Overcoming Limiting Beliefs: Writing Your Book with Confidence (with Meg Calvin)

Welcome to the Frugalpreneur podcast.

I'm your host, Sarah St.

John, and my guest today helps fellow coaches and business owners write, market, and sell their Amazon bestselling books.

Welcome to the show, Meg Calvin.

We beat the tech gremlins and we beat the crappy weather.

We're here together.

We have been.

Both of us have been dealing with weather issues, power outages, my Microsoft.

I got a new mic.

It's gone out.

My earphones are.

Anyway, but we're here and we're ready to get started.

Yes.

So, yeah, I'd love to hear your backstory and how you got into, like, books and marketing books and writing books and all of that.

I love.

I love sharing this story.

Like all coaches and business owners that come on your show and other guests, there's been dots being connected my whole life that.

Have you experienced that in your life, too, that it all makes sense now, where you are looking back?

Yeah, it does.

It's like in the moment, it doesn't make sense, but then when you get to a certain spot and you look back, it does.

Yeah, a hundred.

A hundred percent.

There's been divine breadcrumbs, if you will.

And.

Yeah, so I was in the.

The ministry, actually, from age 17 to 32.

I was on a paid.

I was a paid church staff person, and I loved building healthy volunteer teams, and I loved.

I loved writing, and I went to seminary and studied pastoral care and curriculum development.

And then when I was.

When I was 28, my grandmother, who was a missionary and a very strong influence on my life, she took me to an Enneagram retreat, a somatic retreat.

Have I assume you've heard of the Enneagram?

Yeah.

Yes.

What are you?

I believe I'm a six, if I recall correctly.

Yes, I'm in love with a six.

I'm married a six.

So I.

The loyal.

The loyal skeptic.

Oh, my gosh.

It makes perfect sense.

You're doing this podcast helping people save money and be smart with their finances.

Yes, I am the opposite.

Not the almost the opposite.

My husband and I compliment each other so much.

I'm the three, the performer and achiever.

So when I went on this Enneagram retreat, after all the crying and healing and moving and transmuting energy from childhood stuff, the facilitator said, this question is so simple.

But for an enneagram3, it was a monumental question.

She asked me, meg, what is one thing you could do all day and if no one ever knew you did it and no one was there to applaud you, you would still have fun doing it and you would feel pleasure.

What is that thing?

And I knew it Even before the part of my brain that puts words to things, I knew it.

And that was writing.

And I want, I wanted to write and I wanted to become a mom.

And so the next two years after that moment, I, I did, I did just that.

I did those things.

So like a book does, if someone wants it to, a book opened the doors for me to start speaking at conferences and started coaching with the International Network of Children's Ministry, Preventing burnout and compassion fatigue.

And I was, as I was at these conferences, other overly committed Christians, as I call them, would come up to me and they, they were the leaders obviously in the church and they would whisper, almost with a hint of shame, they would like whisper these book ideas.

They were the most helpful healing books in the world.

But they would never come out of the author because they were so afraid of can I trust my desires as safe?

Can I monetize this?

Is it egotistical and greedy to want to market it well, to want to monetize it?

Am I smart enough?

There were all of these limiting beliefs blocking these amazing healing transformational leaders in the world.

And that literally not sound overdramatic.

It broke my heart.

And so I worked, got to work on my second book.

Book.

And at the same time as I was working on that spirit was leading me and my own desires were leading me that I wanted more of this.

I wanted to help unblock the transformational leaders of the world and I wanted to help shine their brand brighter and help them write their books that would help other people.

And that was so in 2020, I launched my business and I've had the privilege of serving 65 one on one clients and about 50 in my online courses.

I have a team of six, six people under me now.

We do everything authors need to write, market, sell an Amazon bestseller on Kindle Paperback and Audible.

So I started I'm going to land the plane.

I my target audience was originally lots of pastors and counselors.

And then like, you know, all entrepreneurs evolve.

Anything healthy evolves.

So thank.

It's been fun the past five years that now my clientele is coaches and business owners from all over the theological spectrum.

But they're in that transformational space.

Yeah, that's awesome.

I actually I've written, I don't know, four or five books, like self published them and just kind of did it all on my own.

Well like the first book is called frugalpreneur and so I was actually in like a Dave Ramsey financial peace class, and he's talking about all these ways to save money, pay off debt.

And I'm thinking, okay, all these things are great, but what about ways to make more money to kind of help with that?

And so I had been trying a bunch of different online business models and ways to make money online and whatever, and I was like, well, I should write a book about the different ways to make money online and how to do it on a budget.

And then the book turned into a podcast and anyway, and I self published the book.

So then I wrote a book about self publishing and then I wrote another book about podcasting.

Actually two books about podcasting.

But yeah, so it's just like.

But my books are very short.

They're like maybe 60 to 80 pages.

Like you could read them in an hour type thing.

But yeah, so I, but I love, I feel like, especially for business owners, but really, anyone like what you're talking about, like pastors or coaches or anyone?

I think it's good to have a book because it helps give you more authority and credibility.

100%, yes.

You were so wise to write a book because I'm sensing in the years ahead, we're going to have more boundaries for our emotional health with social media and technology.

So in my opinion, this is my business.

Shark intuition talking.

The best way.

One of the.

If you feel called and led to write a book, only if, then if you feel called to write a book, then it's an amazing way to grow your online business because it helps you exist offline.

You are the touch point on their bedside table.

You are the touch point in the driver's seat or the shotgun seat in their truck.

They see your name on the book and they reminded, oh, this is an.

This is a trusted guide in the trenches.

This is, like you said, an authority.

I, I can come to.

But existing offline is massive for your growth.

If you feel led to write a book.

So that's amazing that you've done that so many, so many times.

One of the things that you talk about are the five lies that keep you from writing your book.

And I'm curious to hear what those lies are.

Do you want me to just tell you the five lies sentences and then you tell me which one you want me to unpack?

Oh, sure.

Yeah, that could work.

Yeah.

So number one is it's not the right time.

Number two is my work is not original.

Number three is my desire to write it is egotistical.

Number four is I can't sit still long enough to write a book.

I'm not, I'm not that introspective scholar.

I can't sit still long enough to write the book.

And the last one is I'm not smart enough.

And, and then there's a bonus one that is a bonus lie, which is if I write this book, I'll lose the respect of those that love me and I won't be okay if I, if I do write this book.

Oh, now that's interesting.

I guess that would be more relevant to people who are maybe writing about a difficult topic that they're not maybe comfortable with the whole world potentially knowing about or something like that.

I guess.

Yes, we.

I see it lots in memoir writing for sure.

Also in the, the nonfiction space with, with life coaches that might have some personal philosophies that are kind of countercultural, but they seen that disrupting thought patterns served their one on one clients.

So now they're going to put those secrets in a book form and like, oh gosh, I could be burned at the stake for if this comes out in public.

So but you're right, most of the time it is definitely in memoir more than nonfiction, 100%.

That first point, though, about now is not the right time.

I'd love for you to talk more about that because I think that's kind of an excuse everybody makes about everything.

It's like there's never a right time for anything really.

Hate.

Yes, yes, yes, yes.

I'm reminded of this amazing book that of course I can't think of the title right now.

And it matters, but it teaches the principle of instead of but put.

And.

And so a simple example is back in the day when cell phones maybe mid, maybe 2000 and tens church youth groups were wanting kids to be in their bibles more.

And so we want kids to be in our bible more, but they're on their cell phones all the time.

So the book teaches to replace that but with an and we want teenagers in the Bible more.

And they're on their cell phones all the time, so what can we do about that?

Oh, and thus they invented all the apps we have now.

And so looking at.

Looking at your own whatever story is running, I want to write my book, but my daughter is extremely talented, speaking from experience in musicals and dancing and voice lessons like she's so flipping busy.

And so instead of replacing that but with an and so now I'm thinking instead of this or that, thinking there's always a third way, there's always a third alternative.

It just Takes a little brain power to think about it.

And so for this example, with someone that has a very busy kid, which a lot of my.

A lot.

All my clients, but a lot of them are parents or grandparents, so they're busy with those kids or grandkids.

It's okay.

What would writing my book look like while my daughter's at voice lessons?

Oh, I could talk to text and walk a lap around the studio and literally talk my book into being and then upload it to my words.

Upload it to ChatGPT or Claude and say, keep my words, honor my tone, but punctuate the heck out of this thing.

Get rid of all the times I said, scratch that.

And so there you go.

And so there's lots of getting in that mindset of replacing, but makes it the right time.

And then the.

The last point I always make on that lie is if someone says it's not the right time, but the books talking to them louder and louder.

I have the belief that the book is doing that because it's talking louder.

It's coming out of hibernation because people outside of you, their need for your book, with your exact style and scars and curation abilities that you've put the book together, their need for your book is growing.

And with that, the book idea will talk louder.

And so if the.

If it's whispering more to you and coming up more to you, that is another sign that it is the right time.

Yeah, I agree with that.

And then that other point you made about people thinking that their book isn't original, I don't know if that would kind of tie into, like, imposter syndrome or something.

Like, maybe other people have written a book on a similar topic and they have a bigger platform or background or more education or bigger whatever that definitely.

Is a part of imposter syndrome.

Yes.

I just finished the first draft of my third book and it's been two years in the making.

And I'm.

It's fiction.

I've never done fiction before.

I'm learning the game, and I send it off at 11:23pm last Wednesday night to a group of about nine other writers that I admire to workshop the heck out of this thing with me.

I was on cloud nine Wednesday at 11:23pm but when I woke up Thursday morning, it came in that imposter syndrome.

Who do I think I am to write this?

What are they going to think of it?

I have eight little tips that I always share about imposter syndrome.

Oh, yeah, I would love.

I would love to Hear those tips.

I'll just say them all, and you could come back to whatever you want to.

Recognize the shift that we're in right now from the age of information to the age of intuition.

And what that means is people don't want to give you money.

They don't want to make a monetary value exchange until they respect you, trust you, and relate to you.

So that kind of goes into number two.

Number two, understand that your frequency, who you are, and the space that you hold through your book or your podcast, your frequency matters more than your content.

Just you being you is more than enough.

Number three, question the inner critic constructively.

And coming home to the fearful voice that I had that morning after I gave it to my.

My team to workshop it.

Whose voice is that?

It's 99.9%.

The inner critic is never our target audience.

I realized that stat made no sense because I gave us number and then I said never.

But it's true.

It's.

It's you.

You can usually pinpoint whose voice it is, and it's usually someone from your past that you worked really hard to impress or appease.

And they're still in here.

And they're.

But they're not your target audience.

And.

And so I got to thank my brain for being a.

Thank you, the part of me that's afraid.

Thank you for trying to keep me safe.

We are safe.

I'm going to put fear in the baby seat in the car seat behind me, but I'm going to beat the steering wheel as the soul in control.

Number three is questioning your inner critic constructively.

Coming home to the truth that it's not your target audience.

And thank your brain for keeping you safe.

Number four, acknowledge what you already know.

And so what I love to do is make a truth table, and that is these.

You draw a table.

And at the top is in my situation, this, this third book is going to help people.

It's going to help a lot of people.

I even use the word.

It's going to help thousands of people heal.

It's going to help thousands of people trust their desires as safe.

It's going to help thousands of people come back home to their bodies and bring their bodies back into the conversation of their choices.

And so that I wrote that in the top of the table, the tabletop.

And then you draw 10 legs on the table, and within each of those legs, you're gonna put evidence, facts of why this is true.

Acknowledge what you know.

Acknowledge the evidence of why this book is going to be a gift to People.

Number five, check your authenticity and intention.

Ask yourself, do I genuinely care for the people this book will help?

Is my frequency authentic and kind?

Do I want to serve with sincerity?

And so if the answer to that is is yes, then it's service based and not so much about being the best and greatest.

Number six, remember that readers need your voice.

They don't need a guru with perfect credentials.

They need someone real who shows up authentically to guide them through their challenges.

Number seven, I kind of already said this, right?

Despite the fear, the longer you wait for someday when you're qualified enough, the more your self esteem drops and negative self talk increases.

I always think of Amy Poehler, the queen.

I always think of her quote, I.e.

i always butcher it though.

She believes that great people do things before they're ready.

And she has said every, every pivotal moment in her phenomenal career.

She never felt ready, but she did it anyway.

She was almost ready, but she wasn't.

She didn't feel a hundred percent ready.

And so I love that, doing things before you're ready.

And then number eight, the last one, trust that the idea chose you.

And I had this belief too that the book has a divine energy to it.

And if people don't like the word divine, I'll just say mystical or intangible.

There is a unseen energy to creativity, to books.

And I have the belief that the book chose the author.

And so if the book concept is coming to you, there's likely a reason.

And so come home.

And that truth rests in that truth that the book chose you.

And honor that connection between the book, you and the future readers that are all a part of the right now to be writing it.

Oh wow.

I never really thought of it that way.

That the book chooses you.

That's pretty cool.

I, I have you read.

I haven't read it.

I need to.

Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert, huh?

Me neither.

But I need to.

I loved your first book.

But apparently in that book she says that I disagree with her on this.

She says that an idea will come to you and if you don't act on it, it will leave you and go to someone else to carry it out.

And then two weeks later you'll see the idea and think, I had that idea.

I disagree with it.

What, what do you think?

Do you agree with that?

Well, it kind of brings to mind and I don't know if this is actually, I always think of these inventions.

So I, I'm good.

Like I can create content and stuff, but I don't know the first Thing about actually creating, like, product, for example, and I don't have the money for it or whatever, but I always think of these things, but I don't do anything with it because I don't know the first thing about it.

But then literally a month later, maybe a year later, that exact thing comes out and I'm like, if I had just like the idea of Siri, I actually thought of before it existed.

Not that I wasn't the first person to think of it.

I'm just saying, like, before it even was a thing, because I remember, like, it would be so nice if I could drive, but, like, use my voice to text someone.

There's been other things too.

I can't think of them off top of my head, but, like, ideas that I have, like inventions or products, but I don't do anything with it.

And then they come out and I'm.

Like, man, I almost wonder.

It has to do with the collective conscious.

Oh, maybe around us.

I want to disagree with Mrs.

Gilbert, although she's amazing at everything she does.

I want to disagree with her because I hate the idea of someone thinking, oh, it's too late.

Because it's never too late.

This is why I'm not a ghostwriter.

I've been offered to be one.

No, thank you.

I really believe that the book chose that exact author, with that exact style, with that.

Those exact scars to birth it.

And.

And so that's why I also think the book will.

The book idea will wait on us, even if it has to hibernate a bit, until we're ready to create it, until it knows that we're ready.

And so I disagree with that.

Who knows how I'll feel a year from now.

But right now I disagree with that belief.

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You mentioned ghostwriting, which made me think this has nothing to do with it, but it kind of just brought up what are your thoughts on like using AI to help with someone writing a book?

This is such a good question.

And I just went to a conference over large language models, which I did not know what that meant until I went to the conference.

It's a fancy word for chat, GBT and tools and Claude and things like or Gemini.

It was mind blowing to me.

It one of the biggest takeaways that I took from it was for the first time ever, I'm going to butcher this.

The presenter said it so well.

For the first time ever, I'm trying to say it like you said, for the first time ever you can have someone that is in generational poverty, no college degree and they could craft the same query or professional email as someone who has a doctoral degree and is in generational wealth.

It's from old money and that is it's revolutionizing the world.

That blew my mind.

And then I'm reminded, oh this is a very for writers, for the people I work with and myself.

We view writing like seconds on cake.

We want more of it.

The pleasure, the process.

The whole process is pleasurable for us.

So we don't want to give it all away to AI.

And at the same time we do a massive amount of emails, we do a massive amount of creating a caption for a real I just made it can be such a time saver for the administrational task.

I realize you're thinking, Meg, I didn't ask you about it.

I asked you about books.

So I'm getting to that.

I'm getting.

You can tell I've grappled with this for so many months because there's the question of is it ethical?

I imagine if when that big old Texas Ti something calculator came in, I was in high school school in 2000-2004.

It wasn't new then, but I remember being given one of those giant calculators and thinking what's going to just do the work for me?

Is it.

Is it ethical for me to even use this?

And then realizing oh it.

I have to know math to be able to use this calculator.

And the same thing happened when the Internet came out.

Is it ethical to use the Internet to write a paper and not an encyclopedia when cars came out?

Oh, I feel bad I'm taking a Model T Ford to my grandmother's when I could walk there and take five hours longer.

I think a very similar conversation that humanity has always had when new inventions come after much thinking and playing and using the tool the past month, because I was.

I was anti it.

I was.

I'm not.

I'm not ever touching this.

I'm a writer.

So the la.

I went to this conference and I talked to lots of people and I played with it myself with Claude and I realized, oh my gosh, this is such a time saver.

Here's why that I have served in the past that phenomenally successful and did not use any punctuation or capitalize anything.

And so it was just stream of conscious writing.

So this person was.

They were meeting their word count goal every week.

Because that's something I do is with clients is we work out a weekly goal to celebrate and hold them accountable to.

There was thousands of thousands of words with no punctuation and no capitalized letters.

So it was such a time saver.

If I could have been able to upload it and say, punctuate this.

Don't change a word.

Honor my tone.

That's massively helpful.

And then as a writing partner, if you think about.

I want to use a metaphor in this scene to show that this character was cocky in this meeting.

What bird puffs up.

And then I'm thinking, oh, I does a peacock?

Maybe a peacock puffs up.

Clawd does a peacock puff up when it's cocky.

And Claude is saying, here's a sentence that describes your character as being cocky.

So in that kind of dance, as a writing partner, it can be helpful.

And the last thing I'll say so using it.

I love to use it that way for those things.

Punctuate this, edit this, Give me a metaphor that feels like this because I.

I'm as.

And then it'll give me an idea and I'll think, oh, that feels good.

Oh, that doesn't feel good.

But it made me think of this.

So thank you, Claude.

But what I have noticed also from my experience is thank you for your patience with this long answer is one of my favorite shows of all time is on prime called Mozart in the Jungle.

And it's about this.

It's about a real oboist.

Blair can't think of her last name.

So sorry.

But it's a beautiful, it's a beautiful show about this symphony.

They bring in a new young director from Mexico.

He's gorgeous.

And he is auditioning musicians from behind a sheet.

And no, no, no.

None of these musicians are.

And these are world class musicians.

He doesn't like any of them.

And he says none of the musicians, none of them play with the blood.

None of them play with blood.

Play with the blood.

And so like this visceral feeling is what he wants.

Of course, this passion.

And from my experience, I did have a client that came to me with a book.

It was finished because I have different packages.

So you can come with the finished book or just an idea on a napkin and we'll take it from there.

And they had a, they said, this is a finished book.

And I was like, awesome.

And I looked through, through the first three pages and I told them, because coaches are.

People pay to collide with me.

They pay to have a hard question asked.

So I said to them, this book reads like Clippy.

And they said, what?

I said, do you remember Clippy on Microsoft word in the 90s, early thousands that would pop up and help you.

Clippy.

I said, that's what your book reads like.

Did you use CHAT GBT to write this entire book?

And the answer, of course was yes.

And I felt it and I could see it.

So there's that it's missing the blood part until.

And so landing the plane 17 hours later.

It can be an amazing tool to free you up so you can focus just on your zone of genius.

As a writer who would want to let it replace them if they really enjoy.

If writing is like seconds on cake, which it is for the writers I serve and for myself.

And then knowing that at the large language model, the conference, the presenter said, it sucks at poetry.

It doesn't have the.

It has an impressive brain, but it's still not human.

Was any of that helpful?

As you can tell, I've been grappling with this myself.

Oh yeah, no, it was definitely like, don't maybe let it write the whole book for you.

But here and there with little prompts and stuff to help kind of get your juices flowing or like how to phrase something better maybe, or something like that.

And I realize there's tons of companies out there, not Claude, not ChatGPT, but other ones that publishing AI or something.

And they, they advertise, no one will know that you used AI to write your entire book.

And maybe that does serve people that don't Enjoy the pleasure of writing.

And so it does serve them.

That's awesome.

But it is a pivotal conversation that's happening right now.

And what's been most helpful for me and what I'm teaching the authors I serve with it is we have so much past content.

Whether we wrote keynote workshop, keynotes, talks, workshops, online courses, sermons, blogs, papers.

We have so many things on our computer and it's so wonderful to take a body of text and put it in chat or Claude and say honor my style.

Put this in 10 Instagram slides for Carousel and it does it.

And now you have time to be with your child and it's your content.

But if efficiently and effectively morphed into the marketing model for IG slides, I would argue don't be anti.

Even if you're an amazing writer, it can still be a good.

It could be a great assistant, a virtual assistant for you.

Yeah, that's a good point.

And another thing you talk about are the three money saving hacks that help you write your book faster.

Can you go into that?

Definitely.

So the otter or any or capability that you have on your phone where I as I shared earlier, you can talk your book into being.

That is massive, a massive amount.

It's a time saved and those are usually free.

And I'm pretty sure I'm in.

I'm in Droid land.

I'm pretty sure iOS on notes, you can do that for free.

Anyway, when you wrote your past books, what was your go to process?

I wrote it all like in a word document basically.

And then of course I use different things like Grammarly or prowritingaid.

I think different things to like make sure that the grammar and punctuation, all that.

And then I believe for at least three of the books I hired an editor just to make sure that.

So basically I did the whole process myself.

But then the only thing I really paid for was an editor.

And then like I had my cover designed on fiverr.

Definitely not pen and paper, like maybe to jot down like bullet point maybe or something.

But definitely, definitely use the computer.

I would imagine your brain.

Am I right to assume that you enjoyed that process?

Yeah, I always like finding different softwares and whatever that can make the process smoother.

That's an excellent point to this the question you asked me and that is money saving time.

Also time is if I had to come to terms with this myself, being raised, as I said, preached my first sermon at 13, basically agreed to be a minister at 16.

And so big with that when with some family stuff came this Story about money, that it was pious to be poor core.

And.

And so until I left the ministry at 32, about to be 39 next month, when I left the ministry at 32, I believed that at my core, it flowed through my blood veins.

Blood veins?

Did I just say that?

Yeah.

Who says that?

I do.

It flowed through my blood veins that the less quality of things I had on my body and in my house, the less money I had in my bank account, the more pious I was.

And so when I started my business, I am so fortunate, a phenomenal business coach.

We got right to that, that root, that limiting belief around money.

And it was hard because you have to in a business, you have to invest.

And I had to bring people on as I grew to scale it.

And so I had to really ask myself, Audible Books.

I started having clients ask if I did that three years ago.

And at that point I didn't.

And so I thought, workaholic, born a workaholic here.

I thought I could learn to do that.

I could learn to do that and I could be a sound technician.

I did podcasting before.

I could be a sound tech.

But then sitting in the question of, but if that's not in my zone of genius.

Your brain and my brain are different.

Software doesn't bring me joy.

And so I had to come to the question of the idea, the reality of I could invest, if I invested money in sound technicians that I could delegate this to, what would that open up space for in my own life?

And that would open up space for playing at the park with my daughter.

That would open up space for going to get sushi and hibachi steak with my husband.

I could do what I love, which is client care.

I could be on Voxer helping an amazing leader through writer's block.

And so I invested the money toward sound technicians.

And I'm so excited that we've done about 11 audiobooks on Audible, which is so exciting.

But investing in that to receive a different type of ROI and open up more space in my life for other things.

And so I think with writers I work with and writers that are listening and coaches and business owners that are listening and they're thinking of money saving hacks or time hacks.

If it brings them joy, like what you did, to use a tool and do it all yourself, then that's awesome because you are investing time and emotional energy.

But the value exchanges, you're getting pleasure if it doesn't bring you joy to do that thing.

And it's going to take you 2 hours where it could take a pro 10 minutes then if we're going to use Christianese, the best thing to do in regards of stewardship of time, energy and resources is is to invest financially to delegate.

The third point of money saving is it can if someone want like you said, the only the real monetary value exchange you made was an editor.

I know what that costs and what it can cost and I know what my partner Jody on my team what what we the way I price things is I'm an all inclusive resort and so when people come into our cruise ship and they pay to work with me, they get my whole team.

And so they are.

They're paying for everything they need for every month of 12 months together.

And that is from 12 months as idea on a napkin to bestseller on Kindle Paperback, Audible, established brand, established marketing plan.

So that's bringing in a lot of team.

But they're paying me and then I pay my team.

So I know what that costs for an editor.

So a money saving could be that if instead of one editor you reach out to other writers and authors you admire and you do what I have done recently, you build a beta team and you share with them.

This is the very first draft.

It's not final.

All I want you to help me, I'm inviting you into the creative process with me and as a value exchange, to show you how much I honor you and appreciate you, I'm going to give you a $50Amazon gift card and or something around that and then service swap and and so I service swapped with my team of writers so they're getting a 90 second zoom with me.

Sorry, that would, that would be a waste of time.

A 90 minute zoom.

It's like oh thanks Meg.

For 90 seconds, a 90 minute zoom with me.

And they can choose to spend it on.

I'll do a marketing plan review, a brand audit.

I am a certified Reiki 2 practitioner so we could do Reiki 2 together if they have any dense or stuck energy.

I have a time management work little workshop.

We could do one on one if they're feeling I think I titled it Help.

My plate is too full.

What needs to go, what needs to stay.

Or I could get them over writer's block and so I gave them 90 minutes for free.

It's a certain and then I volunteered to be on their book promo team and I said I'll do an email blast, I'll do a social media blast.

We can go live on social media interviewing you about your book.

I service swapped and gave them a small 50Amazon gift card instead of thousands of dollars for a high quality editor.

And so that's another hack you could do to save money.

Oh, that's awesome.

Yeah.

Swapping services and all that.

That's always one way of doing things.

I love that.

I've done that a couple times at least.

Well, I appreciate your time today.

I know we got kind of a late start because of weather and tech issues and whatever.

I feel like this has been a really good, valuable interview for anyone who's looking to or considering writing a book.

And some of the points you made about how there's really never a right time.

You can find the time and the ways to write it and, and all of that.

So where is the best place for people to go?

And I think you had mentioned when we connected that you might have some freebies.

Yes.

So I have a freebie for your listeners and that is five questions to ask to know which book to write first.

So most often, actually, studies show that entrepreneurs have more thoughts a day than those that are not wired to be entrepreneurs.

So what that usually sometimes means is that we have too many ideas and we don't know which one to do first.

Everyone who has done this 20 minute video training and done the questions on the action sheet, they leave with clarity.

They know exactly which book needs to happen first, which wants to come out of them first.

And I love that so much.

It's also good if someone is the opposite and they're like, I want to write a book.

I've always wanted to write a book.

I don't have clarity around my idea, so it'll help for that as well.

And so I will give you that freebie.

I'll give you the link for that, for people to enjoy.

Okay, awesome.

So is there.

Do you already have the link or will.

Should I just include that in the show notes?

They can go to Meg Cal, thank you for asking that.

You're like, okay, great.

Where is it?

They can go to megcalvin.com and it's right there at the top.

Oh, okay, awesome.

Well, cool.

Did you have any, like, last words or things that maybe you wanted to say that we hadn't gotten into or.

Yes, I would love to say a Rumi quote.

The Sufi poet Rumi we all know and love.

And the quote is, remember that which you seek also seeks you.

I like that.

That's cool.

All our, all our business goals and aspirations, they want us just as badly as we want them.

Oh, that's awesome.

Well, thank you so much for your time today and I'm probably going to take that course as well because I do have other book ideas, so.

I'm so excited.

Are your book ideas going to be like a 180 from the other books you've written?

No, it would be still entrepreneurial nonfiction.

Yeah.

Just new lessons that you've learned in the past.

Yeah.

Yeah, pretty much.

How exciting?

So exciting.

Awesome.

Well, thank you so much for your patience with weather and tech gremlins.