AP 1150: Where Are They Now? Stacy Brookman from Real Life Resilience

AP 1150: Where Are They Now: Stacy Brookman from Real Life Resilience

Pat Flynn:
What's up everybody? Pat Flynn here and welcome to AskPat episode 1150. What a way to end the year. This is the last AskPat: Where Are They Now? episode of the year. And I wanted to finish off with a bang because we have a guest on the show. Her name is Stacy Brookman, and she's got a business where the last time she was here on the show, which was honestly, nearly three years ago, in episode 1006 ... you can find her at StacyBrookman.com. She was wanting to know whether or not she should start writing books or start speaking. And she was just really confused about where to go next.

And honestly, in terms of turnaround, in terms of growth since chatting with somebody here on AskPat, this is one of the most fun catch-ups, I will say. And you'll see why in just a moment. So make sure you stick around, listen all the way through. Stacy is amazing. She's doing some amazing work that's really important to help loads of people. And I hope that you pay attention because this is awesome. So thank you and enjoy the show. Here we go.

Stacy, welcome back to AskPat 2.0. thanks for coming back on with us today.

Stacy Brookman:
Oh Pat, I'm so excited to be here.

Pat:
I'm excited to learn about what has been up since 1006. This was a while back and a lot has happened since in the world, obviously, and I'm sure in your business too. Give us an update. What has happened since we last talked about ... And I think we talked about whether or not you should come out with a book or speak, what has been happening?

Stacy:
Right. Right. Well, I took your advice to heart. I have continued working on my book. In fact, I'm working with a hybrid publisher right now, so it's going to come out next year. So I'm really, really excited about that. I was just like didn't want to do traditional publishing and I really didn't want to do self publishing. So this one is a really happy medium, but what you had recommended was just get started speaking. And I tell you what, I did that and it is amazing. So, I've been speaking about emotional abuse and how you recover through writing and things like that.

In fact, in two weeks, I have a presentation ... I'm presenting at the National Association Against Domestic Violence Conference. Their national conference, I'm speaking at the end of this month. And so I'm really excited. So, I've gathered a lot of speaking opportunities and there's so many out there and they're really easy to do. So that has really ... and actually that's built my email list to thousands, like just doing that. So, I actually—

Pat:
I'm so happy.

Stacy:
Yeah. I had the book on hold for a little while. I was like, had a busy job, and I was just overwhelmed and put that on the back burner now. It's not ... but I went ahead and start speaking. And that was pretty cool. I love it.

Pat:
You can remember back to when you finally made the decision to start speaking, what was going through your head? What took so long, I guess, or what was stopping you?

Stacy:
What was stopping me? I thought everything had to be like you or Chalene Johnson or perfect and look beautiful with a white background and everything else. And I realized, you do not have to be worried about that. Just get started. And I was afraid that it was just like me and I was too small and these are amazing things. And you know what? All kinds of people need content from you. All you're doing is you're teaching their audiences something that they really need. And so I'm just really confident now. It's so cool to be in this space.

Pat:
Well, I'm thrilled for you. And I'm curious, how did you get your first speaking gigs? What purposefully did you do to go out there and make this happen? It's one thing to have, in your head go, "I'm going to do it now." It's another thing to put rubber to the road and make it happen. How did you do that?

Stacy:
So, one of the things that I did was I surveyed other people in my industry, like other people who are also helping women recover from abuse of different types. And I reached out to them and one of them happened to be doing a summit. So I'm like, "Okay." I didn't didn't know what that was. Didn't know how ... that work. But she walked me through that. And that was so fun. That was really cool.

Pat:
So, you did that to get on her virtual stage to do that summit?

Stacy:
I did. I reached out and I ... Well, I don't know if I asked that. I think I connected with her just to chat. And then probably I was asking her to be on my podcast, is what it was. And she said, "Hey, by the way, I have a summit coming up. I'd love for you to speak." And then I'm like, "Okay. Yeah, that'd be fabulous."

Pat:
The relationships, for sure.

Stacy:
Relationships. Yeah. And now like those partnerships, I call them partnerships, when you do those partnerships with people, like maybe you have them on yours or you do a live with them and they do a live with you or they do a video with you or something like that, that is amazing.

In fact, I have someone now, he is so amazing. He's got a positive like, mental health, like positive spin on YouTube channel. He does these videos. And so we connected and we haven't done it yet for scheduling, but we were like, "Oh my gosh, we connect so well and we chat so well, we're going to do lives, but we're going do lives like maybe quarterly." And it goes to his channel and my channel, YouTube channel. So—

Pat:
So, collaborations, partnerships. I love it.

Stacy:
It is. Yeah. Collaborations and partnerships. So, it is cool.

Pat:
I love that. So, is this all virtual stages you've been speaking on or have you spoken in person?

Stacy:
It's mostly virtual, but I have spoken in person before COVID and all of that. And that was to like, local speakers bureau, local Toastmasters. That's a great way to get started if you're afraid or worried or whatever, that's a fabulous way to get started.

Pat:
Are you afraid or worried as far as the technicalities of speaking when you first began?

Stacy:
Yeah. So, I was worried about technicalities, for sure. I was worried because for me, when I typically talk ... in the past, I had to have every word written out, like everything. I had to have it perfect.

Pat:
Sounds just like me.

Stacy:
I know people like, "Oh, just put bullet points." When I see a bullet point, when I saw a bullet point, that's all I could ... I just could read. I couldn't ... like my brain froze. But I will tell you, if you do enough of those, like you, if you do enough of those, you know your subjects so much, you're able to pivot. And when I do interviews, when people interview me for their podcasts, I'm able to track with them with whatever, like get off track and go down appropriate rabbit holes and things like that because I know my stuff. And so that's fun too. Not having to be married to every single word that you have to say and being able to be flexible. And of course, podcast folks and summit folks and all kinds of speaking engagements, love that as well.

Pat:
For sure. I mean, it's just more natural, more organic. And I hired a coach to help me speak in 2014. And I told him my process. He was like, "How did you do the first few speeches that you did?" And I was like, "Oh, I script out the whole thing." His jaw dropped. "You script every word?" I was like, "Yeah, because I'm so worried, like just wanting to nail it." And he's like, "Well, you're doing yourself and your audience a disservice, because number one, it may not come across naturally. Number two, some of the best moments on stage happen when your brain just goes, 'Okay, I know where I want to go here. I'm going to go here instead or I'm going to take this a little bit further.'" And I love that you've pointed that out because that's a huge thing, but it takes time and it takes trusting yourself and it takes making mistakes to—

Stacy:
And failures. Yeah.

Pat:
Absolutely. Absolutely.

Stacy:
I'll just say this. If there's anybody out there saying, "Well, I could never do that." Just start, begin, because you've got to have those ugly, yucky ... just like when I teach writing to heal, you've got to get that ugly first version, first draft out of your head, you got to have your failures because you got to have a good story to tell later on, right? So, get started.

Pat:
I heard John Lee Dumas once say you have to be a disaster before you become the master.

Stacy:
Yes.

Pat:
It's true in all respects. You had mentioned that these virtual stages have grown your email list, which is really exciting to me.

Stacy:
Right.

Pat:
How are you doing that?

Stacy:
So, what I do is partnerships, growth tools helped me understand how that works. You work together and you connect with somebody like maybe in your industry or a side type of industry. And then you want to give them a win. What would a win be for them? And it could be subscribers, maybe you share their lead magnet with your subscribers, or maybe you do a video, a live with them and invite your folks. And then the same for the other side. They either share my lead magnet or they invite me to a live or ... I mean, like there's literally hundreds of different types of partnerships, but then when they share you, you get subscribers or you get people downloading your freebie or even subscribing to your course or purchasing your course.

And I can tell like, I should have brought this, but I have a timeline of my subscribers. Every time I've done a partnership, I see spike, spike, spike. And so, that's just fun to see. And then now I have over 8,000. I know it's small for a lot of people, but that's huge for me. I started out with under 500 and to have over 8,000 is pretty cool.

Pat:
That's really amazing. What lead magnet are you having your partners recommend? I'm curious. Because it seems to be working really, really well. Tell us what it is. And also just ... Hey, we're doing a partnership right here. Tell us where to go get it too.

Stacy:
Right. Exactly. Yes. So you can go to StacyBrookman.com and it's right there at the front. And I've got my homepage optimized as well for people to click on that. So, it depends on the partner and their audience. So, I am doing a life story summit, which is not about abuse, at the end of this year. And so that is a life storytelling toolkit. I'm giving them a freebie download. They can get on my list and then they'll be notified, right? So that's what I'm going to focus on right now. In the past and I will, again, I had 35 books for emotional abuse, recovery and resilience. And that thing, if somebody downloads that, they're my peeps. If you download 35 books for emotional abuse, I have the fix for you. I can help you.

Pat:
The lead magnet that explains and lists those books.

Stacy:
Yeah. List those books, the top one, the next five and why you should get them, what they do, like just descriptions. And of course they link to Amazon, right? And so that has been my most popular. I have about 10, like "why writing about your ex is healthy. Should you leave your relationship?" I have one as a checklist. "Is it time to leave your relationship?" And if people are wondering, that's a perfect one for that. So depends on the partner and depends on their audience, because it's got to be relevant to their audience. But now, for this quarter, I am focusing on the life story summit. And so it's going to be about life storytelling, those type of lead magnets.

Pat:
This is your own summit?

Stacy:
It's my summit. Right.

Pat:
So you went from not speaking at all to now putting on your own speaking event, essentially.

Stacy:
Yeah. It's easier than you think. Actually, I did do a summit before and it was wildly popular. It was all about emotional abuse, recovery and resilience. So I have done a summit before, but all you got to do is interview, just interview. Like you're interviewing me, and you put them all together and different topics. And it's not that hard. When you're just curious about somebody else, the interview is easy.

Pat:
Exactly. I mean, that's by far, the number one strategy for being a good interviewer: just be curious.

Stacy:
Yeah, just be curious.

Pat:
And I love that. That's so incredible. Is this a paid summit that people will have to pay to get access to?

Stacy:
It's going to be free. And then if you want all the transcripts and the videos permanently, yeah, then it will be paid, but not too much. I'm not charging very much, but ultimately, I will take those and then put it into a little course, right? And then I can sell that evergreen, so that'd be nice.

Pat:
It's great. You've got it all laid out.

Stacy:
All those moving pieces, I'm like, "Just get started because you will eventually have all those moving pieces."

Pat:
And whether it's, you get started speaking or get started with your book, you just have to start or else nothing's going to happen, right?

Stacy:
Exactly.

Pat:
On the book really quick, the hybrid model. Tell us a little bit about that. What's attractive about that for you? And feel free to shout out the company if you're—

Stacy:
Right. It's Pilotage Publishing. And what they do is they shepherd you and your book through creating. You don't even ... Well, you know but you have to have a cover. You have to have that copy. You have to have like formatting and all of that. So they shepherd you through that. So instead of you having to go do that yourself—

Pat:
Like if you're self publishing.

Stacy:
Self publishing, yes. They shepherd you through that. So you're still doing it, but with holding your hand and all of that. And then the next step would be the publishing. They publish it. If it's appropriate for their brand, they will publish your book. And so that's pretty cool. And then they don't take like huge amounts, like—

Pat:
Royalties.

Stacy:
Right. So traditional publisher, number one, it's harder, much, much harder to even get on their list and be able to get accepted by them. Then they may or may not give you an advance. And then you have to sell tens of thousands of books to pay back that advance. And then anything beyond that, you get portion of.

So, I knew I didn't want to do that. First of all, I didn't know if my book would ever be picked up by a traditional publisher, and I didn't want to do all the hard work by myself and learn all this stuff of self publishing. I thought that was ... and so that was actually a stopper. I'm like, "I don't want either one." And then I discovered ... I was like, they actually became friends of mine. I'm like, "Wow, you do all this work and you shepherd us?" And so, you're not just doing it alone.

Pat:
Yeah. I mean, I could vouch for the hybrid model on my latest book, Superfans with NEWTYPE Publishing, was my publisher, and it was very similar, although we did a lot of the work on our end because we have those team members that can do that, build the post-publishing process and the distribution and the royalty situation so much better than what I've heard traditional. And you have more control I think as well, versus a traditional.

Stacy:
You do. But yeah, you have their expert guidance because they publish books all the time, so you have someone like, "Well that is not, this is what would sell a lot better. And let's do that one. So, I love—"

Pat:
Good luck on the book, Stacy. I'm excited to learn more about it. And of course we can check out StacyBrookman.com to find out the lead magnet and I'm sure updates on the book. To finish off here, what's next for you? I mean, I know the summit is coming up and that's probably the biggest thing, but any sort of growing pains, if you will, or anything that's sort of the new struggle? Because every time we reach these new milestones, it's like, "Oh, new set of challenges." What are the latest challenges for you right now?

Stacy:
So yes, with the ... it's LifeStorySummit.com is where my summit is. And so with that, I am like, "Okay. I'm only me. I am still the bottleneck. Wherever I'm at, I'm the bottleneck." And so ... and then I break through and have it ... get this done. And I finally break through and get this done, but right now, I'm the bottleneck for all the tasks that need to be done for like, putting my old summit into a mini course, for connecting all the lead magnets and things like that. I mean, I just need to update like my thank you pages and things like that. So the bottleneck or the issue right now: I need to hire a VA. I need to hire a VA that's effective, that is not incredibly expensive because I'm only me, but yet who is dedicated to me. So, I want it all. I'm just like, "Something's got to give," but ...

Pat:
Yeah. I mean, you're about right at that time when a VA would make complete sense to take stuff off of your plate so you can do more and lean into the things that you have. And I wouldn't want you to go down the route that I've seen many other, which is you have all these new projects and then the collaborations and partnerships stop because you don't have time.

Stacy:
You don't finish any of them. Uh-hmm.

Pat:
Exactly, so.

Stacy:
Yeah. I got more content ideas that are on the shelf because I don't have the time.

Pat:
The nice thing is you don't have to hire a team of 20 right at the start. You can find that one person to unload the painful things or the things that sort of you don't want to do at all. You can start there and start small. So yeah, like good luck with the summit, the book, the VA hire. This has been an amazing update, Stacy. I'm so proud of you.

Stacy:
I'm just so happy you mentioned that because I had not even really considered that. And as I was going through, I'm like, "Wow, maybe. Let's try it, the speaking." And that's what kind of launched all of that. And so, yeah.

Pat:
And look at you now.

Stacy:
Yeah.

Pat:
Congrats, Stacy, thank you so much for inspiring us. One more time, where can people go to learn more?

Stacy:
For the summit, LifeStorySummit.com, and for me ... and the download, if you want the 35 books, it's StacyBrookman.com.

Pat:
Thank you, Stacy. We appreciate you. Good luck.

Stacy:
Thank you. All right, bye-bye.

Pat:
All right. I hope you enjoyed that catch up with Stacy Brookman. You can find her at StacyBrookman.com. And Stacy, thank you so much. Keep doing what you're doing. We appreciate you for what you're doing to help others and for coming on to help all of us and inspire us, especially going into the new year.

So, hey y'all, it's almost 2021. I just want to reflect really quick and say thank you so much for a wonderful year here on the show. To every person who had been coached, thank you for being vulnerable. Thank you for stepping up and not just allowing me to coach you for a little bit, but also allowing us to listen in on the conversation. So, I appreciate you for that.

And a big shout out to everybody who had been featured here on the show and coached here on the show this year. And a special thanks to those of you who are already taking action, which as you can tell, several people who get coached here, do take action and make things happen.

Thank you to the listener who, whether you left a review already or not, I'm just so grateful for your time, your attention, your download, your listen, your ear, and your feedback. We continue to strive to get better here at SPI. And I look forward to serving you even more next year.

So if you haven't yet subscribed to the show, please do that. And please do yourself a favor and take some time this holiday to relax a little bit, to potentially ... like I'm doing right now. Although it was a tough year, there are some really good moments and really good things that have happened. And it made a lot of new things possible, and I'm excited for what 2020 had brought for you in terms of new opportunities. And I'm excited to see how those come across and actually turn out in 2021 for all of us. So I'm here for you. Team SPI is here for you, and we're here for each other. So thank you so much. I appreciate you.

And a big shout out to all the new SPI pro members who've come in right before the end of the year here. You can check it out if you'd like, and you can apply at SmartPassiveIncome.com/pro.

And hey y'all, happy, happy new year, and let's ring in 2021 with high hopes, high dreams, and some amazing times together. Cheers, take care. And as always, Team Flynn for the win.