Creating a Business That Frees People: Pacha Soap

Episode 18 with Andrew & Abi Vrbas

Andrew and Abi Vrbas are cofounders of Pacha Soap Co., a social business that creates delightful bath goods that do good. Together, their company and its customers are putting the solution in the hands of those most affected by WASH (water, sanitation, hygiene) issues and the cycle of poverty. Give-away bar soaps are made in the very communities that they help, using local ingredients and local talent. Nationals are trained to manually drill clean water wells, creating jobs for those in-country and providing much-needed clean water to hundreds of people per well.

Andrew is CEO and passionately drives the mission and vision of the company. Abi is Pacha’s former head designer and marketing/brand manager. Together, they take on the co-founder role to help spread the mission and build relationships with customers, retail partners and mission partners. In their free time they like to rollerblade and bike ride to the local snow cone shop, fix up their 1890 home, and watch The Office together.

Mentioned in this episode:

Play here (the red triangle below), on iTunes, Stitcher, TuneIn Radio (Amazon Alexa) or wherever you listen to podcasts.


Develop Your Voice of Influence, Volume 1

I’ve put together this special PDF of 15 tips and strategies for emerging thought leaders and message-driven creatives from experts interviewed on the Voice of Influence podcast. It’s a quick win that will encourage, inspire and equip you to make your voice matter more. Read up, listen in and make your voice matter more.

Download it here.

Transcript

Hey, hey!  It’s Andrea and welcome to the Voice of Influence podcast.  Today, I’m excited to share with you Abi and Andrew Vrbas who are the owners and cofounders of Pacha Soap out of Hastings, Nebraska.  They have quite a story.  This is a business with a purpose.  And so Abi is with us right now and Andrew is going to jump on in a little while.

Andrea:  So Abi, it’s so good to have you here on the Voice of Influence podcast.

Abi:  Thank you so much, Andrea, it’s an honor to be asked and have this conversation with you.

Andrea:  Now, Abi, you and I met when you were back in college at Hastings College and we lived there and I remember having a couple of conversations in particular with you.  So it’s been really fun for me to watch you and Andrew from afar and see this company go from zero to hero, truthfully in a few years.  And so I would love for you to share with the person listening what exactly is Pacha Soap?  What do you do?

Abi:  Well, in a nugget, we create engaging bath products that change the world.  So we create organic handcrafted bar soaps.  We have froth bombs which are similar to a bath bomb that you use on your tub and it fizzes but it also creates a nice frothy latte like foam in your bath.  We have some other Willy Wonka just really fun, engaging, and delightful products that we’ll be launching later this year.  So our products are super fun and super clean ingredients.

We use organic ingredients, well-sourced ingredients, and we have a lot of fun with what we do.  And then the part that changes the world is we have a mission to help with the WASH sector which is (water, sanitation, and hygiene).  So that’s a part of our mission, but really the root of our why for our company is we believe that business can free people.  So what we do is we help to create opportunities for people in developing countries through soap making and clean water well drilling.

So like I said, we’re helping with the WASH sector, but really it’s a vehicle which we can help others help themselves.  So water sanitation and hygiene is a huge issue in developing countries and the best way to help people with those issues is to allow them to be the heroes in their own countries.  Through the sale of our products, we’re able to help startup small scale soap shops in places like Burundi, Africa and hopefully some other places in Africa soon.

And we have a heart for South America as well, wherever the partnership leads us and then also providing jobs for clean water well drillers.  So these are well drillers who are natives in the country.  The team that we help start is called Intwari Drillers, which means brave drillers.  Yeah, they are local Africans who are helping other Africans have access to clean water.  So soap and our mission with the WASH sector is the vehicle in which we’re able to further our mission of helping others help themselves.

Andrea:  Wow that’s amazing! So how did you guys get going?  What’s the origin story of Pacha Soap?

Abi:  Yes, so Andrew was in Peru, South America in 2010 for a semester, he was going to Hastings College at the time and wanted to study abroad.  And during this time there in Peru, or I should say, he was a construction management and Spanish major obviously very helpful in starting a soap company.

Andrea:  Really?  That’s awesome!

Abi:  Yeah, so he was down there in Peru to further his Spanish and also he was volunteering with some construction projects.  But what really transformed him in his thought process was, he’s this Kansas boy, who you know hardly get any rain fall where we are but he goes down to Peru and then they get the worst flooding that they never got in like a hundred years or something.  So Kansas boy brought the rain with them to Peru.

Anyway, it was really terrible flooding and it closed off the train that went into Machu Piccu, which is the biggest tourists destination in Peru.  He just saw how fragile the economic system is in Peru that it was very dependent on Americans and Europeans and without things like Machu Piccu and other touristy places, their economy was just super fragile.

So he had this idea of starting a company that would employ local people for the local good, so it wasn’t again, not depending on other people for economic stability but being able to provide that within itself.  So then he was thinking and it sounds like it’s from a movie, but he was riding on a bus on his way to work.  There was a couple of hours bus ride to where he works for the day.  He was on this bus and he was reading a certain book at this time and was just really influenced by the philosophy and thoughts behind it and just thought “Oh, I could create a business that does good.”

And he said like there were tons of people on this bus, really hot and sweaty, there’s no air conditioning on it, bumpy road and he just gone through Peru and he got to this place that he’s going to be working for the day and just had this light bulb moment that he went into and create a business that could free people so then he got to thinking like how he could do that and soap was the vehicle in which he could do that.

So the great thing about soap is the ingredients are found in many places where there’s extreme poverty.  So things like palm oil and coconut oil and then even plants that can be distilled into essential oils are found in a lot of the places where there’s extreme poverty and then soap making also is a very simple process.  It’s been made for thousands of years.

You don’t need special equipment or lots of education in order to do it.  It doesn’t take any electricity or lot of funding to start a soap shop.  So he was thinking that soap would be a great way to bring jobs to people and country without saying “Okay, you need all these equipments to do it – very, very simple so that is the answer to why soap?

Andrea:  Did the soap thing just kind of come to him as well or did he did some research, do you know that?

Abi:  His very, very first thought was tea but then got to thinking of all the complexities of like bringing in tea to another country and then his very next thought was soap.  He has always been interested in fragrances.  And actually, he is able to join now so here he is.  This is Andrea of the Voice of Influence.

Andrew:  Hi, Andrea!

Andrea:  Hi there Andrew!  It’s good to have you.

Andrew:  Yeah, thanks for having us.

Andrea:  I was just asking Abi about your origin story for Pacha Soap and she kind of took us through the ‘why’ of soap.  But maybe you could share with us how you moved from your idea to actually turning it into a business, would you mind just jumping in like that?

Andrew:  Yeah.  Well, I think you kind of answered it in your question.  I’m just jumping in because, you know, there’s obviously people just talk about how difficult to start a business but I think, especially when you’re younger and you’re passionate about an idea that could change the way things are done, you just jump in and figure things out.

So we started really small scale with just Abi and myself just dreaming what the future could be, so just experimenting and learning and busying with people and spreading our idea around and I guess you just quickly learn how to do what you need to do, I guess.  So yeah, the specific recipe for us was definitely just jumping in and being passionate about what we’re doing and loving to create, yeah I guess that’s it.

Andrea:  Yeah.  The youthful naïvite was certainly playing in your favor.  I mean, why not just jump in and go for it.  It seems like the older people get the harder it is for us to start things.

Andrew:  Yeah, it’s like you don’t know what you don’t know and ignorance is bliss and all those things that you don’t know how to do, so you just kind of do it.  And I think the more that we can keep that as a part of our mentality sometimes, it’d be better off to be and so yeah.

Andrea:  I remember seeing pictures of you guys selling at Farmers Market or things like that, is that where you kind of started out?

Andrew:  Yeah that’s exactly right.  One of our most favorite memories from when we first started was when we’re in the garage in the house that I used to live in where the first soap shop was, we’re just preparing for Farmers Market for the next day and it was like the first time we ever sell our product and telling our story.  And it was just funny to think that that was while we’re both in college and it was so much fun.  I remember at the end of the night, we just ended up just dancing the music, so it was fun.

Andrea:  Oh that’s so fun.  We’re you guys dating at the time or what was your situation together?

Andrew:  Yeah, we were dating at that time but we didn’t start out dating.  We’re friends initially in school and started dating while we’re still in school.  I think it was like our interests were aligned and both loving to create things, be creative, and be innovative.  And we’re still learning about each other and we feel like we have each other peg down but then we’re learning something new about each other.  It seems like every day, like yesterday, we learned something that we both share similar traits and we always thought that we’re innovative but really like in taking that test that you sent over especially was kind of interesting to see how closely we did align.

Andrea:  Yeah, yeah.  Now, he’s talking about the Fascinate Assessment that I invite guest to take if their interested.  They both took it and they both came out with innovation on their top #2.  So yeah, that was really, really fun to see that I could see how that just really makes it easy even for you guys to take risks probably.

Abi:  Yeah, and it makes it a lot of fun to create together because like I was saying with our products, it’s really fun to innovate and think outside the box.  But also it’s our mission to think forward and have innovative ideas with our mission, it’s also super fun.  So we can kind feed off with each other in that way and I think that’s what kind of hold us move forward and starting a business is that you just don’t get down when you think about “Okay, we hit a roadblock.”  It doesn’t mean no, it means no for that but there’s another way around that.  You can make it work.

Andrea:  Yeah you can work around it.

Abi:  Yeah, exactly.  You got to figure it out someway and having a partner on obviously helps a lot.  It helps to be together because if you had to do that by yourself, I can see how terribly difficult that would be to approach those roadblocks with confidence.

Andrea:  For context, did you guys start the business, graduate, get married that sort of thing?

Andrew:  Well, it’s funny like when we actually first started the business, we used several start dates but really the idea came in 2010 but we officially started beyond just like Farmers Market and really got serious and hired our first employee in 2012 it would have been, but we used kind of like 2013 as our first or like our official starting of our company.  We got married actually in 2013 as well.  We bought our first house in 2013 so that was a big year.

Andrea:  I was reading in your website today too, was it 2013 that you guys got into Whole Foods?

Abi:  Yeah, it was.

Andrea:  That’s just huge first of all but it’s also just really so much has happened so quickly.  Even though I’m sure it felt like a long time from 2010 to 1013 that happened pretty quickly.  Did it feel like it took forever or were you feeling like it was clip in along at a pretty good pace?

Andrew:  Oh man, I guess both of us like we’ve lived a lot of life being 27 and 26, so it doesn’t seem like it was really quick.  But you know from the outside when people talk to us, it seems like it wasn’t that long ago but for us, sometimes like we show like we’re on our 50’s.

Andrea:  Old souls.

Abi:  Yeah, like the day-to-day maybe seems like a little slower, you aren’t moving so fast.  But then when you look at it as a whole, when you look back it does go pretty quickly.  I don’t want to take things for granted because you know we were really blessed to be doing as well as we’re doing.  So I don’t want to take that for granted because I know it is just really difficult to start things and put yourself out there and be vulnerable in that way.  So yeah, it does seem like it has happened pretty quickly but it’s definitely not all because we have an awesome team like both here in Hastings working with Pacha and also in the field working in commenting our mission.  It is way beyond Andrew and me.  We cannot be where we are without our team.

Andrea:  I have so many questions written down and floating in my head because you’ve got a really substantial thing going and there’s so many things I think that we could cover.  So one of the first questions that I want to ask at this point is how many employees do you have in Hastings?  What’s the team look like in Hastings?

Andrew:  We’re like around 40 people.

Andrea:  That’s crazy!  No, that’s wonderful.  It’s so great.  I mean, that’s a lot of employees.  That’s a big team.

Andrew:  Yeah.  It is.  We’re so blessed to have the team that we have.  They make the culture what it is and it’s just so much fun to work with the team that you respect and love to work with every day.

Andrea:  How did you manage going from just the two of you to starting to add people into your team who I assumed for the most part older than you as well.  Is that true?

Andrew:  Yeah, we’re some of the younger ones for sure especially in leadership.  I think the main thing when you’re looking to grow or bring people on is making sure that your core values are set and that your hiring based on those core values.  You’re living everything through this core values and so that’s something that we learned along the way just recognizing how important that is and making sure that everybody is onboard with those core values.

Andrea:  Do you feel like your core values were pretty set when you started or did they really develop as you kept going and growing?

Abi:  Yeah, I think like the fundamental purpose of our company has remained the same.  It’s just kind fine tuning how that’s played out on a day-to-day like how you write those core values out.  So I would say like nothing has drastically changed from when we first started but you know, it’s fine tuning it.  And one of the greatest things that we got to do with defining our core values is looking at all around and saying “Yeah, I really like about this person.  I really like that about this person.”  And then integrating those things that we are inspired by our team members and using those as guidelines in which we created our core values, so using our actual team as our guide for creating those core values or fine tuning those core values.

Andrea:  That’s really cool.  So you took a look at who was here and how they’re functioning and what you really appreciated about them and said “Okay, yes that’s something we wanna keep.”

Abi:  Yeah, exactly!

Andrea:  Wow!  There’s a lot of wisdom in that.  I wonder if you being younger when you got started might have had an impact on the way that you respected the people that were working with and for you.

Andrew:  Yeah that probably is true because we had a lot to learn.  I feel like when you’re not as full of what you already know and you’re more just like trying to learn and maybe it’s just more of a humble way of being a leader because you’re forced to be humble.  You don’t really know a lot and I think that’s something that every human probably struggles with and we all will struggle with to remain humble and have a learning attitude and learning mind all your life.  And that’s a hard thing I think probably for all of us because we get to a place where you know we feel like we know what we’re doing.

Truth is like there’s not one person that knows and has all the answers as much as our cultures kind of push towards and are looking towards that you know like “I wanna find the answer.  Just tell me the answer.”  Although, there’s lots of answers in solving everyday problems especially when you’re growing a business like there’s not one person that can tell you every move you make to grow that business.  Yeah, that’s probably a good point.  I never had really followed with that.

Andrea:  Well, I want to qualify my statement by saying that not every person who’s younger would have had that attitude though.  So while it may have helped in some ways you’re willing to learn like you said, it’s a quality that we should all be striving for life, for willing to learn from other people.  I love the respect that you guys have for your team and for the people of the world that you’re trying to serve and I think that that respect comes somewhat from that humbleness too.  I don’t know, it’s just seems really grounded.

Andrew:  Well, sometimes.

Andrea:  OK that’s good.  I love that.  Let’s keep it real, right?  So you also have the partnerships carrying out your mission.  So what are those relationships like with the people around the world, what do you mean by a partnership that’s helping you carry out a mission in Africa for instance.

Andrew:  Yeah, so like in East Africa, we have a couple partners that we work with both on the soap side and in the water side.  Those partnerships start with organization here in the US that we work with and then the mission enacted in the developing world and namely in East Africa, we work in Burundi.  But we also work in other countries through water nonprofit that we partnered with waterfall.org.  So yeah, we break our mission down into two basically like two ways of impact and there’s presale impact and post sale impact.

So presale is like before any product is ever purchased, how is our company having an impact.  And then post sale, once the sale is made then how’s our company having an impact to our customers having an impact with their purchase after the sale was made.  Largely, in East Africa, where folks come is after the sale of our products, we are helping to start businesses in both soap production and clean water well drilling.

And so it’s essentially soap and water – two very critical elements for development and for health sanitation and hygiene but it’s done in a way that is actually creating, self-sustaining enterprise.  That’s the piece of it that is really, I would say, it’s not necessarily the most important element because saving people’s lives with clean water like people have access of clean water obviously that has a huge impact.  If people are able to wash their hands and children namely in schools; you can see that that would a huge impact.

But I guess the reason why I mentioned the aspect of our mission to be considered really important and maybe most important is that the people themselves are able to provide the answers for themselves and we’re just the catalyst somewhat of an injection and not an IV you know.  And truly that business through clean water and business through soap production is the way that people are employed and that their business are able to flourish and grow on their own overtime, whereas, we just act as catalysts.  Anyway, that’s kind of how we partner right now and I guess it all comes back to our why in our purpose for being which is that business can free people.

So we look at a lot of issues that are related to poverty, the way we can help with extreme poverty that people are able to have their own economic freedom or economic independence because these people are able to provide for themselves then issues can overtime be diminished.  Like the people can afford to pay for education.  If they can afford to buy soap, if they can afford to buy clean water, you know lots of issues can be reduced overtime if people are able to escape poverty.   And really the only way that’s done in there in a long term basis is if they’re able to opportunities to do it themselves through business, through the Wealth Creation process.  So anything we do comes back to the fact that business can free people.

Andrea:  It sounds like when someone is talking about social justice, there’s one-on-one charity kind of like “Let me help you with this thing.”  Or there’s the systemic change that happens and it sounds like what you’re talking about is wanting to provide not only that bar soap to save somebody’s life but the systemic change by giving them that opportunity to be empowered to have their own income and everything that’s really, really exciting.

Andrew:  Yeah, they’re both okay you know.  Sometimes, there are people who maybe would be really staunch and say “No,” like there’s no place to give anything because you’re creating dependence.  I understand that because I’ve seen it, we all have it.  We’ve travelled in the developing world and that’s not good.  That is not empowering.  But at the same time, sometimes I want to say like “You know there is a place to give things and that’s okay.”  It just has to be very limited and it has to be in a way that is not creating habit-forming dependence.  It’s something that it can be done in a good way and it’s not like always a bad thing to help.

And we see it firsthand with like the World Food Program for instance like children coming to school and for some of them that could be their only meal that day.  So in that way, children are able to receive education and come to school because they are being subsidized a free lunch.  I would say that’s not a bad thing.  Obviously, the better thing would be how can we have, you know that food is coming from the outside, how can more acres be converted into small farms for the parents that overtime maybe our food can be purchase locally like obviously that would be better.  It’s process and a transition so there’s a place and time.  We definitely like to focus on both of those things but if it’s not creating self-sustaining jobs then it’s probably not a long-term solution and could be creating more harm than good, maybe.

Andrea:  Interesting.  So what is exactly is your role as Pacha Soap, what is Pacha Soap’s role in Africa?  What do you actually provide?  Are you providing the funds?  Are you providing the training?  What all are you providing?

Andrew:  Well, we provide funds so we kind of act you could say as an initial customer for well drilling team, for soap shops, say help to set up soap shops.  We provide some advice in how to do that but then we’ll be that initial customer so we’ll buy soaps from those teams initially and that soap is then given to schools in the surrounding area for children for hand washing.  All the while, those teams are growing their own sales with different soap products so that overtime, those giveaway bars could be transferred to another soap shop that could be set up and the process can start over as established team sales increase.  So that’s the goal and same with clean water.  So Pacha as a company funds those operations and it’s essentially the first customer through subsidizing bars of soap and clean water wells that overtime will leave in a established teams that can sell products on their own and be self-sustaining.

Andrea:  It seems like there’s so many different plates spinning, how do you guys manage your time?  What percentage of time are you working on soap and sales and stuff overseas, and your mission, your message?  How do you guys decide what your roles are and how to divide up your time?

Andrew:  We go by the system called Traction.  It’s a book and it’s really been helpful process with our time up, but honestly, I think that the main thing that helped us is having an awesome team.  We can’t really stress out enough because as much as somebody might say they’re so awesome like it’s a team to do anything.  So I think the real answer to that is the fact that we just have a team that handles so many things and does it so well and has extreme ownership over of what they do and so that’s probably it.

Abi:  Yeah, it’s hard to balance your time because you want to do everything but you know, you can’t do everything and that they’re actually people who can do that thing better than you.  So knowing what to let go and what to still maintain for yourself is a hard thing to kind of figure that out.  But like Andrew said it’s just the team that we have that it’s a well-oiled machine.  There’s always new things to try and things that we’re currently doing that could be better or different but we just have such a great team that’s willing to jump in there and may use the word ‘scrappy’ a lot.  We’re just part of that sort of mentality and we never want to lose that no matter how big our company gets or how many years its life is, just having that scrappy mentality of saying “It’s just a road blocks” but yes we can get pass those barriers and do that together.

Andrea:  So as cofounders then since you guys started and everything, I would imagine that quite a few people that are listening to this podcast or people that are dreaming about starting something or they feel like they want to live a purpose-driven life.  They want to feel like their message is a part of what they do.  So I’m kind of curious about how you guys work together as a couple?  Was it hard when you first got certain and kind of got going to figure out who was in charge of what or was that pretty clear from the get-go or did you have any road bumps?

Andrew:  I think we worked pretty seriously like at the beginning and on.  I think as we grow and things got more complex in some ways that was a little bit more challenging because you had more people to the equation then you have to split up tasks way more.  So there’s always some more roadblocks or road bumps there but I think it’s just a constant learning thing.

Abi:  Yeah, it is hard as life partners and business partners finding the balance between how you spend your time.  When you’re at home, it’s impossible to not talk about work because you’re passionate about it and it’s a big part of your life.  And then at work, it’s hard not to talk about your personal life because it’s your life so there’s that overlapping.  We really tried to keep those two things as separate as possible because it’s too different mind frames.

When we first started out like that things showed we’re both innovative, so I think that was really good to help kick-start something new.  But individually, I graduated with a degree in advertising and public relation so kind of marketing and had some experience with graphic design.  So from my tactical standpoint, I was able to help with the marketing side of things and help create the graphics and different visual elements.

And as we progressed, I started understanding what it means to build a brand which that’s a monster in and of itself so that’s kind of like where I had my focus.  And Andrew had such a passion for the vision of the company and just always reaching for how can our mission be better and just dreaming of those ways in which it can happen.  It’s cool to be able to look at each other’s strengths and appreciate how each of those strengths helped build the company.

Currently, I have stepped out of my marketing role and I’ve taken on more of just a cofounder role and that has been a big transition for Andrew and me personally.  It’s just the decision that we made together that we’re both just thriving so hard in the day-to-day in the company so it was easier to continue that.  If someone is in the boat and the other one is drowning, it’s a lot easier than both of you drowning together.  So yeah, it’s a partnership and it’s give and take and it’s having grace for one another and don’t know within the next few years are going to look like so just being willing to hold life with open hands is really important.

Andrea:  You know that’s funny because I was going to ask you what’s in the future for Pacha Soap?  Do you have a vision for the next few years or is it something that you are truly just going day-by-day or what’s that like for you guys?

Andrew:  We have lots of visions of what it could look like but the main thing is how can our mission be amplified, so how can we framework people?  How can that be the heart of every decision we make?  So whether it’s new products that we launch or new categories that we’re in and new channels of trade like the way in which we’re bringing products to people, it will all lead back to how our mission can be amplified and how people can be a big part of that.

I guess it’s not really a specific vision but that’s such kind of the way it’s looking.  A lot of ideas of how to get there but it will definitely just take time and the right people who are also believing in the overall mission and message that care about, not only a business doing well and having an awesome product that people love, but also caring about what that product represents.

Andrea:  Yeah.  So when you look to make those decisions, do you knock on doors and just see which one opens or how do you know what next step that you’re going to take in the moment?

Andrew:  Usually that, yeah.  Usually just researching things and trying things out, asking a lot of questions, and talking to people you know that’s kind of how and like big decisions are met is trying some things out and asking a lot of questions before we move on something.

Andrea:  What advice do you have for someone who is kind of in that dream stage where maybe they feel like there’s something on their heart or maybe they’re in that position where Andrew you were on that bus thinking “There’s got to be a way to help.  There’s going to be something that I can do.”  Do you have any parting words of wisdom for these influencers who are listening?

Andrew:  Yeah, I think just have fun.  Ultimately, it’s just got to be something that you like.  It’s not every element you’re not going to like and that’s maybe why a lot of business fails because there are these things in starting a business that aren’t as much fun.  But if overall what you are passionate about or what you’re doing you like it too, you like the people you’re with; I think that’s the biggest piece is of just being real to yourself about what you like or what you love to do.  I think it’s also about why you’re doing it, so just asking yourself these questions.

It’s different for every person but the advice for somebody like myself is just to try it out.  There’s nothing stopping anyone from really accomplishing whatever they want to accomplish but you just have to be willing to stick with it and push forward.  And I would say the other biggest piece is don’t be afraid to learn along the way.

I don’t feel like you have to figure it out all in its entirety right away because you probably won’t and your idea might shift for the better.  Your initial vision might be one thing but maybe you’ll figure out a way that could be even enhanced and just don’t be afraid to learn.  That’s probably the biggest piece that prevents people, they feel like they need to have it all figured out right away.  But you can figure it out as you go along, as you’re able to learn all the way.

Andrea:  That’s a great point.  Abi, do you have anything you want to add to that?

Abi:  If you’re going into business with your life partner, just try to communicate and have grace with one another.  If you’re doing it on your own, look for people to support you through it and be vulnerable with them and don’t lose heart.

Andrea:  Well, this has been a very short 45 minutes but I am so thrilled that I could share you with my audience that we could learn more about what it meant for you guys to start something.  And you’ve taken it so far and I know that it’s just going to keep skyrocketing because just the humility that you bring to it and the willingness to take risks to listen like you mentioned and to not lose heart like you mentioned, and to communicate like you mentioned are so important.  And so cheering you on from over here and looking forward to seeing what Pacha Soap does to change the world in the future.  Thank you so much for your voice of influence in the world!

Andrew:  Yes, thank you for having us!

Abi:  Thank you so much Andrea!

 

DOWNLOAD Develop Your Voice of Influence, Volume 1 here.

How to Get Started Sharing Your Message on Social Media

Voice Studio 17

A few years ago I stumbled upon a few voices online who helped me to see that social media wasn’t just about sharing family pictures, catching up with long lost friends and debating politics. A wave of realization dawned on me that I could have a voice through social media, too. In this episode I share a brief description of that shift for me and how you can start or amp up the way you share your voice on social media, too.

Mentioned in this episode:

 

Play here (the red triangle below), on iTunes, Stitcher or TuneIn Radio (Amazon Alexa) or wherever you listen to podcasts.

 

YOUR VOICE MATTERS!

I’ve put together this special PDF of 15 tips and strategies for emerging thought leaders and message-driven creatives from experts interviewed on the Voice of Influence podcast. It’s a quick win that will encourage, inspire and equip you to make your voice matter more. Read up, listen in and make your voice matter more.

Download it here.

Embracing Social Media for Your Multi-Passionate Voice

Episode 17 with Tammy Cannon of Cannon Social Media

Tammy Cannon is a social media marketer and staff writer for Social Media Examiner. She helps busy creative professionals leverage Facebook Ads, Pinterest, Instagram and SEO for more traffic, more sales, and more time to do what they love.

Mentioned in this episode:

 

FOR YOU!

I’ve put together this special PDF of 15 tips and strategies from experts interviewed on the Voice of Influence podcast to encourage, inspire and equip you to make your voice matter more. Read up, listen in and sleep well.

Download it here.

Transcript

Hey, hey! It’s Andrea and welcome to the Voice of Influence podcast.   Today, I have Tammy Cannon with me of Cannon Social Media. And Tammy is somebody that I’ve known for a few months. I’ve been paying attention to her, watching what she’s doing with her social media Facebook if I’m inside of that and learning more from Tammy. She has helped me some with my own Facebook ads and things that just consulting along the lines of Facebook and social media. She’s also really creative and deep, so I’m really thrilled to be introducing you to Tammy Cannon.

Andrea: Tammy, it’s great to have you on the Voice of Influence podcast!

Tammy Cannon: Thank you, Andrea what a really nice intro. I appreciate that. It’s been fun getting to know you better as well and I’m just happy to talk with you today.

Andrea: Well, Tammy you have more than one business or brand, so I would love for you to explain to us just a little bit or maybe give us a summary of what you do.

Tammy Cannon: Yes, it’s kind of funny, I’ve been calling myself a multi-passionate-preneur (MPP), you know a lot of us that have businesses and maybe yourself have a lot other interests as well. And so for the past five years, I have been managing social media for businesses in my community here in Seattle and it got to be so hectic and stressful because social media takes up a lot of time. And so when you’ve got 10 or 20 customers at a time, and all of my clients were on a monthly kind of like consulting schedule, and so that’s a lot of work for one person. I never really contracted out. I never hired anybody. I didn’t want be an employer, so how to make a decision on what I wanted to do?

So two years ago now already, I can’t believe it, I made a decision to stop managing and just create online courses for people that I was managing for. I wanted them to have skills to go on and manage their own and so it worked out really well. So now, I create online course, teaching social media to the creative professionals that I kind of ended up working with, so that’s kind of where I’m at now.

Now my creative side…if you have other interest, it’s really hard to keep them under wraps. And so now that I know kind of more about the online world, it’s like “Oh you can really do so much with your hobbies as well.” And so now that I have system and strategy for Cannon Social Media, I’m applying that to some of my creative stuff that I love to do.

So I’m doing printables for social media, for professionals that they can do on Etsy and download just templates and all kinds of different things. And I also have a creative market shop for style stock photos because that was a need in my industry as well, finding images and people just struggling to figure out “Oh no, what am I gonna post today,” and struggling to find an image for something and so now, I’ve got a style stock membership you can go in, it’s all themed.

So if you are a social media manager yourself, you could go in and say, “Oh I have a garden clients,” and you could click on the gardening bundle and download images for Royalty-free for your clients. It was a need that I was like “Oh, I love photography and taking pictures so I can actually do this and serve my community as well.” So that’s what I’m doing now.

Andrea: What kind of need is there at this point in time for people that are doing what you were doing before you started this two years ago, so that the managing of the social media, what do you see is the need there? Is that something worth going into?

Tammy Cannon: Oh my goodness! It’s a huge need for sure because with the clients that I had, had a lot of small businesses but they were like restaurants and you know, multimillion dollar businesses but they were run by the owner who’s at work every day, you know, managing and doing things. They just don’t have time to promote their businesses on social medial because it can take 20 minutes to craft a really thoughtful Instagram post.

Andrea: Yeah, don’t I know it?

Tammy Cannon: Yeah, you got to research the hashtags, you got to get the just images right. You need to figure out what you want people to do if they click to read your comments, the call-to-action all that stuff. And a lot of business owners just don’t have that strategy to know what to do. So it’s very scattered and very fragmented, it’s not a branded Instagram feed and so there really is a need for professionals to go in and clean things up and make everything _____ consistent.

Andrea: I’m usually waiting till the end to ask people more about their offering and things, but this just really comes to mind. It makes me wonder if some of the courses that you offer, the classes and things like that would be really good for small business owners to have somebody in there company even to do or to take and learn how to do social media part of the time that they’re at work.

Tammy Cannon: I know and that’s one of the courses that I’m thinking about for 2018 is a course for social media managers because there is a lot to learn. But if people want to jump into the free resources that I have and just kind of dig around; I have a lot of things like profitability calculators for Facebook ads if people are managing ads for businesses. I’ve got an ideal client worksheets and all kinds of stuff in there that I think people could get some value for. And easiest way to access that is to text the number 44222 with the phrase all one word freeresource and they’ll just get right in.

Andrea: So what exactly got you going into social media marketing in the first place? What other kinds of things have you done in the past? I remember that you had a food blog in the past.

Tammy Cannon: Oh yes! I feel like it’s been so long. So way, way back I graduated from Washington State University with a marketing degree. So I’ve always been sort of in that realm, you know, sales and marketing and traveling around the globe. So when social media came out, this new kind of marketing and this just obviously intriguing to me as just like that next step that you are learning in school and college at the time.

So I just kind of immersed myself in Twitter. That was my very first kind of…well, I did have a Facebook page, a Facebook personal profile, you know, everybody was doing anything much with that at the time. But then Twitter was really coming on strong and I just love the access, how easy it was to use, how quick it was, how clever you had to be because you only had 140 characters at the time. So I actually jumped on there and at the same time I was taking pictures and doing some food photography and decided I would I start a blog.

So I did that in 2010 and what I found was a really neat community in the Seattle area of food bloggers. It’s too tight-knit down there and I’m about 30 minutes north of Seattle but it was just such a cool time to meet all these people. Well, after a white, a few of us decided to meet in person and back then, it was called tweetup, meetup and so we actually meet…the person I was talking with, we met at her house and then I think it ended up being like 10 of us. And we laugh about it now because it was such a new thing. I’m like “Oh my gosh, I’m gonna go and meet these people in person. This is gonna be so crazy.”

It ended up being so neat and I’m still friends with these people now. It’s such a neat thing. And so what I decided to do after food blogging was in my community, I live in a small town called Snohomish, Washington and it’s the Antique Capital of Northwest and we have a lot of boutiques, a lot of little restaurants sits along the river. It’s such a clean little small town USA place.

And one day, I was walking and noticed that one of the stores in my community had closed. And then I thought, “Oh my goodness, I wonder if I could help businesses in my community use social media,” not that I was going to save the business but it was like I just put them into together and I thought, “I wonder if I can do this for small businesses and be of value.” And so I just kind of stepped out into my community and at that time, there was an organization called the 360Projects. I think it was called 360 or something like that.

Basically, you go and you pick three bricks and mortar shops in your town and you spend like 50 bucks a month at each place and that would help support them. If everybody did that, that would ensure your small business community stayed healthy, the taxes stayed in your community and all that and it just really resonated with me. So there was an event and the founder of that organization came to speak to the community and I happen to be there and so did the executive director for economics in our city.

And I just so happen to start talking to her and she said “We need to start blogging as a city,” and that was my first customer. So it was just how it worked out and just kind of fall into my lap and then there, I round up getting a lot of clients throughout my time. I’ve served over a 100 in the last five years helping manage social media. So it was a lot of fun.

Andrea: So when you were the food blog, was there any income involved with that for you because I know some food bloggers and that could be a struggle.

Tammy Cannon: No, I was not monetizing at the time. I didn’t know how. I just knew that I loved writing. I loved cooking so very much and I just had a blast doing it. I did get hired to do a couple of blog post for other people and also having people pay for my photos, so just little side stuff that comes about when you’re consistent. But I just didn’t really follow through with it and then I have the idea of just going into business for social media and managing for businesses. So I didn’t really did anything with that long term. I wish I had but I can always go back to that but that will be something next.

Andrea: So what is it like to being a multi-passionate-preneur? I think that most of the people listening are really interested in many different things and it’s hard to choose. Do you recommend that people pick one thing for a while or do you say just go for it all or what are some of the struggles you face as multi-passsionate-preneur and how do you make it work?

Tammy Cannon: It’s really interesting. I mean, you do have to pick one thing you know. I feel like the social media marketing that was something that I was already making money at. I was already doing it. I already had leverage there and so I think once you get to that point then you can kind of start creating on the side. Now, before I was earning money with the creative stuff, I really just kind of put stuff together, got an Etsy shop didn’t really know about Etsy SEO at the time. And so you know, I think most people kind of do that sort of thing, they don’t really know how to put the passion behind what you’re excited to do and so it didn’t really go anywhere then they’re so excited.

I think the struggle is you get so excited about all these different things and once I learned something in my social media business that I see I can apply to my creative business, and I get so excited and gung-ho but then you burn out so quickly. Then I have to go “Alright, I’ll just put that aside for now.” So for instance, two years ago, I started a third business. It’s still on the back burner. It’s still there kind of _____. I haven’t had a chance to do anything with it because I’ve been so busy with the social medial, but I love gardening and so I have theflirtyherb Instagram.

And so yeah, I was starting all of these. I had three things going and I was gung-ho, so excited. My creative business was kind of ticking off. I had Sue B. Zimmerman mentioned me in her Instagram. She did a whole Instagram series on CreativeLive. So she mentioned my business and shared about it and so that was really fun but then it was like I have to fall back on what I was doing at the time, which was managing. So I think it’s really difficult…you can’t do everything but if you’re OK with being patient and seeing things for the long term, if you can appreciate that then it’s easier.

So theflirtyherb really I post very inconsistently. I’m not really too worried about it and in 2018 or even ’19, I’m thinking so far ahead that I’ll be in a position to really get back where we have a whole 30-day healthy eating challenge, I’ve got it all on add-ons. People do sign up and I’ve got figure out how to turn that into master class. As much as I’m learning with Cannon Social Media, I know that I’ll just be able to apply that but it will just be awhile and I’m OK with that.

Andrea: Yeah. It sounds like a lot of spinning plates. If you could just get one plate to spin on its own then you could go to the next one.

Tammy Cannon: Definitely.

Andrea: And keep moving and adding. OK, so here’s a really weird question maybe, I do a lot of work with people trying to figure out their personal brands, trying to figure out what their main thing is, how to tie it all together and keep everything aligned. So this is interesting to me because you have all these different things going and you can’t do it all at the same time, which I understand too. Have you ever thought about turning any of it into just a personal like a personal brand that would somehow align these things, or do you feel like they’re just two separate to ever bring it all together and under Tammy Cannon for example?

Tammy Cannon: Yeah it’s a good question because I’ve seen the trend of people doing that. So someone that comes to mind is Melyssa Griffin, but she started out as the Nectar Collective and that’s kind of how I found here and then she decided to brand everything under her name. I didn’t see value in doing that moving ahead. I think for me, I think in segments so I have to divide everything out myself.

So Cannon Social Media, I have Emma Fox Creative and then I have The Flirty Herb and so when I’m focusing to any of those, in my mind I can keep track of like “OK, I need to stay focus, this is the garden business. This is the cooking business.” And so whatever that ends being, I know that_____ and I’m focused. If I put it all under my name, I don’t know if that would make sense. I could definitely do Cannon Social Media and Emma Fox but I don’t know. For now, I just feel like for all I can do to manage everything is to _____ in a compartment.

Andrea: Yes I’m sure, it’s an interesting idea. So that’s the reason why I’m curious if you’ve ever considered it and I really love finding those connections. It’s like a game for me or something but I also like the idea that we are a whole person. Yes, we do have different sides to ourselves and gifts and interest but somehow, they are aligned in us. So whether they are aligned under your name in marketing or not, it doesn’t really probably matter because we are still _____.

Tammy Cannon: Yeah, yeah!

Andrea: Have you always been really creative and did you always feel free to be able to just go after these creative endeavors or was there ever anything that was sort of making you feel like you couldn’t do that or shouldn’t do that? Have you always just been creative like that?

Tammy Cannon: Yeah, I remember in sixth grade, I was always pretty good at writing. I wish I could find it now. In sixth grade, I remember those so well. We had an assignment and we had to write about a crayon color and so I wrote this whole thing about the color blue and just went on and on and so my teacher liked it so much. She gave it to the principal and they read it to, you know, we had an assembly. So I was really proud of myself and that little written piece of work but that was kind of when I knew I can really describe things and really have empathy for a story.

And so I’ve always been just curious about people and curious about things and feelings. So I’ve always been able to kind of explore that and also not be afraid to fail. I also paint with acrylic paints. Yesterday, I was painting something and I was “Oh my goodness, what is wrong with me.” Some days are good and some days aren’t good. It’s like taking photographs. I mean, you take a hundred and maybe five turn out, but you have to be willing to fail and just jump on whatever it is because you’ll never know. You’ll really spend time doing it and make the effort. People get worried it’s not perfect so then you don’t get anything done. I’m definitely willing to just get it out there and make progress and not worry about things being perfect.

Andrea: OK, so Tammy, I know that you have three teenagers at home, is that right?

Tammy Cannon: Yeah, three.

Andrea: That’s amazing! First of all I wanted to ask, do you do what you do like fulltime? Do you find that your job in your business comes in conflict with your schedule with your kids or how does that work for you?

Tammy Cannon: Now, my kids are 13, 14, and 15. I have two in high school and one left in middle school next year and so they’re gone during the day. And so from September to June basically, I really work fulltime at this business and get everything done what I need to do while they’re gone. They get home between 2:30 and 3 o’ clock in the afternoon and so my work day ends then as soon as they get home. But not every time, if I’m creating a courses or something like that, I’ll say you know, “I’m just recording another video.”

So they know the deal and they know in my office that I’m working so they know those boundaries are there and I try to respect our schedules. So when they’re home, I try as much as possible just to be off the phone. I try my business to be automated so that from the time they get out of school in June, like this is their first week out for the summer, I don’t really do a lot until they go back in September.

I have everything set up on automatic. I have my teachable school and so all of my courses are there. So I continue to, you know, every week, I blog if not through. I’m supposed to blog every week. I’ve been off my schedule without, but my goal is to blog every week and release that on Thursday and then I’ve been really consistent with my podcast that comes out every Thursday as well, and so I can batch that stuff ahead a time.

Andrea: What do you mean by batch?

Tammy Cannon: For instance, we’re talking in the summer of 2017, I have an Instagram challenge coming up for the month of July. And so what I’m going to do is to record all four weeks of my podcast that’s going to be part of the challenge. So even if you’re not literally in the challenge and opted in to, you’ll get the emails that I’m going to send out and still be able to listen to the podcast. So I’ll record all four of those probably this week and then I’ll just batch them into my host and schedule them for release in the future.

So they’ll automatically go out and that’s something that I did for myself that I really had to learn to do. As much as I can, put things on auto batch things so that their schedule and then I don’t have to really babysit anything. We’re going to be going to Europe this summer but I’ll know that my business is kind of going on its own and I don’t have to deal much for the summer. So I just have a set up that way for my schedule so that I can enjoy my kids and you know all the fun stuff that happens when the sun is out in Seattle. We take it out because we haven’t seen it for nine months so it’s really, really hard to get myself set up so that I can do that.

Andrea: That’s great! I am definitely working towards that being able to batch and everything but that was one of my goals for the summer too is just be able to focus more on my kids and things but there’s still these little things that come up. So when your kids are home then at night, are you on social media?

Tammy Cannon: Oh good question, so you mean like posting to Instagram and Twitter and all that stuff?

Andrea: Yeah

Tammy Cannon: So yes, throughout the day what I have discovered is that there are little pocket of time where I always have my phone because I do manage Facebook ads and so I’ll take one or two clients a month and manage. And so once I get everything set up, I do have to check in on ads, make sure they’re within the parameters that I’ve set, you know per lead, price per lead. I want to make sure all that’s good to go. But I do have pockets of time where I’ll grab my phone and post on Instagram and I really had to plan both ahead of time as well so I’ll know what my next line Instagram post going to be.

And so I schedule those in grum.co management scheduler that you can use for Instagram. I’m not very good at this all the time but my goal is to have at least the next nine I know what theme is going to be. I’ll know what the call to action is and so that my Instagram is more branded. So it makes it easy when they are home. All I have to do is just post it and have all the hashtags in my notes app so I’ll just copy those and paste them over and the comments. And I’ve gotten better just to be able to do that in a few minutes other than 20 minutes. It works out but yeah and then I try to spend time with my husband too and not have any work in.

So this summer as an example, I will work in the morning from 6:00 to 10:00 because they’re sleeping pretty much and just kind of starting the day rolling around at 8:00 or 9:00 and they’re not really ready to do much until 10:00 or 11:00 on lazy summer days. So I’m going to use that time but it’s just going to be my time to get as much done in the morning so that I can be with them in the afternoon and use those pockets of time to tweet and do Instagram and stuff like that.

Andrea: Alright, so this is what I’m really interested in right now, the fact that you are so knowledgeable about social media has to be helpful as a parent of teens.

Tammy Cannon: Oh my goodness! I can’t tell you how glad I am to have the knowledge but it’s like a double edge sore because I know too much almost. The fine line that I have to walk where I’m not invading their privacy too much as a teen, I mean I can’t even imagine of that stuff that my parents could have found out about you know you don’t want. You don’t want your kid doing those things but you also know that they are going to make bad decisions and then some of them are natural consequence types of things where they learn on their own.

But then there are other things where your parents need to step in and so sometimes, it can be a bit overwhelming to know where to draw that line. I have an example and this was years ago. I’ll just say one of them fifth or sixth grade and we were our way to school. At the time, I had to drive them to their elementary school and I noticed that one of my old phones was missing. So long story short, I said something about “Well, you know, I guess I can just put the GPS on and figure out where the phone is and then I’ll know where it is.” Well that scared sad child so then throw the phone in the back seat and so therefore didn’t get in trouble for anything.

But stuff like that you know then they’re like “Oh they can track this phone.” “Oh no, I better not follow through with this bad decision.” And so we laugh about it now but it’s like “OK, there’s a lot to know.” Another one of my kids, I found out they had posted on Instagram after I had taken their phone away and so I’m thinking to myself “How are they doing it. They have to have a device.” So I go and asked and the child says “Oh I just used the computer.” And I’m like “No, you can’t upload photos direct from my computer.

So just little things like that that most parents maybe wouldn’t have known a few years ago, I was able to be like “No, that’s not true.” Then they’re like “Oh, I’m _____.” So in that regard, it’s dead but you just got train them to hope they make better decisions and not be dishonest and move forward. But yeah, there is a fine line especially as they get older and they way the use social media is so very different from the way we use it. I don’t even know all the ins and outs. It really bothers me how they do it differently. I try to ask them questions like “What is streaking? What’s being left unread?” There are so many little things in their world that we just have no idea about. It’s pretty insane.

Andrea: Right. Do you have any insights into why or how kids use it differently than adults?

Tammy Cannon: Yeah. So for Instagram as an example, most teenagers are going to have main Instagram account but they also have what they call as spam account. The spam account is a secondary account which only has their good friends, or friends of friends and they compose anything they want to any type of image whatever it might be and it’s only going to those people.

And by the way, all the teens have private accounts but yet they’ve get thousands of followers because it’s just a word of mouth, oh it’s my friend’s, cousin’s, brother and their friends and friends Instagram but everybody’s private. So it’s so different than how we use it as adults and how we use it for business.

Andrea: I know that you have an episode on your podcast recently where you talk about teens and what it means that streaking on Snapchat and things like this, so I will definitely include that in the show notes because I think that any parent would be really appreciate understanding some of those things a little bit better.

OK, so Tammy, now there are some people listening, the Influencers that’s listening might be somebody that has a speaking business for a while or they’re considering breaking out on their own to do counseling or something along these lines and have this business but they don’t really love the idea of social media and aren’t exactly sure about to do with social media. Maybe they’re even starting a blog but they’re not sure what to do with social media, do you have any suggestions for somebody in that situation or maybe it depends on the person but where they should get started. What are the first steps?

Tammy Cannon: I think for anyone that’s looking into social media or maybe even blogging or doing a video blog, I think the first step is to figure out why you want to do it. I remember when I first started managing and social media was new, everyone was just like “OK, we got to jump on and get on there,” but there’s no strategy and there’s no consistency a lot of the time and that’s because there isn’t a good reason why. They haven’t figured it out so for instance if you’re a restaurant, you do want people coming to spend money at your restaurant and so that’s kind of the end goal. And then working backwards from there, you know what kind of things, what entice people to come in to the restaurant.

And so for any business, I think you need to really figure out, do you want to get paid to be a speaker so therefore you got to go on social media and maybe you get advice on speaking or do behind the scenes of how you prepare for a speech. And all those can be done on a website with a blog post, with Instagram images even through Twitter. So I think if you have a strategy, know what you want people to do then it makes it a lot easier to get started.

And to get started, I think it’s important to think in terms of traffic to your website because your website is the hub of everything. That’s where people can get to know you a little bit more, connect with you, work with you, and definitely have a work with your page. And then a weekly content whether that’s a blog or video or tutorial that can post on your website and share it via social media that’s going to drive traffic back to your website because I think the end goals is always to make some form of money. If you’re in business to make money and so if you think how am I making money with this business and then work backwards in giving people what they want, giving them value so that they will want to purchase something from you in the end.

Andrea: When I first started blogging it was basically three years ago and the thing to do with that time was to get on Facebook and create a Facebook page. And so that’s what I did, I created a Facebook page and invited people to like it and it was pretty simple for me to spend maybe $5 every time I posted something on my blog to get it to reach thousands of people, a couple of thousands of people maybe which was awesome. And I’ve certainly noticed that now to get the same amount of people to see that post, it would take maybe $30.

So when it’s worth it and when it’s not worth it to spend money? How do you make that decision? Do you have any suggestions about that on whether or not to just post or create ads or something like that for somebody that maybe just have some information for their friends to share? Or how do you figure out whether or not it’s worth it based on the product that you’re selling and things like that? Do you have my any facts on that?

Tammy Cannon: Yeah. It’s a whole big process and so my strategy with the whole thing is to come up with a logical sequence or like a path to purchase or a lot of people call them _____. What’s the _____, what’s the strategy, or what’s the path to purchase? And certainly one of them is if you’re writing blog post to value, you can boost that post. You know, they always want you to send money advertising on Facebook, Facebook loves our money so there’s always a chance to do that and now with boosted post, you can actually tag what type of person, you know what their interest are.

So it’s gotten a lot better. It had a bad rap for a while just posting a post but if you want to do that just to create brand awareness, just to get people over to your website, or to read your content, the best way to go about that is use that as a lead generation opportunity. So have a call-to-action inside your blog post whether that’s a free worksheet that helps bring more value to the blog post or maybe it’s a tutorial video that they can sign up to watch, or maybe you have a direct to sales inside of your blog post that sends them to a online course or something. Have something that you want them to do once they get there that is on the path to purchase.

And so the very first thing that you will get is an email. That’s definitely where to begin, start building your email list because not everyone is ready to purchase from you but if your articles are helpful and they’ll find themselves going back to your website like “Oh that’s a really great content. I wonder what they’ve got going on this week.” And so then you’ve got a situation where you’ve done such a good job with your content that people are seeking you out and you don’t have to pay for that and you’re getting leads for zero dollars. That’s certainly I think; boosting a post, running a conversion ad, figuring out, or branding pages there are so much to it. They’re very basics if you are blogging and do have a lot about of value to share and you’re really thinking about your ideal customer then certainly get them over to your website, drive the traffic with a boosted post if you want but have something for them to do when they get there.

Andrea: That’s great! OK, so I know that that’s pretty complicated for people that have maybe just started, but you need to understand at the same time that it is a little complicated and that getting your message out there, there’s many different ways to a message out into the world. And if you are thinking that you would like to do it online which is a really wise move in my opinion then it does require learning new things and Tammy is a great person to learn those things from when it comes to your social media strategy and things like that.

So I definitely want to encourage you to check out Tammy and the things that she has to offer, which I asked her about just a minute and then also if you’re really looking for that why, your why and your purpose and you’re trying to figure out what is the direction that I want with this message of mine then I can help you with that. You will find links to both what I offer and what Tammy offers in the show notes and I hope that you’ll check that out because I think we both have some freebies too. So Tammy why don’t you tell us about where people can find you and what you have to offer.

Tammy Cannon: Sure! So I’ve got the Free Resource Library and the easiest way to access that is the number that I gave earlier, so texting the number 44222 and then just type in all one word freeresource and then you have an opportunity to opt in and get inside the library. I have lots of goodies and fun stuff. You can also access, if you want to check out my classes, I’ve got some fun summer time challenges coming up that people can take a look out at Pinterest and Instagram and so you can access that. I have a bit.ly/cannoncourses and they can check everything out there too.

Andrea:   Awesome!   Well, Tammy, thank you so much for taking time to share with us your expertise and your story and I did like the extra a little bit about teenagers that was helpful.

Tammy Cannon: Oh thank you for having me. I appreciate it, Andrea, this has been fun.

Andrea: Definitely check out her stuff and I look forward to seeing you more on Facebook and Instagram. We do have a Facebook group for the Voice of Influence at this time, so go to Voice of Influence community. It’s a Facebook group so you go ahead and you just ask to join and we’ll have a chat. So thank you so much and use social media to your benefit and go make your voice matter more.

 

END

How to Navigate Judgment When You Have a Platform

Voice Studio 16

In this Voice Studio episode, we look back at something discussed in episode 16 with Megan Swanson. Pageant women literally pay to be judged for all they are, but so do any of us who take the risk of sharing our voice with others. So how do we navigate that judgment? I offer two important things to consider in this episode. Taking in criticism from people who want to help you get better is much different than being pushed off course by someone who is reacting out of their own fear.

Mentioned in this episode

  • Episode 16: Your Mess Can Become Your Message

Listen & Subscribe Below, on iTunes or Stitcher

 

Your Mess Can Become Your Message

Episode 16 with Megan Swanson, Miss Nebraska 2014

A 24-year old CEO, Singer, and International Speaker from Omaha, Nebraska, Megan Swanson is a real go-getter.

As a former Miss Nebraska, having represented her state at the Miss America 2015 pageant, Megan is passionate about equipping young individuals. During her year, she traveled 40,000 miles, speaking to tens of thousands of individuals regarding her platform of Spiritual, Physical, Emotional, and Financial Wellness. After her year as Miss Nebraska, Megan realized there was still MUCH work to be done- and her pageant coaching firm “Powerhouse Pageantry” was born, equipping young pageant women all over the United States to win in their interviews and on stage questions.

Megan now travels the country speaking, coaching, and performing her music.

She can be found on all social media outlets @megan_swanson, or at go.mspageantcoach.com

Listen here, on iTunes or Stitcher.

Also, grab the summary of the first 15 podcast guests:

Tips & Strategies for Emerging Thought Leaders and Message-Driven Creatives: Volume 1

 

 

This is What You Need to Hear When You Question Your Dreams

Voice Studio 15: Me & You

In this Voice Studio episode I get really personal with a story about my dad, interviewed in episode 15. If you’re struggling to believe if your dream is possible or if you have what it takes, this is for you.

Mentioned in this episode:

 

Listen & Subscribe Below, on iTunes or Stitcher

Be Bold. What Do You Have to Lose?

Episode 15 with Tim Moomey

I measured my mind against my dad’s. I watched him make decisions to lead our family with confident precision. And from what I could tell, most of the time the outcome was just what he intended. I wanted to move in the world like that. I wanted to awe and lead others with the confident precision of my mind just like my dad. And for some reason, I believed I could.

~Andrea Joy Wenburg in UNFROZEN: Stop Holding Back and Release the Real You

In this special Father’s Day edition of the Voice of Influence podcast, I interview my dad, Tim Moomey. In this episode we discuss his voice and career, including a few things I didn’t know! There are timeless, inspirational lessons here, so don’t miss this one. Mentioned in the episode:

 

Hey, hey! It’s Andrea and welcome to the Voice of Influence podcast. Now, every interview I’ve done in the past and plan to do in the future are all very special to me for different reasons. But a lot of times it has to do with the fact that I actually know the people I’m talking to and I’m very interested in what they have to say.

Well, today it’s an extra special interview and that is because I’m interviewing my dad! It’s Father’s Day weekend and he is definitely a Voice of Influence in my life and in his community, in particular. We’ve had some really good conversations in the past regarding this idea of voice and what it means to be a leader and things like that.

Andrea: So I’m thrilled to have you here on the podcast with me today, Dad!

Tim: Well, it’s good to be here.

Andrea: So this is Tim Moomey. I want to start by letting people know, kind of, what you do. Could you give us a little snippet of what you do for your job?

Tim: For my job? OK. I am a Certified Financial Planner. I help people plan retirement, their social security maximization. I meet with people and help them plan investing in general. We also do other things like long-term care insurance, life insurance, but our focus is on investments and helping people get to a point where they can comfortably retire.

Andrea: And is this something that you’ve always wanted to do? Did you know you wanted to do this as a kid or how did you get involved?

Tim: It evolved. When I was in high school I thought I wanted to be a music teacher. In college I got a teaching degree in music.

 

 

Finding the Real Power in Your Message

Voice Studio 14

In this episode, Andrea discusses the importance of connecting deeply and personally with the message you’re wanting to get across. People connect more to your transformed vulnerability than your natural ability…trust me.

Mentioned in this episode:

Thank you for rating and reviewing the Voice of Influence podcast wherever you listen! Your voice matters.

Listen & Subscribe Below, on iTunes or Stitcher

Perhaps It’s Time to Stop “Leading” and Focus on Influencing

Episode 14 with Dr. Neal Schnoor

The concept of leadership is a good one, but is it possible that we’ve turned it into a list of behaviors we “do” in order to get people to do what we think they should do? Dr. Neal Schnoor, Senior Advisor to the Chancellor of UNK, presents an interesting proposition to focus on influence, rather than leadership.

In this interview we discuss:

Connect with Dr. Neal Schnoor here:

 

Listen here, on iTunes or Stitcher

 

Dr. Schnoor provides counsel and assistance to the Chancellor relative to the comprehensive executive portfolio. He is a member of the Chancellor’s Cabinet and Administrative Council and serves as UNK’s chief compliance officer. Previously, Dr. Schnoor served as Dean of the School of Education and Counseling at Wayne State College. For thirteen years prior he was a member of the faculty at UNK, where he held tenure in both the College of Education and College of Fine Arts and Humanities and served as Coordinator of K-12 and Secondary Education and Director of Bands. He has published articles in state and national journals and presented papers at state, national, and international conferences and served as a higher education representative to the Effective Educator 2020 Summit and on Nebraska’s statewide committee for developing state teacher/leader standards. Dr. Schnoor is one of only a few individuals to have been elected President of both the Nebraska Music Educators Association and Nebraska State Bandmasters Association and he continues to present clinics and leadership development sessions for students and educators. Dr. Schnoor earned PhD and MM degrees from the University of Nebraska Lincoln and BFAE from Wayne State College.

 

Hey, it’s Andrea and welcome to the Voice of Influence Podcast. I am honored to have Dr. Neal Schnoor with me today. When I first decided that the premis of this podcast would be helping creative leaders develop their message and their voice of influence, there were a few names that immediately came to mind as people I want to interview and Dr. Schnoor was one of them.

I met him at the University of Nebraska, Kearney when I was a music education student and he was the director of bands. And he also taught a secondary education class that I was in and it really felt like that secondary education class felt a lot more like a life leadership kind of class. So I gained so much from his influence and I loved the way that he communicated and it just seems to resonate with me.

 

Andrea: So today, I’m so thrilled to have you with me on the podcast, Dr. Neal Schnoor.

Dr. Schnoor: Well, Andrea it’s just a thrill to catch up with a former student and find the wonderful things you are doing to help people and to see your life unfold. That’s the best part of being a teacher. It’s sort of like being a parent; you get to watch your kids grow up and it’s just a pleasure.

Andrea: Well, thank you. Now, you’re not a director of bands of UNK anymore, what is your position now?

Dr. Neal Schnoor: So currently, I serve as the Senior Adviser to the Chancellor for executive affairs. While I was band directing, I got involved in teacher education and kind of did both of those things and then have the opportunity to go back to my alma mater, Wayne State College and served as the Dean of Education and Counseling and then I’d been back in this role for about five years now.

Andrea: So what all does this mean that you’re a Senior Advisor to the Chancellor, it’s sounds like right hand man king of thing, it’s that kind of description of it?

Dr. Neal Schnoor: It is and it’s a little hard to describe to people because it just sounds like a bunch of mumbo jumbo. But in general, I work with strategic planning, compliance. Chancellor refers to me as this crisis manager, so I can get some of the sensitive, legal and personnel things, just really trying to help the executive team here function best, and think short term and long term. So every day, is an adventure and that’s what I love the most.

Andrea: Are you in a classroom at all now?

Dr. Neal Schnoor: Not very often, although, I still try to do at least one honor band every year and I’ve probably stayed more active trying to do leadership. I just love working with teenagers and we’ll probably talk as we go on. I’ve almost gotten to where I hate the word ‘leadership.’ I’m really more into influence and helping kids, not to get sidetrack at the beginning, but to help them deal with the anxiety in that process because I’m just seeing them what are college students here, adults or high school students, their level of anxiety are so high. So I try to work that in as well.

Andrea: Oh yeah, we definitely need to get into that. But before we go there, I’m excited about that.

Dr. Neal Schnoor: I sidetrack you are ready, didn’t I?

Andrea: No, not at all. You know, I was thinking today again about how…I just cannot help but go deep fast. I invited you to take the Fascinate Assessment®, which you haven’t heard of before, and you did and it was so fun to find out that you and I are so similar in our voice.

Dr. Neal Schnoor: But it’s really interesting, isn’t it?

Andrea: Yeah, so the two things that come out on top are Innovation and Power and they’re just flipped for you, Power and Innovation which is kind of a language of leadership. But you don’t like that word, so I love that you don’t like that word, you’re ‘going to tell me more about that later. But I suppose, it’s a language of influence then willingness to share your opinions and guide people and then innovation is creativity. So you come out as like the Change Agent as what the thing says and so the archetype is. So I’m wondering what was your impression when you found that out about yourself?

Dr. Neal Schnoor: Well, my first thing is I ran it across my filter, my wife, Theresa, and I showed her those things and I said “Do this described me for better or worse?” And she said “Yeah, most of them. That really is you.” I’ve never gotten too hung up on it but as I read those descriptors, I really did feel like they fit a lot of aspects of what I hope to do. Some of what I do in this job, again for better or for worse is just to ask good questions. I think that just, is there another way to do things? Are we looking at all the information? Are we considering people’s strengths and weaknesses and things like that?

So the word probably caught me, you have to explain it to your listeners better but the word power kind of took me aback because I don’t want to be authoritarian. I think I explained in our class one time, that that’s how I started teaching. I simply was demanding and, kind of my way or the highway, and the kids taught me pretty quickly that there were a lot better ways to engage them. So tell us a little more about power, Andrea, what that means?

Andrea: Yeah, I was definitely taken aback by that word too and that was my exact experience is that I think I have this natural bent towards telling people what to do, which is not a form of real influence. I mean, you can tell people what to do and try to get them to comply with you, but that doesn’t really change who they are in the inside.

So I really struggled with that word as well. But at the same time, I realized that for me, when I looked at it, because I didn’t want that, I pulled back in some ways where I wasn’t sharing as passionately or intensely or whatever as maybe I could in a way that was not. I guess in a way that’s compelling instead of, I don’t know what’s the different word, yeah authoritative.

Dr. Neal Schnoor: Yeah, instead of drawing people in, it can kind of turn them off. And so I think sometimes in our passion, some people misread that as maybe even arrogance and so on. So yeah, such fine lines in there.

Andrea: I always considered you to be very powerful. In this more positive way, your voice is that way and when I say voice, I’m talking about your style, your tone whatever. I mean, it’s confident.

Dr. Neal Schnoor: Yes. You know, one of the things I was thinking about, Andrea, and again this can go a lot of directions, but you had kind of talked when we initially visited about have we always had this voice, or have I had this voice? It really made me think really hard about something we’ve talked in class as Stephen Covey described to as secondary traits people have a hard time seeing that. And the more I’ve developed, the more I think I’m finally catching up with where we really are, our intellect, our passion, charisma, and communication skills, those were actually all secondary traits.

And I guess one way to understand that as he explained it, those are things you could lose. Say you had a traumatic brain injury, those things would go away. But the essence of who you are is still the same and will hopefully .. a little bit but some people call it the soul or consciousness or those kinds of things. But the real challenge for me is that I think I’ve always been able to use those secondary traits that I had to influence other people, where over the years I’ve tried much harder to get at the “But am I doing it for the right reasons?” Because you know, there have been a lot of leaders who have all these leadership skills that we’ll talk about.

And if you go down as I often talk in my leadership presentations, I’ll ask the students when we set lists who are your leaders and always was positive ones. But I’ll draw them to figures like who are some other leaders that who really had these skills very powerfully and some horrible leaders have had those skills that even Adolf Hitler had all these leadership skills what’s missing? Well, we might argue consciousness. So yeah, have we had this voice? I think so. Have we always used it? Well, that’s another therapy session for me I think.

Andrea: That’s the reason why I love the idea of developing one’s voice. Yes, we have a style or we have these secondary qualities that you’re talking about. We have even a message and things that we’re wanting to share but then it’s really important to take it through a process of development that edits the message and turns the voice into a tone that is compelling, that is drawing in and inviting instead of pressure and that sort of thing. Who have you read or what are some of the things that you have encountered over the years, beside your students that you’ve already mentioned, that have influenced the development then of your voice.

Dr. Neal Schnoor: Well, you know, it’s interesting. And we may work into faith but my Christian faith has been strong throughout my life, and yet I think as all people are aware the stronger that is probably the more you question it. And to me that’s always actually a good sign, but it is interesting. I started reading a philosopher, his name is Jacob Needleman, and what attracted to me initially is his efforts to put together Judaism, Christianity. He looked in Hinduism and so he’s looking for some central truths, so to speak. And I just like his voice, his message, and how he looked for rather than differences similarities.

And so that kind of led me looking for things and lately, I’ve really, really found Michael Singer’s work to be powerful, a book called The Untethered Soul. It kind of profoundly moved me to look more at that consciousness. And I’ve shared it with family members, nieces and nephews and they’ve all found it to be compelling. There’s another one called, The Surrender Experiment, The Power of Now is a very strong book and then different things I just looked at these universals and what I’ve gained is somewhat say that’s leading away from Christianity, it’s actually kind of reinforced that stronger.

So I guess digging, you say, you like to dig deep. For me, it has been a real challenge just because of my nature to quite the voice in my head. So I was drawn to your voice because for about the last four or five years, I have tried to really identify with it’s not a false voice, but our thinking minds will think around problem. And if we allow it to do that and where are psyche in it’s kind of overactive, freaked out way to constantly talk in our head.

If we can identify those for what they are and realized where the consciousness within that perceives those voices, that perceives the emotional state where in, then those things quit running our lives and instead, we simply fully experience each moment. And we know that we’re the one watching even though we might be sad, even though we might be happy that’s not us. That’s just something we’re experiencing.

Andrea: How does that tie in to your message about anxiety?

Dr. Neal Schnoor: It’s actually the major point. We really do talk, you know, our psyche to put ourselves in touch with it, that’s what I think Singer talks about it really eloquently which is, you know, for hundreds or thousands or millions of years with these biological creatures for a great period of time, the psyche kept us from – it’s that hair on the back of your neck that told you a bear was coming and you reacted. Most of us don’t have to fear for our physical safety walking to work in the morning, and so we kind of set this psyche, we’ve given in a different job which is to really kind of fuss about how we feel all the time and it just talks to us if you hear it.

The best example I always give to kids is that’s psyche and your thinking mind, if you pass a friend in the hallway and you say hello and they ignore you, just pay attention to that mind “What did I do? I didn’t deserve that. What’s wrong with her today? Oh my God, I’m so stupid. I bet she’s mad because I didn’t call.”

It’s everywhere. If you start listening to it and paying attention to it then you see that it’s not going to solve your problems, it presents every possible option that’s out there. And if you become aware of it and simply watch it, it’s amazing how much power you have to not live in that reactive state.

Andrea: So watching it is the answer. Is that what you’re saying?

Dr. Neal Schnoor: Yeah. Just watch it; do not get involve with it. If you do, it will suck you in. I mean, we’ve all done it before. So for instance, it could seemingly a silly example but we spent 90% of our lives in that silly example. My wife is quiet. My mind starts working. I wonder what I did now. I wonder if she had a bad day. I wonder for something I can do to help. All of those are not bad in and of themselves but that’s just are thinking mind. And if I sit back for a moment and say “Wow and how’s that making me feel and some of those things?” I’m less apt to say, “Well, what’s wrong today?” It’s just amazing how reactive we are, not even fully reading.

So back to the example, then I ask the kids the person passed in the hallway and your mind is going a thousand miles an hour and 15 minute later, your friend comes back up and says “I think I just passed you in the hallway but I get a text and my pet died, I was really busy.” And all of those negative thoughts that we wasted 15 minutes crucifying ourselves didn’t even need to happen.

So much a more proactive responses might even be to give them a little space or simply to follow them and say “Hey, just now I said hello. Is there anything happening with you or something?” You know, it’s just more proactive ways. It’s been a journey for me for five years to see how frequently my perceptions, attitudes, emotions, thoughts, or mood can negatively affect a reaction. It’s not about me. My job here is to solve problems or help others find their solutions to their problems. And the clearer I can be and the more I get my emotions out of it, the more help I can be to them.

Andrea: That is so true. I think there was a time when I realized that…I mean, I’m sure everybody kind of goes this at one point I hope, but when you start to realize that not everything is about you, people’s reactions are not necessarily about you. It’s hard a thing to swallow at first because when you’re a baby, everything is about you.

Dr. Neal Schnoor: Yeah!

Andrea: And then as you start to realize that other people are having other experiences that are unseen. And you may never know about, you may never understand what’s going on inside of somebody then the question for me became “What do I have to offer them?” Instead of “What do I need from them? Do I need them to tell me hello? Do I need them to acknowledge me?” Or “Do I have something to offer them instead?”

Dr. Neal Schnoor: You know, Andrea, it’s along those lines reading your book and we could talk about that for an hour. I so enjoyed that, but one key thing that really hit me is that I got to know you better. I realized I was interacting with you every day and had no idea what was going on in your mind. You know, we get so focused on, well it’s a class and…

I perceived whether you might be understanding a concept, or you read your students to see if they have a performance look. But we frequently looked true life either assuming or not paying attention but there’s a whole consciousness in every person we talk to and we’ll get very complex. You know, it hit me very powerfully and wonderful reminder for me.

Andrea: Thank you. I think the other part that’s hard is me knowing that I have so much going on in my head. It’s easy for me to assume that other people have a lot going on inside of them. And I think that one of the hard things for me is to say, it’s okay if I don’t know and to let people just have their experience and not need to be a part of it that inner experience. I don’t know if that’s very common but…

Dr. Neal Schnoor: I think so and the other piece there is you talk about, for instance my work here in this current role and what a slippery slope it can be. I mean my job in some ways is to be problem solver. And so I find a world of difference in a very slippery slope between problem solving and helping people come to their solutions or help them find some that are inevitable. And doing that for the right reason which is to serve or that slippery slope  because 180 degrees worse I derived my value and sense of worth and it strokes my ego to be seen as the problem solver.

It sets a challenge I think in all of our lives that we identify with our roles, and yet, even the most noble “service” we do or the donation we give, do we give it in the spirit of true for giving. The right hand doesn’t know what’s the left is doing, although we do it to stroke our own ego to feel better about ourselves that we’re a “giving” person. I find that to be a dilemma I’ll continue to wrestle with for my life.

Andrea: I agree. I think that that’s something that is, especially for people as we have both described ourselves to be, we care about that motivation. Sometimes, it can be tempting to like you were talking the voice in your head and it can be tempting to analyze that and pick up that part so much that we don’t end up offering what we have to offer them because it feels, am I doing this for the right reasons? And it can become that cycle inside of the head that’s just like “Well then maybe I shouldn’t offer that at all.” What are your thoughts on that?

Dr. Neal Schnoor: Well, that’s interesting. My first reaction there to what you said is absolutely, many of the things that I share aren’t that place of consciousness I’m talking about, it’s my mind. There are wonderful instruments. I hope anyone that listens doesn’t think I’m negative about that or think that “No, that’s the beauty of it.” But our greatest asset can be our worst weapon, and so that constantly thinking, I mean, Singer’s book made me just sits back. And he describes it in this early chapter that he was just sitting there and you started listening to this.

I mean, when you first do it, you will be amazed that it’s just an incessant noise in your head. It is a voice that constantly talks to you and we can so identify with it. Don’t get too involved, just watch it. It’s a notorious flip-flopper like I did the example in the hallway. She did that. He did that. Why is that? I’m so stupid, I mean there’s the self-blame and self-loathing comes in then it would be followed up almost immediately if you watch with “Oh but I have the right to do that.” She’s just unfair. She’s unkind and that’s not right.” It’ll switch to righteous indignation. It’s just everywhere.

So that’s our thinking mind and it’s not bad. It’s not trying overtly to harness it. Honestly, both in The Power of Now, I think that’s where it’s presented and in Singer’s book most directly, I’m sure many, many, many other excellent resources. Just notice it and don’t get involve in its energy and overtime you become quieter inside. And the quieter I can be then I’m tapping into that ability to think beyond my history, my own perceptions.

Honestly, Andrea, I see it in myself and maybe I’m just the scoundrel out there. But we really build up a veritable wall of our mental perceptions how we think the world should be. We even have a belief system and some of those beliefs, we don’t question very often and then we turn around and either judge ourselves or judge others based on not reality, just the reality that we’ve created of how we think the world should go and often how the world should go just to make us happy. It gets really, really complex but my take away and what I’ve tried to do is to be quieter. These things happen and I think we touch the Divine in those moments of quiet.

Andrea: I’ve recently, and when I said recently pretty much since I don’t maybe last few years, and I think that this is part of when I was trying to accomplish with the book has explained this change at least the start of the transformation of me being so in my head starting to realize that I could let that go. I didn’t have to or I guess like what you’re saying engage with it. When I get stressed out now, I think what I end up doing is, I see things that happen. Like the dogs, the dogs get into the trash.

This happens quite frequently at our house and I feel attacked. I’m like “Uh these stupid dogs,” and start to get really frustrated inside and then I start to realize that I’m doing that. “What service is this to me?” Like these dogs could care less what I think about the fact that they got into the trash. Only it’s doing is making me more frustrated, burning these pathways in my brain to negativity and victimization and those sorts of things, which puts me in a position where I end up being more bitter or irritated or whatever. I have less of the things that I really want to offer my family. I have less of that to give.

Dr. Neal Schnoor: Yeah, it does. I love that example because we often think of such things and we’re going to change the world, but the dog knocks over the trash is so immediate. I mean, you just nailed it. Why did that hit your stuff so to speak so hard? Well, one reason is because you’re busy, you got something else to do and you got to go clean up that trash. But really, it goes that step further to think for whose mental model thought they could set the world in a place the dog wouldn’t knock over trashcan and that’s what we do.

We, literally every day…we don’t even have control of our own thoughts and emotions many times, and yet we project that and think somehow we can influence and control other people’s thoughts. And there’s a whole a lot of consciousness that work in there, but yeah, what a great example. Those things still suck me up, you know, like “Oh man, I don’t wanna go clean that mess up.”

Andrea: And what’s funny is that Aaron will try to tell me, “Andrea, they’re dogs” and try to tell me that “that’s what happens.” In which actually this makes me think of something that you’ve said before in that class that I ended up writing about a couple of years ago because it was burned in my brain. Well, what you said in class was “don’t you dare yell at the kids in your classroom essentially, don’t you dare yell at them for your lack of classroom management.” So I’m thinking about how Aaron would say to me, “these are dogs. This is what happens and probably we should have let the dogs outside or something instead.” But now, it feels like “Okay, well, I’m gonna look it that way then it’s my fault.”

Dr. Neal Schnoor: Oh I see, yeah.

Andrea: So how do you balance that you know just sort of saying “Well, I could have let them out. I guess, we’ll let them out next time and not let emotion get tied with it,” or what would you do?

Dr. Neal Schnoor: Well, I mean that’s certainly one thing right there because there are four different directions we can go. But if I think about those and I’m going to tell on myself here, so I’ll sound like and might be a little arrogant first but then the next part will come. So one of the things when I do presentations, the best comment I like and especially with the young teachers, one of them come up and say “Oh, it was so good to hear that someone like you had those problems.” They feel like and we often listen to gurus, we seek out all these resources and we think that person has the answers.

So now, to tell on myself, why could I tell the class with such genuineness and honesty and seemingly know-at-all-ness these because I’d screwed it up for three years, because I had gotten mad at students for how they were acting when I realized that had I done my sitting arrangements the first day, so they knew what to sit. Had I spent the first day or week even if needed to be to explain to them what my expectations were or behavior for how to enter the room so that we could maximize…again, the end goals, some people think that’s a power trip. No, I wanted to maximize every possible second of making music, and I didn’t want to waste it scolding a kid or whether they needed to ask for permission to use the restroom.

So all of those discipline problems, that hundreds of thousands of fires I put out every day or simply a matter that at the beginning I didn’t think through of a set of procedures and explain my expectations to those students because I still believe, sure I was a willful child and I broke the rules and did things like that. But in general 85% of kids will do 85% of the things you asked them to do, simply because you clarify and didn’t ask them to do it.

So that really resonates with me but not to miss that fact that how do we know this? I tell my kids all that or “How do you know how to get around there? How do you know not to drive there?” Because I did it and I blew up my tire and I had to learn the hard way. So yeah, part of it, you would go back and say, “You and Aaron must go out and buy a trashcan with a lid on it,” because you might say…you spent this whole psycho analysis of “Why does it bother me so much that the dog knocked over the trashcan and it shouldn’t bother me. Haven’t I grown up that these things don’t hit my stuff or whatever?” And the solution is perhaps, to buy a trashcan with a lid on it, you know. It’s kind of fun.

Andrea: So first of all, it’s such a great advice about the classroom management.

Dr. Neal Schnoor: About trashcans.

Andrea: Yeah and about trashcans. I knew this is going to happen, you know that right? Anyway, it’s a joy to be able to talk with somebody when you do kind of speak the same languages and that sense that we’re talking about before. And I think anybody, no matter what your style is, it’s just easy to have those conversations with people they’re kind of like you. I want to go back to what you said about why you’re able to share that message about classroom management with such conviction. Now, you hesitated, you didn’t want to use the word power, but I would say that was powerful.

When you communicated that we shouldn’t blame kids or yell at kids for our own lack of classroom management, it was an incredibly powerful statement. And I want to suggest that maybe it’s because like you have said, you could speak that because you would experience it. And I would call that a redemptive message. I would call that, you know what, this is something that comes out of your experience of either pain or messing up, whatever it might be.

There was some sort of transformation that occurred that got you to a point where you could say, no that is not the way. And then it comes across so authentic, genuine and powerful because it is born out of that pain and that experience that you had previous. I feel like maybe that is where the power really comes in. And I say power again as we’re talking about before I guess. It’s powerful because it comes from that place.

Dr. Neal Schnoor: Yeah, and I think we’re unpacking again that word power, gave us both pause, but I like where you’re going with it. I noticed my power wasn’t being smart and what I knew about classrooms. My power was learning from experience trying different things, being able to share that with you. And I think hopefully the other message that came across is you all have unique gifts and some of what I do may not work for you and some of what you do won’t work for me. And so it’s kind of aligning with those elements of ourselves that are authentic I think.

Andrea: I think it also helps give us permission to not look at those difficulties that we face, the struggles that we’re having with so much, I don’t know and feeling like it’s a catastrophe. Because then when we do experience that pain and that suffering that messing up essentially, hurting other people or messing up yourself that there is potential to turn that into something really beautiful in the end.

Dr. Neal Schnoor: Absolutely!

Andrea: And so when we’re in the middle of it, though maybe we need to feel the weight of it, there’s still hope.

Dr. Neal Schnoor: Absolutely! I’m so glad and just like you said, I knew that something would come out that we weren’t thinking. And for me is how many times you’ve mentioned and what a great topic that I think we avoid and that’s pain. And in general, and this is very general, we tend to either look at the past and cling to those things which we should not do that led to joy. We want to feel good and we reject or repress pain.

And so it’s a hard step for some people but we should experience pain fully. And when I said to be quiet, I’ll use the phrase, I haven’t use it a lot but I used it a lot is to sit with pain, is to sit with joy, sit with jealousy, just be present with it. Don’t try to change it. Don’t judge yourself. So when I get back of that, I know it’s going to sound freakish to people but the answer is not to try to fix it. They answer is to get quiet simply experience it. And really, most people who have done any kind of meditation, always talking about meditation. Yeah, I am but a lot of people meditate with the purpose of becoming a better person and you’ve missed the point already.

It is a process that can happen and will happen by itself if you’re able to sit with, and I hate to say it but people think “You’ve lost your mind, dude.” But sitting with pain, pain is part of life. I don’t want to not experience part of my life but then to bring in that other piece we talked about, so we start building these mental models. And here how dangerous it gets, people think it’s Muslims versus Christians.

I grew up in a little town of Nebraska and there was literally sort of a philosophical and almost we don’t talk to each other. We certainly don’t date each other between Lutherans and Catholics. We’ll find ways to differ if we allow ourselves to and so sitting with these experiences of pain and not building these walls of our concepts. Because as soon as those walls get hit, we experience discomfort which leads back to that word, anxiety which causes us pain. And if we repress those, it’s not good. So just sitting with it, just recognizing it that this is just something I’m feeling. It’s not me.

So my big message to students, if you looked in the mirror this morning and saw your face and then you had plastic surgery tomorrow that totally transformed that face, would that be the same you in there that’s looking at that image? And they get that. They connect with that. Is it the same you that’s sitting there, that’s experiences pain as well as joy, as well hurt? It is unless we allow our emotions to be us, and then we’re simply bouncing all over the world wishing that would make us happy. It’s tough. It’s really tough to not get involved in that negative energy.

Andrea: I like the idea of… like I don’t want totally separate myself from my emotion. I like the idea that my emotion could still be an indicator of what’s going inside of me or who I am as a person, and yet that I could ground that in something deeper like observe it like you were talking about. But then run it through, you know, ask myself then what do I really believe about this.

Dr. Neal Schnoor: Yes. I’m really with you, Andrea, because I think I could negate that. It’s a human endowment. Well, as we talked about with learning, if there’s an emotional tie in, people learn. If it’s a purely academic tie in, they tend not learn as well. So I guess it’s just flipping the onus. It’s the you that experiences all these things, but you are not just what you experienced. There’s a level of control. So here’s the simple one, the next time the dog knocks it over, instead of going right it, my thinking mind kept this and I’ll say “Well, go buy a trashcan with a lid on it.”

You might spend two minutes simply going “What part of me is so bothered by that being knocked over.” It would be an interesting two minutes. I don’t know what you’d come up with. I guess that’s where us going with leadership and not lose that way. We go out and we talk about having charisma, having passion, discipline. What are some other ones, Andrea? Great communication skills.   Those are all secondary traits. Where do we have to go to find that core that allows us to be disciplined?

When I’ve had a disagreement with my wife, it affects my mood. I sure hope people hear when they come to me, don’t think in their mind “Well, don’t go to him today, he’s in a bad mood.” We have to be deeper than how we feel at the moment but that is not negated all of sitting with those emotions and what they teach us. Does that help a little bit because I don’t want to say the emotions are childish and we should get rid of them?

Andrea: Right, I do think so. I think that’s good. So when you were talking about leadership then, you’re saying, we don’t want to…I want you to explain this leadership concept here before we go. I want to understand what your distinction between leadership and influence.

Dr. Neal Schnoor: Okay and this is maybe just my hang up, but as soon as something becomes a $10 billion cottage industry, I get fearful. So I’m telling you if you want to make money right now, if you’ve got a shlick thing and you go out there and tell them, you know, great leaders are purpose driven. I have nothing against purpose driven leadership, it’s good. Okay, so the real challenge is finding your purpose because it’s the most searched for. So anyway, that’s just a silly example probably shouldn’t be used because that’s way more in-depth.

But 90% of time when you go to them, they talk about this secondary traits. We have to be more confident. You have to be firm but approachable, communications strategies. They’re all good. But how are you able to come to a place where you’re able to truly open up and listen to what another person’s saying without already trying to solve their problems. So where I’m going with that is, I started thinking less about leadership which implies, you are going to go out and do something that move these other people and try to bring it more inside, “where do I develop that inner sense of right and wrong of consciousness, of awareness of openness to the needs of those people?”

I rarely see those presenters get up and start and say, “what are you hoping to get today? Where are you at your life because it will be all over the place?” And I used the word carefully because I don’t mean to their deep concepts that are quite superficial. If you just tell somebody, “You got to be more positive.” “Oh people say, that’s it the power of positivity.” Well, what is that mean when you just lost your job or your child is sick? There’s another powerful book out there that I didn’t talk about called the Prosperity Gospel. There’s a very dangerous that a lot of people and this happens to be Christianity but I put it in leadership. They go out and say, “If you do these things, you will not only be successful but you’ll be rich.” Not true, not true. I mean, if we take at the core as a Christian, Christ, was he happy all the time? Was he rich? Did he have a nice house?

It so subsumes to me the gospel and what it really means which is to find that internal presence, that connection with the divine moving. It doesn’t matter if you’re sweep on streets or president of the United States, it influences us. I’ve often thought, maybe my role here is not the work I do. Maybe my work was to be a good dad to Graham and Graham is going to do something in the world that’s transformation or maybe he is the transformational figure. And I was simply the support network or the training ground.

So I hope that’s not too vague of an answer, but to me when you go into leadership, too much of it is about do these things and you will be successful, win friends and whatever rather than, you need to get in touch with yourself and be really authentic about that and really think about what success means for you. If it’s having a nice car, nothing wrong with that necessarily but you find out, you buy that new car and a day later, you’re just worried about the payment you got to make. That’s a rumbling answer, I apologize.

Andrea: No, no. You got me thinking. I find that I also tend to shoot for the being of who we are instead of a doing and I’d like to talk about that. I’d like to figure out why we do the things that we do and all those sorts of things. The difficulty I find is that in communicating this message of being an influencer versus doing leadership, it’s easier to communicate how to do leadership. It’s easier to say, this is the path because when you’re talking about becoming an influencer, you’re talking about things that are harder to pin down.

Dr. Neal Schnoor: It really are, and I think too and not in a bad way, but we often project this out in the big thing, changing the world. I’m ever more challenged to be a positive influencer just in my own home and in one-on-one relationships. I find it much easier to go out and say motivate or large crowd and not one-on-one. Sometimes it’s really hard to explain this but I think that’s the importance of your work because all around this, I think I’ve seen it on your website so much, none of this stuff can we give to someone.

We can only hope to inspire them and get them on a path, but for instance when I talk about solitude and taking the time to think to realize this becoming you’re talking about or I might have called it consciousness or awareness or enlightenment as good Buddhist would call it, you have to do it. No one can do it for you and you can’t read it in a book. As a matter of fact, one of the favorite things I’ve heard, her name is Pema Chodron, a Buddhist priest who said “Quit looking at this library of resources, just pick one and do it.”

I think there’s tremendous wisdom. I go to a lot of workshops and good friends of mine “Have you read this? Have you read this? Have you read that?” I’ve actually slowed down my reading in some ways and I tried to pick a few that resonates and go deep and try to really do what they say rather than just being able to go out and say “Here’s what you can do” to experience it myself in some way.

Andrea: Hmmm, because when you experience it then you can offer it in a different way than you could before and then you could if you just learn it.

Dr. Neal Schnoor: Absolutely! Well, the other thought Andrea, and I don’t want to interrupt where you’re going as you think through this, but I think we’ve also given ourselves, our mind that says but also our emotions and our sense of who we are. We’ve given ourselves an impossible task. We have said to be authentic, we have said to be open and all those things and yet we’ve given ourselves the impossible task in our mind, we want everyone to like us. And so you want to talk about another one. None of these things I talked about as in either/or.

When I interact with people and I get feedback from them that can lead me to “Oh Neal, you’re being a jerk, you need to stop doing that.” So it’s valuable feedback. At the same time when you’re authentic and you share your voice and you say it very passionately and openly, there will be some that not only dislike you but truly hate you because they disagree so passionately with you. And to be comfortable with the fact which I’m not yet, it still hurts me especially if I offended them in some way.

But we’ve given ourselves the impossible task. We’re going to be a mother or a father and my wife is going to like this because of what we do and people will all like me. There are two different people and they will like and dislike different things. So we struggle with it and if anyone has answer, I’ll be tuning in to your future podcasts. But anyway, we have to surrender to the fact when we thought through well and we’re confident in who we are without offending or judging or hurting other people, simply speaking that truth with our authentic voice is going to make us some enemies or at least cause some people to be aggravated. The best compliment you could ever pay me is when you said I made you think. If I did that, please don’t say “I’m gonna do what he said.”

Andrea: Right and that’s what I look for in their leaders. That’s what I look for people to have influence. They have more influence over me when they get me thinking than if they were to tell me what to do and I went out and did it.

Dr. Neal Schnoor: Yeah, yeah. I agree.

Andrea: Yeah because when we really integrate that into who we are and we apply it, we think through it and we decide, we start to become that, you know. Maybe we move in one little step in that direction where the person was trying to lead us. But that’s more powerful than it would be to just put on whatever they told us put and doing it.

Dr. Neal Schnoor: Uh-hmm, absolutely and staying open to the influence of others. Obviously, there are some bad ideas out there for people. On the other hand, we are snap judgers. We often look at something that they tell you and say I either like it or dislike it. It’s just what we do. We categorize traits if you think about. Again, let’s take it out of the realm of psychology and the incredibly complex human. We walk down the street and say I like that kind of tree but I don’t like that kind of tree. What’s wrong with just letting the tree be a tree? Why do we have to label it?

Well again, it’s not psychosis but we just have a tendency to build these mental models of how the world should be and that’s our likes and dislikes and even our beliefs. Just to take a step back and say “I can just appreciate that tree,” rather than say “I like the color of its leaves.” Yeah, if you catch yourself doing these simple things, I think you’re on a good path that many traditions have pursued which leads believe it or not to some really, really deep understandings. But if we jump to “How do I solve this problem myself?” And “Why I’m aren’t getting better at this?” Or “Everything is gonna go well.”

I know when I’m near where I can sit quietly for 30 minutes. Sit for three and then tomorrow, it’s four. That’s growth. Many people set health goals. I just experienced it myself. I’ve workout for three weeks because I got this nasty virus and it’s driving me crazy. But if you start a goal and you get sick and then you don’t exercise for a week, often that’s all it took for us not to start. And so we get dissuaded very quickly. So it’s a journey. I just love folks like you for taking the time to help us think through that.

Andrea: Oh yeah, I feel the same way. Okay, so Dr. Schnoor, if anybody wanted to engage you in conversation about this or invite you to come and speak to their teachers, their students to do a band workshop, where could they find you.

Dr. Neal Schnoor: Where they can find me at schnoorn.unk.edu or I got a Gmail account, schnoornealatgmail.com, LinkedIn, Facebook. Again, to me it’s that interaction with other people, I would love to talk with folks about this.

Andrea: Awesome! Well, thank you so much. I really appreciate you taking time to do this and this has been just a great conversation for me. I love just the fact that we could dive in so deep, and hopefully, there are people out here, the Influencer listening that maybe even us digging in-depth like this makes them feel less alone, because I think it’s hard to think about things like this and feel like you don’t have anybody to talk to. So thank you for engaging with me and engaging with the listener.

Dr. Neal Schnoor: Well, it’s a pleasure, and Andrea, if you ever get the chance in the future if somebody, I’d love nothing more than somebody call and say, that guy is full of it and I’d love to talk again.

Andrea: Yeah that would be fun.

Dr. Neal Schnoor: This could sound condescending, but I mean it with all good thoughts. I’m just so proud of you, the work you’ve done and to catch up with you and to see the journey you’ve been on since you sat in that classroom. Well, I won’t say how many years ago. We won’t give our age or what, but the work you’re doing is so important and I thank you for it.

Andrea: Thank you!