123 – Prolific author with 27 books to her credit: Tom interviews Rebecca Morgan

Episode 123 – Rebecca Morgan
[00:00:07] Welcome to Screw the Commute. The entrepreneurial podcast dedicated to getting you out of the car and into the money, with your host, lifelong entrepreneur and multimillionaire, Tom Antion.

[00:00:23] Hey everybody it's Tom here with episode 123 of screw the commute podcast you've got a longtime friend of mine here I've respected her and admired her for many years that's Rebecca Morgan and hey she's been on Oprah. Ha ha ha. So you'll hear about her in a minute. Listen the last episode was 122 Patricia Kara. She is one of the stars of Deal or No Deal. She's been working continuously in a cutthroat business for more than 30 years and if you want to pick her out on the show she's the fine. Number nine. So check her out on Deal or No Deal but check her out here when you get a chance on our last episode. She's really 30 some years in Hollywood and she still looks like she's 12 years old and she's she could do a glamour commercial or a Swiffer commercial and you put in there and same same girl. So so check her out at episode 122. Now I've got a big freebie to thank you for listening to this podcast. It's by twenty dollar e-book and that is a real price. We sold hundreds of them for 27 bucks. How to automate your business. And just one of the tips in this e-book has saved me over seven million keystrokes and I have all kinds of automation techniques in there and for your cell phone and everything else. So check it out at screwthecommute.com/automatefree and of course as always all the things we mentioned will be in our very extensive show notes. All right our podcast app is in the iTunes store and you can also go to screwthecommute.com/app where we have complete instructions to show you how to use all the fancy features so you can take us with you on the road and put us on your cell phone and tablet. And please please please if you get a chance go to iTunes and leave us to review and a rating it really helps out the show and tell your friends about it too. I mean the more the show grows the more freebies I'll be able to give you. So spread it around for me give me Give me a break there. All right. Now our youth program is in full swing we're looking for young people that are doing entrepreneurial things. And when I say young I'm talking my maybe up to the early 20s if they're older than that maybe they'll be a candidate for a regular podcast. But you know anyone they can get in touch with me at orders@antion.com to see how to apply to possibly be featured on a special episode of screw the commute. All right. Now our on demand TV channel is up on both Roku TV and Amazon Fire. Our first channel is up called the public speaking channel. We've got several others coming we have proof. Brutal self-defense we got protection dogs elite and various marketing channels. And if you have a Roku device or an Amazon Fire stick it's a really good deal. I mean you can get thousands of channels then you can hook up your Netflix and other favorite channels through the same device and just my first channels probably got about a hundred thousand dollars worth of free training on the channels. So just search for the public speaking channel.

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[00:04:04] All right let's get to the main event. Rebecca Morgan is an international keynote speaker trainer consultant and award winning and money making blogger. She produces income producing webinars and tells seminars. Two of her. Listen to this. Twenty seven books have sold more than two hundred and fifty thousand copies. She's been on and in international media such as Oprah 60 minutes. Listen this. The Wall Street Journal Forbes NPR and many more. Rebecca are you ready to screw. The commute.

[00:04:42] It's so funny. Boy it's been what the hundred two hundred years is I've talked to it's been a long time. It has been. Yeah. So tell everybody what you've been doing and you didn't mention the you know the telecom I tell a seminar thing you do to in your introduction.

[00:05:01] Well I was only given 50 words Tom it's hard to put it up.

[00:05:04] Tell him about that too because that's the one of the longest running things in the speaking world.

[00:05:11] It's true it's true. So what you're talking about is Speaker Net News at Speakernetnews.com and we publish a free weekly ezine every Friday for the speaker trainer coach consultant author community to share their best practices. So people send in their best practices we cull them down to the nub and then we send them back out to the readership. Every week we've been doing that since 1996. And in addition we interview luminaries like you every other week on something that I think you do particularly well and our guest experts tell us how they do it. What are the pros and cons what are the pitfalls to avoid etc.. So we sell seats at that we sell seats in the webinars as well as and we sell the recordings so SpeakerNetNews.com. And my main source of revenue is that I'm an international speaker and trainer on leadership management and customer service and that's what the 27 books are about. And I also coach executives and independent professionals on how to be more effective at what they do. So I keep busy, Tom.

[00:06:26] Twenty seven books that's a lot of books. I mean I got 18 and a lot of them are just the you know the relatively short e-books. That's a lot of writing over a lot of time. So how is that. They're all basically on leadership in some fashion.

[00:06:43] Management relationships it's it's really based on what my clients say I do particularly well and they want me to capture it into into books. So a couple of them I've written in a week and they're all over 100 hundred pages usually is the minimum some are 250 pages and they're they look like bookstore books so they're not big type with big margins they're you know eleven point type single spaced you know just like you would find in a bookstore.

[00:07:13] They are all actually printed books.

[00:07:17] They usually have companion e-book right compared to books but they're not exclusively e-books. These are printed serious books. That's a lot of copies. So. So tell us a little bit about how you go about writing what's your method. Like I have a method. Everybody that writes has some kind of method. What's what's how do you keep inspired and you shut the door Don't talk to anybody for a month or what. How do you do it.

[00:07:44] So I have two different methodologies depending on what I'm trying to accomplish in the traditional way is you write to add an outline. And so I would create the outline and then start cherry picking the pieces that I had the most passionate about or that were the easiest right then sit down for anywhere from an hour a day to sometimes a whole day if I'm trying to complete something in a week or two. And so that may be my whole focus or 90 percent of my focus for that that week or two and then the other form which 19 of my books are is a compilation of blog postings that are focused on a specific topic so I'll write just as a rule of thumb 750 words and then post it to the blogs. I get feedback from the readers and I know where to refine things I know where the most interest is. And then I put those. Into a book format and then publish that.

[00:08:43] Yeah. They call it blooking actually. Blog to book. Yeah it's very efficient and a great way because it keeps your online stuff going. You can do it in small chunks. You end up with a nice long product out of it. That's great.

[00:08:58] Well I did it everyday for 18 months. I wrote every day to one blog and at the end of the time I had enough content for thirteen hundred and twenty to two and every page books. And so if each blog posting is against 750 words that translates into three pages of eleven point type single spaced eight and half by five and a half format. A great book and so it's I've gotten it down to about 20 minutes I could do that in about 20 minutes.

[00:09:29] Now if you do you self publish or you Major publish how you get those particular What's that.

[00:09:36] I've self published because I have a built in audience with my right with my speaking but the two that are selling were by a publisher and one or two of the others were by a different publisher. I just got tired of giving them 90 percent of the revenue.

[00:09:54] Well yeah. Not only that with my topic it was 18 months before my John Wiley book came out. It was all obsolete before it even hit the bookstores.

[00:10:04] Indeed you and I and our listeners hopefully just understand that we have so much more control which has positives and negatives and even if you go with a major you're going to end up doing all the publicity anyway trying to keep radio shows so why not reap the benefit by making the money versus 10 percent which is what they would give us.

[00:10:24] Yeah and it's not as risky as it used to be with print on demand. If you can get a good quality print on demand I mean some are kind of schlocky but but you don't have to have thousands of books in your basement to attempt this nowadays like a you know like you were saying if it's if your topic changes it's so easy to do a second edition or another edition with the modifications.

[00:10:47] Exactly right. Because yeah that was driving me crazy. I'm thinking 18 months were you talking about. You don't really look like a fool when it hits the stands so let's think about how how well you've been working for yourself.

[00:11:02] 1980 Tom member of what we remember how young we were 1980.

[00:11:09] Yeah yeah I remember unfortunately. So that's how long you been working for yourself right.

[00:11:17] I was pretty much right out of school out of college pretty much.

[00:11:20] So you didn't you never had a job or did you have jobs in college and high school.

[00:11:24] Yeah I did have jobs in high school and college and college but my stuff through college by having four jobs simultaneously and then worked a couple years on campus but during that time when I was working on campus the H.R. director came to me and said Would you lead a training. I'll pay you. So my first presentation was a paid presentation.

[00:11:50] Wow did you cut that on your CSP. For those of you out there CSP is certified speaking professional which I'm not smart enough or organized enough to ever having gone people that are It's really a level of achievement. One of the National Speakers Association. So you had four jobs at once while in school.

[00:12:16] I carried 30 units 20 units carried 20 units going to school two days a week and then the other three days I worked I balanced these other four jobs.

[00:12:27] What were they.

[00:12:29] I was in food service so I could actually eat. Yeah. Oh that's good. You know this is Ma myself this school I couldn't be on a dorm pallet.

[00:12:36] So you totally put yourself through school.

[00:12:42] But so that's why I graduated three and a half years so that I could save myself the extra tuition money. So in addition to the food service I worked in a career counseling center and I worked in the Arts and Lectures department and you'll appreciate that. So I I worked in the Arts Lectures starting as a free volunteer and then I saw that people got paid so I thought well how can I get that job. So then I got a job as the house manager of these events that I would have paid to go see another paying me to see these events and then I got a job as posting all the flyers about the events around campus and I noticed that the career planning center they are supposed to place but they did it really poorly and I went in and complained and they gave me that job. So I got paid double to I. I went on the same route at the same time I had both that their posters and that was I told them I did tell them I was all right. I got low level because you know both of them were paying me to do the same job I just did it. It's the same time.

[00:13:50] Well you were a hustler. I'll tell you. That's really great though. How did you. You said right out of college you're working for yourself. So how did that how did that go.

[00:13:59] Well so I you know this is you know they type person hired me to do these trainings and at the same time I decided I needed to learn sales so I left the university job and then went into a sales job where I sold retirement plans to small corporations. Believe it or not I did that for a couple of years simultaneously doing seminars on weeknights. So I would work my my day job my sales job from 9:00 to 5:00 and then I would drive I'm from the Bay Area so I would drive anywhere from an hour to hour radius and give seminars four nights a week from 6 to 9 p.m..

[00:14:38] We were young than You're a freakin machine.

[00:14:42] Remember when we were young and we had this energy I know.

[00:14:46] I'm so far over the hill I can't remember going up the hill.

[00:14:51] So my last real job was nineteen eighty four. So it's so hard now to remember what it was like.

[00:14:57] Well how did you get those those training gigs.

[00:15:01] Well one of my early mentors couldn't make one of the her gigs for this organization and she knew that that was the one that the university had paid me to teach to the staff. So she called me up and Tom I got sixty dollars an hour. In my day job I was getting like ten dollar right now. So I was three hours. I was. You were right I was excited. Yes. Can you imagine 10 times you're normal six times your normal salary. So anyway that was that they loved me I was always the highest rated instructor in the whole system and did that for three years until I know one of your questions is you know when did you leave. You know when did you stop having a real job. And for me I needed the security of knowing that I was booked six months out and could match my salary and make sure that my bills were paid.

[00:15:59] How did you get the skills to do that speaking. I mean did you take any training in public speaking or anything.

[00:16:06] Well when I was an employee I was a seminar junkie. I was so I attended but when I was at the University on the staff I could go to any professional development for six dollars. and my boss would pay the six dollars. And as long as I got my work done I could do any of the classes I wanted and I was really very efficient at my job so I would be you know doing these classes and I got to see some great people and some not so great people and looked at what worked and what didn't work and then about that time in 1982 and went to my first National Speakers Association event and that was really where I got the training of seeing what really good presenters do. And then just tried to emulate them in my own style.

[00:16:56] Anything any you know you've been doing a lot of stuff. And by the way you know Vickie Sullivan right. I love Vickie. Did you. Did you happen to hear the story. She told me about when she was working her way through college. No. She was working at a biker bar and she messed up this biker's drink. Who was known as a hit man and his girlfriend's drink and she thought she's dead and he came up there. He said you know you handled that really good with my girlfriend. I don't think he's a girlfriend.

[00:17:31] Been with my girlfriend if you ever need somebody stabbed. Let me know. The best customer service story I ever heard my whole life. Beats Nordstrom's story. So you've had some crazy stuff go on in the it's as you traveled through this life right.

[00:18:00] I have. I have one of the most recent one was I traveled to Southeast Asia twice a year to serve impoverished women and children as part of an organization. I'm on the board I've called Together we can change the world we take anywhere from 10 15 professional presenters and we do presentations that the funds then go to the to the orphanages and children's lives the children that are. So I was in Myanmar about a year ago and I was up in Myanmar is. West of Thailand used to be called Burma. So over in that area and they had asked me to speak at this fundraiser for a couple hundred people. Well only when I arrived did I realize that they didn't really speak English as I went around to introduce myself. So I got the organiser to translate for me. So she I would say a sentence. And then pause and she would then say the next sentence. And there were multiple pillars in the room which you understand does not make the most conducive sight lines. And I think they gave me a three foot screen for this group of two hundred. So I finally just said get the screen they are gonna be able to see me they're getting ready. So she had I took her by the hand and she and I walked through the audience as I talked. And you know we were just like Siamese twins joined at the hip. But I had to be extremely animated with enormous facial expressions and gestures right as people weren't understanding what I said. And she said it. So I had to keep their attention on during my time by just being outrageously silly and it ended up working out really well but it was one of those that you think oh man they do not speak English. What are we going to do.

[00:20:04] Oh yeah. Yeah. So yeah I've spoken in Thailand a couple times in Indonesia. And now fortunately the. It was business audiences than the audience spoke English. But there's the thing that I learned the first trip is the setup crew doesn't speak English. So I started taking pictures of like a projector and a screen with me to these. Yeah. It is perfect. I put it in my wake him up book because it's you know what do you how do you explain. I need a you know a 12 by twelve you know overhead screens. So that worked out pretty good. But oh and also you know when you speak internationally there's a lot of norms you gotta watch out for like for instance my normal thing would be to shake hands with everybody and invite them to sit up front. But you can't do that because the bosses have to sit up front that if you put a person in a bad situation that they they don't want to offend you but they can't sit up front and jump in front of their boss. You know you should know all this stuff before you go over there.

[00:21:12] Well and especially in Indonesia you you cannot shake hands with some of the women.

[00:21:18] Exactly right. All of those things and in Thailand we couldn't step on the threshold because that's where the threshold God lives and this stuff.

[00:21:28] But you know how you took pictures. So again in Myanmar the the restaurant staff didn't speak English and I was trying to get scrambled eggs for breakfast and just coming up with nothing and trying to pantomime you know breaking it. And finally I had to go on Google Images and start collecting like scrambled. I didn't want just an egg. So I had to find a google image of a scrambled egg.

[00:21:57] Yeah. You know they have those. I see these things online sometimes where you talk into it in English and then whole and then it translates it into the other thing out loud and to the people that seemed like that be a handy thing.

[00:22:10] Yeah. Now there are apps that will help you but at the time there weren't and also Myanmar doesn't have a dependable Internet. So you can't depend on that.

[00:22:21] Yeah. So I had this I can't really tell the whole story or but I had a student years ago that had a Russian bride service over in Russia and he started I got him writing ebooks about how not for U.S. guys not to get ripped off over there. And then he ended up he quit the Russian brides service because he said they're all crazy and they're liars and he just went around to all the countries and started writing books on how to not get ripped off. So that was cool. But he did marry a Russian girl and he was in bed with her and he asked her how you said breast in Russian. And she told him. And then he's in a restaurant the next day or so and he wants to order chicken breast. And the whole restaurant like cracks up starts laughing he said like a slang word for a woman's breast instead of chicken breast. So yeah when you're going internationally you're gonna really learn a little bit before you go there. I mean there are a lot of more Westernized than they they you know cut a lot of slack but just trying make some really love you you know just to know what they're doing say a few words in their language and stuff. So. So tell us what you got something coming up right don't you.

[00:23:39] I do. So one of my latest book my number 27 it's called Leadership Lessons from Silicon Valley where I live and I I put my slides in the book along with my commentary and I called a slook. You know how we looked like book. Yeah so slides in the book become a slook. So I'm doing a three part live virtual seminar on how presenters can make a book out of their slides so that they're they can either pre sell it at their presentations or sell it back in the room so that it not only is a stand alone for people who weren't in their talk but they can sell it as this. These are the materials. So it's doesn't look like a work book although it has some of those elements it looks like a book that's on your bookshelf which I think has more gravitas. I think so. So the slook mini course is at bit.ly/slookcourse.

[00:24:51] Don't worry about it we'll put it in the show that will never remember that kind of stuff.

[00:24:54] But three Thursdays starting May 16th.

[00:24:57] Oh so it's going to be an online course but it's like virtual.

[00:25:02] All right. And if they purchase it can they. If they can't make it can they watch it later.

[00:25:07] Absolutely. They actually record but they you know I'm not going to sell it as a stand alone that you know you need to be engaged in the course. So the intention is that at the end of the month they have it ready to send off to the printer.

[00:25:24] Wow. Yeah that's that's great. You know how people always come up and just ask you for your slides anyway. You know how you're going to sell it. But this is the way they're actually selling it.

[00:25:34] Because the last time you looked at the slide deck that somebody sent you. You know whenever we play in a book with the commentary I think people are going to be not only more engaged during the talk because they're going to follow along with you but they're going to look at it afterwards and that creates more value.

[00:25:53] Well yeah. Because even though a lot of slides wouldn't make sense without the commentary I mean you just see a bunch of bullet points really. Yes. What does that mean.

[00:26:01] And a lot of us just have an image with a word or two to exactly the story. So this gives them much more. And then anyway I don't want to get into the details but the idea that it's just and I don't know anybody else who's doing this.

[00:26:15] No I never even heard of it. That's for sure. So that's that's pretty cool. So we'll have that the show notes Everybody check that out. That's coming up when starting May 16th. Ok. So by the time they hear this it may not be open yet but may 16th. Check out that we'll have the exact link to it in the show notes. So what do you like best about working for yourself. What's the worst part.

[00:26:38] They sort of parallel. So I love the freedom and flexibility to do whatever you want whenever you want. So that's the blessing. But of course that can be the curse if you don't have the discipline. Because we tend to be shiny objects people and get distracted and like today in Silicon Valley it's a beautiful day here. And I'm tempted to go out and be in my garden. But no I need to hunker down and and one of the biggest challenges in the three decades I've been in business is to focus every day on something that will make my money short term. You know it's something that's going to make sure your bills are paid. And that takes discipline which if you're self-employed a lot of people come into it having had a boss who tells them what to do. And this way you have to decide what to do and sometimes we don't make the right decisions.

[00:27:37] Well Yeah that's part of the the the glory of it sometimes. You don't have to do with somebody else says but it could bite you if you go too far with it.

[00:27:48] That's right. And I think for those of us who work with the corporate clients it's the chasing the money part that gets really old when you know when we sell stuff online. They pay upfront it's great. But if you're selling to corporate sometimes they're on 30 or 60 day pays and then the accounting department screws around and I just hate that part.

[00:28:09] I do. I do too. I mean I haven't dealt with that for over 20 years I've been doing all public seminars. But yeah those that drive me crazy 90 days 120 days back in those days and I guess some of the government agencies can play pay with credit cards and stuff now but there's still a I just hate that I like to do the work that paid you know be done with it. So all right we got to take a break for a sponsor again when we come back. We're going to ask Rebecca what's a typical day look like for her. Maybe we'll ask her if she's on the road and wonder if she's home and then how she stays motivated.

[00:28:45] Folks do you know what colleges and universities are doing. Well according to gradeinflation.com they're raising grade point averages to make it look like they're doing a better job of teaching when there's a mountain of evidence that says they aren't. I want you to watch the eye opening higher education webinar at screwthecommute.com/webinars to potentially save yourself and possibly your loved ones and maybe your friends neighbors hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt when they go for higher education. But I got to tell you be prepared to be mad when you see some of the things these colleges are doing. I'm in the anti-scam business and some of the things to me are downright fraudulent. It's just been drummed into your head about the college education for all these years and they're getting away with murder. So I want you to check that out and also check out my school which is IMTCVA.org and learn how you can have a lifestyle business on the Internet legitimately and as little as six months and made a fortune. For me over 25 years at it could for you too. And also make sure you get your automation e book and surprise gift at screwthecommute.com/automatefree.

[00:30:02] All right let's get back to our superstar guest Rebecca Morgan's been on Oprah on NPR in 60 minutes and prolific writer and also came up with a really cool concept for a slook which I never heard of such things. So she coined that. So what what's a typical day look like for you when you're in the office and what's one look like if you're on the road working.

[00:30:27] Well I think my life is probably pretty similar to yours Tom and that when I'm in the office I'm either creating or refining a presentation that's going to be a week or two or three I'm writing articles or books I'm interviewing others for the speaker Net News webinars or tell us seminars or I'm gardening or I'm goofing off.

[00:30:50] What do you garden.

[00:30:53] Well I've got my both my front and my backyards don't have grass. They're all flowering plants that are time to flower throughout the year.

[00:31:01] You know I'm doing that too. I'm trying to make sure that I got a book called no mo yards. Yeah. And I've got a lady come in once a week to put all this stuff in and I also have to make my dog friendly so they can the plants have to be pretty tough because they've got these German shepherds.

[00:31:18] So that and then you know just in the summer I do vegetables and I'm an herb garden. But you when it's a beautiful day out it's like I'd be inside so sometimes once I'm not gardening I just got inside and work. That's the ball that's nice. Yeah laptop will will travel and so and when I'm traveling I just got back. I was in San Diego doing two presentations this weekend. I try to see friends. So on this particular trip I had I went in early and I had lunch with one friend dinner with another. Spent the day hiking after a presentation with another I just found early in my career I got really tired of going in all I saw was the hotel and the event space and you fly out. And so I now I'm trying to make sure I spend at least one day if it's domestic if it's abroad which I do. Like I said at least two times a year sometimes more than I try to spend a couple of days. With our network between Speaker Net News and the global speaker's association and I'm also a big wheel with the AirBnb hosts speakers I've spoken at all three of their international conventions. So they will often host me for free in their AirBnbs and so between those three I've got people all over the world that can show me around.

[00:32:42] That's nice. Yeah that's right. Yeah yeah yeah. Especially with the travel is tough on you. So having some extra days to just decompress from the fly ins that I haven't been on airplane for two years and I just love it.

[00:32:57] Yeah like you did go to Morocco all over the place. I read in Morocco. No not with you but I've been to Morocco.

[00:33:08] But you never heard by Morocco story. Well somebody got mugged while we were there but that wasn't the the most interesting part. We went on this. I actually have these pictures of me on a camel dressed like a chic with a laptop and a cell phone up on the camel. I've seen that. Yeah. Yeah. But the thing was this week. So we're on these camels riding around the do desert dunes and stuff and we come up to this really ornate giant tent. You know the picture of ornate this with tassels hanging everywhere. And they had these beautiful tables laid out We parked the camel right. And we're wait and wait and thinking okay they're going to lay out this big spread fruit. We turn around the Pizza Hut truck was driving the sand dunes pizza we were like one there from the hotel though. Yeah. A lot of fun. So.

[00:34:08] Well boys pretty great catching up with you and I want everybody to check out our show notes and then the show notes or come out before the product is actually ready understand. So make sure you keep. Put a favorite on our show notes so you can get back and check out that very unique product that she's coming up with in the middle of May. So. So thanks so much. You got any closing ideas for any of ours. We called screwballs on here that they're thinking about getting in business or improving their business.

[00:34:39] Sure. I think in the decades I've been doing this one of the biggest lessons for me is if something isn't working like you think it should then Swallow your pride. Pride in your ego and ask for input from those you respect even if you feel dumb doing so I think I had been afraid to do that for a long time and then languished when my friends you know I could have called you I could've called someone and in minutes you would have said Oh well that's here's where your mistake is. So just swallow your pride ask for help or input from those you respect.

[00:35:16] Yeah and someone I think was Mark Smith was on here a couple of weeks ago and he said I get advice from people whose past is your future. So in other words we made a quote out of that on a graphic for him because you know that's like in other words don't ask your brother in law never did what you're what you try to do good people that have already done it and that advice carries more weight. So. So anyway thanks so much for coming on. A really great catching up with you after all this time and. And we're going to really pump up this issue so people get to hear hear you. And also oh also folks might sign up for speaker net news because it's got a lot of insights especially if you're speaking she gets some of the best people in the world literally the world giving you advice for free on that thing. So. So make sure you sign up for speaker net news will have all the links in the show notes and I don't know what the next episode is but it's going to be great. It can't possibly be as great as this one because Rebecca Morgan's here but it's going to be doing great. Thanks for coming on. All right. We'll catch y'all later.

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