The 99 Authors Project – Season 6 – Episode 4 with Stephanie Paul25 min read

Bryan Hyde
Welcome to the Janine Bolon show, where we share tips from around the globe. As we guide practical people with their finances using money tips, increase their incomes through side businesses, and maintain their sanity by staying in their creative zone.

Janine Bolon
Hello, Janine Bolon here, welcome to today’s show where we bring you quality content on saving time, saving your money, saving your knowledge, and we hope you stay sane in this topsy turvy world that we’re in right now. The Janine Bolon show is the syndicated program of four podcasts programs that were combined in October of 2021. Three Minute Money Tips, The Thriving Solopreneur, The Writers Hour Creative Conversations and The Practical Mystic Show were all programs that we’re running since 2017, we’ve produced over 300 episodes interviewed over 250 guests, and today we will be spotlighting one of our authors that is contributing to our 12th book The 99 Authors Project. Stephanie Paul is with us today and she wrote her book as the key to powerful commanding leadership and speaking presence as can be attained not only through her training, but within the pages of the book unlock the magic of story. This particular book is a masterclass in the storytelling wrapped up in a captivating and you guessed it, entertaining stories. Here you can discover highly desirable skills to engage and influence your audience while having fun. Now she had me at that as soon as somebody says let’s have fun, I get excited. So you can see why I’m really happy that Stephanie is with us today. She has also developed a new and dynamic fresh, proven scientifically based technique and skills so that you can easily learn and be highly effective. All of this wrapped up in a beautiful person fabulous personality this woman has it all going on. Welcome to the show Stephanie.

Stephanie Paul
Oh my god that’s hilarious.

Janine Bolon
Wait till we get to the chapter on humor, chapter five.

Stephanie Paul
No, you know my mantra whenever I perform or record something on camera or speak to an audience. I have two mantras one is joyous, focused and relaxed. So when you get a little bit nervous, it only means that you care. So I just chant, joyous, focused and relaxed, let’s be joyous, focused, and relaxed. Puts me in this mood. And the other one is, how can I make this more fun? So when I’m approaching conversation, or training and interview, a meeting, whatever it is going to a conference, I just look for the ways to make it more fun, you know, and and keep myself entertained. Because I’m a firm believer, if you’re not having fun neither is your audience.

Janine Bolon
It’s quite true. If you’re not enjoying the journey of whatever you happen to be on. I totally agree. So I would love to start off with you have this unlock the magic of the story, how to use neuroscience secrets to engage and influence any audience. And I remember when I first reached out to you, you kind of had a little bit of a freakout. I’m being overdramatic on purpose, people, she’s fine. But she had a little bit of a challenge because she’s like, I don’t think I’m appropriate for your story. I don’t think all these questions that you’re going to be asking me, I don’t I don’t have answers for those. And there’s a reason why. So please share with us the story behind your story. And why you were like, wait a minute, I didn’t do this the way that you think I did it Janine. So go ahead and talk to us a little bit about your book and the writing of it.

Stephanie Paul
Yeah, so you had this list of questions that that really sort of drill down into marketing and planning and strategy. And I kind of didn’t have any of those. I, this is how it’s this is how it went down. So I had two clients of mine independently, without realizing, challenge me in the same week to write a book. Now, they, you know, one of them was just like, you just need to like to write a 12 page book or something like a you know, like a PDF that you can sell online or download for free or whatever. And I was like, no, no, no, no, that’s not how I roll. I wouldn’t call you know, I didn’t feel comfortable with it. And then the other one said, you know, you really need to start, right, you need to write a book about what you do, and all that kind of stuff. And because they challenged me, I was like, okay, fine. So I started writing this book, you know, a few days later.

Stephanie Paul
And then I was training at the human behavior conference in Florida in a couple of months from that particular time. And they reached out to me and said, hey, do you have a book to market at the conference? And I was like, no, but I will. So because I knew that when people start something, they often don’t have a deadline, they don’t finish or you know, they procrastinate, all that kind of stuff. So I use the challenge to start and I use the conference to have the deadline. And I literally finished the book and had the graphics and everything completed the night before the conference started. I finished it in my hotel room. And you know, at that point, it was just a PDF. It was just a PDF because I didn’t there’s no way I had the time frame to like get it into an actual book format in.

Stephanie Paul
But then the second challenge was after that is I decided I was going to put it into a book. Once again, I know myself well enough to know that I needed a deadline. And I was speaking at MIT in front of an alumni group of entrepreneurs. And I thought it was best opportunity to actually get the book finished, bound, and in a box to hand out at this presentation where I’m speaking. And a colleague of mine had a woman who had basically she was a, she’s a publishing manager, she was amazing. Help him finish his book. And he introduced me to her. And I said to him, look, here’s the deal. I know that I’m going to give you an unrealistic deadline. But I know we’re going to make this. So I met her six weeks before I went to MIT and spoke at the front of that organization. And she said, I really, really don’t think we’re going to be able to do this. And I’m a believer in the power of manifestation and positive belief. And I said, don’t worry, you, you give me all the deadlines you need, I will deliver everything on time, if not early. And I’m just going to believe that we’re gonna rock this.

Stephanie Paul
Five weeks later, we finished the book, even the what do they call the indexer, the indexer finished a week early, she she was like spellbound. She’s like, I can’t believe he’s, he’s always late, I can’t believe he handed it in early. And I just said to her remember, at the beginning, when I was talking, I said, I’m going to move mountains to make sure this happens energetically. So as you could tell, there wasn’t a lot of strategy there. She taught me a lot going on, you know, like how to prepare for the Amazon thing and all that kind of stuff. But I mean, I really wrote the book for my clients, I really wrote the book for people who want to learn how to engage and influence an audience better not in a negative way, just in an articulate way. And, and I just, I found that this is that’s where the book short and entertaining is because I wanted to sort of download my brain and have them understand my starting point when I work with them. And if they had just a short book there, where they could read some powerful stories and understand the biology and the neuroscience behind communication, they sort of got it from the cornerstone. And I didn’t have to explain all that stuff. Does that make sense? So that’s the way the book was really written. And the marketing and things like that is just a bonus. People have read the book, people have invited me to go on podcasts, people are asking me to speak in front of groups. I do not ever say that I am a sales guru in any way, shape, or form. But I’ve had a phenomenal amount of interest from the sales training community. They’re like, this is like, you’ve been teaching old dogs new tricks, and you know, all that kind of stuff. So I’m like, okay, I’m reading the book, go where the book goes. So be it. But that’s my marketing strategy.

Janine Bolon
And you’re right, I actually did target a lot of those questions, I was trying to learn what works. And this is the reason why for the 99 Author Project, the more authors I’ve interviewed, the more I realized that there’s no silver bullet, there’s no one right way. And if you do X, Y, and Z, your book will sell and you will be as captivating and as entertaining as any other author. There is no such thing. And I think it’s because every author is writing to a different demographic. The message we have is specifically for a certain demographic, and the more we understand ourselves and our writing, the better it will be. And so you and one other author in the book also had the same mindset where I wrote this, so that I could get my clients to understand more about what I do. Therefore, I’m not saying the same thing over and over, and she’s nodding her head. Exactly. Thank you, Stephanie. For all those great nonverbal cues. But anyway, so you kind of answered a lot of the questions about you know, I didn’t have a marketing background, that wasn’t my intent to sell, you know, selling books was never the purpose of it. It was more for educational, but I do have a couple of questions for you. And that is, how long did it take you before you could call yourself an author without cringing?

Stephanie Paul
You know, that’s really funny because I, my writing my writing background, I started with stand up comedy so I started probably in reverse for most people like what the shortest form of writing sentences or sit up and punch, and then I went into sketch comedy writing. And then I ended up writing for publication in Europe and a lot of my stuff was comedic based but some of it was travel. And I even have a professional award winning writer who she wrote writes for The Wall Street Journal New York Times. I mean, she’s she’s, like, proficient, like, the real legit. Read something that I wrote. And she’s like, oh, Stephanie, I had no idea you were such an eloquent writer. I wish I had the strength and vulnerability of your voice because she goes, you don’t care. She goes, you really write how you feel. And I was like, wow, I guess I’m a writer.

Janine Bolon
Yeah, I hear you.

Stephanie Paul
Because it came from a professional writer. I was like, well, maybe I am a writer? And then, oddly enough, somebody else I know who’s connected to her who was a director, very well known director does a lot of stuff at the Muppets. I’ll never forget when he said something to me about my writing, because he actually directed some of my sketch comedy. He was he’s a good friend of mine, who was kind enough to come and direct some of the sketch comedy I wrote that we shot. And I remember him saying something about me as a writer. And I said, no, I said to him, sorry, I’m not a writer. I mean, I know I’ve written stand up and stuff, but I’m not a writer. And he was so confused. I’ll never forget the look on his face. He was like, how, what?

Stephanie Paul
By the time I got to writing my book, I was very comfortable with calling myself an author, because I had slipped into my shoes, and I was wearing my shoes, my writing shoes, and I and I, and I’m a writer, and I, and I’ve been a writer, probably most of my life. It’s something that’s innately built into me, I enjoy doing it. And it flows pretty naturally. And I write for my clients, you know, I write my clients speeches, and I, I dare I say it, I have a talent for writing in somebody else’s voice. So I’ve, I’ve been gifted with the ability to do that. And I know, the first time I truly understood it was when I had to write a speech for a girl who had been trafficked from the age of 11 until she was 16. And she was terrified. And it was a TED talk. And I was producing the database and TEDx. And she was terrified of me writing because she couldn’t get her speech in the format. And I had to keep her in that 15 minute, 18 minute format. And I said to her, you know, she said, no, you know, everything’s been taken from it. But the only thing I have now is my words. I’m terrified to allow you to write the speech. And I was like, oh, my God.

Janine Bolon
No pressure.

Stephanie Paul
And I ended up writing her a 16 minute speech, I used her words, I interviewed her for six hours, I spent 27 hours writing her speech. During the research, I cried. God knows how many times because of her stories, and I finally got the speech, three quarters of the way through, and I texted her, I said, look, I just need you to read what I’ve got before I finish it, because I want to make sure I haven’t taken you know, your words away from you that it is you and it’s in your voice. And it’s also in the TED X format, that I have to follow. As she read it and she was like, oh, my God, I want use her terminology. Because it starts with an F and ends with, you know, she was like, you’re dead effing on my voice. This is awesome. And I was like, wow, okay, I think I have, I think I have a knack for this. And then I subsequently done it for a lot of clients. And they’re always surprised. So yes, I’m a writer, and I’m proud to say so.

Janine Bolon
I love it. I love it. So what most surprised you about the whole book publishing process?

Stephanie Paul
The indexing thing. But just getting the all the references and the indexing and the you know, because I reference other people, I reference scientists, I reference all kinds of stuff in the book, and we did it with QR codes and things like that, so that you know, or URLs and things people could look up. That part is not my expertise, and it was a little annoying to you know, like, make sure that that’ll work. So I was finally when we actually I hired an indexer. Well, my managing publisher did that, that was super helpful. Yeah, cuz, I mean, I never thought about the, you know, what goes in the front of the book and in the back of the book, and you know, in the appendix and you know, I just, I just write a book, you know, I’m the storyteller. So that was probably most surprising to me is all the little i’s and T’s you’ve got a dot and cross to make it look like a professional book.

Janine Bolon
It is shocking I remember my first book the same way I had been reading my entire life. I love books. I have a whole collection, like you, whole collection of books. And yet you find yourself going to your favorite books going, oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Just look at how a book is formatted. So I definitely understand that. So, have you ever tried any kind of a process to sell your books that ended up being an epic failure? Or because you have written your book specifically for your clients, you really didn’t have ideas that fell short for you.

Stephanie Paul
I don’t think I really had any ideas that fell short, because I didn’t out of the gate, I wasn’t trying to be the next Stephen King, you know, or I mean, don’t get me wrong if I sell a million copies. I’m like woo hoo! I am just super impressed that I got on Amazon.

Janine Bolon
Yeah, I hear you. I hear.

Stephanie Paul
Everybody keeps saying where’s the audible and of course, I write the way I speak. And I I’m, I blessed that a lot of my friends have read the book. Like it’s, it’s, I can just hear your voice as I’m reading the book, I hear your voice talking. And because of that, I know I have to do the audible myself but I mean, you know, and because of my background, and the way I tell stories, and the acting out and the voices and characters and stuff like that, from my background that I can do, I have to do that. And so. And of course, coming from a film and production background, I, I’m gonna produce it like it’s gonna have sound effects. It’s gonna sound like a movie. You know, it’s not gonna, I had another colleague of mine, who’s a perfect, amazing author. I read one of his books on audible. And it was, it sounded like a movie and without watching the visuals, and I was just like, this is how I have to do my book I have to do.

Janine Bolon
Well, one of the things I always say to people, when they say, oh, when is your book coming out on Audible? I’m like, I’m a self published author. So when you cough up the $1,800, it’s going to take me to get it on Audible, I’ll be glad to and they go, what? I’m like, yeah, and think of the royalties, I don’t get the entire $40 you pay for the books, and some of them are down now to $10. I still, I still wonder how people aren’t making money. They’re actually selling things lower than cost. And I just don’t know how people are doing it. But so I always, I always educate my people and say, well, as soon as as soon as that 1800 to $2,100 enters my account, I will be happy to produce the audio book on that. video. Well, tell us a little bit about what was one of the things you may have misunderstood about being an author like what was different? Because see, you went from writing in everybody else’s voice. What was the one thing you misunderstood about writing your own story? If you even had any of that?

Stephanie Paul
The introduction, the introduction.

Janine Bolon
I love it. That’s great.

Stephanie Paul
I had I was really fortunate I the weekend before. And I think I think in the acknowledgments, I think my friends for this the weekend before I was going to publish, I sent my manuscript to 24 of my friends, and 12 of them actually read it and gave me feedback. And one of them is just recently, I mean, he’s got like eight books, and he writes the foreword, actually, my friend Christopher had Agni, his feedback was like Stephanie, there’s no story in the introduction. He goes you’re writing a book about storytelling and there’s no story in your introduction, it’s just facts. And I was like, oh, I didn’t think about it. Because I had, I Googled how to write an introduction for a book, right. And I followed the format for, you know, verbatim. But I never wrote a story in there. And he sent me, he was actually in the process of being published in HarperCollins. And he and he was like, here, you’re not allowed to share this with anybody. And this is a confidential because my book has not published yet, but read my introduction, and that’s what’s missing. And I was like, okay, so I read his introduction. I was like, oh, boom. Yeah, and I found that silly to read a book about storytelling and no story in my introduction.

Janine Bolon
You would not be the first author nor will you be the last who messes up in one way or the other like, I had one lady who is a murder mystery expert. And she talks about to this day how she had written this beautiful first chapter and second chapter and basically her editor came in and went, you don’t need that first chapter, get rid of it. The book doesn’t start till chapter two, and we’re gonna keep the rest of it. She was devastated because she had spent most of her time on the first chapter. And what she didn’t realize is it was all fluff. She really needed just to get into the meat of the story. So we all make our mistakes. I mean, we all we all make them well, and they’re not mistakes. I mean, it’s like, you’ve never been an author before. It’s not in my mind. It’s not a mistake. So I’ve never done this before somebody coach me. Have I done it before? And I would love to know, what is your biggest reward that you’ve had about being an author? For you?

Stephanie Paul
Honestly, it’s a little pampering my ego, but it’s having people read it and say it was one of the funnest, most entertaining short format books that they’ve read in a while that they actually learned tangible skills and tools from. That is probably my favorite aspect of the book. Because, you know, as a, as an author, as a writer, or as any kind of sort of honest, putting yourself out there is super vulnerable, and you feel super naked. And a lot of the time people don’t give you the positive feedback, they give you the negative feedback. Oh, this is alright. So having , I mean, having strangers that I don’t even know, write amazing reviews on Amazon. Like, just stuff like that, you know,

Stephanie Paul
I almost cry like it’s like, oh. And I mean, I dedicated the book to my mother, she’s passed, she passed over, before I got to write the book. And my father would always argue with her about, you know, when she’s going to give up this crazy, you know, performing arts thing and get a real job? And my mother supported me wholeheartedly, all the way through. So now that I’m working in the corporate world with corporate clients, you know, it’s kind of dad definitely backed off at some point. But you know, both my parents are gone. But, you know, that’s kind of my pat on the back, like, yes, he did. I did it. My dad authored 14 books that were in my library at my college, and, but so I’m the other writer in my family, author, my family.

Janine Bolon
That’s fabulous. That’s wonderful news to hear. And I always say to an author, it’s really difficult to really pamper your ego, because your editor is going to be right behind you with your next book. So it’s like anything we can do to help each other with our egos, I think is a good thing.

Stephanie Paul
I’m gonna just jump on there. My editors, every single one of them, because there were multiple editors on the book, all wanted to write my jokes out. And I was like, no, no, no, no, no, it’s, it’s grammatically incorrect, but it’s written as a joke. You cannot write and you cannot correct the grammar on this particular thing, because it’s an actual joke.

Janine Bolon
That is so true. That is so true. They want to get in there and start messing and there are times where it’s like, absolutely not. And we used to have my editor and I had a joke. We called him sacred cows and I would highlight the areas that were sacred cows and then she would have to really, she would have to really argue with me before I would make a change if I felt like you know, the reader was going to struggle or something but a joke I totally agree with you. I totally agree that would be a problem. Where can people find out more about you and what you do Stephanie?

Stephanie Paul
On LinkedIn, linkedin.com forward slash Stephanie Paul Inc, I-N-C standing for Incorporated. Facebook is the same facebook.com forward slash. And if you want a free downloadable, you can go to my website Stephanie Paul inc.com forward slash gift, g-i-f-t sorry, powerful gift. Powerful gift, the number four and the letter “U”. So powerful gift 4 U is the URL for a free download. And in a little little insight to my book, this is similar tips in there basically the 12 Powerful Presentation Tips to Presenting you know powerfully so that doesn’t that sound terrible that delivery, but.

Janine Bolon
That’s quite alright. Stephanie, you and I have we’ve had a day and so we’re just making it happen today. So anything, any last words or any golden tips or gold nuggets you want to leave with us today?

Stephanie Paul
I think for me, the most powerful story you’ll ever tell is the one between your ears. And you know, the mindset and belief system that we have is everything. With any goal that you have, with anything that you want to achieve. Even if it’s just getting out of bed in the morning, you know, and you’re having a rough day. Just putting your feet on the floor and saying to yourself today is a good day to have a good day and I’m gonna get my a into g. You know. That’s I think that’s the most important aspect of storytelling. And because even if you’re a phenomenal writer, but you can’t articulate that, you know, reading out loud for some people is really difficult. So that’s sort of all on the brain. It’s the negative chatter that we have for ourselves. And I think the more we work on that, the easier everything else gets. It’s just my biggest tip I can probably give you today.

Janine Bolon
Thank you so much for being with us and for being a spotlighted author.

Stephanie Paul
Thank you.

Janine Bolon
And if you are an author or you know of an author that you would like us to spotlight, please visit our website at author podcasting.com where you will find the 99 Author Project listed. We talk to authors from all walks of life as we build out book number two, which is Advice from Authors to Authors in 2023. And this is Janine Bolon signing off with you today. And all of us here at the 8Gates, that produces, the Janine Bolon Show. We wish you a wonderful week and encourage you to get your message, your story or your knowledge out into the world. Make it a better place just like these authors are that we’re interviewing this year. We’ll see you again next week. And until then you keep sharing what you know with others. You keep shining that light that is you and don’t forget to go out today and do something for yourself that’s just plain fun. We’ll see you next week.

Bryan Hyde
Thank you for listening to the Janine Bolon show. Be sure to subscribe to our show notes by going to www.theJanineBolonshow.com, where you’ll find additional resources as well as the opportunity to sign up to receive our program in your email each week. Be sure to visit our sponsor at www.the8gates.com.