Janine Bolon

Welcome to Behind the Lectern. Since 2006. Your host, Jeff Klein has been working with speakers at all levels, from beginners to Toastmasters International Award winners, from experts to national speaker Association Hall of Famers. In each episode, Jeff introduces you to some of these speakers as you learn about their speaker journey, how they got started, where they came from, where they're going, and more. Take the lessons they have learned on their way to help you with your own path to make speaking work for you. Let's get started.

Welcome, everybody to another episode of Behind the lectern. I'm excited to introduce you to our guests Janine Bolon today and if I pronounced that wrong, God, he'll tell me right? Right. You're on it. So Janine Bolin has always loved figuring out how things work. A scientist from the beginning she craved to dig into the mysteries of life, and understand why things are the way they are. After working in the pharmaceutical industry for 15 years, she dropped out of corporate America to homeschool her four children. She has always had a side business in her life and shares with other business owners and creatives had a managing well lived life full of children, family, friends, and clients while not suffering from burnout for 12 books, 15 online courses, or podcast programs, and syndicated radio show all expressed her desire to share systems and routines with the rest of us. So thank you for that. With that. Let's welcome Janine. And right now we don't have anybody in our live studio audience, but you never know if we will. We'll let them contribute to the show if they venture in through our Clubhouse or through our zoom. Hi, there.

Hi there. Good morning. Great to talk to you my friend.

Thanks. I'm so glad I'm here. I live. That's pretty funny. I should that sounds like Chevy Chase. I'm so glad I'm here. I'm so glad you're here.

I love to have you today. It's that's wonderful.

Well, so this unlike other podcasts, we're all about the speakers journey. So Janine, I would like to know how you got into speaking as part of what you do?

Well, the speaking part of it was due to the fact I was so highly introverted, and a lot of people who meet me thinks there is no way that you're introverted. And I'm like, I assure you, what you see presented before you is the type of person that goes out, I give everything I've got, as I'm speaking, and then I go hide for an hour and recharge my batteries. Done. Because I'm one of those speakers that you know, you have a lot of speakers that will stay after and I'll have the big mass of people come up to them. I actually have a crew of people that will let me Hi, get off stage, go sit for 15 minutes kind of recoup. And then I'll present myself again to people because I am quite introverted. And I do well looking like I'm an extrovert. But it all started with Toastmasters. I was in a position in the pharmaceutical industry where it was my job to constantly give every week updates and reports on the information we're doing. It was during the AIDS crisis, we were working with anywhere from 2500 to 3000 samples a week that we're running through, we were delivering information to the federal government. And so it was like a nightmare for me with 2020. I was like I totally understood where people were with, we're trying to get the numbers correct and all that. So my job was back before the digital age, doing that sort of work. And so I had to get very efficient at being able to give high quantity, high quality content delivered in executive bullet points in short periods of time. And because I was not trained in that way, that was not the way my brain works. That wasn't even my personality. Dude, that wasn't me. Yeah, I had to. I joined a Toastmasters group. And I highly recommend for people if you have a Toastmasters group in valuable to me, because they force you to talk and get better and better. And you're in a friendly environment. No judgement.

Super smart name. Good for you. Yeah, I mean, I'm a big fan of Toastmasters. I'm the other side. I've never needed it because I am. But yeah, I can never shut up. I was a kid in elementary school who went from the corner to the hall to the principal's office, because I wouldn't stop talking but yeah, I have good friends who are similar to you and and I understand the you give all your energy to the audience. And folks like me worse we're, we have it has its upsides and downsides who we get our energy from the audience, which means if I speak in the evening, I'm not getting to sleep at a decent hour at all because I'm all ramped up from the audience. But they all have their ups and downs that are positives and negatives. But, and I'm sure that I'm thinking that was even before things like PowerPoint and stuff like that.

Right, we were doing subroutine programm ing with QuickBASIC. And we were using RS 232 cables to do interconnects are on our packages and people like me, we're actually building code to build the automation robots that are currently on site. So a lot of the robots now that I can make for 250 to $500, for costing almost a million dollars and had a lot more cords running around. Now that we have Bluetooth and Mindstorms with Lego and all that is fascinating. I love this era. I don't think anyone should have to work as hard as we did back in the day. Yeah, I hear you. I hear you. And so a lot of those caught the screening that you did was probably telephone conference calls, right? Actually, no, we had a special room in corporate where we had special negotiations with certain corporations and companies so that we had live feeds. And so what now is called the Zoom meeting rooms where you can go into certain rooms with flat screens and everything, we actually had to drive across down to the telecommunications group, special building to deliver our international messages. And now I can do it from the comfort of my home office. So it's nice to see Jeff.

You just get people to stop doing it from the car.

I always worry about my people when they are in our car, if they're parked, no problem, but are really worried about a Mr. Driving. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, and I remember, we knew which buildings were the telecom centers, because they had all the antennas. Correct. Right? You could always figure it out. It was just finding parking.

Well, and here in the Dallas market, I was in the movie business during that time period. And there were a couple of places where you could do a live live remote event by going and running, you know, running a room in the conference center and correct. It was the they were next door to the film studio. So they were like perfect part of the communications complex.

Right. You are so yeah, and that's why I'm so grateful. We are where we are. I would not wish those sorts of things on people ever again. Yeah. So when a lot of people complain, I'm like, Oh, but I do so love where I am, right.

I mean, you know, I remember having to wait 45 minutes for dinner because we didn't have microwave yet. TV dinners took 45 minutes,

right? Because they were frozen like a brick.

Yeah. All right. Well, some things that we get a little impatient, unfortunately, our patients kind of changed with the some of the technology. And so some of us need to work on that. Right? Because people still take as long as they take to do things, right. So you were speaking for the pharmaceutical company, and when you went out on your own or when when you went home rather to be a mom and run the house? What? You stop speaking for a while. So it sounds like

yeah, you would think that but what ended up happening was because I was a analytical biochemist that walked away from that, because basically, I couldn't do my job anymore, because I was working with viruses and very dangerous compounds, radiation radioactivity, they didn't want a pregnant woman running around the lab. So I'd imagine that so they had an issue with that. So when I did decide to drop out of corporate America, I ended up speaking instead to community groups, I became the homeschooling liaison because it wasn't really well known. And we were in Colorado. Sorry, we were in California at the time. And because of that, we had a superintendent of schools who was trying to declare that homeschooling was illegal. And so there was quite so I found myself wrapped up in kind of a lot of that drum of what are you talking about, there is no legal thing. And so speaking was always a part of what I was doing, because I was either doing persuasive speaking, but in most cases, I was transferring large quantities of data in executive summary points. So I got very good at taking anywhere from 1500 to $3,000 3000 page results, or reports and distilling them down into a 15 minute presentation without PowerPoints and helping people understand what we wanted to have happen. So you had you had to go to the legislature and lobby. Actually, no, didn't have to do that part. I let people who were actually in that arena. My job was to help my representative at the time or at the county level, be a liaison. So I was a volunteer position. It wasn't like I was right.

No. So you were seeing the politicians. Yes, yes. Their staff? Yes. Yeah. Okay, got it. Got it

trying to help them out. Yeah. Because I don't think a lot of people understand that. If you really don't like what is happening in your local region, going to your state representative, they're hungry for people who can bring quality content, quality data and talk in a way that helps them look smart because they don't want to be embarrassed in front of their constituents. Right?

Yeah, for sure. I've and I had an occasion, a long time ago, well, where I drove. So I drove straight to my state representatives office, the after something happened. And one of sitting with a staffer and filling him in on what was going on. And yeah, that was very interesting. Of course, separately from that I had I had lobbied for the film industry in Austin. And I, the word they use is testified but I did a data dump for them on how much the film industry has impacted the economy of Texas. Because they kept that was back in the day. Well, I guess probably still happening now. Where they every every session, they somebody would come along and say, Oh, why are we giving these people a tax cut? You know, why are we exempting these people from sales tax? Well, because they're bringing in a billion dollars to the economy.

Right, all the money. But we had to show them that they didn't look on their own, we had to keep showing them every two years.

But so yeah, and I've actually been fortunate enough to do a lobby run in Washington where we went to representatives offices, or we were assigned one representative went to their office after a conference anyway. So speaking, lined up actually becoming a pundit, in those terms, a little bit, an expert on your issues for homeschooling. And of course, California, very different than a lot of other states. Because in California, you have initiatives, and you can, the people can bring something up for everybody to vote on if they get enough signatures, right.

You don't necessarily have that in every state. And so and then we were moving quite a bit because my husband at the time, had quite a bit of work that would cause us to move. So I ended up homeschooling in five different states and learned very quickly how to establish a homeschool in each of those states. It's totally different now. And thank heavens, thank heavens. I think, like I said, Nobody should have to work as hard as we did. And I want people to have a smoother way of being able to educate their children in a way that they know is most beneficial for their family. Yeah,

sure. Yeah. And yeah, homeschool is very different now than it was.

Thank you. Very grateful.

Yeah. And now they have homeschool sports leagues and interscholastic sports for homeschoolers, which is kind of a little sounds like an oxymoron. But But I understand what's going on. Because that was the big knock. The big knock on homeschool was the kids didn't get socialized,

Which is hysterical. We call it the s question. In the homeschooling environment. Yes, question. That was always the first question. And I always found that interesting. As a scientist, no one ever said, but what about their education? No one ever said that to me. You're taking them home to homeschool? What about their education? Nobody said that. Everybody was what about socialization as if we would keep them locked up in a board room and not letting them out in any way. My children actually communicate in such a way with people that they're shocked and surprised by the level of communication. I've noticed that as a college professor, because I was the math and science mom, for a lot of the moms schools that we were running, you would find other people in your homeschooling network, who maybe had an emphasis that you didn't. So we were always getting together with these moms schools, and I would help their students, their students with their math and science. And then these wonderful moms that were liberal arts majors Thank the heavens would help my children with Shakespeare and learning how to appreciate English literature or Chinese literature, poetry, I think that we have we had such diversity, but I was known as the the math and science mom. Yeah. For us. Yeah. Well, once upon a time homeschooling was, it did mean that for some of those parents that didn't want their kids exposed to other people that but now, it's a lot different. Yeah, it's very different. So but as far as the speaking journey goes, and for those of your listeners who are thinking about it or contemplating it, there really is no excuse except fear, and fear. Every speaker will let you know one of my favorite documentaries I ever saw was the last show that Johnny Carson did. And for those who are not of that era, I barely made that era that Johnny Carson was on the air live back in the day when all manner of chaos could happen and usually did. He was on it for decades, and they had an episode where he was getting ready to go do a skit, and he was getting ready to walk out from behind his gold curtain that he always had. And you hear him mumbling his first couple of lines, this guy's Pro, this guy has been on TV longer than most of us have been alive, right. And yet, he was still mumbling his first couple sentences. So you know, as a speaker, you just learn how to channel that fear into energy so that when you get up on stage, you can talk and I know a lot of people make a big deal about the statistics of the people would rather die. People didn't fear death as much as public speaking. And just realize that no one makes an exception on that being a vulnerable and standing up on stage and looking at an audience of whether it's eight people, or 80, or 800, I've had the privilege of being able to be in all those sorts of environments, whether it was just 10, or 100, or 1001, of the things I have come to understand is, believe it or not, everybody that's sitting in that chair, once you've succeed, so even though you're looking at 800 sets of eyeballs staring back at you, and you're feeling very vulnerable, nobody sitting in the chairs wants you to be unsuccessful, everybody wants you to be successful. So that is one of the mantras if you will, that I use that everybody that said that chair, whether they came to see me or not, whether I'm the opener, whether I'm the emcee, or maybe I'm a keynote speaker, or maybe I'm one of 60 speakers, nobody's sitting in that chair wanting you to perform badly, they really want my A game. And so all my job is to make sure I bring it.

Yeah, well. And the other thing that goes with that is, the audience doesn't know if you made a mistake and what you are planning to do. Right? Nobody knows about that. And so that's another thing where if you get a don't get hung up on something that didn't go exactly as planned, because it's never all going to go exactly as planned.

It's kind of like a budget, you're going always going to have unexpected expenses, and you're gonna pop out of nowhere. And so you can be flexible or not, but it won't be life altering I have, I have watched speakers drop mics, I have had situations where I walked up, and literally all of this freaking paraphernalia they put on you for live events, literally just dropped off my jacket hit the floor, they're shutting down the reverb throughout the audience. And I'm like, Just a minute, and I did a little dance while the guy, everybody just got everybody laughing like, Oh, wow. And then I had another talk where we had 800 people in the room, and the fire alarms went off, we had to evacuate the room in the middle of my talk. And then while we all came back in, I was getting ready to launch where I started, I had left off, the fire alarm would go off intermittently at various times as the fire department was trying to shut down the various sections. So it's one of those situations that every speaker who has ever spoken for longer than you know, who speaks consistently on a regular basis. Every single one of them has lovely stories. And that's one of my favorite things at a conference is to go back behind stage and chat with people and say, sir, how are you some of your stories because we've all

right, he's got the horror stories, you bet well, and I use some of those stories and when I in my talk about overcoming the fear of speaking, because it's like here's some things that here's some awful things that happened to people. Now, you know, anything that happens to you could not be worse than what happened to these folks. And the world's in and they still walked off the stage to a clause. And sometimes here's a quick to use if you fall down. I mean, you're not gonna fall down but now you have a tool so you know, not to be afraid of falling down. So that one was I learned at a National Speakers Association event, the speaker felt tripped and fell stayed on the floor and just swept up could we have a few words from the floor

so I fall Yeah, my favorite is I was walking out on stage and my pump I did not have stilettos on I usually have very thick heels because I'm aware of stairs on however something happened and my shoe chose not to follow me to the podium so I ended so I ended up Lee leaving my other shoe on the stage and just kept walking to the podium. And I waited until it really started frustrating a few people because started off in my talk and Balaban, I said, Oh, are you worried? Are you wondering what I did with the shoes? You know, I did a call back like they do in comedy. Yeah, that's something that's a lot of fun for speakers. This is very good training for me, is Watch Your comedians, watch those YouTube events where they mess up the outtakes. Watch how they use humor, and understand how a comedian makes jokes. And so I checked out books from the library on comedy, because a lot of people say I am funny. But it's one of those things that I really didn't know the language or how to go about doing comedy. So I would watch everything that Jerry Seinfeld did, I would watch all of these stand ups that started coming through Robin Williams and the like. And I realized that there was a kind of crazy zany ness to it. But when you really started looking at them, there was structure, they have a structure with what they're doing. And as soon as I learned that structure for me, from my personality, no matter what happens to me on stage, I'll figure it out. I'll be able to make a joke about it. Get my people to laugh, because all that nervousness they feel nervous for you. There's what do that what do I do? Can I jump up on stage and help? Or do I stay on my seat? Are we recording? Is there a camera somewhere I gotta watch out for? There's a lot of people that want to help you, huh?

Well, yeah, and I actually took a class on stand up, did a stand up comedy workshop, and got to go up for five minutes at the Improv is the graduation. So that was kind of fun. I put that ice is gentle. It's a Yeah, it's out there for the world to see. And we've done improv for speakers through Speaker Coop, we bring in CO an improv expert, and we play some games. And there's nothing better than learning what happens when you forget what you're going to say, to have the tools in your brain to keep you from just completely dying up there learning some of that stuff. And yeah, you know, learn how to write a joke and different schools of comedy, where some people are the observation and some people are the telling the stories and all that good stuff. Amazing. So now we're at home school, and you've become a amateur politician and lobbyists, only amateur because they're not paying you otherwise. That's the only difference right? Between professional and I'm looking at 12 books. And when did you start writing the books is that throughout the whole time on different things are

Right, writing the book in 2005, there was a massive sea change in the publishing industry at the turn of the century. And that massive sea change was what they call vanity publishers. So you were so vain. Remember how they used to talk, you were so faint that you would publish your own book, but they didn't understand there were people like me, who I couldn't find textbooks for my students. I was now a college professor, I was an adjunct professor in southern Utah at that time. And I was working as the science and math person for non majors, I was helping build out a program and I could not find information and and I noticed the grades dropping with my students and come to find out it was because they were not budgeting their funds. And by the time they got to the end of the semester, they had run out of money and reason why the grades started dropping was because of lack of nutrition. They were fainting in classes. I had one person that was telling me they had lived on ramen for the last two months, they didn't have the ability to phone home and get extra funds, that kind of thing. So I started noticing when grades start dropping toward the end of the semester, what ended up happening. So I went to the President, the college and I said something has to be done. And that was my first book, money. It's not just for rich people where I was teaching them the 6040 principle how to go about budgeting. And then that became a required course for every freshman class that came through it was learning how to budget your funds at the time. So it was a small school, you know, we only had 144 students. And so that was the first book I published. And it was also ended up being my master's thesis, I ended up publishing it because I got tired of running to remember these Kinkos we'd run to Kinkos to photocopy all of your stuff. And I was having to charge people $15 Because they wanted my master's thesis now Who ever heard of that? It's ridiculous, right? Yeah, yeah. That was the first book. And I ended up writing six books on money. And then as I had more and more students, and then about 2015, I started an online university, because I wanted to teach, but I wanted all my students that wanted to be there. I didn't want to have to deal with grades and I didn't want to have to do anything with administration. So I was like, I'm gonna run my own online university, and so currently have 15 online courses, people are welcome to take and I've had over 441 students while I continued educating my children and running my businesses. So I just keep cranking out books about one a year can crank out a book in about a year and as long as my students have questions And they can't find a book on it. That's when I write it.

What's, how do we access your online university, you can go to the8gates.com. So the, then the number eight, and gates.com. So that's the, the code for it. There, you'll see all my books, you'll see some of the courses that I have. But you're also welcome to email me at Janine@the8gates.com and say, what courses are you offering? Because some are consistent or evergreen, they're always they're the ones that honestly to be, quite frankly, once I got tired of teaching over and over live, I went ahead and recorded them. But I do have live courses that I do still teach such as how to write a book a year and all that now there are other programs that get you to write your book faster. But I focus on people who have maybe a full time job a part time job, and they still want to write a book or have medical conditions or something where they can't push, like getting a book out in 30 days is just physically not possible for them. So that's why I help people write a book a year. Yeah.

Well, I'm not I know, we just feel bad web stuff and email stuff, but I'm not done with you yet. We've only gotten to, I think probably the middle of your speaking journey, it seems like because we've gotten to where, where you were, you've overcome being introvert and spoken to people because you had to for work. And then all of a sudden you had a cause for your kids that you had to speak on. And I want to know, when you started speaking, enjoyed speaking,

That would be 2017. Oh, I'm sorry, I gotta back up a little bit. In 1987, I was a part of radio radio was very easy for me as an introvert because I didn't have to look at anybody's face and all that. So I started speaking in radio in 1987. But then after that, there were several times where I was doing stuff, but in 2000, and trying to make sure I get this correct six or seven is right when YouTube really kicked butt in 2006, I think was when it really started coming out if people started switching their MySpace accounts. But another thing happened about that time it was called Blog talk radio, and we were calling. Yeah, so I was one of the pioneering podcasters as we call ourselves. Now we were the audio bloggers of 2009 2007 2006 through 2009, I had a radio station on the blog talk radio. And then in 2017, I started officially being a full time podcaster at that time. And so since that time, we had four podcasts. My shows got syndicated in October of 2021. So we now have four podcasts and the Janine Boland shows a radio station. And we now have access to over 87 radio stations that can pull content from the exchange that we are a part of, we're officially on two radio stations that produce our content every every week. So that's when it really kicked off pretty big time was about 2017 When I started being called a podcaster instead of an audio blogger so what what did you do in radio way back in the back in the 80s Oh, I was helping the high school at that time and I was on KT fn ko EAS and surfing the Kern River Valley with information and entertainment. Never forget that stuff.

like news and Interstitials are things that

you're right I'd go in and I do a lot of the recording for you know, I'd sit and talk for two hours and do the recording and then other people actually had the programs but I was the voice in between all the programs

got it got your the station ID and all that other stuff that the was FCC regulations and

all of that and this is a tune of the merchants Broadcasting Service for the next 30 seconds you were here

emergency, yourself seller and

precisely

that how did you I'm just curious about how you got into blog talk radio, just because it was and I remember people going I want to do this and I remembered Okay, great. Where's the money?

Right? So I got into blog talk radio because of my blog, my written blog. So I had a blog called Smart sense. And it was based on all the money stuff and it was for my students and all that and what was interesting was, that was when blogging was kind of big and I had Kellogg's Corporation as well as fiber one. Bars reached out to me We can say, hey, we can we put your products on your blog? And I went? No, because that's for my students, blah, blah, blah. But I would be happy to do some sort of radio promotion for you because I was thinking in terms of radio, and they were like, Oh, do you have a podcast? Or do you if they called it? Do you have an audio blog? Yeah. And I said, why? Yes, I do. And I was thinking, I guess a better go make one. Yeah. Yeah, give me an hour. I'll figure it out. And anyway, so I had sponsors. And the reason why that show no longer is on yours, because after two years, they moved on to other people. But I had a fabulous time talking about powerful women. That was the name of the show. It's very blame. Now. Now, you'd be like, Well, why would I even do that? But we had hundreds of 1000s of subscribers at the time, because audio content was exceptionally rare. So and I think people forget about that. We didn't have Yeah,

well, I'm in Dallas, where I witnessed not really knowing what I was witnessing. But I I witnessed what Cuban is going from the first thing he started doing was simulcasting sports events on the internet. And I was the listener of the sports station that he partnered with here in Dallas live 70 Kale, if his name never came up, we just knew that every week now you could get on your you could turn your computer on to listen to the, to the game to the show and the game instead of having to rely on your am radio. And that turned into the that turned into broadcast.com which then Yahoo bought and made him a billionaire and all that other rest, the red was down, you know the rest of the story. Right?

Right. Exactly. So yeah, it was just how it's just how the technology was moving and shaking out at the time.

Yeah. So and there was that then right, I think right along the same time, as bandwidth got better people started vlogging. Right. videoblog. Right. Vlogging, another one of those space age terms, right?

It was, I remember how exciting it all was, I remember how, as these platforms would come out, you would have these young kids that didn't have a lot to do. And they'd sit there in front of their computers. And they had the time, the inclination and the desire to actually sit there and spend 18 hours figuring out this platform and seeing how far they could push the envelope on what they could do and that sort of thing. So I remember all of that. And I used to encourage my students, look, this is a wonderful place for you to be but yet, then they also had their parents who were terrified of the public persona that you'd have it was so you had walked this light tightrope of this balancing of okay, look, this is the way you do it. So that's why all the funny nicknames and you wouldn't ever use your real name and all that fun stuff started happening. And so for me, it was just what authors had been doing for millennia, you know, we hear a lot of us wrote underpin names and stuff. So to me, it was I would turn to the parents, and I'd say they're not going to use their real name, and blah, blah, blah. But you know, it was, it was a challenge. It took time, it took time to move people in that direction to allow their students to be that creative and express themselves in that way.

So you started teaching people how to blog, or how to do audio blogs, or

Right, the vlogging, like, modern times, they call them now booktubers, right? They were kids that would do book reviews. And now you have all of these book companies that will support these booktubers because they do fair reviews. And so as an author, I would encourage the kids to do more vlogging. But with that they were reading Yeah, because we were a university that encouraged outside reading, as well as the required reading. And we also were a college that focused on whole book learning, like the University of Chicago does. And so because of that focus, it was just totally appropriate. I'm like, if you don't, if you don't want to hand in a written report, that's fine. I want to vlog and I want to answer these questions. And so that's how a lot of the youtubers got started, at least in my college classes.

That was see that for a lot of kids, that would have been the right answer. And then of course, for other kids, it would have been Can I just still write it?

Right. And the answer was yes. But in some format, you will express yourself. Yes.

Interesting. And now my 11 year old nephew, did a video report the other day on 90 My mom forgetting what some country and he was like, Yugoslavia It wasn't us i but it was some small country in Europe. They had to do a report And it was a video report. And it was them. They talked about the company. And then they had little animations about the exports and the, the GDP and all that. And it's like, wow, I mean, just stuff. And now again, you could do all that on your phone now. Edit video. I remember the day. I helped carry some of those big cameras around. Yeah, lots of stories there too. Okay, so you started having fun as a radio host. As a as the radio hosted people asked you to come speak at their events? Or did you solicit that yourself with what happened next?

Well, I was a very engaged person, because I had, I was writing books, I was a adjunct professor and I still have four children at home that I was homeschooling. So that kept me pretty engaged. So I didn't seek it out. But people would seek me out for emcee work. And so they wanted me to be the emcee, because I could do transitions well, and I didn't have any difficulty just talking off the cuff to people about what was going on. And one of the things that they said is, you have some interviewers who, Jeff, you've been a part of this long enough, you know, there are some interviewers or MCs that totally distance themselves from what is happening on the stage. Like they come in, they do their bit, they do not engage. And you know, this is a speaker, and you're like, oh, my gosh, we're on our own. So speakers kind of huddled together to make the event work. And there were a lot of professionals who did not know how to emcee even though they were on broadcast media and event planners started realizing this. So I was known for being highly engaging, because I would chat with all the speakers before they went on, I would talk to them about what are they doing? What's the funny thing somebody may not know about you what's not in your bio, stuff like that is very natural for you and I now, but at the time, that was very unusual. And so a lot of event planners wanted me there, because I was engaging the audience, the speakers, everybody felt like they were at a comfortable event.

Yeah. And a couple years ago, I sat down with another speaker. And we started putting together an emcee slash facilitator training course. Because it is very different. And you have to pay attention to what's going on. And even if you're not the emcee, I really encourage speakers to go to and when if they're booked in an event to go to the whole event. And I'm not and I'm not talking about it all day summit where there's, you know, speakers every 30 minutes on Zoom, I'm talking about, you're speaking at a two or three day conference, go for the whole conference, see the other Sit, sit through the other speakers. So you're in the same place as the audience, when you get up to speak. You can even do callbacks as you know, the comedy, do callbacks to other speakers and how how things went with their talks. And if you know somebody, if something really funny happened the day before you speak, and you refer to it in your talk, you're so much closer to that audience, than if you just come in, do your thing and leave.

And they feel it right they can, the audience can tell that I've been to enough conferences that I can tell you when people are just there to schlep their books, and then life, you know, I can I can totally know when that is going on. And one of the things I enjoy doing was speaking toward the end of the conference like this is the third day, blah, blah, blah, because it was easy to bring up a lot of humor. So much had happened in that period of time, there was so many transformations happening and transitions, it was very easy to make a funny talk, like, a lot of times, there were some times I wasn't even able to really get to all five points that I was trying to make. Because we really only had time for three because there was a lot that needed to be reviewed. And because I'm so much of a college professor, I was like, Okay, let us sum up, what is the one thing you're going to take, and then I would just rattle off everybody that I had seen before my thing. And I also also just love being able to talk about sleeper hits. And we didn't expect this big guy, but here was Dr. So and so when a sleeper hit with his book, blah, blah, blah. And we would talk about people who were exceptional speakers that had never been a part of that conference before. And my hope was that they would get invited back because I really liked him and wanted to learn more about him. So it was very self serving. But at the same time, it really helped the event planner know, who was it that was a shining star because he couldn't get all the events, all the all the talks well,

and you know, just to be fully clear, and you didn't I know you didn't mean it this way. But you don't have to you can be fully focused on selling your stuff. And the 10 the whole conference because you'll sell more.

Oh, yes, I was referring to relation. Yeah. Yeah, very clearly in my mind where we were at a four day event back in the day when they used to have those live in person. And we were on day three, we had never seen this person, he showed up five minutes late, showed up, had a book had two books, his son stood around, and they wrapped it up, and then they left and they weren't even staying at the hotel. And so that was where I really got a bad taste in my mouth up, I will make sure that I take care of my event planners and my other speakers and my audience, that we will not have these kinds of people that we're aware of. And of course, this, this individual was not invited back. But it's just one of those things where it's like, this is a community we're building in this four days. And we have a lot to learn from each other. And I learned so much from the audience that is attending, as I do the speakers that I'm there for not only my own education, but also to help them whatever I can and whatever way I can to the audience and the other speakers. So yes, I always make that assumption. We're building a community, if you're going to pop in to sell your stuff and leave. That's not really what most event planners are hopeful for. Right? Well, and when I meet somebody at an event, and we become close over three or four days, I always joked that we went to camp together. It's so true, though, isn't mine, it was a little segment of time that you carved out so that you could learn and share what you know.

Yeah, absolutely. And, and under the model that so many of our speaker club members are where we're speaking, to get business, that extra day that extra two days is so worth the time. People have questions, well, what have I got to do all this other stuff, I'm so busy. Look, if you are invested in getting business, through speaking and doing going to conferences like this, you need to fully invest, you need to get in jump in with both feet, spend the time, it will be worth it.

I have received so much assistance free of charge, and have given so much assistance free of charge at those events when I knew a person was really interested in what I had to offer, but was not going to be able to afford my feet at this moment because they were just starting. But they were willing learners. That is a whole different frame. And then what's fun is when they did financially get their feet under them. I was one of the first people they would reach out to me because we had treated them well. So yeah, it was fabulous. Yeah, quite quite well. So yeah, it's totally appropriate for you to go and sell your stuff. We're a capitalistic society. Most of us are what we call author printers, meaning we are business people who are authors and speakers. So yeah, I don't want anybody everything. I don't want you to make money off of what you're doing.

Yeah, I want and I just want yeah, that

Thank you for clarifying.

Yeah, you bet. And the people who are all about themselves are not. They don't succeed. You know, they're I mean, they're you, you could talk about, you know, successful people. And, and they may be after they get successful, they may have a different attitude. But most of those people have done what they've done because they have a desire and a drive to help people.

Precisely. Yeah, it takes a lot to pry you out of your out of your house or out of your comfort zone to be sitting there in front of people, especially people like me, I teasingly say, well, after 2020 Sure is going to take very special events before you pry me out of my home office. Why? Because I love what I'm doing. And I'm able to reach just as many people. So I've had a few event planners reach out and I was just like, I'm sorry, I just can't make that happen. I just can't I can't do that anymore in that regard. And then I have other event planners where they have put in the work and the time and it's like, oh, yeah, sure. We've got to show up.

Yeah, there you go. Absolutely. Well, it's nice to be able to be choosy. Yes. And that's important. It's really, it's a benchmark for some of us in our business. When we can say no.

Yes, I don't have to say yes to everything like I used to. And there are still a lot of yeses, but frequently it's Is there any way I can do this virtually? Or near I recorded earlier? Or can we put it up on your website or something like that? I'm always trying to find alternative ways because just the sheer volume of work that I'm involved in right now, and I'm loving every minute of it. I want other people to get to that point in their business where they bounce out of bed every day and they're ready to hit the hit the tracks now. Am I that way everyday? No. I've had a few low days in February, I will let you know. There was a couple of days in the third week where I was struggling but at the same time 90% of the time, I am thrilled with what I'm doing.

So where are the kids now? Let's see. So I just sent my youngest off to college this year. So everybody's like, Oh, you're an empty nester and I went Have you not been a part of 2020. Did that not happen for you, because that whole paradigm of the empty nester and the kids going off to college, um, I'm not experiencing it in that way, the paradigm that we were used to, I still have to the live with me because they're living, they're going to colleges that are nearby. And then I have two that are at a state college, that's only about an hour away. So they bounce back frequently. And I love it. I wouldn't have any other way. So much time together, you know, I homeschool them and they're now in college, and they're loving how their life is moving forward. And we're all just kind of grateful, because we got him graduated during some very difficult times. Yeah. And hey, they asked to attend college, and that was up in the air for a bit of time. Right. So yeah, I mean, they could all for be sitting in their rooms, attending college at the house, which is what they were terrified of. Because yeah, enough of that homeschooling.

I get it. I understand completely. I mean, my, my nephew missed, you know, a couple of years of elementary school. My nieces missed a couple years of Junior High in high school, because they spent so much of them at home. And they weren't home schooling. So they they missed out on something that they were in, they thought they were going to be doing.

Yes. And a lot of with the graduation ceremonies and stuff like that. It was amazing to watch how much effort was put in by different people to make sure these kids had those experiences.

Yeah, I mean, we had a mostly virtual five minutes worth a couple last year. And it's hard not to feel a little bit sad, on stuff that they'll never know what they really missed out on. They'll never their lives won't be, you know, they won't see the difference. But it's a little bit like, anyway, not important. Not to change rabbit holes to go down there. Yeah, so what's happening now, for Janine.

I'm in the process of interviewing 99 authors this year. And so for your people who are authors, I would like to interview you, I am running a summit called the story behind the story Summit in September of this year of 2022, then we will have a book that we will publish based on all those experiences and interviews by November of 2023. So if you want to be involved in that, then you have the opportunity to sign up for $99. And you are welcome to be a part of the 99 author project. So Wow. So what I'm doing

Now, what is the, how are you limiting the kinds of authors or are you limiting because of authors,

The only limitation that we have on the author says they have had to have a book out for longer than 18 months. So I am interested in people who have a marketing story to tell. So I would prefer authors who have published from 2019. And before because we had a huge sea change in money. And because of that, the way we go about marketing books and stuff is slightly different. However, there are many lessons that authors previous to like 2019. And before who had published during that period of time, there is knowledge there that a lot of new authors are not aware of that they need to know because of the sea change in the publishing industry in the year 2000.

Okay, very good. Yeah. And you will know, during the show, I've been doing show notes in the chat. The whole first part of your story I was so I was on board with your story so much. I didn't take any notes.

That's fine. All right.

This is one of the new things to me with. The hosting a podcast is showing up. And at some point, I'll have an assistant who does it for me. But yes, there yet

One step at a time all things grow.

Exactly. So is there anything that I should have asked Janine about that? I didn't.

I think you asked all the pertinent questions. Some last words of advice for people if you have a story, if you have a message, if you feel you have a really in renewed sense of purpose that may be diametrically opposed to everything you've done such as myself, I was a science and math professor. And here I am teaching personal finance just because I was really good with it. I couldn't get published because nobody wanted somebody like me. I didn't have an author platform. I didn't have anything except this book that I had written for my students. And I even had case studies and all that kind of stuff that they request now. But at the time, that was not something that was people were of interest to people they thought and so don't let what your background was or your past, hold you back. Even if what you want to do is a total sea change is even as a massive change of direction. Just continue to move forward with that. And if you have fear factor, if you have things that bring you great fear that I highly recommend that you seek people out that can help you overcome them. Whether it's a Toastmasters group, or you find speaking opportunities at your local organization, just get out there and start talking.

Thank you Janine, I do want to take a minute because I didn't come up during tell us about the education you do around finance for kids. And give us a little more about that.

The best one is if you go to my website, the8gates.com. And you will have a pop up that comes up. And it's the 10 steps to abundance. And that is not only the online course, I'm most proud of it's free. And it also signs you up for my money tips that I send out. And you usually get an email from me probably once or twice a month, I don't spend a lot of time chatting it up with my email audience, you can be safe assured on that one. It's primarily there so that people can get a flavor of how I teach. And then every once in a while, I'll pop through, hey, we're starting a new set of live courses. And then that's how you can sign up. But that's registration because I do those live. I found that people do much better if they have somebody holding them by the hand and they have to meet every week for eight weeks. They seem to do better that way.

I guess that's all accountability thing. Yes. Yeah. Okay, superfan. Thank you so much. D, what a what a great story. And I had so much fun today. Your story is inspirational. And it's real. And it's fun, and not too crazy, right?

Only in the moment. Thank you so much for having me on the show. It's been a delight. I always love it when people offer their art form. And let me speak with it. It's always so much fun for me to so thank you.

You're welcome. And I will let you know when the episode is going to be broadcast. So use that with your world as well, to our audience of folks watching or listening. Thank you for tuning in. I think this is one of the best episodes we've done so far. And we'll just keep striving to have more and more fascinating people on Behind the Lectern just for you. We'll see you next time.

If you're in the top 25% of the fastest time. Wow, what a great speaker. Where did you find him? You know, I used to have trouble finding speakers. Then someone told me abo ut Speakercoop.com. Speakercoop.com, What's that? It's a website full of speakers who speak to groups like ours. How did you decide which speaker to choose after the website was he searched for speaker by topic. You can even type one search word in and find all the speakers who have that word in their topic, then you can read the speaker's bio to see if they're fit for your group. That sounds great. Yes, I'm using speaker club comm to find all the speakers for our group this year. And I've got to find a speaker for our luncheon next month. This will make it easy. I'm going to go to Speakercoop.com and over and over again.