#134 Finding your passion, a pilgrimage along the Camino de Santiago, and how to turn a rejected novel into an Amazon bestseller, with Brian John Skillen.

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

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0:05  
Welcome to the personal development mastery podcast. I'm Agi Keramidas. And my mission is to inspire you to rise up, grow, stand out and take action towards the next level of your life. I interview leaders, influencers, entrepreneurs, authors, exceptional people who can and will inspire you to improve your life, Jr for two episodes each week, and make sure you subscribe to the podcast to get the episodes as soon as they are released.

0:36  
In today's show, I am delighted to speak with Brian John Skillen. Brian, you're a professional filmmaker, writer and international dance instructor. Your life has been strongly influenced by your many adventures around the world. But you say that the most profound one was your pilgrimage along the Camino de Santiago that inspired you to write your first book, which has received awards and gone on to be an Amazon bestseller in seven categories. You're just launching the second book in the series, and you're using the Kickstarter platform to raise the funds for the projects, which is very interesting. Brian, welcome to the show. I'm delighted to have you here. And I'm very much looking forward to this conversation. Thank you so much. So my you know, the introduction made me feel like I was a secret agent

1:29  
is different identities.

1:33  
But yeah, no, I am thrilled to be here today. Thank you so much for having me on your show.

1:38  
Brian, I would love to start with some background and your story. Obviously, it's very diverse. But I would like to start with, I think what was the first identity as you said that you picked up and that was one of a dancer and you have done very well with that travelled around the world. And so

2:00  
my first question is, what would inspire you to be a dancer? Right? I'll tell you what, I always say God has a sense of humour. Right? He made me obese when I was young, and I became a dancer. He made me dyslexic, and I became a writer. So let's start way back in the day, so I was about 15 years old. Yeah, I weighed over 220 pounds. At like five foot tall. I was a brawler, I was getting into fights head and down a bad path. And I watched this movie called swing kids. And I was like, What is this? That's amazing. Right. And they were doing swing dancing. And then, you know, we were talking a little bit about synchronicities before the show. Yeah. And then synchronously right after that the next day or so, my next door neighbour came over. and was like, given free spring dance lessons at the mercury cafe. I was like, Oh, great. There was only one problem. We were only 15. And we couldn't drive. So my friend Tony, he was dating, he was dating in the senior in high school. So she was 18 years old. So because he had the older chick, we were able to get a ride with.

2:59  
We went, and I just I fell in love with it. It was like I could tell right away, I loved it. And it was just absolutely amazing. And I really feel like kind of dancing has saved my life, which is why I've made it one of my missions to share it with as many people as possible. But we'll talk more about that in a minute. So anyway, so here I am a young, very large young man with a lot of aggression and other things going on. So swing dancing was perfect for me because I could flip people on the air, I just throw them around. And, and it was it was awesome. And I had one day I remember, I came home after dancing around midnight, and I walked down the stairs. And you know, I thought I want to be thin. I want women to want me and I want guys to want to be like me every dream for a 15 year old. And I kind of declared that to the universe. And within like six months to a year I had it all. You know, it was it was absolutely amazing. I lost 60 pounds, I became the person at dancing. And like everybody was emulating me. I was like, This is amazing. At that moment, I realised reality is what you make it. And it was very, very fortunate to have that experience at 15 years old, 615 16 years old. Because by that time, I'd be going for a little while. But yeah, and also along that. Along that time, I picked up my first nickname, which is lucky. And so lucky became my dance identity and lucky was kind of like everything I wanted to be right. So coming from this like, just young man that I was beforehand. Lucky was you know, the cool guy, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And the way that name came about is I went to a dance. Well, my my friend Sean, my friend Sean was like, let's let's make up nicknames. I was like, that is so stupid. And he's like, you'd be lucky. I'll be mugsy right? And we went to this, like, I know we were and we went to this dance, and I introduced myself to one person. I'm like, Hi, I'm lucky and she's like, what? And I was like, nevermind. And then the next night I went to another dance and there's this beautiful blonde girl there.

5:00  
I was like, Hey, I'm lucky. And just like lucky, I like that mean or started hanging out together a lot. He called me lucky. And then everybody else started calling me lucky and it became a self fulfilling prophecy. Like I got into all the dances for free, I got my dance training for free, I went a whole year without paying for a meal. And nobody would let me pay, everybody just kept taking me out. And so I manifested lucky, sexually. And I've led a very serendipitous lucky life by the age of 18. I started teaching by 20, I started teaching nationally by 22, I started teaching internationally, I've done a little bit of film commercial, I toured with big Broadway shows, I also helped develop two forms of dance, and help popularise them around the world, which was pretty cool. So what I would do is, I was touring, like with big shows, and you know, it takes a lot of toll on your body. And I realised, you know, I can make as much in a weekend that I couldn't, a whole week of touring, like I can make as much teaching dance. So I started gearing more of my business 30 towards teaching, rather than learning, what I did is I set up little economies around the world. So I would go to a place I would teach with a local person, teach them to teach and give them music, because there's a brand new dance style that nobody was doing. And so I set up all these little economies around the world that had been feeding me for about 10 years, over over 10 years until the pandemic hit. So it's pretty amazing. And I've pretty much I could just make a call and be like, I want to go to London and I would set up a tour going into London, and you know, Scotland and Ireland and whatever. Or if I want to go to New Zealand, I contact my organisers in New Zealand. And so I really helped set up this network around the world that grew. And then my teachers begin, my students began teaching and their students began teaching, and they won all the competitions, and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And before COVID, there was this huge ecosystem of people doing these dances. And it was pretty amazing. I didn't do by myself, you know, you never do anything on your own. You know, I had all these amazing partners, like dance partners in different places, there was other teachers that we'd get together for teacher training. And we're kind of like, the disciples of this dance and to help spread it everywhere. It's so it was like, it was really cool. We started a movement. And that movement helped so many people around the world, I can't, you know, I had people that got married from the dance styles we taught, I had people who hated their jobs. And they started teaching dance, and they loved it. And then they influenced other people, and they under stood what it was to have, like a life of contribution, because that's all it was to dancing was my tool to do good in the world. I thought, you know, dance was my purpose in life, right? I thought my purpose in life was to dance. But I realised it was a tool, like purposes never were out, but tools do. And so my purpose is to help and inspire people. It's great how you say it, that it was a tool that

8:00  
a unique tool to you. And I was actually that's what I wanted to ask you. Because you were for me, you were very blessed, or fortunate if I can use that word to discover this tool, or the passion, something that you're really good at and change your life and shared and contributed. You discover that 15 so that really

8:25  
created a wave of you know, following making it easy, really to follow your passion. What do you think? Because it wasn't it wasn't easy.

8:37  
It's it's, yeah, maybe that was a poor choice of words, Brian, yes. I made a decision. When I started. I wasn't good. Like, I was terrible, but and you know, just like a lot of people when they start, because I've taught 1000s of people around the world. It isn't usually the ones with the most talent that succeed. It's the ones that are the most persistent. Yes. And I was persistent. And I just went and I loved it. And I didn't have a choice. I mean, if I didn't go out dancing, I felt like I was sick.

9:05  
So it dancing chose me, I didn't choose dancing, it was a calling. And I think what you really have to do is just be open to listening to that calling in life.

9:16  
You know, I mean, the universe, God is calling all the time. And you just have to listen to what that is and feel it. And people have learned to ignore that little voice and then learn to ignore that passion because they think that it can't happen, but it can and that's what you're supposed to do. And that's how you're supposed to live. You're not supposed to live in a little box. Just you know, trading your time for money you're supposed to live. And you know, like, that's always what I've been in the room. One of the reasons why I came to that conclusion.

9:49  
I was going to like I was doing some like I was going to become a neurologist. Right. So at the same time I was dancing I was studying in college like I got my undergrad and was working

10:00  
with people with brain injuries already, and I was going to go down that route, and then I had three friends die in one year, and I realised you are not promised tomorrow. And I decided to do what I loved. And I could always come back to

10:13  
I could always come back to school. And I could always go down that route. But I only had a very limited window to dance. And so, you know, when I moved to New York,

10:25  
can I tell you a little funny story? Sure. Yeah. So like any dancer, you want to move to New York, because that's the spot to be. So I moved out there. And I had maybe, you know, not very much money at all in my bank account. I like I think about now. And it's like, oh, my God, I can't believe I did that. And I move in. And I was moving into this place. And I had borrowed a friend's car, and I got a parking ticket. And this guy I was living with in Harlem, he had kind of like the Napoleon complex. He was a little dude. But just like,

10:55  
he went out, he starts yelling at the police. And I was like, well, you're gonna get a rest. Stop. And I was like, it'll be okay. You know, God will take care of it, it'll be fine. Now the parking ticket was 100 bucks, right? The very next day, I taught my first dance class in New York. And guess what, I got $100 tip. On top of what I got paid for the lesson. I went home and I showed the guy and I said, See, God will take care of his by. So I just approached everything with this absolute faith that I was taking care of. And God just kept delivering time and time again.

11:27  
I love that message that you're sharing very much so about

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listening to the calling, when it comes and taking the action to do it and having faith because there will be challenges or obstacles, difficulties. But by having faith and being persistent, as you as you said, it's it's the key. The key element to that.

12:00  
Can you tell me, I would like to move a little bit forward? Yeah, it's it's something this is. It's very intriguing on its own. And you mentioned the already about

12:12  
spirituality and Gordon, are going to discuss in about that a little bit later. Can we move to when you actually did the pilgrimage? And you had your you know, your big? Yeah.

12:29  
Absolutely. So what made you do the pilgrimage in the first place? Well, I'll tell you what I like the very first time I did it was in 2008. And this is not the time that I got inspired to do the story. But I'll tell you a little side story with this before we begin. So I was on dance tour. I was in Spain, I had a couple extra weeks, I looked up things to do in Spain. And so it popped up and I knew nothing about it. And so what it is, it's the Camino de Santiago, which is an ancient pilgrim route that goes from many places in Europe and all ends in Santiago de Compostela, where the body of St. James's

13:07  
and so, you know, I knew nothing about it. And

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young, stupid kids, I love it. So I went and I actually ended up getting on to something called the anxious route, which doesn't really exist anymore. I mean, it kind of does. Well, at the time. It wasn't very well marked. There was nobody doing it. So I was sleeping in like, I got there. I didn't know what to do. I I arrived, I was like, Oh, crap, I don't know what to do next. I don't have any gear. Like, I'm in the middle of Spain, I don't speak Spanish.

13:37  
So I went to the church and the priests there told me go to the tourist office, get a passport, because you have to these pilgrims, passports, otherwise, you can stay in the hostels. So that first night I stayed in a 50 person Hostel by myself, there was nobody there. And then the next day I start walking, I get hopelessly lost because it's not marked. Here I am in the middle of Spain, don't speak Spanish completely lost. And the only conversation I had all day was a horse because I didn't see anybody.

14:06  
And then I kept pushing myself harder and harder and harder. And luckily,

14:11  
you know, I ended up finding eventually a clue. But by this point, I'd already pushed my body so hard that I my knees started to hurt. And as a dancer, your knees are like the most valuable things right? And so I stopped going and but I pushed myself Why do I think I walked for like 23 hours straight right to find supplies. And finally I found a towel and I slept there I got back on route. And but every day after that my knees got progressively worse and worse and worse and worse until the last day. I I tried to I couldn't walk into Santiago. So I'd gone through all these turmoil to get there. And then the very last day I couldn't walk, and I had to take a bus. And I was like,

14:56  
I just I just pushed my body so hard. Now I can't even complete this

15:00  
I mean, thank God is then to my dance tour, otherwise I would have been screwed.

15:03  
But anyways, so, but I always think things happen for a reason. So here's something that looks just absolute absolutely terrible in my eyes. And what happened was I took the bus into town had to use two sticks to like kind of hobble like 90 year old man. And I made it into the cathedral. And it's a massive Cathedral, and it's gorgeous. And I'm in there. And I see this older lady sitting in one of the front pews. And it's just me and her and maybe like three other people in this huge church, because it's not season. I mean, it's cold and whatever. And I grew up and I sit with her. And, you know, she's starts crying. And I just told her, and I found out that her husband had died recently, and she was taking a pilgrimage to heal from that. And she would have been absolutely alone weeping in that Cathedral had I not been hurt and been able to sit there next to her, been able to be there and hold her when she was going through this just cathartic moment. And so what was something that was seemed terrible, actually just created this beautiful moment that I'm going to remember for the rest of my life, the pain has passed. But that moment is going to stick with me forever. And I and I'm sure you're probably stuck with her too. And the thing is, after that I vowed, I'm like, Okay, I'm going to come back to finish. So fast forward 2017.

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Just got just got done with that out of a bad relationship. I was a wreck. And I was like, Okay, I don't know what to do next night. I'm going to go walk the Camino de Santiago again. So once again, I'm on dance tour, I do it right this time. There's more stuff on the internet, there's maps, there's all this stuff. And I start I start going on the French route. And I get to this place called the ark of San Antonio. And this place is just like this epic arc stretching up from the, from the above the Camino de Santiago looks like a tubing Game of Thrones, Lord of Rings, like, oh, somebody's got to write a story about this. This looks amazing. And I was like, Okay, all right, whatever. I was just super inspired. And then just beyond that, as a Hilde city with a castle on top, I was like, What is this place? And so I got into town. And they stamped my pilgrims passport with a stamp and it had the crust of Jerusalem on it, which has five kind of Templar looking crosses on it. I was like, ah, the Knights Templar, and the hospitaller guy that was there. The game that Sam was like, What do you know about the Templars? And I said, I don't know, what do you know about that? And we got into this huge conversation. And he told me all about the history of the Templars in that town. And their history on the on the Camino, like, right down to the hill of that city is actually hollowed out with Templar tunnels underneath it. And he's like, you have to look for clues of the Templars, you know, they've left something here. And I was like, I was hooked after that. The next morning, I woke up, I took my dance shoes out of my backpack. And I said, I'll trade these in first story. And every day after that, the book played like a movie in my head, the people I saw became characters in the book, the experiences I had came into the book, I kept seeing all this weird Templar symbology that I was like, well, that's got to be part of the code.

18:13  
And so it just kind of worked itself in my brain. And every morning, I would dictate into my phone, kind of this waking dream that I was having of this book. And I, you know, I finally did that. I have some other great stories about about that computer too. But we can maybe come back to that later. And so like that really gave me the inspiration to do the book. There's only one problem. I never expected to write a book. I grew up with dyslexia in the third grade reading and spelling level in high school. Like, you know, you're like really got me why, like, come on, really.

18:48  
And so I writing this book is kind of been my re education of the English language. I had to teach myself where commas when and apostrophes and like all this stuff, and then letters would switch all the time in my head. But needless to say, what I did once again, is the people that succeed are the ones that commit so I committed to writing 2000 words a day, no matter what. And I was able to write this 100,000 word book in like two and a half months. And I thought it was the best thing in the world. I was like, Oh, my God, this is amazing. And I shared it with my girlfriend at the time, who's now my wife. And she's like, actually just needs a little work.

19:29  
Thank God. And so, I, I may have written the book, like their initial book is like three months, but then I spent three years honing my craft of becoming a writer, getting all the mentorship I could, learning every could, I was a voracious learner.

19:46  
And so, fast forward, I send out, you know, 50 query letters to agents. And I was like, Oh, this is there's so going to take this book and I can feel it, I feel it. Right and I got back to rejection letters and

20:00  
You know, 48, or 49, other agents didn't even bother to write back to me.

20:06  
And so at this point, I felt like God gave me that book. I mean, so I was like, and I feel like if God gives you something you have responsibility to follow him through. And so I felt like I was this is my responsibility, I was given this task, and I'm going to follow it through, and I'm going to follow through with faith. And so what I did is I turned to a tool that I've used over the past 10 years to raise over $100,000 from my projects and the projects of others, which is Kickstarter. And so in the middle of the pandemic, you know, my income stream from dance has completely cut off. So like, my 95% of my income is completely gone. And I'm walking out on faith with this book. And I'm like, Okay, it's time. And so we,

20:49  
we launched the Kickstarter for the book, we were a great success, we raised $10,000, which is we asked for eight, we raised 10. And we I was able to pay for all the publishing, I was able to pay for an editor, we were able to pay for everything. And since then the books gone on, like I said, like I said, an intro to become an Amazon bestseller in several categories. And we also want an Eric Hoffer award in the spirit, which is one of the most prestigious awards in the self publishing world. And we want it in the spiritual fiction category, which I'm elated about, because that's got books in it like the alchemist and the self esteem, prophecy and all these other books. And so, you know, I'm hoping my book becomes sort of my series becomes that, and my book is pretty much my invitation for people to come have the adventure of a lifetime on the Camino de Santiago.

21:36  
Brian, there is something I really want to ask you. And I'm going to go back a little bit, saying, you said earlier about dancing that you knew that you had to do it, because you were you were feeling unwell if you were not feeling sick?

21:53  
Tell me how did you know what was your translation, your interpretation that this book is what I'm meant to be doing? Because you You said that you were

22:06  
committed, and you had faith and all that.

22:10  
My question is, when does one know that this is really my mission? My purpose or my vehicle? Yep. And I'm going to give it everything I got, despite my fears, my security is what other people say or what my background is. Yeah, absolutely. So it took me a long time to kind of figure out some stuff. I got lucky with the first one with the DNC, right. But with dancing, I got to this point where you but yes, where we're dancing, I got to the point where I had achieved everything I wanted to, and I'd helped 1000s of people and change 1000s of lives. But I feel when you achieve something, God gives you a bigger tool to reach more people. Right? And so

22:55  
I've come up with this phrase that says, you know, tools were out but a purpose never does. Right. So tools were out, but a purpose never does. And what I mean by that was dancing was my tool, what my actual purpose was, was to help and inspire people. And so God gave me the tool of doing a movie, which, you know, screened at Lincoln centre, and played all over the world, he gave me that tool. Awesome. And now he gave me the tool of this book is like, this is your next tool that you can reach a lot of people with and do a lot of good. You can call people to have

23:30  
the adventure of a lifetime. So you ask, what was that moment? When, when I knew that this was my next calling? Well, it was the moment when

23:39  
I traded in those shoes. I gotta say, I was like, I was willing to burn my bridges, so to speak. Right, I was really, I burned my bridges, part of my bridges by giving them the shoes. And that was my commitment to it. And I think when you commit to something, you know, everything just starts opening up for you. And like, things just start appearing like I could have ignored it. I could have completely ignored it. But God just gave me something. I think God gives you something every day. You know, every day, there's something that you can, you can tell I'm a person of faith, right?

24:14  
There's every day every day you can

24:18  
see this, you know, but anyways, so for me, the way I knew was after that conversation, I had this longing in my soul. So there's another thing that I say to you that's listening empathically to yourself, and listen, empathically to the universe, right? So listening empathically to yourself is that little voice inside you, that calls to you, that's like, I want you to do this and maybe silent at some times, but it's persistent, you know, or it could be loud and right in your face. But you can choose to listen to that voice or not. Then the other one is listening empathically to the universe, and that's when synchronicities and signs and other things start to appear. So with this book, I had that little voice that said, My God, somebody's got to write a story about

25:00  
This, and it didn't really feel like my voice, you know, it was like that when inspiration takes you. And then after that, I started listening empathically to the universe, there was this sign of this old man, that case stamped my passport that then knew everything about the Templars, like everything. And then there was, there was the next day meeting these people who became characters, and the next day after that, seeing this, like weird green men in this church, and that's, maybe she's different example in that, but seeing these weird symbologies in this church that, you know, I happen to know a little about, and I was like, wow. And so I could have chosen not to listen to it. I mean, I could have chosen to have a completely different experience. Right, everything would have been there. But I would have missed it. It's like,

25:50  
it's like, you know, when you

25:53  
on the Camino, there's all these little yellow arrows that you follow that direct you. And if you're just a visitor to that to that city, you you'll see those arrows and think, oh, somebody put some graffiti here, or like, what are these, but when you're walking the Camino, and that's your purpose, you see those little arrows, and they lead you to exactly where you need to go. And the only thing you have to do in life is follow that next little arrow. And that's what it was, for this book, it was like, I don't know, I know my destination that I want. I don't know how in the heck, I'm going to get there. Because I have x, y, and z. But I'm going to follow each little arrow, each little person, each little sign that points me to the right direction to get to where I am now. And you know, I've been very thankful

26:36  
to do this book. And my goal with this book is to inspire 1 million people to go walk the Camino de Santiago, I want 1 million people to go there have a life changing experience, and bring that experience to the world so they can affect the lives of others. You know, it's all about contribution. And this is my contribution to the world now. And I want that to just take people shake them out of their ordinary lives, shake them into adventure, shake them to realise that there's so much more out there. And for them to then be that light that sparks somebody else in sparks somebody else in sparks somebody else. Like that's it. I love I love your mission and how you shared it. And I was telling you before we started recording that when one is contributing using their own unique gifts wouldn't they really can bring to the world, then that's all the magic when it's happened. And then you were saying, and I will repeat that because I would like the listener to ponder on that for a moment that there are these

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messages, this signs that come into our life every day. And we can choose to listen to them

27:51  
or not. And there are good things good or what we perceive to be good anyway, and things that are taking us down a path that we don't like, but into we can choose to listen to both of them. And the problem is that when we don't listen, or when we choose not to listen,

28:12  
things kind of escalate down the line. So when you listen to good things, even better good things happening down the line, it spirals spirals up, if you don't listen to the negative things that are coming your way from around from the universe, if you want, then they tend to get louder and louder until you really pay attention. So it's just a thought would came to mind it's very important to pick up the that sense that wow, this has a meaning. It has if if we give it if we take that meaning and see it like that.

28:50  
It's great to be able to you know, to connect with that inside that injury shouldn't really feel it not think it feels that this is the right thing for me, it came and we were talking about how we met and how we arranged to do this in such a short notice. Because Yeah, and I'm so grateful I'm so grateful to be Likewise I mean if this happened

29:15  
synchronistically I mean, there is no other way for me to explain it in a better way.

29:24  
And you got to listen to those signs. You know, like when those synchronicities happen, you got to listen to them and go, you know, and one other thing. Good thing, bad thing. You know, it's like I always think back to there's a saying I love Byron Katie, for all you listeners out there if you've never read Byron Katie read her. She's amazing. I put some of her philosophy into my books too.

29:44  
And give her credit, obviously, but you know, like, the thing is, she has a saying that says,

29:51  
you know, everything happens for you, not to you. Right? If you start changing, changing your perspective like that, everything happens for you, not to you and

30:00  
So like when I was with that when I was injured, I didn't know if I was going to dance again because my knees were F. And I met that I met that lady in the church, you know, like, that happened for me, not to me, it wasn't a bad thing that happened to me. It was something that God gave me so I could have another experience. And that and that experience needed to teach me something to go someplace. And reality will always kind of bring you back onto that path. Now you can resist it, like you said, and you'll have a harder lesson to learn. Or more difficult, you know, or you can follow that and go through and yeah, but if you can just switch that one thought in your head. I noticed Tony used it in the training that we were listening to in the UK. Yeah. But yeah, he is he is happening happening for you, not to you. But that's like Byron, Katie has been saying that for a long time. And,

30:49  
you know, I just I just love thinking about that. And like, then loving reality loving whatever comes, because you know what, I don't know, there's a, there's a parable I put in here. So there's, there's a guy, right? And he finds this wild horse that just shows up at the house and all all the all the villages are like, oh, what good fortune, you have this, you have this horse that just appeared out of nowhere. And the guy says, Well, good, facha Good, good fortune and bad fortune, we shall see. The next day the the guy's son is training the horse. And he falls off and he breaks his arm. And the villagers are like, oh, what bad fortune that horse is a curse. And the old man says good fortune, bad fortune, we shall see. When the next day the army comes. And they want all able bodied men to come fight in the war. And the villagers say, oh, what great fortune you're having. Because your son can go fight now. He says, Well, good fortune, bad fortune, we shall see. And you know, you can never tell what's going to be good fortune or bad fortune, like, some of the most amazing times of my life, happened directly after something that looks impossible. You know, like, usually, it's breakups. Like, I made my movie, after I went through a breakup, like I finished, like, I finally got the balls to run a Kickstarter for it. And like, that's how I funded my movie, as well as through Kickstarter. And but I was finally pushed that point where I was going to take action, I was too comfortable, you know, like, in whatever. And I also think that too, with the pandemic, like I said, you know, 90% of my business was killed by the pandemic, with going around the world teaching dance and whatnot. And, you know, but I realised, looking back, you know, it would have taken something that big to spare the action and made to do a Kickstarter for this book, and actually finish it and get it done. Like, so what looked like terrible, right, actually turned into something absolutely beautiful. But it would take something that big to reset my life. So I can get back on to, you know, the next purpose that I'm being called for

32:47  
what you said about life happening for us. If one really understands what that means, then everything changes every place in the way we perceive things. I also wanted to start to ask you, Brian, because you mentioned the Kickstarter, and I'm very curious to find out, how does that work?

33:09  
It specifically in the terms of, you know, publishing the book, because I have heard of Kickstarter before for projects.

33:18  
But if you want to give us a brief overview of how it let's say that I would be I would like to create a book, you have an idea. But I have certainly note any spare money to go down that route. So how does that work? Absolutely. So that's, that's exactly what I, what I'm planning to do for one of my next pieces of service. So number one, you'll go to Facebook and look up Kickstarter to Amazon bestseller. So that's the new group that I've set up for people who are in that situation that have this book on their heart, but they don't necessarily have the finances to get it done. Like, it's one of my next missions with this, like the book is now leading me to this, where I can do more service and be more great. You know, I've grown out of one tool going on to the next tool, so to speak, would you share and, you know, so, like, I'm committed now to helping authors that want to go from Kickstarter to Amazon bestseller, especially those that have been rejected by traditional publishers, just like my book was, I want I want to let those people know that their book is good enough, and that they are good enough. And they're that opinion doesn't matter not to listen to it, and you have an inside you to produce this book into the world. So what you do first, I mean, it's a long, it's a process you have to put your work in. So

34:43  
what you do first is, you know, you start building a little bit of hype for your book by doing a B testing for different things like a cover whatnot dadadada da, you start going through then that way gradually people start No Oh, so and so's wants to be an author. Oh, so and so is

35:00  
So planting seeds within your community, you join other groups too. And we have modules, we're gonna have modules in my course on each step of this. So I think it's a seven step programme that we're doing. I might add, I might add more as we're going, but we're currently building it right now.

35:15  
But yeah, so first, you just plant the seeds. So everybody in your community starts getting these little hints that you're becoming a writer. And then like, about a week before it, we're, during this time, you're building your Kickstarter. And so it takes maybe two weeks to build your Kickstarter all the way up. And so then, on launch day, you know, you set up an echo chamber, which is, you know, you get a group of people to help you share your your information with you, with everybody, you've had, you've planted the seeds that we teach about how to plant. And now you have a community of supporters ready, like, all you need is 1010 to 15 people to get started. And then those 10 to 15 people grow exponentially out and out and out. And you leverage their networks, you leverage other networks that you may be a part of. It's all about leverage, and social capital.

36:06  
So anyways, so then you launch a Kickstarter, and when you launch, you do a little launch party, right? And we had, so we just launched our Kickstarter for a second book, like yesterday, and we had the day from, oh, my goodness, I can't even tell you so many technical difficulties. I was trying to record the session, the launch for people in our group. And it totally like killed my computer. So we had to record like switch to a phone. And then at that same time, Facebook wasn't working. And then like the Kickstarter was kicking stuff like media off, something was happening yesterday with computing cloud systems around the world, like they were just after right at the time that we were watching that, but you know,

36:51  
that's something to listen to whatever that might mean. But there is it's not random, a random occurrence. That's really yeah. And I think for me, it was just like faith, a test the faith, I was like, You know what, like, my saying for this, like, recently, the past few days is like, if God is with me, who can stand against me. And anytime something comes up, like that is my my positive affirmation that I've replaced negative beliefs with, if something comes up, well, you know, if God's with me, this can't stand against me. Who cares? Facebook shut down, who cares? Kickstarter is like, dropping our photos, I'm still gonna do this, I'm going to go forward with this. And you know, what happened within for? Well, we haven't been running 24 hours. And we're already 40% funded.

37:37  
40%. I mean, we've raised almost $4,000, so far in just that short amount of time. And, you know, like, we also became a, one of the coolest things with Kickstarter is the

37:50  
projects we love. So every day, there's 1000s of projects being submitted to Kickstarter, ours got chosen as a project we love. And when they do that, they bump you up in the algorithms and put you in prime seating, and whatnot. So here we are, we've had this day, this really trying to trying to get this launch. And then you know, we just move forward with that faith with that confidence. God's with me who can stand against me. And we move forward through it. And we're here. And we're now running it, we're on day two, I have this wonderful interview that I'm doing here with you right now, which is amazing, which I hope reaches a lot of people. So anyways, so back to the process. So then you launch your Kickstarter, and the first 48 hours of the most important. And so that's the time that you really go through, you keep people up, you have to make your Kickstarter, there's a lot of steps, you know that I'm kind of just just going over here. And so then you run it, you want to set it up for 30 days, projects that run longer than 30 days often fail. So a 30 day window is what you recommend best. And so this first few days are the big push, and then you have 28 other other days to keep pushing and going through. For me, you know the words, a very important

39:01  
insight from what you're telling me is that there are ways in the end to launch your project. If it's a book, it's a book, if it is another project, there are ways that you can resourceful and use other people's money that we want to fund these because they resonate in one shape or form. So don't let that stand in the way of not doing something that you're really passionate about there. There is a way and Kickstarter I think it is a wonderful example of and so my my thing is like our courses called kickstarted Amazon bestseller how to

39:39  
fund your the publishing process, how to fund your book with pre sales. And that's all we're doing is we're gathering a whole bunch of pre sales for our book. And then we're going to launch the book. And guess what I like, you know, I could pay sure I could pay for the publishing. You know, like we could we could do that. I mean, I would have to go in debt. Well

40:00  
A person told me that they went into debt, like taking out a loan to publish the book. And I thought, Oh, my God, I need it. It depends on the project though, Brian some, it depends on the project as well. Some projects, you can get into debt, some other projects, big, very big ones, you won't be able to do that. Well, I mean, it's it's arguable. Yes, of course.

40:21  
Let me let me let me just elaborate a little more here. So yeah, so what you're doing is really pre selling, like a whole bunch of sales for your book before it goes. And then not only do you raise the money, the other coolest part is that you've now created a community around your book, which is more important than the money that you've raised. Because that community is going to go tell everybody else about your book, they're going to be the ones giving you reviews on Amazon, which bumped you up into the Amazon algorithms they're getting, you know, they're the ones that are going to be there. So here you've like that's, that's why my method of going from Kickstarter to Amazon bestseller, how do we get to Amazon bestseller? Well, it was because we had a community of support behind us that we built on Kickstarter. You know, Kickstarter was like a giant commercial for our

41:10  
for our book. Now, as you said, like, I've helped to raise money for films, the first one raised 30,000, in 30 days, for my first film, that was the very first Kickstarter that I did. After that I helped a musician raise like 20, some odd $1,000. For doing his

41:27  
album, I coached them. And we did another film, we raised 60,000 or so plus a whole bunch of private, private contract contributors after that. And then I helped with another project and another project. And so people kept coming to me asking me, will you help me? run my Kickstarter? That's another tool as well. Exactly. That guy, again, is like, okay, now, okay. You see, there's people that need this, you see, there's people you can help, you see. And so I want to help people use the tool of Kickstarter to take their books to off their computers and into readers hands. Awesome. Yeah. And, Brian, let me also ask you some quickfire questions to start wrapping things up. And my first one to you is, what does personal development mean to you?

42:16  
Personal Development,

42:18  
I think it's always about learning. You know, like, keep learning and just having that desire and that curiosity to keep going. It's learning and persisting, right. So you always are open and curious. And then you just persist and persist and persist and persist. And one of the most important things I ever learned was how I learn. And I recommend everybody out there to learn your learning style. Because the moment it wasn't that I was, you know,

42:47  
I had to teach myself how to learn like I'm, I'm a visual kinesthetic person. So I have to learn by seeing and doing, right. I can't, if somebody sits there, and lectures to me, I can't absorb it. But if I go in there, and I do it, and I and I go through like that, then I can learn in the moment I learned how I learned, change my whole life around. And so personal development, I think begins with with learning, and beginning with learning, learn how you learn, so that you can be more efficient with your learning, and you can be more persistent with your learning. And so I think that's a big, big part of that. It's very valuable, this what you just shared. And let's say you could go back in time and meet your 18 year old self and give him one piece of advice. What would you say? One piece of advice?

43:34  
Can I give two pieces of advice? You must one in relation or one in business. So relation, relational one is marry someone who's kind. So my wife is the kindest, most wonderful person that I've met. And it makes such a difference when you're with somebody kind before that was really interesting. Before that, I had somebody who I thought was the perfect woman. I mean, everything on paper like multimillionaire, beautiful bla bla bla bla bla bla bla, but, you know, like, she wasn't kind in that way. She was maybe kinda in other ways, but not, not the way that my wife is kind. And for, for me, that is so much more valuable than anything else, just being with somebody who's kind because they will be there for you, and they'll take care of you. I mean, as we talked about earlier, you know, she's my partner and everything we do, like she may not be here on the call, but I'll tell you what, she's working on social media right now your stuff, you know, so we're partners, we work together, we're two boats heading the same direction, which is financial freedom and just being able to live freely, like we both want to be free. And so we're two boats moving that direction, whatever tool we use to get there. That's awesome. And she's got, you know, like, I'm kind we're kind. We're just kind of 18 year old self marry somebody who's kind. That's another thing with the Camino.

44:53  
The camino always provides not exactly what you need, but exactly. Not always what you want but exactly what you need to fill your life's purpose.

45:00  
And so it's the same with that, like, I thought I thought I wanted one thing, but I actually needed something completely different. You know? And so there's that. I can, I'll leave that as my advice. That's fine. I'll just do what I pick along. So it's valuable. And

45:15  
I actually wanted to ask you,

45:17  
you mentioned earlier on about learning your learning style. And

45:23  
that is a great for me.

45:27  
actionable item, something that the listener could take away and figure that out. If I were to ask you for one more actionable items from this conversation that we had today, something to

45:41  
share with the listener, what what could they do today, tomorrow to start making a shift in their progress in the journey.

45:52  
The moment you commit, like, feel listened to that little voice inside you that voice that saying, I want you to read this book, or, you know, go do this, like, commit to it. Like nothing happens if you don't commit. And so like, that would be my advice, just commit to it, burn your bridges, you know, like, I mean, responsibly burning bridges.

46:19  
But, but just just commit to an action and follow through on it. And there's a difference between wanting to do something and committing to doing something. And I think our generation, like this generation, right now has a big lack of commitment. Because it's, it's with cell phones, you can, you don't have to meet someplace at a specific time. Like, you can just call them and be like, Hey, I'm going to be 10 minutes late, we're back in the day, you just take off, okay, Susie is not showing up. I'm out of here. You know, you'd wait for your hour, your half hour, if they didn't show then you are God, like but and so people have to have this sense of integrity, this sense of commitment. I think that's kind of been lost in our culture. And so I think that's why we have a bunch of people running around not

47:01  
knowing what they're doing. In some cases. Yes, many people unfortunately.

47:09  
Brian, how can people connect with you and find out more work for you direct PayPal? Yeah, absolutely. So find me on Facebook, Brian, Lucky scaling our Facebook group for Kickstarter to Amazon bestseller. It's just that kick started Amazon bestseller on Facebook. And please join the group. We're just starting now. But I'm wanting as we're running this Kickstarter, I'm going to be running people through the steps we're taking. And then we're going to be doing a course later on as well. So but the only way to get there is to join that group, you can find us on Kickstarter, Kickstarter is back through a field of stars.

47:46  
Which is the book that so we're now crowdfunding Book Two in my series, which is amazing, as I said earlier, and I'm just overwhelmed at the support and love we're getting from people.

47:57  
And then our website is through a field stars calm, which talks about the whole trilogy. And those are probably the best ways to get ahold of me.

48:07  
And there is a third book that is coming. It's a trilogy. And

48:13  
I want to wish you all the very best with you know, fulfilling this

48:19  
war work this very, I think it's extremely important and for for many reasons, but one reason being that it is what you're called to contribute to the world. So that makes it extremely important, only shown regardless of the million people or not

48:40  
all the very best I was really I really enjoyed our conversation, Brian, any any last parting words?

48:50  
You know, Gandhi says Be the change you want to see in the world. So go out there and commit and just be that change. And it's about contribution and giving to other people. So give your gift to the world.

49:02  
Thank you for listening. If you enjoyed this podcast, please subscribe and rate it on Apple podcasts. And also share this episode with someone who you think will benefit from it. If you want to find out more about what I do and gain access to exclusive content, join my facebook group but for development mastery. The link is in the show notes or you can simply type B dot L y sluss PDM group

49:30  
and until next time, stand out don't fit in

Transcribed by https://otter.ai