My guest this week is Parenting Expert Michael Grose. Michael is the author of 11 books and his latest, Anxious Kids is flying off the shelves. Michael shares how he's used books to position his expertise, mark his territory and remain relevant in the market. He also reveals the process he uses to produce a new book on a new topic every two years. Whether you've ever considered writing a book or not, there is lots of great ideas to help better position your expertise in this episode.

00:00:12:08 - 00:00:29:29

War: Welcome to the marketers club podcast. The show all about helping you work smarter earn more and accelerate your success and now here's your host Paul McCarthy.

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Pau: Hello and welcome to Episode 8 of the marketers club podcast. I am your host Paul McCarthy and I am here to help you market your talents so that you can earn what you are worth and ultimately make more of a difference in the world. Now one way to market your talent is to package your expertise and position it with real authority and that is often done most efficiently and effectively through the authorship of a book. Books are a really powerful marketing tool. A great calling card and a great way to mark your territory your turf as an expert in your space. So I've asked a good friend of mine a author of eleven books Michael Grose Australia's leading parenting expert to join me today to share with you about authorship the power of authorship and how it provides authority in your space and also to talk about his latest book on anxiety an area that obviously affects a lot of people and seems to be a growing number of people affected by anxiety. Perhaps we just didn't understand exactly what it was when we were all a little younger and now it is becoming something that people are getting much clearer about so we're going to dive into the whole conversation of authorship authority and anxiety. With Michael Grose so I don't want to keep you waiting any longer. Let's dive into our conversation. So welcome to the Marketers Club Podcast Michael, great to have you with me.

00:02:01:07 - 00:02:03:20

Mic: Thanks Paul pleasure to be here.

00:02:03:21 - 00:02:26:15

Pau: Mate I've been looking forward to having this chat with you about your business and the great success you've had through authorship and the authority that you've built in your business but for people that aren't familiar with. Michael Grose with parenting ideas can you maybe just give us a quick snapshot of the business you run and how you've ended up where you are today.

00:02:27:00 - 00:07:03:14

Mic: Yes sure. Look my business is parenting ideas and I guess it says it all. It's a parenting resource providers. I'm one of those people I call myself while actually other people call me a parenting expert and I'm very happy to allow them to do that. So my journey just quickly also as a primary teacher by trade through the 80s did some research into the parenting area through going to university doing some extra study to improve my teaching. In the late 80s and I ended up in a during research around parenting and I've done a whole bunch of research around that area and I was a little bit dissatisfied with going back into a classroom once I sort of got now. But the teachers would know that once you sort of get an experience outside of class it's hard to go back. So I turn my research into a book and I was fortunate enough to get my first book published without having written it. I hadn't had it written I just took an idea to a publisher who at the time was just looking to expand their reach and so I was lucky enough to get a guernsey was the early days of parenting so that was in the early nineties and that book was quite successful I did the whole writing that remember the Midday Show Ray Martin and I got a guernsey on that and I took a punt left left teaching and moved in to working for myself as a I guess a Parenting educator writing books running running seminars. And it was hard yards back in the 90s before that the rise for the Internet and it was a little bit hand-to-mouth but it was good learning so running seminars giving presentations being hard to speak as well and writing a book every couple of years just to keep abreast. And then bear the rant about the year 2000 I established a company parenting ideas and I realised that you've got to go where the market is and my market which is the mums and dads market the best way to get to them was through schools. So I was bit tired of running seminars etc so we I realised that schools at that particular time in the night early the late 2000s they had a mission to provide resources for parents they thought their role was to help parents. So I came in through Parenting Ideas is to fill that role. So we began to push through my little company produced a parenting newsletter kids so that I could put them in their newsletters with tips and tricks and ideas around parenting and then we moved that into online space so schools became members. So we built up a membership model where the school would become a member and for each year and each year we provide them with some articles to put it in their newsletter or now share through social media provide some little videos which they can put on their Facebook pages or whatever that might be. And also we provide a little bit of training and work for teachers around working with parents so we sort of snaffle that parenting spot but probably the source of income and source of the business is more through through schools and that's been a good model for me. Having that membership model and all the way through that I've written a book every couple of years and that's more about I guess I guess we explore that in a minute that it's more about keeping abreast of what's what's going on. And I've enjoyed that so that is a snapshot of my business is sort of three aspects to it. Is a what we call the schools business which is providing resources for our schools on a membership basis. And we've got to keep the content going. We've got a little mums and dads side of the business which is we do webinars for mums and dads sell books and some digital products as well. And then the third aspect is presentations. That is either being hired or at the moment we're running a seminar program around the country where we put out online seminars and that that's to help build the mums and dads side of the business to bring people in and also we get a lot of teachers come along and is also to help us sell our membership programs as well. So there are the three arms small team for people who work four days a week and we have got a couple of people who my contract to say I've got a fellow presenter my fellow author actually she runs my Webinar program and a contract to her and she organises the people she speaks to. She runs the revenues for us on a contractual basis so that works reasonably well so that's been certainly well for a while for round about 20 years now. So it's it's been a good little business. So we're quite pleased with it and very proud of it.

00:07:03:21 - 00:08:25:18

Pau: As you should be. And congratulations on that tremendous success. I mean we know how difficult it is to build a business and everybody listening to this show will know the challenges of business ownership and growing it to grow for 20 years and for those who are too young to remember pre Internet. The challenges of marketing and getting the word out were very different to the challenges that we face today. But nevertheless we all have to keep working hard to build what we have what we've got to achieve what we've done is tremendous. I'm really keen to chat to you about this whole idea I mean you mentioned you know writing a book you know sort of every other every other year so you're 11 books in so that in itself is a phenomenal effort. I mean I often hear people talking about the power of books and that we know that we need to have a book and certainly I know that my book was game changing for me and I'm working on my next book and I've been much slower and slacker in terms of authorship than you. Not nearly as prolific. So in terms of the actual book content while I write a lot I haven't put it in book form. Explain to us some of the strategies and the thoughts around the authorship side of your business

00:08:26:21 - 00:10:54:27

Mic: I guess the authorship is the part that I enjoy. So it's not a it's not a challenge. The challenge is I guess managing everything else if in a perfect world and I know this is I believe that you have this notion of. Understanding what you built for so sort of built for writing it suits my style I enjoy it. I don't get stressed by it. I give presentations I enjoy that but I'm probably not built for it as much. I mean I've got to work myself up for that. It's a bit more stressful for me so that the books write a lot of people go eleven books and I go I could be 22 if I had the time because it is not a it's not a massive effort. So I say that because I know for some people it's it can be daunting. But I guess how I've used it and how I look at it and think learning for people that the fact that I've used authorship has and I like the term gaining authority of use authorship for two reasons to I call marking my territory. So we mark our territory with a book it's a bit of item. I think it's about the best way to market territory in a context content area. And the second thing I use it for to clarify my thoughts and get expertise in that area. Now on I'll unpack that in a minute. So those two things to me are are important to say this is my area this is my area of expertise for the moment and also to I'm going to find out about it even if I know I know a little bit about it and I'm going to find out more and I guess if anyone's in the content area or the expertise area like you and I are and I'm sure you've got a lot of people who follow you Paul who in that similar sort of area that you've got to keep up with the latest people I'm going to follow you if you've got new information or something new to offer and I think that's not just new information but what's your take on things. And so people will follow you if you've got something to say and I realised I repeated a time where we're some people will find me out or go. What's your take on this. It might be an issue around the parenting area or might be parenting technology or that often happens. What's your take on it. And I try to get proactive with with our blogs and and say this is what I was. This is what you should be thinking about as a parent or a teacher with parents in these areas. So being on the front foot is important it keeps you relevant and it keeps us in authority.

00:10:54:27 - 00:13:45:16

Mic: But the notion of authorship has been to me the the way to establish the real authority. An example of that was go back to the year 2000 which sounds a long time away away now but that's two decades ago. You know I've written three books by them and then in the year 2000 I realised there was a real issue around being a working parent. There was more mums working we've moved away from that traditional model. And at that particular time it took one point five incomes to service a mortgage. And I think it's more than that now. So working was a big issue kept coming up when I'd give presentations. I get a lot of people saying you know how do I balance my life. My kids had my hero I'd be a good dad or good mum while I'm working. So I thought that's a topic to move into. And it's also a topic to address so I wrote a book around and I called it working parents and I made it pretty obvious and I did reasonably well and I did it wasn't a massive seller but it did really well. But what it actually did would marked me in that area. And for that book I did a lot of research into I use a lot of research from the work Institute in New York who had probably done the best research in English speaking countries around Hayek and balance work and family. What is it that makes us a busy family function. What do we need to put into place. And was a lady called Ellen Galinsky who did a lot of work around that so I spoke to her I use a lot of her research and I backed it up with with experiences and people stories as well. And that was terrific. A lot of work in a corporate area. I do quite a bit of conference work as well around how to how to be a great parent while you work really. But I sat I on the authority of a book that B I felt like I knew my staff because I was fairly new research and it was research so I went down well also. And then that topic died down a little bit that I moved into into something else. My next was the generation of write a book called X Y Z new rules of generational warfare which looked at in my area I saw that there had been a shift I was a baby boomer and suddenly the way that people raise their kids in the early 2000s was quite different to the way that Baby Boomers raised them. And that also came through when I spoke with teachers who the teachers were my generation baby boomers and they had meeting with parents who are Generation X and their view of raising kids was quite different than theirs. So I used that and I explored that whole generational area again and put it out of the book and that regenerated me for a few more years particularly in the education space. I did a lot of conference work on in the education space talking which created my work with it for us as well around that.

00:13:45:25 - 00:15:07:10

What Gen X parents are like so I sort of explained to teachers through educational conferences and work that you know is the mindset of the new generation. And so therefore that's how I've used it. And that helps keep me keep me fresh and then moved into birth birth order and then different topics along the way. And so when I was grow to grow and keep an audience and also grow a new audience as well. And I'll also make them out when we talk about authorship. I have a publisher called was Random House then so was Penguin Random House. Now they've joined and I've been lucky enough to have that publishing company or be my publisher for a number of years and they've got a strict view of writing a book to have their own particular style and then have their own particular length as well so it's not I guess big as books sometimes speakers or write a pretty thin book. They have a particular length and that's about 60000 words minimum to 80000. And they like to have research in it. They have a certain style which I have to explore and that's good as well so I've been able to sit with a with a good publisher behind me also along the journey. So yeah that's that's that's a snapshot of the authorship. And happy to talk about my new one which has taken me into a completely different space. And also giving the reasons why. 

00:15:07:23 - 00:16:10:26

Pau: I want to dive into their own touch on a couple of the points that you've made I think is some real goals in there for people. I mean it's something that I talk to to clients about all the time is is really how they can capture and get their own expert positioning and and you've led us to to a great idea in which is this idea of marking your territory owning a space and then you've continuously you're looking at how you nuanced that you say you're really marked yourself as the only authority go to person. And certainly in Australia and now in many other parts of the world that they call on your expertise as well in that space. So positioning that and then just finding the nuances inside that of you know how to remain relevant how to keep innovating around that. So is there a strategy that you use to find the topic. I mean clearly you're listening to your market. So what's the mechanics that help you to get out ahead of that trend like them.

00:16:11:02 - 00:18:29:18

Mic: Good point. It's really listening to what people people say. So there's a couple of things there. Firstly through seminars and speaking to parents a lot. What's the question what's the issue. And this seems to be if you listen enough to people they'll keep telling you what that issue is but it might be the obvious issue an example for that was I took my business into an I must write a book for this but I ran a bunch of seminars to mark my territory around what we call challenging parents. So a lot of teachers were telling me when I bring up and say I want a presentation I like what is it about and then I know what's the problem what's the issue. A number of times I kept hearing this aspect of the parents I'm working with them. On having it having difficult conversations or the way they raise their kids is different today or why are they spoiling them or why are they. And so just those conversations and sitting back that led me to two things that led me to my book X Y Z the generational issues because I suddenly realised this is a generational issue so people weren't saying to me you know we've got a generational issue here. But they were saying we've got a problem sitting back a little bit. I realise that well you know this is a generational change. So it's it's you know it's using that as a I guess as a filter. And then the second thing I use that is to go all right. So how can I work with teachers around these challenging parents. So it wasn't so much a book in that but I ran some seminars around that. So that's again I went saying I've got challenging parents. But what they were telling me was that I'm having difficulty communicating with these parents and largely was generational. And I looked at it and I go yeah. New generation of parents are different and you know doing a bit of research I found that they're a little bit more challenging the more they do raise the kids differently. They don't see authority the teachers as the authority that they used to etc. etc.. And then it's a matter of of starting to create some content around that and a lot part of that notion of making things your own is you can look and see what other people do.

00:18:29:20 - 00:18:55:01

Mic: And then you either put your own spin on things that suit you and become your own. So we created our own language as well so we don't use the word difficult parents. We use challenging parents so put put your own language on things put your own spin on things and then you sort of start to own that. So that's how we did probably. But I want to sort of Let you ask the questions I feel like I'm taking over here right now. 

00:18:55:02 - 00:20:21:26

Pau: No, that's fantastic, mate. I mean I think again points that I would have always be encouraging my clients and your you know you're naturally doing these things. What I call you know developing proprietary language that you get get a language of your own that is a language that is not so quirky that people don't understand what it means but it's the you know that just changing in the language that it now makes sense but it's your phrasing your way that the philosophy that you have which is really important. Now I'm going to come back to a point you made a little bit earlier about with authorship which is for you it's not hard it's it's not edgy it's you in what Dan Sullivan would call your unique ability. It's the thing that comes naturally to you it's your style so there is enough evidence to show off in terms of expert positioning having a book is a powerful tool. I think we've all been exposed to saying you know everyone's got a book inside them and I would probably question that because I've read a few of them which I think they should have stayed inside of them. But you know your books are always as you've mentioned they're meaty they're serious books they know they're 270 -300 pages they're they're well researched they're well written. Now having a book certainly gives people that that piece of authority. Can you maybe just give us a few insights in terms of the way the methodology that you used to attack writing a book.

00:20:21:27 - 00:22:00:27

Mic: All right okay good. I like to have three voices so that's one thing I'm always thinking about. So there's your voice. There is the voice of the reader or the audience. In my case it's parents and the voice of other other authorities as well. So if we look at each one of them as you know my voices and everyone when I write has the particular style and my style is quite an easy to read and understand style. So I don't use big words. For example I use the word kids. So I'm very accessible. So I'll write the words not just children or teenagers or young people but also kids a lot. I'm very conscious of that language because that's my style. I try to talk directly to the parent which is usually a mum and I sort of picture that. And so when I write it's almost like a My personal style is almost like a letter to that Mum but a little bit more formal than just a letter. So it's an accessible language. I try and keep the terminology easy to understand. It was interesting with our recent book which is on anxiety there is a little bit of technical scientific physiological language and you know I had to keep that quite simple as well. So that is my voice and my voice comes through quite strongly which is that easy going on with your own style. I know it's really hard out there in parent land. I'm not the perfect parent. No one is but I know a little bit side. I try and maintain that voice of authority but not aloofness. So again that comes across in the language.

00:22:00:27 - 00:24:58:20

Mic: So the voice of the reader is how you put people's stories in them whether it's just case studies or whether it's useful like to use a lot of examples make giving a presentation where you might make a point and then you tell a story about whether it's yourself or whether it's someone else or I may need to make up a story or two in my books just to give that relevant so the reader can go Ah that's me. He understands what the hell is this guy been in my house. That's what I want is this. This guy's seen my kids the way they speak to me. So that's that reliability. And then the third angle is is the voice of authority or other authorities or so that's you reference other people you reference research but not all the way through. Since I was a writer it's not all research. Not all reference. You mix the three in together so that's a really important one and that's that gives it depth. When I read other people's books I'm looking as this has all themselves. Is this their own opinion or you know other head of. Do they know what other people they reference other people in their field. And do they understand the research what's happening and is this evidence based. And then I'm looking at two they understand me. Is this about me. They know my situation. They know business is really hard or do they know that parenting is really difficult or whatever it is and then it's like this person's voice I can relate to this person as well so the angles and then I just my way of planning it out is I pitch an idea to the publisher and I usually sell them on that point is why this book now so. And that's always the way. This is an issue why it's net worth why this book now an important one for the publisher. But I think it's important for you as well is to work out why this is different than anyone else's. So this is the fourth book on being a working parent but this one's really different because it really addresses or on pitching it mainly blokes. I'm pitching it mainly at part time whatever it is maybe that's too nuanced but knowing how it's different is important as well and that is to pitch it to the publisher. It's also a pitch to you to know hey because you are writing a book you're not going to be the only one in that topic in that area. But if you know how you're different or what you're trying to achieve is different what your view of the world is different. That's important. And then my nation then once it. Once we establish it is obtained to plan the chapters out and then my way of attacking it basically is I'll try and get about 10000 words done in a short block so that might be take a week or so off and try and get a whole bunch of stuff in the can as I call it and then I'm one of those people I'll just I have a day a week.

00:24:58:23 - 00:25:34:26

Mic: So for my last book it was I had six months to do a book and I first I was my writing day and I set myself a certain matter types that words each day and I write that lot of words each day. When I was had those words done I would finish basically and then next week I'd take that again. So I reasonably disciplined in that way. And then then that's basically to finish of it then you edit it. So I'm not one of those people who I know some people go back and edit as I go I tension to just put the words in the can. If you got 80000 words to it it's easier than writing 80000.

00:25:35:14 - 00:25:43:14

Pau: That's the sort of the process we are you reading and researching as you go before you start?

00:25:44:26 - 00:28:26:04

Mic: A bit of both, some mix of those so by my way would be just as doable. So my mechanics is this. I mean I've written a book which has been successful just come out called anxious kids. So I can write that so we can explore that in a minute. But basically I saw there was an opportunity there that anxiety is a massive issue and it didn't have to be a detective to work that one out. So I was on the lookout. So I started to read about it occurred in the paper. It is a little bit like once you make a decision do something then suddenly you start to see once you make a decision to buy a certain car in every car he sees that particular car. So I gathered information about it. I started to research it see who the experts were. Read books about it even just read articles about it. And then I sort of created that that I think was my take on it. What's my take on this as I work with someone else. We both had a similar take. So this one was easy because this particular person whom I wrote with my co-author she also had a strong similar take on this which was different than most peoples which I'll explore that in a minute. So once I established that then we we pitched the to the publisher publisher and said yep there's nothing else around about book and we wanted to get in there first because there's no book at the moment called anxious kids by an Australian author. There is now and it's mine and Jodi's. And interestingly enough there is another person who we beat to the to the mark. She's probably has more expertise in this area in running seminars but hasn't she didn't have a book so we have the book which again is sort of marked out territory before she did so once we started that writing then I created files so I create files where I free to the different topics I mean anxiety. One topic for example is around diet so we collected and started research around diet and collected articles sourcing so to establish these folders as well so research start to get big ideas and then as you go along you start to do research and you start writing up your brain around a particular little sub topics which you've created. So it's important I believe to create having a map out so it's not. Starting to go out where we go her? have a map out. So when you start the middle what main aspects were what we wanted to cover and then start to research as you go. Mike how author is a deep researcher I'm not as deep as my my co-author so yeah that's the process.

00:28:26:04 - 00:29:13:07

Pau: Well I mean thank you for sharing that with us and let us dive into that I mean so you've got this wonderful new book out and that's the way they crashing it out there anxious kids and it is again based on all the things we've already had a discussion about about finding a conversation that you know people want somebody to have and you recognize there's a gap and you've been able to get there Mark your territory and you get out first even when there is other people. And certainly one other that's a leader in that space. So tell me about that process because eleven books this is the first one that's been co-authored so what was that experience like trying to write a book with somebody else and we're talking and we see your co-authors is Dr. Jodi Richardson. So what was that process like? 

00:29:13:20 - 00:32:44:11

Mic: Look for it was seamless for us which was very fortunate and now I'll be very honest it might not be as easy for everyone. I'm not sure that I'll explain that process and I'm very fortunate. My co-author is as it is a good match so I'm in my 60s she's in her 40s so this is generational aspect male female Dr Jodi Richardson comes from a teaching background work with beyondblue with the PHC behind us she's a good research shows she uses newer stuff we got together we started we've been doing that we've worked together in the parenting space and she experiences anxiety herself and she still does so she knows it inside out and through conversations it turned out that I've experienced but not at the same level as her and we both turned around and she said to me one day I want to write the book that I wish my mum had about anxiety and I bought into that in a big way. So she's wish my mum had of known a bit more about it and I actually thought I wish I had a night a bit more about it when I was raising my own kids and now they're in their thirties now. So there is I've been a lovely story to say we actually walk into a seminar saying this is a book which we wish our mums had have had and that from ourselves itself in some way. So we work from a strong base. We've been there we went out and started to speak about it and we went to our seminars and we realised that where our strengths were and this was a topic when I say seminars we didn't run our public seminars we people would hire us so our schools would finance can you come and give a talk on X and I go Actually I can bring two of us out and so two of us came out more of a fee. We probably lost money by getting the two of us out. We started to work together ran a course an online course credit on my course and then the next step was a book. So how we did it was quickly we realised that we had strengths and where our strengths lies. She was a researcher I was more the practical guy. Some of the topics were more of interest to her than to me. So we just planned the whole thing out on a whiteboard and we basically split it in half and it worked out that it split in half. Not not not in total half it wasn't you right the first half our second half she wrote know first couple of chapters I write chapter five or six and then there was a bit that way we went off together we we we split up so was over probably about three months after getting half of it done. We read each other's we would tune in sometimes to speak to each other but we we stayed out of each other's faces and then we read what we'd both written and we had to tighten up a little bit change it a slight bit of direction I took the lead so I think you need someone who's going to lead and because I've had an experience I suggested she needed to change her voice a little bit my voice was a bit more of the voice of authority. Hers was a bit too friendly so lovely to work with she went back I get what you're saying you went back and changed changed her voice so to speak back. We went head down bum up finished it off got the manuscript together and then I took over the manuscript there and just before we set it off. I then made sure it all sort of matched and that was more about voice and things such as if you start chapter one's saying you need to do this and you end up end of it saying they need to fixing up all that take that much work that I took the control then of that last aspect of it went to the publisher and then we had to do more editing from there.

00:32:44:12 - 00:35:06:24

Mic: So I guess the long and short of it is that there was a good experience for us because we did the planning first. We understood each other where we came from. And then we we split it up. We both took the areas of interest. So she was very into nutrition. I don't want to know about it. So she wrote about the nutrition she's a she was very much into exercise a lot about exercise did a lot about that exercise is a lot around physiology around anxiety around the amygdala and the reptilian brain and blah blah blah. Not my forte she did all of that particular work and my forte was more around the practical stuff of how you can put some of this stuff into place for you parents can put it in place at home so we sort of credit chapters which match our strengths. So I created a chapter for example around I call about I'm not smiling now I say you need a parent like a cat a dog that needs kids needs some firmness and some some That's the cat. And they also need some nurturance which is the dog style. And I wrote a lot about that around anxiety. So kids need a mixture of that firmness to say mate you can do this but they all also need some some nurturance which is you know mate. I understand this is not easy for you. So I sort of transfer what I already know into that space as well. And that anxiety space work well and we've been excited actually it's been a journey because it's only been out for a short period of time and we've had a lot of reprints five countries have picked it up and I think that's partly because we call it just anxious kids. So not our original title but it actually says What's it about anxious kids kids it means it's friendly. It's important what we have. Our subtitle our subtitle is how children can turn their anxiety into resilience. So there's a journey there and I know you're big on this poll. The fact that you need to show in your title where you can end up and we want our kids to end up being resilient. Yeah I had my time again I would not change a thing around titling and around positioning as well. And it's also opens it up. I think if anyone's going to write a book course I have in mind what the next one might be as well. And you know it's we've got anxious kids they're all there's a I think there's we might have an now and I want to give too much away but I let the cat out of the bag already.

00:35:07:12 - 00:37:03:12

Mic: So yes that's the that's that particular journey but it's been a joy and I actually my learning for this is collaboration can be hard but when it works you almost get a better product and why it works well with them with the book is I've often said to people that. Writing a book particularly a length a lengthier one can be a little bit like the old days of putting an LP you might have two or three really good songs and then you have some fillers and sometimes in a book when you've got to write the length and get the length right you've got your main points that you can have a little bit of it is just a lot of filler stuff but when there's two when you're both doing your best stuff and you put it there's not much of a filler in this one it's all or pretty solid stuff which which works reasonably well. But the important bit is there's some learnings from this got a good excuse right person B got to trust each other and got a similar value system. You need to trust each other and you need to have done some sort of work with each other so that you know that that content you want can develop can have some has legs. So I have done some work with some other people in the past and it hasn't worked because I've known far more about it. I couldn't offer as much as I could whereas we both had a lot to offer in our different fields. She had a lot to offer in the anxiety well-being mental health field and I had a lot to offer in the parenting field. Well now it we're still doing seminars together which is fantastic and that journey continues. I often turn around to Jodi when we're on stage and say Can you just talk about that awesome oxytocin thing which happens in your brain when when kids kids exercise in yoga. Bang. Great. And then so we now make a thing of that she has some expertise in that area and I have some expertise in the parenting area.

00:37:04:09 - 00:38:35:03

Pau: And I think that is important for entrepreneurs when they collaborate in any way whether it's in written form on a book or whether they're putting a project together. I think those couple of elements that you mentioned one that we come to the table with close to sort of an even share of knowledge and skills and abilities that we come to the table with same values and that we come to the table being able to complement each other rather than compete with each other for the same space and clearly yourself and Jodi you know that's the reality you have your strength areas you both have a lot of knowledge but they complement each other and coming from the same space. It's been fantastic to you know to watch it from from afar and say the great success and and totally deserve it and I wish you continued success with the book. You know it's the fact that it's getting and spreading so quickly and reprints and into multiple countries that that's brilliant. So I'm super excited for you and I guess you know listening here that I say it's a timely conversation because anxiety seems to be something that more and more we are faced with and many of us probably had exposures without even understanding it through our childhood. So if people want to get their hands on the book obviously it's about good bookshops but if they want to connect with you will learn more what's the best way for them to connect.

00:38:35:11 - 00:39:31:17

Mic: All right. Yeah thanks for parentingideas.com.au  is the easiest way. If you remember Michael Grose will take you to the parenting ideas website so his parentingideas.com.au Yeah we've got a number of books etc. There are blog regular Saturday nights of anyone sort of interested in sort of staying up to date on on what's happening in the parenting scene and I use other people to assist as well we run some good webinars as well on different topics which are very topical parenting and technology. We sort of cover what are the latest stuff. We've got one coming up on rites of passage for example. So we believe that young people should have a healthy rites of passage rather than just schoolies week so we've got an expert in to run one and show parents how they can create your own rites of passage so parentingideas.com.au if you want to join me on my journey to on all things parenting.

00:39:31:17 - 00:40:35:07

Pau: Thank you Michael. It's been a really enlightening conversation I think that people have got a lot of value in terms of just thinking about their own sense in their positioning of authority their expert positioning and the role that authorship can play and the powerful role it can play in terms of helping to position you as you mark your territory and then finding and listening carefully to your market for for the conversations that are happening around you and then interpreting that and then feeding that back to them to say okay this is sounds like this is the problem. And then of course saying that the response that comes from that when you when you get those things lined up correctly. And I think for anyone who's out there who's. Yeah I know I can see the value in the benefit of writing a book but it is not my natural ability. There are otherwise obviously there are ghost writers and things to help extract these things I think you necessarily dismiss the idea but you can go otherwise around it if you're not a natural writer.

00:40:35:15 - 00:40:42:29

Mic: I could I couldn't agree more. I couldn't agree more. Yeah yeah I've seen people do that. The ghost writing is great why did that great way to go.

00:40:43:14 - 00:40:57:21

Pau: Well thank you so much. I know you're very busy with the great success of anxious kids and running a really successful business I really appreciate you making some time to chat today and share your wisdom with with our audience.

00:40:57:21 - 00:41:00:03

Mic: That's a pleasure Paul thanks very much for letting me join in.

00:41:00:04 - 00:42:14:10

Pau: I hope you enjoyed that conversation with Michael and took over a lot of valuable information regardless of whether you were going to write a book or not. There some really important lessons there for every entrepreneur clearly about the constant innovation that's required in terms of staying relevant in your field of business. One of the things that Michael pointed out was about every two years he was upgrading a new topic a new area to focus on so that he stayed relevant in his marketplaces and that's something that every entrepreneur needs to be looking to do. We can't just get complacent and be doing the same thing year in year out we've continually gotta improve and target what it is that the market that we serve is looking for but authorship is an incredibly powerful tool and something that should be considered seriously as a marketing vehicle for your business. Most people won't make a lot of money out of books but that doesn't have to be the primary purpose for you producing a book can simply be about positioning and packaging up your expertise in a way that makes you truly stand out from the field and helps you to position yourself as that go to person for that expertise is something certainly worth considering.

00:42:14:10 - 00:43:23:04

Pau: So thanks again for joining me for this week's show. I am here to serve you and I want to say thank you for listening to program for subscribing to the program and of course if you haven't subscribed. Love you to do that. And of course continue to share the program with other entrepreneurs that you know who are looking for help and assistance and guidance in terms of how to grow a more profitable business. And again a quick reminder if you haven't checked out our marketing Super Conference it's now just around the corner. Coming up on Friday the 18th of October so that two weeks from the release of this episode. So if you would like to join me on Friday the 18th of October here in Melbourne for a one day event where we'll be working on packaging and positioning your expertise. You can check it all out at the marketersclubacademy.com/pressgo You'll get all the details there. So thanks again for being with me. I look forward to serving you again next week. And until then I wish you all the very best of luck with your business. But much more importantly with your lives. Until then take care. Bye for now.