece that you've been working on before you dive in and start consuming a bunch of other content in the world and and presumably building somebody else's empire instead of yours. So it's all kind of the same thing. Yeah, that's I I always like that one.

SPEAKER_01 12:17

Yeah. But I think those are all, I mean, I think that's all kind of hand in hand with each other, is like that the whether it's consuming other content or you know, when you're in the habit of the first thing you do, you get up in the morning, you open your phone and start doom scrolling. The the first three things that show up on my algorithm could ruin my day, depending on what that content is. Like, is that really the energy that I want to start my day with? So, to your point with CP's advice, like know, like start the day knowing what is important to you and what your goals are for the day, including like mindset and and like don't start the day by consuming a newsreel of the worst thing that happened in the 12 hours since you well last looked at your phone.

SPEAKER_00 13:04

Almost impossible if you're on social media, but yeah.

SPEAKER_01 13:07

I know, but yeah. Well, I'm gonna go um out of order, actually. Okay, because I think already well I I think this this aligns so similarly with the one that you just said. So Lee Bardugo is one of my favorite authors. She's written a bunch of different books, YA an adult. Um, and she started doing this thing a few years ago on uh New Year's Day that was begin as you mean to go on, which is not, she's she's not the first or last person to coin that phrase specifically. But I really like her approach to it, and she always does it. It's always New Year's Day. She sends out an email to her newsletter saying that this is what she's doing and encouraging other people to join her. And it's the idea of one, like start, like start step one right away. You know, begin as you mean to go on. If if day one, if you want this year to be a good year, day one, start working towards the like what you want to happen in this year. The the approach you want to take, whatever that is, whether it's working towards a project, working towards a uh starting your own brand, working towards getting a promotion, towards leaving your corporate job and being a full-time creator, whatever it is. But also doing so in manageable, actionable, small steps. Um, and that's why I think she does it on New Year's Day every year, because it includes the idea of like not doing a New Year's resolution. Because so many people like will fail New Year's resolutions because they'll do some big lofty goal right off the bat.

SPEAKER_00 14:54

I just assume New Year's resolutions are a joke for everybody these days. I don't know anybody that takes them seriously. And most people that I know nowadays won't even do them because they feel like it's like almost a jinx.

SPEAKER_01 15:08

Well, yeah, it's doomed for failure. But I think that it is something that you can apply in so many different ways. And and that is something that like if you look at something that you have to do for work, whether it's a project or a goal or whatever, and and all you see is that finish line all the way off in the distance, that can be really hard to achieve. But if you can break it down into I gotta do this thing, and then I gotta do this thing, and then I gotta do this thing, and I can do each of these manageable things one step at a time, yeah. And just start by doing thing number one today. And then if I keep doing that, it'll carry me towards that goal. I think that's pretty good advice.

SPEAKER_00 15:56

Yeah, it's a lot like how I have to parent my 16-year-olds.

SPEAKER_01 15:59

Is it?

SPEAKER_00 16:00

You can't say do this one big grandiose thing or I need this done by the end of the week. You got to kind of like drop the breadcrumbs, like, okay, let's do this thing, and then we'll do this thing. They don't necessarily see the pattern, but you have to see that pattern and guide them to the end goal. So, yeah. Um, my next one is from my grandfather. Um, and a lot of people have variations of this. For some people, this is just the way they operate, and that's great. Um, I think Walt Disney even had a variation of this, but for my grandfather, it was always, you know, basically what he would say is failure is is not the opposite of success. And it's this idea that some people get so fearful that they're gonna make a bad decision that they just don't make a decision, and that's worse. And and it doesn't really matter what role you're in, where you are in the hierarchy or the org chart at your particular company, or even as a you know, solopreneur or a creator or whatever that might be, like this affects everybody. Typically, fear of making a bad decision is oftentimes what stops people from getting, like you said, to that far off goal. So, you know, if you've got these things you need to do and you've got to make decisions around each of these things, so many people are afraid to make the wrong decision. Um, when in actuality, unless you're, you know, a brain surgeon or a few other, you know, very select roles in life, a bad decision is not the end of the world. It's just typically a learning opportunity and you just keep going. But making no decision or not doing something because you're afraid you'll make the wrong decision is usually a lot worse. So my grandfather was always like, you know, failure is not the complete opposite of success. And in fact, it's something that needs to happen to get to success. But most people look at it in black and white terms like it's either success or failure, right? And so that one always kind of stuck with me.

SPEAKER_01 18:05

I think that is a really important one. And I think that's a really it's a really easy thing to say and a really hard thing to actually learn and I got really comfortable with making bad decisions in life and in professional.

SPEAKER_00 18:20

Um, even to this day, I make bad decisions sometimes here at Lulu or in life, but whatever.

SPEAKER_01 18:28

Yeah, but you make them.

SPEAKER_00 18:29

You have to, yeah. And and even with my kids and younger, I see it like a lot of times they're afraid to make the wrong decision because they're afraid it'll be a bad one or they'll look stupid or whatever that might be, but all that's doing is holding you back.

SPEAKER_01 18:44

So I like that advice. That's good advice from your grandfather. Yeah. I also I was right, there is a lot of overlap here because I think that uh Yeah, I was looking at this one, I was like, okay, you were right to go out of order.

SPEAKER_00 18:58

Yeah, but I do think this one ties in.

SPEAKER_01 19:00

Yes. Um, this is another one of those that the person that I associate it with is not the end all be all of this advice, but probably not the genesis of where it came from. No, probably not. Um, but Chelsea all the time says to start before you're ready.

SPEAKER_00 19:20

Chelsea, our Chelsea, let's be clear.

SPEAKER_01 19:22

Yes. Chelsea Bennett here at Lulu. Yeah. Frequent guest host on this podcast. The last line.

SPEAKER_00 19:30

Also purveyor of aged, wise, old professional wisdom.

SPEAKER_01 19:36

Always. Yes. Yes, she has she has some great advice, some some great one-liners. Um, but in a in an episode recently, I think it was episode 130, which I think was the um showing up authentically on YouTube, she she said it again in there. She shared it in there. She said, you know, start before you're ready. If you wait until it's perfect, it's never going to be perfect. And like somehow she always just manages to pull that out right when I need to hear it. And I think that is a really, really valuable thing to remember.

SPEAKER_00 20:13

Was it you and I that were talking about this the other day that perfection is the thief of productivity? Who was I talking about?

SPEAKER_01 20:19

No, but I love that quote. Maybe it was. No, I think.

SPEAKER_00 20:23

I was having a conversation with somebody.

SPEAKER_01 20:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 20:25

Yeah, there's a lot of variations of that. But and especially in writing circles, right? Like Ann Hanley's said it before too. She has a version of that same thing. Like I think everybody does, but essentially, yes, if you wait until it's perfect, then there's a good chance it's never going to see the light of day.

SPEAKER_01 20:40

Right.

SPEAKER_00 20:41

But the the perfection is the thief of productivity. I don't even remember where I heard that, but I heard it somewhere. It's not, I don't talk like that.

SPEAKER_01 20:48

But I think that it's incredibly valuable advice, specifically in a creative field. And I consider more so than anything else. I mean, yes.

SPEAKER_00 20:59

If you're talking to anybody that that deals with data and analytics, they're like, whatever. If it's wrong, I fix the formula. Yeah. Somebody will catch it. But creative people, whether they're writers or painters or doesn't matter, like they're often the ones that are most paralyzed by having the the urge to get something perfect before they release it into the world or let anybody see it or whatever.

SPEAKER_01 21:19

There's always something else you can tweak. There's always something else that you can fix. There's something, something. Uh, somebody at Creator Camp also said this. Uh, DJ Strick was one of the speakers there, and he said, give yourself permission to do it ugly. And and that was like the same thing where I was like, Yeah, if you wait for it to be perfect, it's never going to happen because there's always gonna be something else you can fix.

SPEAKER_00 21:45

Yeah, you'll always find something else you can tweak, or again, I think it's worse with writers.

SPEAKER_01 21:51

Oh, for sure.

SPEAKER_00 21:53

But yeah, nonetheless, um that's a tough one.

SPEAKER_01 21:57

Yeah. Yeah, it's a lot, that's a lot. Easier said than done, but I think it's great advice. And every now and then just I could just hear Chelsea's voice in my head with it. And I'm like, yeah, yeah, just do it. Just go. Thanks, Chelsea.

SPEAKER_00 22:15

Um my third and final one is um from a movie. The quick backstory here is um I'm a latchkey kid. I was raised in the 80s, right? Like my formative years were during the 80s. So my whole you know, childhood, I was watching all 80s movies, the the birth and or proliferation of MTV. Like, yeah, I mean, like, you know, my mom was always working, whatever, whatever. So that basically means like John Hughes is my stepdad, essentially, like probably a ton of other people out there world. So uh my third one is um from Ferris Bueller. But I actually use it, so it's not like it wasn't a cop-out, like, and I constantly have to remind myself of this, and it kind of goes hand in hand with the first one that I talked about. But um, there's two specific moments in that movie where he looks right at the camera and he basically says, Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it. He says it early on, and then the very last part of the movie, he said he looks right at the camera and says it. And again, like most of these things, it seems so simple when somebody says it to you, or you see it in a movie, and you're like, Yeah, duh. Right? Like, you just watch this whole movie where he did all these really cool things in one day. As if we could all do that. But the concept, I think, is really um for me, like again, I have to stop and think about these things because I'll just get so wrapped up in tasks or things I need to get done that day, right? Like, whether it's work-related or kid related or what, you know, doesn't matter, anything else outside of that. But, you know, by that same token, I need to remember to stop sometimes and look around and go, okay, I'm missing something here. Or, you know, I'm so focused on these things that I think I need to be doing because I need to pay for whatever, whatever, but I'm actually missing time that I could be spending with my kids to do this other thing that's really not quite as important. Or, like I said earlier, I woke up that day and I don't really care about that today. I care about this with my kids or whatever that might be, or with friends or family, or you know, maybe it is the opposite. Maybe, you know, uh it's something I really do care about and need to get done for work. But nonetheless, I think that we get so wrapped up in, you know, our creative endeavors, things that we do career-wise. And then these days, unfortunately, I think a lot of people, what time they have left is often spent on social media or doing things where it's not quite IRL, right? Like you even said this earlier, like kind of detaching yourself from that stuff and just get out there and like, you know, live life a little bit. So I have to constantly remind myself of that. Like, life is not just work and what's on the internet and these things. Like, there are other things that I care about, and I need to be doing those things too. And I really should, you know, um, think about how I'm distributing my time, you know, in a very sincere and genuine sort of way. Um, so yeah.

SPEAKER_01 25:30

Especially for creators, people that are doing like uh I don't want to, I don't want to call it a side hustle, but are are you know working on some kind of content project simultaneous to their real life and their job and everything else that's going on? It can be very easy to we don't know anybody like that, do we? No, not at all. Um, it can be very easy for for it to just turn into one endless to-do list. And if all you're ever doing is looking down at the to-do list, crossing off the next thing, okay, what's next? What's next? What's next? And you never look up from it, then what does it matter if you've accomplished any of the things that are on that to-do list because you're missing them happening?

SPEAKER_00 26:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 26:19

I like it.

SPEAKER_00 26:20

Which ties in nicely with your last one.

SPEAKER_01 26:22

It does, it does.

SPEAKER_00 26:23

Look at that.

SPEAKER_01 26:24

And this is this is advice that is uh not not direct verbatim quote advice, but just behavior that I've noticed that I want to actively start emulating myself. Um, and it comes from Joe Casabona, who is a very, very great uh content entrepreneur. He he has a bunch of different things going on all the time. But what I know him best as is the he's always the first person that I see when I walk into any conference. I don't know how he's at all these conferences all the time, but I like I always see him at conferences.

SPEAKER_00 27:04

You mean like he's always hanging around the front door?

SPEAKER_01 27:07

No, like somehow or another, he's just always like we were joking about this at Creator Camp. I literally walked into the hotel at Creator Camp. I was alone in a car for 12 hours. I walk into the hotel, and the first person that I run into in the hotel lobby that isn't the valet car guy taking my car keys was Joe.

SPEAKER_00 27:30

It'd be cooler if he was the valet guy.

SPEAKER_01 27:32

That would have been great. That would have been funny. But he is somebody who is so good at every conference that I see him at, he he speaks to everybody there. And not in a way that feels like, oh, this person is is checking off the bingo card and just like running around and not having any meaningful engagement with anybody, or in a self-serving, like they're they're trying to network and it's like slimy and gross or whatever. But I just feel like every time I see him, he has like meaningful connections and engagement with different people from event to event and like is always helpful, is always genuine, is not just focused on what can I get from being here right now, but is also speaking to other people, yeah, offering help, offering insight, asking questions, participating. He shows up for other people and people show up for him.

SPEAKER_00 28:32

I think that one's hard. You have to be careful with that because I think some that that's a personality thing, first and foremost, with Joe. Although he may argue that, I don't know. But I I also know that Joe is also very friendly and warm and outgoing. There are others like me and potentially like you, where that's not necessarily our personality. And so, like you're saying, it's you really have to focus on. I'm not gonna be that person that's just gonna walk up to people randomly because it's not my personality. I'm very much an introvert. But what I do try to do is I I think is what you're saying here, is when I am engaged in conversation with people, I try to be focused on that conversation and as authentic, um, you know, and and sincere as I can be. Um, and I think that's the best I can do, right? And and so I think the advice really is just that. You might not be that person that, you know, like Joe, is the first person somebody sees every time. That's okay. But when you are engaged in a conversation, be in that conversation. Don't be thinking about other things or looking over at other people or wondering like who in the room could you skate over and talk to that could bring you, as you say, you know, something a little better in the way of a connection or not. Like if you're talking to somebody, be engaged with that person, be sincere, be authentic, give them that moment in time, or don't. Yes, and go.

SPEAKER_01 29:58

Absolutely, yes, because uh agreed, I am never gonna be, I'm never gonna be that much of an extrovert. And it would be inauthentic of me to try to do so. But I do feel like I'm very often at these conferences and events, or even just, you know, in in online, like speaking to people, like watching a a live podcast, and there's people in the chat that are all talking, and I will talk in the chat, but I won't talk to other people in the chat. And like, you know, I'm gonna try to apply this a little more in the future of like take the opportunities to have the meaningful conversations because that genuine connection is just as important as the things you're learning in that moment.

SPEAKER_00 30:45

Yeah, that's a lot.

SPEAKER_01 30:48

It is a lot. It's good advice, though.

SPEAKER_00 30:51

I think so. Anything else you want to say before we wrap it up?

SPEAKER_01 30:55

I don't know. You got anything else you want to share?

SPEAKER_00 30:58

No. Not that I feel would bring any value to this conversation.

SPEAKER_01 31:03

Well then I think we're good.

SPEAKER_00 31:04

We could talk about our weekends or upcoming Disney trips, or um, I'm sorry I even brought that up. No, never mind.

SPEAKER_01 31:13

I I think we're uh I think we wrap. I think we're good. I think we're good.

SPEAKER_00 31:18

Okay. So do all the things hit the like button, leave us a review.

SPEAKER_01 31:25

It's three years in.

SPEAKER_00 31:27

If you've been listening, it's 18 reviews.

SPEAKER_01 31:30

If you've been listening to this podcast, if this is your first episode, weird choice, but I respect and appreciate it. If it's not, I don't know, if you want to acknowledge a happy three-year anniversary to this podcast, please like, subscribe, leave a review, leave a comment, whatever, on your podcast channel of choice.

SPEAKER_00 31:56

Yeah, and at least grant us the the the creative license that we've taken on this. Uh, we recognize there's nothing publishing related in this podcast, but it was our three-year anniversary. So we decided we wanted to talk about you know a lot of the things that that help us keep going uh and to get to this three-year mark and beyond.

SPEAKER_01 32:14

I shared advice from a multi-time number one New York Times bestselling author. So, publishing related. Check the box.

SPEAKER_00 32:25

Fair enough. There you go. All right.

SPEAKER_01 32:28

Well, thanks for listening, even if this was your first episode or if you've been here for all three years. Thank you. And we'll be back next week with another new episode.

SPEAKER_00 32:38

Yeah. Later.

SPEAKER_01 32:39

Publish and Prosper is brought to you by Lulu.com. To learn more, visit publish prosperpodcast.com. For more episodes like this one, be sure to like and subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks for tuning in.