The SuccessLab Podcast: Where Entrepreneurs Collaborate for Success

When something is broken, oftentimes, the natural instinct is to turn a blind eye and hope someone else will fix it — but this wasn't the case for Paul Roetzer. While working at a public relations agency early in his career, Paul was having a hard time reconciling the services he was providing for clients with the cost of their retainers. So, he set to work on a solution that would standardize PR services and prices. And in 2005, Paul launched PR 20/20, a marketing consulting and services firm that became the first firm in HubSpot's certified partner program which now includes thousands of agencies from around the world. According to Paul, success isn't solely financial — it's about bringing true value to others and aligning yourself with people who have a similar take on life. He truly believes his career successes — from growing PR 20/20 to authoring two books (The Marketing Performance Blueprint and The Marketing Agency Blueprint) to launching the Marketing Artificial Intelligence Institute — is a direct indication of this. In this episode, Paul discusses why getting uncomfortable and making small bets on yourself is one of the best ways to fuel your career and achieve the goals you set for yourself. This mindset has helped him successfully manage the rapid growth of PR 20/20 while dealing with the tragic passing of his best friend — an event that forever changed his perspective on life and business. Read on for a selection of questions, and listen to the entire interview by clicking the player above. What led you to create PR 20/20? In the early 2000s, I was working at a PR agency and I didn't really understand the business model. Everything was billable hours and in my young mind, it didn't make sense. I would send invoices to clients every month and it'd be a block of text of all the things we did. The client would call me and say, "this looks great, but what did we get for $12,000 last month?". I wanted this process to be more tangible for myself and for clients, so I started working on this idea of standardized services and set pricing. "PR 20/20" was originally a paper I wrote about how the industry needed a new vision for how it did everything. A year and a half after writing it, I went home and told my wife that I'm going to start a business. She said, "okay, what does that mean?". I said, "I don't know, but I'll make sure we have health insurance and a paycheck when I do." That was a Wednesday and on that Sunday, I got a $25,000 loan from a family member and I started the business two weeks later. What was one of your darkest moments, and how did you emerge from it? I was 27 when I started the agency. I didn't have any kids and my wife and I had been married for four or five years at that point. Life was pretty good and then my father-in-law passed away suddenly of cancer. We tried to figure out how to move on with life after that and then the following year, my best friend died in a tragic accident. Here I was in the midst of 100% growth, and from the outside, it seemed as though I had everything figured out. On the inside, I was a wreck and was trying to figure out how to piece together the next day. I threw myself into business even harder because it became my escape and the growth distracted me from dealing with the reality of life. It was the reality that took me a long time to kind of come to grips with. No one wants to live through that stuff, but I have a totally different perspective on life and business once I eventually made it through. What has been one of the best things you've done for the business to grow it? I made a bet on HubSpot in the very early days. I think what I've done well in my career is finding people I wanted to surround myself with — people who had really interesting visions and who I thought had the will to see them through. HubSpot was very much a bet on its people, not on its technology. I truly believed Brian Halligan and Dharmesh Shah were committed to building a different kind of company and eventually a much better product that would help our clients and us. Many of the doors that opened in my life — like writing books to eventually moving into the AI space — came from these early days and the relationships I built at HubSpot. How have you managed to juggle the growth and sustainability of both 20/20 and the Marketing Artificial Intelligence Institute? Part of the way I balance everything is that I never get too high or too low on anything because stuff goes sideways all the time. I teach my team that when something goes sideways, you can't get caught up in the totality of the thing that went wrong. You have to break that thing into little pieces — and then attack those pieces and solve them one at a time. As long as you stay focused on the thing you can actually affect, then you don't get caught up in the bigger problem that can make you feel overwhelmed. Are there one or two connections you've made along your journey that made a big impact? Dharmesh Shah and Brian Halligan at HubSpot. They're just good people. Jay Baer also comes to mind. He is one of those people who is bigger than life on stage, but is probably a 10 times better person in real life. Other people I can think of include Ann Handley, David Meerman Scott, Mitch Joel, Marcus Sheridan, Joe Pulizzi, and Andrew Davis — they're just incredible humans. I've been really lucky to not only become peers with them on the speaking circuit and in the author world, but actually become friends with them to the point where we can grab dinner, jump on a call or drop a text message. They've always been there and that's just the kind of people they are. What's advice would you have for fellow entrepreneurs looking to launch a side hustle or second business? Having talked to a lot of entrepreneurs, they think success is what their family, friends, peers or competitors think of what they're building, but none of their opinions matter. I think not enough successful entrepreneurs tell the emerging entrepreneurs that they get to define their own success, so that would be my takeaway for them. Speed round: Coffee drinker, yes or no? Yes. Three to four cups a day. One business tool you're geeking out over right now? I'm real keen on what we're doing with MarketMuse. Favorite piece of technology? I really love the Philips Hue lights. I like being able to have a million different colors and control it from my phone. What's one book you'd pass along to a fellow entrepreneur? Human + Machine. It does a really good job of laying the groundwork for how marketers, agency professionals, and people will work with AI in the future — without a bunch of technical jargon. One person you'd like to make a connection with? Mark Cuban What would be your icebreaker if you were to meet Mark Cuban? I would probably ask him what AI tools he's using now because he's got to be using some cool stuff. How many hours of sleep do you get each night, on average? Six to seven hours. Which Lil' Wayne song is your favorite? I love his remix of "Imagine" with Imagine Dragons. He just has the one section in the song, but I think it's really cool and it's the only Lil' Wayne song my daughter can listen to. How can people connect with you? Twitter and LinkedIn. Just make sure to add a little note that you heard me on this podcast.

When a routine –– and very common –– medical procedure went awry, it prompted a major career and life shift for Stephanie Schull. Stephanie's mother underwent a procedure that hundreds of thousands of women have undergone, and like many that have –– which they would soon come to learn –– her outcome was unsuccessful, leaving her in pain for the rest of her life. Refusing to accept this fate, Stephanie left her career as a philosophy professor in pursuit of a better solution for the many women who—like her mother—experience pelvic floor issues. Today, Stephanie is the founder and inventor of Kegelbell, the only FDA-registered external vaginal weight that provides a natural way to get stronger pelvic floor muscles. Through Kegelbell, she is aiming to remove stigmas around women's health and bring a voice to pelvic floor issues that have been kept quiet far too long. In this episode, we learn about Stephanie's sweeping move from academia to the business world, the challenges she faced in producing solutions for what is still mostly a taboo subject, and the creative ways she's been able to run her company with a lean team. Read on for a selection of questions, and listen to the entire interview by clicking the player above. What led you to create what is today known as Kegelbell? My mother got a pelvic mesh surgery that didn't work well for her and she will be in pain for the rest of her life. When I learned about this, I was shocked to know that she had problems with her pelvic floor for all these decades. And I was shocked that there was a surgery with such a questionable success. My response to the problem was to research it. That's when I realized that most women have problems with their pelvic floor and as of five or so years ago, people weren't talking about it. The solutions, as a result, were flawed because there wasn't enough conversation. As I dug, I saw that there was a good option, it was just not being utilized. When I talked to people about it and discovered they weren't going to make it right, that's where I decided I had to get involved, so I quit academia and started Kegelbell. What's been one of the biggest challenges you've had to overcome in building Kegelbell? The first challenge was that the subject of pelvic floor issues was taboo. My mother had the problem for decades and didn't tell us about it. When I started wanting to fundraise, I heard a lot of "no, that's not really a problem" and "it's too expensive to educate people about it." Something else that I got pushed back on was the solution I was proposing to fix, treat and prevent weakened pelvic muscles. A lot of investors were saying, "you need to provide an ongoing band-aid solution that keeps the customer on the hook." I ran into some pretty systemic problems right out the gate. What was one of your darkest moments, and how did you emerge from it? The darkest moment is an ongoing, everyday concern. With a physical product, I'm looking down the barrel of bank account and cash flow issues every day. Looking at cash flow problems is uncomfortable and it's like I'm flying too close to the sun all the time. As I get bigger, it's the same problem, just with larger numbers. This isn't going to go away. I have to adjust to this reality, which is a bit different than the things I've been used to up until this point. What keeps you going? Listening to podcasts like these so you don't feel alone. It's important to hear from other people with multi-billion dollar companies and hearing them say it's never comfortable and that they're always close to the edge. I recently heard the founders of Lyft talk about how some of the scary moments just don't go away, and I've been telling myself that. Finding comfort in hearing from others is why I wanted to share my experience in hopes it helps someone else. What has been one of the best things you've done for the business to grow it? Not giving up. If you stick with it, it grows a little bit incrementally and then that growth becomes exponential. It's been hard because I haven't paid myself this whole time. We have very few paid people, but that helps us grow. Also, finding the right people to have around. In this case, it's people willing to work as a volunteer for free or at a reduced rate because they really love the mission. I need their energy and talents for this to work, so bringing on more people, even though I didn't have the money to, really mattered. What does the future look like for Kegelbell? More products. I have so many products on the shelf that I want to launch. Everyone has warned me that it's too soon and to wait until Kegelbell is strong enough. But, you have to innovate and offer more. The investors are right in that having just one product isn't sufficient. Once you've acquired the customer at that cost, you need more than one product. So, rather than give them a solution that isn't permanent, I'm just going to give them more products that do different things and solve different problems. I hope to be known as a company that solves problems in a novel way. Are there one or two impactful connections along your journey that made a big impact? I think a big deal for me was getting connected to SEED SPOT, which is an incubator/accelerator for businesses with a social impact. I went from having no business network to immediately being connected to a world where people were helpful. One of my favorite memories of another impactful connection stemmed from an architecture trip to LA I went on with a friend. During one of her meetings, I went to a pot pie place. There was a nice gentleman there behind the cash register. He came by and asked me how the pot pie was. Eventually, I began to tell him all about Kegelbell. He started asking questions and then he offered some advice. I found this guy to be really resourceful and that he had some useful information. He said he'd be happy to look at my website and give me some feedback. Later, I found out that this guy was not the cashier at a pot pie place. He was a former CMO at Pixar, Disney, Nestle, and was the current CMO at Sears. He's also one of the Harvard Business School Angel Association and has been a mentor and one of my advisors since that day. What's one piece of advice you would give to fellow entrepreneurs looking to make impactful connections? Hopefully that story of the pot pie place is a lesson that you never know where a connection will be made. I'd also say that too many people are hesitant and take the safe route. Be a little more risky, because bold gestures often end up resonating. Speed round: Coffee drinker, yes or no? Yes. One business tool you're geeking out over right now? Gorgias Favorite piece of technology? The cell phone What's one book you'd pass along to a fellow entrepreneur? The 4-Hour Workweek by Tim Ferriss One person you'd like to make a connection with? Tim Ferriss or Sigmund Freud What's your favorite ice breaker when introducing yourself to someone (either online or off)? If someone says you look familiar, I say, do you watch a lot of porn? And then they're like, "Oh wait...no. Do you?" I say I don't but that I was just looking for a conversation starter. It slays every time, and if someone runs away scared, you probably didn't want to hang out with them anyway. How many hours of sleep do you get each night, on average? At least eight hours, sometimes seven. How can people connect with you or Kegelbell? You pretty much can find us on any platform—TikTok, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram. You can also email [email protected].

Seven continents, 70 countries, countless books, studies in psychology, philosophy and physiology at Oxford with a specialization in brain chemistry were all part of a quest to figure out how to live a good life and what a good life even means. And that search eventually led Arthur Worsley to create The Art of Living. Prior to, however, he had been working 80+ hour weeks at McKinsey for three years. Burnout and several other life events prompted him to leave and finally start to uncover what it means to live a good life. Today, after immersing himself in studying this, he is helping others get more out of life and achieve self mastery through his TRACKTION Masterclass and The Art of Living. The following is the transcript from the show. But first, a few helpful links: More about the TRACTION Masterclass (tip: use code "wiredpr75" to get 75% off the class! Only the first 50 people) GTD (Getting Things Done) book summary Productivity & Performance: Do More, Better How to accelerate learning What led you to create The Art of Living? I left McKinsey and I'd been doing a whole load of things. I'd been studying, I learned five languages, I did an ultra marathon through the Sahara desert, I'd been traveling and reading books, and I wanted a way to capture all of that. I stumbled on the Fineman method of learning –– learning by teaching it to someone else. I started putting this stuff down and people started reading it. I've always been fascinated with being good at life. I had a father who was an alcoholic and despite having all of the advantages that he could have possibly had, he sort of threw his life away. If I look back at my decision on why I wanted to study psychology, why I've always been so interested in reading and why I went traveling, a lot of them link back to trying to get to the bottom of these questions, which is how can we live a good life? How can we not throw away everything that we're given? What does a good life even mean? That's where The Art of Living really came from. What was the turning point when you realized you had stumbled onto something viable with The Art of Living? When I started out and people started resonating with the stuff I was writing, that was the first moment where I thought, maybe this is possible. The moment that I realized that this was really going to be something cool was when I was with one of my partner's friends who's a retired CEO. I was chatting to him and his wife about the life philosophy that I'd put together, the way I organize my weeks and my days and how I avoid burnout and they said, "Hey, would you give us some coaching?" I'd never really thought about coaching people on that, and that is when I realized that the business was probably going to be viable. What were the early days like? Once you knew you wanted to build this, how long did it take you? I started out reading a lot of books and it was a huge learning curve for me. Some people start a business and they come from a strong marketing background and then they find a product that they can sell. Some people have a product or a cause that they believe in, and then they're trying to work out the marketing aspect of it. For me, even though the product had been evolving, I knew what it was I wanted to help people with from a very early stage and I focused on one channel. I'm a big search engine optimization guy. I love the idea of just optimizing something and then leaving it out there and having it slowly accrue more people. That was my top-of-funnel and then I had to work out how to turn those readers into subscribers and those subscribers into buyers? That was a long process of trial and error and learning from people who'd been there before me. It's quite a different path than McKinsey, was there anything you had to overcome mentally to let go of that chapter and pursue this as a new path? I think it's surprisingly similar to McKinsey in two ways. The first is that what I do involves taking really big problems and breaking them down into really small problems that are easy to solve. The reason I'm able to help people find more balance and meaning in their lives is when you break it down into eight different areas and five different time horizons, suddenly it becomes a set of much smaller problems. The second thing is that it's all about learning super steep learning curves. I would start a project at McKinsey knowing nothing about oil and gas or defense or healthcare or supermarkets in the UK and within three months you're helping the CEO clarify decisions they're going to make. One of the things that I did struggle with is I've always loved problem solving for the sake of problem solving and that tends to mean that I put more energy into solving the problem than it necessarily needs. I have to keep catching myself not to get sucked into spending more time than I need solving the problems that are in front of me. One of the things you're most known for is your TRACKTION productivity system. In that, one of the first steps is to diagnose what's holding you back. Can you share some tips on how to identify that? There's two kinds of people in this world: those who know what they need to be doing and aren't doing it, and the people who genuinely don't know what they need to be doing. For a lot of people, getting clear on which of those they are, is important. A lot of people know what's going to move the needle and what the most important thing in their business is, and they just can't seem to focus on it. For those, I think one of the most important things you can do is start tracking your time and creating a bit of an inventory of what it is that you're actually working on. When you track your time, it creates accountability. I don't mean on a minute by minute basis or with an app where you build pie charts. You can do this very simply on a piece of paper. You say, 7:15am start breakfast, 7:45am start work, whatever it is that you do. You get a lot of clarity around how much of that time is not being spent on the stuff that's important. For the people who genuinely don't know what to do, the most important thing is to just sit down and work out what that most important thing is. You can go through a basic planning method where you work out what it is you're trying to achieve. The model I use is 'what, why not, how, what if and what next'. You ask yourself, what's the what? Then you write down all the reasons that you're not already there. Then you go, how can I solve all of those things? Then you go through a what if phase, which is where you anticipate anything that could come up that could derail you. Then you look at that entire list and go, what's the most important thing on this list that I could be working on and you get on with that. If you do that, you'll naturally squeeze the stuff that doesn't matter off your plate. How do you then identify things you may be doing on a daily basis that don't really matter? The most powerful way is when you have a vision of what awesome looks like for each area of your life. Something I like to get people to do is write down all the things they're working on right now and then you give each of those things a score from minus five to plus five. Minus five is any activity that's taking you strongly away from that vision that you've written down. Plus five is anything that's taking you strongly towards that. It creates a huge amount of clarity to go down that list and give everything a number. What people who are really struggling tend to do is they have a few minus ones and minus twos on that list and those are things you can easily get rid of. What people who are very productive but are struggling to get to the next level find is they have a lot of plus ones and plus twos and those are things that are hard to give up because they're not doing you any harm and might be slightly pleasant, but they're not as important as the plus five and plus four stuff that's getting you towards your vision. Doing that process is super helpful for getting clear. If you don't have time to think about what awesome looks like or you haven't done any visions for the different areas of your life, you can use a few heuristic models. I tend to use three nets. The first is the ABC method. A is something that if you did or didn't do, it would have a big impact and C is something that would have no impact at all. B is something that would have a little impact. You go down the list and you go, this is an A task and if I stopped doing it, stuff's really going to start going wrong. This is a C task, if I stopped doing it, nothing will really happen. The second model, I call "hero-based thinking". Think who's your business hero and then look at each of the things on your task list and go, would my hero be doing this or not? The last net is the $10 task test. Go down the list and ask, how much would it cost to outsource this to a freelancer and that will give you the final clue, which is, is this something that I personally should be doing? If you're an entrepreneur and you aspire to be paid $1,000 an hour, and you've got a lot of $10-tasks on your list, or even a lot of $100-tasks, then you're short changing yourself. Those three nets will tell you, is it important, should it be done at all and should I be doing it? You work with a lot of entrepreneurs who are facing burnout whether because their work has taken over their lives or they feel like they have to compromise their lives in some way to grow the business. Is there a common thread among these entrepreneurs that you've seen –– something that's keeping them in that pattern? How can they start to break free from that? The two most common ones are lack of energy and lack of clarity. For lack of energy, I talk about three kinds of days: A days, B days and C days. An A day is a work day where you're working on the most important projects. B days are planning days where you work out what success looks like or get clear on your inboxes. C days are recovery days where you get to the end of the day with more energy. For the last four weeks, mark in your calendar as an all day event if it was an A day, B day or C day. Suddenly people go, I haven't had a C day in four weeks, no wonder I'm feeling a bit run down. Or, I've only had two C-ish days because I was at a wedding and that doesn't really count. A lot of the time, it's just creating clarity. It's so easy to forget how long and how hard we've been working as an entrepreneur. And then you can put for the next four weeks when are you going to do your A, B and C days. My rhythm is five A days, one C day and one B day every week, and every four weeks, I try and take at least three or four consecutive C days to recuperate my batteries. The second is, a lot of the reason people end up just working on work is because they don't have a best alternative to working on work. I encourage people to get really clear on what it is they actually want out of the other areas of life. What does success look like for their family, their health, their wealth, the learning and growth that they want to through? When you're offered a choice, it doesn't just become a default of I'll do more work. On The SuccessLab Podcast we talk about the idea of impactful connections and how they can really transform the trajectory of your career or your business. Are there one or two along your journey that made a big impact? One of the most important set of relationships that I've had are the mentors in the books I've read. There are two ways that you can approach a book. You can approach it as you listen to what it is that's being said to you, or you can treat it as an active dialogue with the author. Those relationships are very powerful. That's a kind of academic answer so I think the most important relationship that I've got at the moment is my partner, Erin. She's amazing. Lastly, I have a very specific set of values that I look for in the friends that I keep around me and all of those people are constantly inspiring me, making me feel grateful to be alive and showing me new ways of thinking and challenging some of the parts of me that need more development. What's one piece of advice you would give to fellow entrepreneurs looking to make a change in their lives? It's really helpful to get smart at breaking problems down. Peter Drucker says, if you give two highly competent people a role and they both fail at it, the chances are it's not the people, it's the role that needs to be broken down into more specific roles. I think the same is true of problems. If you throw a lot of people, time and effort at a problem and you can't solve it, it's probably because you haven't worked out how to break it down yet. One of the most important pieces of advice I got when I started out with my blogging was to split my efforts into readers, subscribers, and buyers. That seems like such an obvious thing to do but the moment you break that problem down, it clarifies everything you need to do. Learning to break problems down into smaller pieces is really helpful. Another general problem-solving tip is to invert things. If someone says what does success look like for your business or what should you be working on? You can invert that question and ask, what's the thing that I shouldn't be working on or what don't I want from my business? That will help you narrow the solution space in a way that makes getting to the positive answer more easy. Speed round: Coffee drinker, yes or no? No. One business tool you're geeking out over right now? ActiveCampaign Favorite piece of technology? My iPad Pro and Apple Pencil What's one book you'd pass along to a fellow entrepreneur? Getting Things Done by David Allen One person you'd like to make a connection with? I really wish I could have met Stephen Covey. What's your favorite ice breaker when introducing yourself to someone? Smile. I think the positivity, energy and interest that you show in other people is almost always reflected back. How many hours of sleep do you get each night, on average? I always give myself an eight-hour sleep opportunity and then I also have a siesta every afternoon that's usually 20 minutes to 60 minutes, depending on how well I slept the night before or how tired I am. How can people connect with you and The Art of Living? theartofliving.com You will find the blog organized by the different areas of life. There's book recommendations, book summaries, articles and courses. If you're overwhelmed, you can sign up to my mailing list and I spend the first week guiding you around the very best content on the site.

To leave the corporate world at the beginning of a financial recession to start a company requires big thinking and even bigger action—and Rebecca Clyde has both in spades. Add that to her ability to outhustle and outwork her competitors and it's no wonder Rebecca was able to quickly find innovative paths to revenue and growth for her clients despite all odds. Today, Rebecca has built one of the most highly sought after marketing communications agencies in Phoenix, Ideas Collide, in addition to co-founding her newest venture Botco.ai, a platform that offers chat-nurturing solutions for businesses. How does she do it? By leading with value and operating under the mentality that if you pay it forward, the rest will follow. In this episode, we talk with Rebecca about the forces that drive her enterprising spirit, the hard lessons she's learned along the way, and how she creates channels for paying it forward. Read on for a selection of questions, and listen to the entire interview by clicking the player above. What led you to leave the corporate confines to build your own company, Ideas Collide? At the time, I worked at a good company and really enjoyed everything I did while I was there. But I wanted to take more control of my destiny and my income and I realized the corporate world had a lot of limitations. I realized I had outgrown my ability to work for somebody else and was ready to spread my own wings. In those early days, what were some of the challenges you had to overcome to achieve growth? We started the company in the middle of the recession in 2008. The very beginning years were scrappy. Our goal was to help our clients find a path to revenue and growth despite all of those downward forces. We were also lucky that we were a startup. We didn't have the overhead of a big agency so we could charge less, be nimble, try different things and experiment without a lot of risks. Our clients really appreciated that and as a result, some of our fastest growth years were during that period where most other companies in our industry were contracting. What was the turning point when you realized you had stumbled onto something viable with Botco.ai? My co-founders and I had a hypothesis that the world has shifted to become on-demand. Everyone was struggling to keep up with that on-demand world because the marketing technologies, processes and frameworks that have been built were not designed for it. If we could shift that, and make businesses really responsive, then they would be able to attract more customers and retain them for longer. Last year, one of my customers at Botco.ai A/B tested a campaign where half of their customers were driven to a 'chat with us' experience in which they got to interact with the Botco.ai chat. The other half went to their typical landing page to book an appointment. What we learned was when people have a chance to ask questions and get an instant answer, they're twice as likely to convert and become customers. As soon as I saw the results from that effort, I knew we were onto something. Was it tough to make the decision to leave Ideas Collide and go full time with Botco.ai? It was a transition I had to plan over a good amount of time. I couldn't just walk away from it without being very thoughtful. One of the things I did was make a list of all of my duties and responsibilities and slowly began training people to take on each one of those tasks. It was a way to be able to step away from that business so I could start a new company, but it was also a really great way to develop my team. It created that growth trajectory for many of the team members to step up, take on ownership, and truly have an opportunity to run the business, not just be an employee. It was also a growth opportunity for me because it was time for me to build a new company. There was a lot I needed to learn. I needed to have that space to be able to fully give Botco.ai the attention it deserved. What was one of your darkest moments and how did you emerge from it? With both companies, it had to do with the loss of a major customer or client. With Ideas Collide, there was one particular client that was doing a lot of work with us until they essentially shut down and disappeared. I felt like a punch in the stomach. We had all these outstanding payments with this one client and I had not put in good measures to protect ourselves against that. It was a good lesson. Sometimes these learnings can cost a little bit from a dollar standpoint, but we recovered. With Botco.ai, we also had one client that was hit really hard with the pandemic. Unfortunately, their business contracted almost down to zero overnight. They had to go dark and having to deal with that again was a big blow. Very quickly we had to pivot our value proposition to target customers and industries that were not affected by the pandemic, or at least were affected in a different way. We realized that everything we had put in place could be easily adapted into other sectors. We took those knowledge bases and workflows we had created for our old industry and customers and pivoted those for the sector that was going to be having a lot of movement and activity as a result of COVID. What's one of the best things you've done for Botco.ai to help propel its growth? Getting really plugged into the Arizona startup ecosystem. Phoenix is a very young scene for the startup world. Many people would say we're largely underdeveloped, but because of that, there's a lot of desire to help and a lot of great resources. What specifically helped us was winning last year's Arizona Innovation Challenge. We were one of 10 companies to receive a $150,000 grant. It also came with incredible wraparound services that I am incredibly grateful for. We got to participate in a 500-startup entrepreneurship bootcamp that was really transformational for the business. It's resources like that that have helped us get more visibility and teach me things that I didn't know. Are there one or two connections along your journey that made a big impact? I could write a list of the people in my life to whom I am deeply grateful. Mike Denning has been my coach for many years and has been instrumental for me in terms of my leadership development. Meghan Bednarz, one of my first bosses at Intel, was one of those people who believed in me and my abilities and presented opportunities to me that propelled my career in many ways. Dorothy Dowling at Best Western has also been an incredible mentor and opportunity provider. She's super visionary and an incredible leader that I admire hugely. Gina Corley is one of those quiet forces here in Arizona who is doing a lot to move businesses forward and to modernize the state of digital marketing in this town. Zack Ferris over at Coplex has been an incredible mentor and friend. Eric Miller at the Arizona Tech Council. One of the big things I really believe in is surrounding myself with positive, high energy, experienced leaders because they have so much they can share and if I'm willing to listen and pay attention, then maybe some of that will rub off onto me. What's one piece of advice you would give to fellow entrepreneurs looking to make impactful connections? The most important thing is to always give and provide value first. For every ask I make, I give 10 times. In my case, I do a lot of giving back through Girls In Tech. I also get asked to support a lot of other organizations here, whether it's teaching a seminar for Local First Arizona and helping small business entrepreneurs, or helping a friend that just wants to learn a little bit about software or sales. Or supporting a fellow founder that just needs a friend to listen to or confide in. There's so many ways we can give back, but unless we're willing to do that on a pretty regular basis, I think the asking will fall short and we'll ring hollow. Make sure you have channels for paying it forward, and then the rest will just take care of itself. Speed round: Coffee drinker, yes or no? Sometimes One business tool you're geeking out over right now? Botco.AI, obviously. Favorite piece of technology? The Hypersphere. It's a workout ball that helps loosen up your muscles so that you're not so tight. What's one book you'd pass along to a fellow entrepreneur? Pitch Anything One person you'd like to make a connection with? The founder of Infusionsoft/Keap, Clate Mask. What's your favorite ice breaker when introducing yourself to someone? I would say, "My name is Rebecca Clyde. I'm the CEO of Botco.Ai and I'm helping businesses double their conversion rates with intelligent chat." How many hours of sleep do you get each night, on average? Not enough. Probably about five. How can people connect with you and Botco.ai? It's probably best on LinkedIn. Just mention in your note about how you heard about me, whether it was on this podcast or at a conference or wherever. Just include a little note because I'm most likely to see it that way. You can always email me at [email protected]

When MeiMei Fox submitted her first book proposal, never in her wildest dreams did she think it would lead to a life-long writing career. But, a fateful connection to the right person (combined with her innate writing talent) soon catapulted MeiMei into the ranks of the New York Times bestselling authors. Today, she is also a contributor to Forbes, The Huffington Post, and Self Magazine, among other publications, and has co-authored several other notable titles. On top of all that, she manages to find the time to serve as a life coach and mother to twin boys. What's her secret sauce? Fear less, love more. In this episode, we talk to MeiMei about how she fearlessly pursues audacious goals, how she overcomes challenges and her approach for getting big things done: worst first. Read on for a selection of questions, and listen to the entire interview by clicking the player above.Your background is in psychology, so what led you to writing? I studied psychology then I went to work at McKinsey as a management consultant and I intended to go down that path, but I was really unhappy. It was fascinating and I was surrounded by brilliant people, but I didn't feel that my work was meaningful and helping the world be a better place. After I finished my two-year program with McKinsey, I was lost and I didn't know what to do next. I was talking with a friend who was a doctor, and he wanted to write a book about supplements and I said, "I can help you write that." I bought a book called "How to Write a Book Proposal" and I wrote up a proposal for this book that we would co-author. One of my friends knew someone at Penguin Putnam so I sent her the proposal and she wrote back about a week later and said, "I never do this, but we're going to buy your book." That's how my career in writing got started. What's been one of your favorite subjects or pieces to write? I've been blessed to have been taken down this path through my mentor in the publishing world. She got me into writing books on spirituality. When I began to work on a book with Robert Thurman, who's a professor of Buddhism at Columbia University (one of the Dalai Lama's oldest friends and also Uma Thurman's dad), I was taken with Buddhism. It's been fascinating to work on several books about Buddhism, learn more about it and find that it really resonated with everything that I believed about the world. I feel like I was almost called down that path during my career in writing. From there, I went to work on The Art of Happiness in a Troubled World with Howard Cutler, which was co-authored with the Dalai Lama. How have you accomplished so much over the course of your career? I expected, and wanted, to have children at a younger age, but I ended up getting divorced and spent most of my 30s being single and not getting remarried until I was almost 40 and starting to have a family then. Even though that wasn't what I wanted, I ended up with all this time. So, I just kept pursuing my interests. Everything I've done has been driven by my passion and my purpose. I don't seek out to win awards or be the wealthiest or most successful. I just go after what excites me and gets me up in the morning with a smile on my face. What, if any, was a significant challenge you've had to overcome in your career? Choosing this path is the biggest challenge. There's a great deal of instability and in the world of book editing and ghostwriting—it can be feast or famine. I get a really huge project and get a big chunk of payment upfront and then another chunk when the book is finished. Other times, it's like I'm scrambling to pay the monthly bills. You have to be really comfortable with uncertainty. The trade off has been the excitement and the freedom. I've literally spent most of my career working whenever and wherever in the world that I wanted to. As a life coach, are there any common threads you see in what tends to limit individuals from pursuing or realizing those dreams? I definitely think so. I have a mantra that I've developed over the years, which is "fear less, love more." What I've seen with a lot of my coaching clients is that it's fear that's holding them back from taking a risk. I think everybody's suited to different levels of risk and different levels of stability. There are ways that you can keep working a steady job and have a reliable income while also beginning to explore some of your passions. What I often find helpful is breaking it down into smaller steps. The other big part of it is holding people accountable. It's so easy to put off our dreams and our passion projects and to procrastinate them or push them to the bottom of the pile. A big part of what I do is holding people accountable to say, "here's this small goal that you set to reach your big dream. What's the timing of that? What are you going to have done in two weeks? What are you going to have done in a month? How can we just start moving there step by step?" Are there one or two impactful connections that shaped your journey significantly? Amy Hurts. She's the one who was the senior editor at Penguin Putnam who bought and published the book. We became friends as we were working on that book together. At the end of that process, she said, "You know, you can do this for a living." Even though I now had a published book, I still was in denial over the fact that one could be a professional writer. She said, "I will get you a literary agent and your first freelance editing project." And she did. She remained at my side, guiding me through that process for a decade. I'm immensely indebted to her. What's one piece of advice you would give to someone struggling to achieve an ambitious dream? I think it's so important to break big audacious goals into smaller, more manageable chunks. I also think that you don't have to work with a coach. You don't have to pay anyone. It could be a partner, a parent, a best friend, but I think it's really critical to state your intentions out loud and make them known and have someone who is holding you accountable, checking up on you and seeing if you're continuing to make progress to your goals. Another thing is, a long time ago I heard one piece of advice that I really love –– "worst first." It's the idea that you have your to-do list and in the morning you do the worst thing first. Speed round: Coffee drinker, yes or no? Yes. One business tool you're geeking out over right now? Zoom Favorite piece of technology? My smart phone What's one book you'd pass along to someone who may be looking for new inspiration or a change? The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle One person you'd like to make a connection with? Oprah What's your favorite ice breaker when introducing yourself to someone (either online or off)? My name. MeiMei is Chinese and means little sister. It was a nickname that my brother gave me when I was born, but stuck my whole life. It's a really fun topic of conversation. How many hours of sleep do you get each night, on average? Seven to eight How can people connect with you? All the social. You can find me on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, My Forbes Author Page. And my website is meimeifox.com.