Episode 018 – Tesa Colvin

---

Automated Transcription

---

 

Richard Matthews  

Hello and welcome to The HERO Show I am live on the line with Tesa Colvin. Tesa are you there?

 

Tesa Colvin  

I am here.

 

Richard Matthews  

Awesome. Glad to have you here. I just love that we have the ability to hop on and do calls like this nowadays when we’re halfway across the country, I think it’s super awesome.

 

Tesa Colvin  

I love that. Yes.

 

Richard Matthews  

So let me let me introduce you real quick. I’ve got your bio that you sent over. Lots of cool stuff in here. So you’re an award-winning publishing coach and consultant, a TV show host, you’re a wife and mother of four. You said “Including two fur-babies.” I got a couple fur-babies myself, I got a poodle and a kitty cat. You’re a bestselling author. You’ve been seen in the Huffington Post. Thrive Global Medium, and The SBA’s SCORE, Birmingham Chapter. So you’ve got all sorts of stuff that’s going on there. I really look forward to hearing your story on some of these things. So, what I want to start off with is what you’re known for today. We we talk about, in The HERO Show basically, what people come to you for now? Why do they look, for Tesa. Tell us a little bit about what it is that you do.

 

Tesa Colvin  

I am known for one thing and one thing only. And that is #GetThatBookDone.

 

That is my jam. I am here to kill the myths about book writing being hard. About authors being starving artists. I am here to really help people get those powerful ideas and translate that power onto pages. That is my jam. That is what I do. That is what I love to do. And that’s what I’m known for.

Richard Matthews

That’s awesome. Yeah, actually, I don’t do that as exclusively but I do help a lot of my clients get their books written. I have a little book writing framework I use for clients, but it’s the same thing I know people think book writing is like this big hard thing to do. And it’s really not. Especially if you have a good & solid framework to start from. You can get a book written. I’ve had clients get books written in 48 hours.

 

Tesa Colvin

Yeah. I got you beaten. I had a client and we wrote her book in four hours by the pool, and I was pouring wine as she did it.

 

Richard Matthews

Boom. Four hours to get it written. Yeah. So we’ve done that with courses before. I haven’t done any with books. But yeah, It’s super cool. And it’s such a need, right? Because there’s so many people that have great stories to tell, and they want to get that out. It can help people get their message out. And they’re stopped by these myths that it’s either it’s hard to write a book, or they don’t know how to write or that you have to be a great writer in order to write a book.

 

Right.

 

Richard Matthews  

And none of those things are true.

 

Tesa Colvin  

One of the things that people get hung up on that come to me is that they think they have to be siloed off, and they’ve got to go off and get a cabin, and they’ve got to be deep and introspective. And I’m like, that’s really not how it works.

 

Richard Matthews  

That’s Hollywood.

 

Tesa Colvin  

You know, that’s not how this works. And so when we pull back the layers on who they are and who they can help. It’s like, the words flow like water, and they’re like, I get a lot of “Is it supposed to be? Am I doing this right?” And I’m like, “Yeah! It’s easy!”

 

Richard Matthews  

Yeah. I love that. You just hit on one of the most important parts when you take the focus off of the book, and the person writing the book and put it on to the person that they’re going to help with that book. And it just blows because that’s the right focus. You’re helping someone else with your message and your story and your perspective.

 

Tesa Colvin  

Absolutely. Yeah.

 

Richard Matthews  

Cool. So that’s what you’re known for now. What I want to flip to you is your origin story, right? Every hero has an origin story. Where you started to realize that maybe you were different. That maybe you had superpowers and maybe you could use them to help people. So when did you start to either discover or you know, build your superpower?

 

Tesa Colvin  

Okay, so it all started….

 

Richard Matthews  

A long, long time ago, in a galaxy far far away.

 

Tesa Colvin  

Many moons ago. No. I have been writing since I was eight years old. And I know you’re thinking “What? You don’t look a day over 16.”

 

Richard Matthews  

I was thinking like, 17, but

 

Tesa Colvin  

Okay, I’ll take that. But I’ve been writing since I was eight. And storytelling, and you know, imaginary friends. Like, that was me. That was me. And so, when I got older, I got into poetry, I got into the deep recesses of fiction, and I was working with a traditional publisher. And I was working with an editor and they were like, “You’re awesome! And you’re going to do great things! Um, BUT…” And that was the “but”, right? Here comes the moment. The plot twist hit when they were like, “But you’ll never be published unless you learn to write to a formula.” And I was like, “What does that mean?” So at the time, it was vampires, werewolves, and love triangles.

 

Richard Matthews  

Yeah,

 

Tesa Colvin  

That’s was not my jam. I was like,  “That’s not what I’m here for.” So I was writing fiction, but that wasn’t what I was writing like I was somewhere else, totally. As far as writing. And I was like, they said, I could weave the story, but they wanted the easy sale. So I left those relationships, feeling rejected and dejected. And I actually struggled with writer’s block for two years after that. And then one day, I was like, “Listen, are you going to let them write your story? Or are you going to really write your own story, like in real life?” And I had to pull myself up by my bootstraps and say, “Nope, they don’t get the last word.” And at that moment, I did a crazy thing. I started writing and publishing, I learned how to write and publish. I wrote 19 books in 6 years, somewhere good, somewhere terrible. But I learned the process. That is now why I am even here today because I can tell people what’s real and what’s fiction. What they’ve made up in their mind as to why they haven’t written their books.

 

That’s me.

 

Richard Matthews  

Yeah. So, were those 19 books are those fiction or are some nonfiction?

 

Tesa Colvin  

A combination. I went… when I tell you I’ve written all genres. I tried it all because I really wanted to get an understanding. So fiction, I love fiction.

 

Because I think I have an overactive imagination.

 

So I have to write out these people that I talked to in my head. I love fiction. I still write fiction. I have several different pen names. I have nonfiction books, I have poetry books, you name it. I tried it. Except erotica. With erotica, nothing against it. It just wasn’t my jam.

 

Richard Matthews

My wife calls those… lady porn.

 

Tesa Colvin

Yeah, no lady porn.

 

Because I always had this vision of like, leaving my laptop open, and then my kid wandering over. And, you know, being like, “Oh!” so that wasn’t for me.

 

Richard Matthews  

That was funny.

 

Tesa Colvin  

But everything else I would try it. Sci-fi, tried it. Romance, tried it. And I have my own little niche that I love.

 

Richard Matthews  

Awesome. So how did that transition into helping other people write books?

 

Tesa Colvin  

I’m a firm believer in everything that we do and experience is not just for us. And so once I learned it, I would come across – I would get people sent to me. I would say – and they would always say “I want to write a book with this, or I want to write a book but I don’t know how.” And even, it’s just a part of who I am to just give that back and learn. Because I don’t want anyone else to feel like I felt for those two agonizing years when I couldn’t get the words out of my head and onto paper, because of something someone said. Or something someone else believed to be true. And it just led me to, I guess, for lack of better terminology, trying to save a lot of people. Trying to save a lot of people from that, because there’s so much.

 

Richard Matthews  

Yeah. because you’re a hero!

 

Tesa Colvin  

Thank you for noticing. I didn’t even put my cape on today.

 

There are so many people that just get stopped dead in their tracks because they believe no one’s going to read this. Or no one wants this. Or it’s not what’s in the stores. Or it’s not what people are looking for over here. And that’s just not true. I had this desire to just tell people, that’s not true, you’re important. Everything you’ve experienced can help so many people. And if we joined forces, we could just do amazing things. And so I did it, I did that. I felt empowered to do that. And I felt required to do that, to help other people like that.

 

Richard Matthews  

So one of the questions I have for you is how did that translate from taking a skill that you had, and having to learn the business of helping other people? You know, services in exchange for money. But how did that transition go for you?

 

Tesa Colvin  

It was not hard. And I will tell you why. It all works together. I will tell you, I got a ton of degrees back here. And they’re all business. So I have, you know, three levels of degrees in business, I have a master’s degree in business, I even in a cheeky way, I named my business, “Borrow My MBA.” Because people always say, “I want to do this thing. But I don’t have a degree.” And I would say, “Well, you can borrow mine. If that’s the only thing holding you back, just borrow mine, right?” And so I’m a little bit of a wiseacre. So I named my business, Borrow My MBA and for a long time, while I was hashing out the publishing piece, I was helping people build businesses. Because I had the skill set. I was helping them with – you mentioned earlier – working with the Small Business Administration. I was helping them with business plans. I was helping them have an understanding of market research and all of that. And, you know, that was my daytime identity. And then my secret identity… I’m over here trying to figure out the world of publishing. And I got to a point where I dreaded helping with the business side, per se. But I looked forward to trying to help people with books. And I had to really say, “Okay, I’m gonna have to make a shift.” And it was easy, it was still consulting, it was still coaching, it was just for a creative process versus a more rational or traditional process. So it’s really easy. And it lit me up, even more. I’m a natural talker, I know, you can tell. But it lit me up even more. So the transition making that my business per se wasn’t so hard. Once I listened and paid attention to all the cues, it was pretty easy.

 

Richard Matthews  

And I tell people all the time, I can’t remember the name of the quote, or the guy who said the quote, “We need more people who have come alive.” So go out there and find out what makes you come alive and go do that. Because that’s something that the world needs, right? And when you have found that thing, when you’ve got something that you have both like one of the other things I say regularly is “Mastery begets passion.” And once you’ve mastered a skill, you’re passionate about it. So like you have found a combination of something that you’ve mastered and created a passion around that. You’re then going out and helping other people with.

 

Tesa Colvin  

Absolutely.

 

Richard Matthews  

And you can tell, I assume your clients can tell as soon as they get in touch with you that it’s something that makes you come alive. And that really probably helps inspire them to get their work done and get their mission out.

 

Tesa Colvin  

It really does. And I get to be a cheerleader, I get to be a teacher. And I get to say things like I get to be. When I was doing other things, it was like “I have to. I gotta. I need to.” But now I’m in a different space. And it’s like, I get to do these things. I get to support people with those deep secret visions that they have for being on stages and teaching people themselves. I get to create a safe space for them and say, Hey, you know what, tell me your craziest idea. Tell me the wildest place that you want to go to teach and speak. And it’s like, I want to be you know, at a conference in the Sahara. And I’m like “The Sarah? Okay, let’s do that then! You know, I get to do that and be that anti-voice of reason, I guess. I don’t know. I get to support Dreamers. And not feeling like dreams are silly. And I get to do that, by helping them write books. I mean, what better way? Books are like time capsules. They’re timeless. And it’s exciting. Like I say, I could talk about this all day.

 

Richard Matthews

Yeah, one of the… this is kind of… it’s off topic. But I’m curious about your thoughts on this. One of the things that I love about books, and it’s something that I picked up from Orson Scott Card and the little things that he puts at the end of his books, where he writes about the process of writing. And he said that a book is only ever half written. Right? So when you write a book, you’ve only written half a book, the book isn’t completed until someone reads it, and it comes alive in their mind. And I’ve always loved that thought. I’m curious how you feel about that.

 

Tesa Colvin

So one of the – I’m glad you asked me that. I totally agree with you on that. I’m pretty sure that is one of the quotes that I have in my arsenal, and I share it out, you know, to just Ignite.

 

I always tell people that a book is a conversation.

 

When you think about a conversation, there’s more than one person involved in it. I totally agree and that’s actually what helps a lot of people. They’re like, “I can speak about a thing, but I can’t write about it.” And I’m like, “If you can talk about it, you can write about it.” But having a conversation, this is what makes a successful book to me. It’s if somebody is in a room, and they’re reading the book, and they start talking to the book like you’re in the room? Like, you have done it! That is the moment of success right there. Where it’s like, “This person gets me so much. I feel like they’re talking to me. I feel like I can hear their voice.” That is the core relation that I believe that quote…it inspires in me. We’re just, you know, two people (or more) having a conversation about something we’re passionate about. About a situation we want to transform about a belief system that we want to embed in yourself, whatever that is. The word ‘conversation’ just solidifies it all.

 

Richard Matthews

Yeah. One of the – tactically speaking – one of the things that I help my clients with that is… just understanding that if it’s a conversation, you can just speak your book. I’ll have my clients be like, “You just write out your outline and put on your voice recorder and talk about it.” Yeah, and then we’ll transcribe it and get an editor to fix it up and make it pretty. And it ends up being in their voice and feeling like a conversation. And you know, they realize like, “Oh, I don’t have to be a great writer to get my message out.”

 

Tesa Colvin

Absolutely. And it’s funny that you say that because… If I can hug you, I would.

 

Because that’s largely… I have something that I take people through that I’ve coined as conversational outlining. A lot of times people get stuck at the outline, because they’re like Roman Numeral, blah, blah, blah. And I’m like, No, let’s do something a little different. And so we do this conversational outline, and they come to life because I make them not only put on the author hat but also the reader hat. And like, what would the other side of that conversation look like? What questions would they have? And so we build an outline that way. And we record, we transcribe, and then I get to do something that a lot of people don’t know, I do. There are two levels of outlining – of editing. In my process, I do the first level, and I do a voice edit because I get to talk to my clients. And if I’m reading, and it doesn’t sound like them, we go back to the drawing board. Because you’re filtering, something’s off, you’re afraid, maybe they’re quoting a lot of technical stuff. And that’s not the heart of who they are. And so we do that before we even do a technical edit where we… you know, send it off to the polishers and all of that stuff.

 

Richard Matthews  

That’s really cool.

And very proprietary, because I bet a lot of people don’t do that. I’ve never done that with my clients. But it’s really cool. I feel like we’re going to have to hop on and talk after the interview because I want to see your conversational outline and how you do it. I’ll share with you my outline – what we use. It’s super cool. We use it for like, what would you call it? The educational type works, right? If you want to teach someone how to do something. That’s mostly the type of clients I have. I have an outline that helps people walk through how to teach someone something. It works really well. Cool. So I want to move on a little bit. We spent a lot of time talking about your origin story but it is super cool. So the next part is your superpowers, right? Every every superhero has one. And that is… What you do, or what you use to help your clients slay their villains. If you could if you can narrow it down to one thing that you would say “This is the superpower that I use to help my clients.” What would that be?

 

Tesa Colvin

The superpower that I use to help my clients is I have a super strong insight. To clarify that, I had a client that came to me and she’s like, “My book is going to be called, ‘How to have Faith After You’ve Fallen'” And I’m like, “No, it’s not. No, it’s not.” She’s like, “What? Yes, it is…” and her book ended up being called “I’m not a hypocrite, I’m human.”

 

Richard Matthews  

That’s a good title.

 

Tesa Colvin  

I am not that deep. But that’s what came to me. But you know, that insight into who it is that you’re talking to, knowing that the things that would trigger them, knowing the things that would make them put the book down and not get to the end and get the results that are needed. It’s that insight that helps them pull back those layers that have been holding – the crap that they don’t need, you know. Like, “I’ve got to have a great book cover.” I’m like, “First you gotta have a book, you know.” So that insight … the process, where do I find an editor? Do you have a book? No.

 

Richard Matthews  

You don’t need an editor yet.

 

Tesa Colvin  

Don’t you worry about that… So that insight just brings to the forefront the things that they need to focus on. So that they can be the talent, and then we can take care of the rest later.

 

Richard Matthews

Yeah, that makes sense. So you really are helping your clients know what the next thing is. So they don’t get distracted by things that they don’t need to yet. That’s such a common problem in a lot of spaces too, right? Like, I’m involved in a couple of groups that teach how to build an agency. How to build a business agency. And one of the things that comes up all the time is like, well, I need to get business cards, and I need to get my website done. And they’re like, have you like, have you talked to a client yet? Right? Like, you have a client… business cards are a distraction, right? Like, and they’re like, well, I don’t have my logo or my website, or my email system setup. I’m like you like all those things come after you have revenue.

 

Tesa Colvin

Focus on revenue-generating activities.

 

Richard Matthews

Right? Just go out and talk to people get a client first and then you can have the money to pay for someone to build a logo and get a business card done. All those things.

 

Tesa Colvin

We don’t want to put the cart before the horse is I would say,

 

Richard Matthews

Yeah, yes. So it’s just a common problem. So it’s really cool that it’s the thing that you step in and help your clients get the next step done. The most important step is the next one. You get when we can take the next step and the next step and move on. I had a client the other day, he sent me a book cover. He’s like, “I made a book cover.” And I was like, “For what book?” He’s like, “Well, I gotta write the book, eventually. This is what the cover looks like.” You’re a little ahead of yourself.

 

Tesa Colvin

How much time did it take doing that? Especially for business owners, if they know how much their time is worth. So if it took you an hour, it really cost you this amount of money, because you don’t need that yet.

 

Richard Matthews

Yeah. Gotta get the book done. So anyway, we’re going to sit down and outline the book and get that done. But, you know, it was just… it was his way of thinking, like, “I want to write the book.” So he started with the book cover, which, you know, works for him. But you know, it’s putting the cart before the horse. So the flip side of every superpower is your fatal flaw, right? So fatal flaw is, you know, it’s the thing like I tell people, I tend to be a bit of a perfectionist. To my detriment where – I am I sad to admit this – I have on a number of occasions, spent an obscene amount of time trying to get like one pixel to move in one direction on a website. And then realizing after I’ve wasted four hours being like that. It has literally nothing to do with anything. And I’ve had to work a lot on that. So the question is A, what is the fatal flaw? And B, more importantly, what kind of systems and things have you set up in your business to help you combat that, so other people who might struggle from the same thing could learn from you,

 

Tesa Colvin

So, that too. Perfectionism is my kryptonite, okay. And for a long time, it didn’t. It was like perfectionism and then being a little bit of a control freak. Just a little bit, right. And so the way that I combat that is I have a team. I have a team, I have what I call my SWAT team to support my clients that support writing and tactical team or technical team. So you know, there’s somebody to handle everything, right. But I also have my own, like, I’ve got three assistants. And at any given time, they’re asking me, “What do you need me to do?” And so that keeps me in check. So I’m not always juggling or trying to juggle because I can’t juggle…trying to juggle things. But I wish that I had invested in having a team earlier.

 

Richard Matthews  

Yeah.

 

Tesa Colvin  

It caused me a lot of stress, I had to get to a point of stress, you know, before I was like, “Hmm, maybe I should get some help.” And so like you said, I’m spending hours like helping a client with a website, not because I can’t do it, but I’m like, if I could just send her this, it’s still off just a little bit, the logo is not quite where I need it to be. And like, thinking about… I now have a tech VA, I can just pass it off to her and say, “Hey, listen, don’t let me get in my own way. Can you do something with this?”

 

And that is my saving grace.

 

Richard Matthews

So you want to know something that’s funny? That is exactly the same way that I solve that problem in my life. Right. I was like, I realized I needed to get myself out of the processes. Yeah. Because my VAs are interested in getting the results.

 

Tesa Colvin

Yeah.

 

Richard Matthews  

My team members are interested in getting result for myself and for my clients because that’s what I’ve asked them to do is get the result. And, you know, they’re not looking at…you know, they don’t have the same trouble that I have. I’ve been able to pull that bottleneck out. Right. And I have been over the last many months of my business been spending an obscene amount of time, like figuring out ways to make sure that I’m not doing the actual work on things. Right. So just as an example, one of the things that I picked up… this is my iPad, right? I’ve got my show notes on here that I keep looking at.

 

One of the things I’ve noticed is the iPad is a simpler device, right? You can do a lot of things on it, you get a lot of things really well. I can actually do most of the things that I will do on my computer on my iPad. But a lot of the technical work that I have to do for my clients is more difficult on the iPad. But what’s not more difficult on the iPad is writing or recording the process document and assigning it to my team.

 

Tesa Colvin  

I need that.

 

Richard Matthews

Yeah, so what I will do is, if I know I need to just get a bunch of stuff out is, I will close my laptop and I’ll go somewhere else, right? So I’m not at my desk, I like sit outside at the patio or sit out with, you know, watch my kids play or whatever. And I record process documents. And because that’s easy to do on the iPad. And so I’m using an environmental… What do you call it? Like environmental psychology?

 

Tesa Colvin

Yeah.

 

Richard Matthews  

To force myself to do the things I know I need to do, right? Because then I’m getting out of my own way. So anyway, and having a team has really led to that. And it’s been helping me get over a lot of the perfectionism. And then what I found out is because of the way I teach my VA to do things, teach my team members to do things, I always give them my thinking, right? Here’s why we’re doing it this way. And here’s why I want it done this way. They’re starting to get smarter about my processes and coming back and asking intelligent questions and improving my processes even better than I was doing them. Right. And it’s…

 

Tesa Colvin  

I love that.

 

Richard Matthews  

It’s so cool when you have a team that’s, you know, driving towards helping your clients with their mission and whatnot.

 

Tesa Colvin  

It’s a matter of getting out of your own way. Because I was not very good at that. Getting in the way and getting bogged down in something. I’m like, it’s a visionary problem… it’s what it is, you know. Visionary problems. That’s what it is. And so now delegation is my saving grace.

 

Richard Matthews

Man, it’s so glorious. You have to remind me when we finish the interview, I’ll show you my Trello board that we use to automate some of the ‘tasks stuff’. I think you’ll really like it.

 

Tesa Colvin  

Like I love Trello.

 

Like, we are kindred spirits.

 

Richard Matthews

I’ll show you my Trello stuff when we hop off. It’s super cool. So the next question is your common enemy, right? So if you could go into your clients’ minds when they hire you, and you could just immediately pull out one of those negative mindsets or bad mindsets that’s holding them back and just destroy that common enemy. So you can help them achieve their goals, what would that common enemy be?

 

Tesa Colvin

The common enemy would be the term “Just Write.”

 

“Just Write.”

 

People who come to me, they usually say “I know I should be able to ‘just write'”, which is true. But in the context that they have absorbed it, it doesn’t help them. Because regardless of what your outlining process is, pre-writing is necessary. In fiction, I’m what they call a ‘pantster’, sometimes, you know, I can sit down and just write by the seat of my pants. But for the most part, the outline, it just cuts down on a lot of the mental chatter that happens. That keeps people from writing. Writing it the way that they got it. Writing it the way that it downloaded to them. And so I would take away that term, that phrase… that it means whale advice, “just sit down and write.” I would take that away, and I would just destroy it. never to be seen again.

 

Richard Matthews  

So what would you replace it with?

 

Tesa Colvin  

I would replace it with

 

“Let’s have a conversation.”

 

That’s exactly what I will replace it with. Because that’s how I help people get out of their heads and say, “Look, okay, so tell me about it, talk to me about it.” And then they go, and they flow. And it’s like, you just surreptitiously hit record on your phone while they’re talking. Look, your book is done.

 

And I ask questions because we’re computers, you know. And if you have something to respond to, depending on you know, how much you know about human design, all of that. The majority of the population are responders, they need something to respond to, that’s where writer’s block comes from because you’re trying to respond to nothing. You haven’t created something for you to respond to, like an outline, you know?

 

Richard Matthews

What’s interesting is like, that’s how I built my writer’s framework that we use. We use it to write webinars, write ad copy, to write books. All sorts of things. And it starts with a set of questions. And we’ll take the things that they want to talk about. And the first exercise we go through is like, here are all your topics. Let’s turn those into questions you can answer. Right? So you know, what is writing a book? Why is writing a book important? How do you write a book? You know, now that you’ve written a book, what’s one of the things that you can do? And now they’re responding to questions that they know the answers deeply. And it turns into as you said, they’re having a conversation with their outline instead. Which is so much easier.

 

Tesa Colvin

You so get me.

 

Richard Matthews

I feel like we’re gonna have to charge for this webinar – for this podcast. People are learning too much.

 

Tesa Colvin

We’re giving it all away, like going all out…

 

Richard Matthews  

…give it all away. The Secret: Ask Questions. What is it that Tony Robbins says ask better questions, you’ll get better answers.

 

Tesa Colvin  

You get better answers.

 

Richard Matthews

Absolutely. Okay. So the other side of common enemies is your driving force, right? So just like Spider-Man fights to save New York or Batman fights to save Gotham or Google fights to index all the world’s information? What does Tesa Colvin fight for?

 

Tesa Colvin

I fight for getting your message to the masses.

 

The pillar, one of the pillars behind what I do is that someone is dialing 911 in my world, that means they’re on Amazon, they’re on Google, they’re looking for an answer to something and it’s you. It’s your message, it is your methodology, it is your experience. And it’s just like they’re calling 911. And no one’s answering because your book isn’t there. That is my driving force, getting people to understand how we all connect, and how everything that I went through has allowed me to help X amount of authors and in my personal life, you know, giving advice and teaching. It’s all connected, like none of it is wasted. And when you understand how important you are to the next person, you understand how important your messaging, your methodology and your teaching and your story is to that next person.

 

Richard Matthews

Yeah, I tell people all the time that we’re a story-born people, right? And being a story-born people means that we connect with each other because of our stories. And you can actually measure the depth of the relationship by the depth of the stories you know about another person. So my measurement for that is, you know, an acquaintance is someone you don’t know… someone who you don’t know their name – you don’t know, their story. And acquaintance might be someone whose name you know, but whose story you don’t. A friend is someone who’s … you know their name and you know a little of their story. Maybe you know a lot about their story. A best friend might be someone that you know all of their stories, so much so that they can’t tell you any news stories. The only way to create new stories is to go out, to create new stories together. And if you can measure a relationship by the amount of story that you share with someone, and the way that translates into business, and to writing stories, into writing, and teaching, and educating, and a lot of the stuff that we help our clients do, is that you have a client or a customer who is living, you know, has some sort of a problem, right. And I always, my illustration is, they want to get from where they are – where they have a problem to cross, you know, the crocodile-infested river. And on the other side of the crocodile-infested river is the promised land. And you know, that river has got crocodiles on it. And it’s got whirlpools, and it’s got, places that can get sucked in and whatnot. And most of my clients, they think about, like, I want to create a product that helps someone get over that thing. Maybe it’s a book, maybe it’s the thing, whatever the thing is, and they’re thinking like, I want to create a boat. They’re hoping to sell their clients a boat which is great. You might want to sell your clients a boat. But the reason someone’s going to buy passage on your boat is because that boat comes with a captain. Right? That’s you. Your perspective.

 

Tesa Colvin

Somebody who knows how to navigate.

 

Richard Matthews  

Yeah, you have been across that river before. Your boat might have crocodiles shooting disintegrating lasers, but you know how to activate them and how to turn them on, right? That kind of stuff. Your story is important to helping them achieve their goals.

 

Tesa Colvin  

Absolutely. I love that. First of all, you know, my imagination is going wild. I’m like, “I can see the boat.” And so that’s it. That’s the thing. A lot of times, people are afraid to even get into their story. My methodology, people will tell you I am not a tell-all person. Tell-alls are salacious, they’re not powerful. But I will help you write a teach-all day long. And so with that, you get to see some of your stories. But it’s still not all about you. You’re not in a journal saying on May 3rd, this happened on May 6th, this happened. It’s more along the lines of I’m telling you this works. Let me tell you how it manifested for me. Let me tell you how it looked in my life. And this is why I know this is going to help you. And that totally changes the dynamic of a book, people walk away, not entertained, but they have some level of action that they’re going to take they have a wind that they’re going to go out and get because you showed them how.

 

Richard Matthews

Yeah, one of the things that I tell my clients is, “If you have something you’re going to talk about…” I use a four-part framework, right? So, you’re going to talk about whatever it is… It’s a WHAT, WHY, HOW and NOW. So you’re going to talk about what it is; why it’s important; how you implement it; and then, now is your perspective, right? And if you look at this. The first three, a lot of people… well, most people will teach how. Some people will teach why. Very few people will teach the what. And that’s just data, right? How to information is data. And there’s nothing wrong with data, but data lacks emotion. And people don’t change until they are emotionally bought in. So I tell people that the data is like the nails in a construction project. And your stories and your perspective are like the hammer that drives the data home. Right. Hold it together. So

 

Tesa Colvin

I love that.

 

Richard Matthews

Yeah, it’s super cool. I think you’re right. We’re kindred spirits. We talked about the same kind of stuff to our clients all the time.

 

Tesa Colvin

Absolutely.

 

Richard Matthews

So every hero has a hero’s tool belt. Right? You know, Thor has his magic hammer. You know, your neighborhood police officer has his bulletproof vest. Maybe you’re like me… you really like Evernote to keep notes in or Trello. Like I am hardcore in love with Trello. Do you have any particular tools that you use on a regular basis that help you do what you do for your clients?

 

Tesa Colvin

You know what? I’m a simple girl. And I keep it really simple. Excel.

 

Richard Matthews

Excel.

 

Tesa Colvin

Excel is my jam, because like you said about data, it allows me to help them break down certain things. certain processes, a lot of times people can help people get results, but they don’t even realize because it’s so almost robotic for them how to do a thing that, how many steps so I’ll get clients and they’re like, yeah, you just do this, this, this and this. I said, No, let’s break down this first piece. And it’s like, see, it’s 27 steps in this first half. And they’re like, Whoa, and I’m like, so we need to narrow this down. And we need to figure out, you know, no matter what level your reader is, they all got to start here. You know, so Excel helps me do that. I know, it’s a nerd thing.

 

Richard Matthews  

Excel. That’s brilliant.

 

Tesa Colvin  

It helps me to tab that out.

 

Richard Matthews

Yeah, I have a name for that process. I call that. I’m going to forget my own name for it now. But anyways, it’s the I have it written down somewhere. The thing that I started with my clients. But the idea essentially, it’s Expert Blindness. That is what I call it. Overcoming Expert Blindness. So when someone is really, really good at something they have… the amount of time that it takes them to go from stimulus to response is nearly instantaneous because they’ve trained themselves to be really, really good at things and they’ll make decisions and do things based on a set of inputs. And they don’t even realize the decisions that they’ve made.

 

Tesa Colvin

Right.

 

Richard Matthews  

Because it’s second nature for them. Right? Like if you’ve ever watched the martial artist, they’re making so many decisions so quickly that like they couldn’t even tell you what they all are.

 

Tesa Colvin  

It’s a superpower, right?

 

Richard Matthews  

It’s a superpower. But the reality is, the way everyone works is you have stimulus and response. And between stimulus and response is choice. Right? And so, they’re making choices. And the difference between someone who’s a master and someone who’s a beginner is the amount of time that is between stimulus and response. So for people who are masters, it’s nearly instantaneous. Stimulus and response happen immediately. So our job as what I call Instructional Designers is to help a master spread that time apart and see what’s happening in there. What is the stimulus that you’re getting? And what are the responses that you’re doing? And why are those happening? Because that’s how you’re going to help teach someone else your process.

 

Tesa Colvin  

Right.

 

So we essentially just zoom in on each of those steps. So that they can break it down for those who are struggling with a thing. An example that kind of helps people that I work with… this is going to make you laugh… I say think about when you go to the doctor, you’ll say “Okay, Doc. I got a pain in my neck, I got a pain in my back. And they come back and they give you this convoluted, you know, name for whatever the thing is. And you’re like, Okay, how do I fix that? So I tell people when we’re writing their book, think about your visits to the doctor, then they begin to, you know, break down what you need to do. You need to change your eating habits. How many times have we heard that? You need to do this, you need to do that. And your step by step to diagnosis to get that analogy usually helps people to see it like, Oh, okay. I need to like you said, I need to bring it down to another level so that I can walk people through this process.

 

Richard Matthews  

Yeah, and you need to help them take each one of those steps. So yeah, that’s super cool. And I don’t use Excel for that. I use a mind-mapping tool because that’s the way I work. I like to be able to flip stuff around and move it and play with things. But yeah, if Excel works for you, that’s super cool.

 

Tesa Colvin  

It’s kind of scary.

 

Richard Matthews  

I use Excel to do the math, right? Because I can’t do math. But I can write equations like nobody’s business.

 

Tesa Colvin  

I love Excel. I would marry it – my husband probably wouldn’t like that. But I love it. Because there are so many different things I can do with it. You know, you can do tables, you can do if-then’s, you can do all of that. Don’t even get me started.

 

Richard Matthews  

Man, you get into things like concatenation. And like I have an Excel spreadsheet I used for tracking guides, where we will build a legend for all of the stuff we’re using for tracking on ads. So we have the sources and the mediums and the content and the ad types and the audiences like I have a legend. And then we have another sheet that has the URL that we’re promoting and a bunch of drop-downs that pulls all the options off of the legend. And so someone can be like, I want to promote this link. And we’re going to promote it on this platform with this ad creative. This thing and I select all the things that it creates a tracking link for them. So they can track all of it. And like that’s the kind of… that’s the kind of geeky stuff I do with

 

Tesa Colvin  

…throw some macros in there. I’m happy.

 

Richard Matthews  

Yeah, yeah, it’s like if we can automatically build things in Excel. I am a happy camper. Cool. So let’s move on to your own personal heroes. Right. So Frodo had Gandalf. Luke had Obi-Wan Kenobi. Robert Kiyosaki had his rich dad. Who are some of your personal heroes? Where they real-life mentors? Were they speakers and authors? Or were they peers? Or maybe we’re just a few years ahead of you and how important were they to your journey and where you are now?

 

Tesa Colvin  

So I have had some amazing mentors. Some amazing, amazing mentors, some more personal Some were more idols like Langston Hughes. I love Langston Hughes. I think he was a phenomenal writer. Maya Angelou. Phenomenal. But my very first mentor when it came to writing was Miss Paula Bailey, she was my fourth and fifth-grade teacher. And one situation changed things for me. At a very young age, I lost my mother. And then I moved from Alabama to Michigan. And that was like two totally different worlds. And I was kind of a sad kid but I was bored. And so I’m in fourth grade. And I’ve like done everybody’s you know… trying to figure out what a subject and a predicate is, I got it. And she’s like, she gave me a notebook and a pen. And she told me here, write your story. Write a story that changed things for me that one moment, and like, I started writing worlds. And I started writing poetry, and I started writing the things that I imagined and that changed things for me. Later in life, I had a business mentor. And one of the things that she said to me was, “If somebody’s got to be famous, why not you?” And I was like, well I don’t know. So it was it wasn’t so much about fame. But as much as it was, you know, somebody’s got to step up. And somebody’s got to be in the front. So why not you? And those two moments, right? Were all about trusting my imagination. And they totally change the trajectory of my life in those points.

 

Richard Matthews  

Yeah, well, what’s interesting is, I have a similar story when it comes to writing. I was in seventh grade. And his name was Mr. Ben Juarez. And he was my history teacher in seventh grade. And I remember the first essay that they assigned to us was on. It was on we were studying California history. That’s what you studied in seventh grade. And we were studying the Indians that lived in the area that we live. Before the Spanish missions came in and took over. And I don’t remember what the paper was about. But I remember turning the paper in. And I remember the day that he had finished grading them all. And he turned them all back to the students. And he went and he handed them out one by one and hand them all the students and he came to me last and he said, I’m not going to give you your paper. I want you to see me after class.

 

Tesa Colvin  

Oh, no.

 

Richard Matthews  

I was like, I was like, “Oh, no.” You know one of those moments where you start sweating, and your stomach drops out. And you’re like, “I’ve like, really, royally F’d it up if he wants to see me after class.”

 

Tesa Colvin  

It’s not gonna go well…

 

Richard Matthews  

Yeah, this is not going to go well. And so I stayed after class. And he’s like, “Before I show you your paper, I want you to know, you’re probably one of the most talented writers I’ve ever had come through my class.”

 

Tesa Colvin  

Wow.

 

Richard Matthews  

And he’s like, “So I did not grade you, like a seventh grader. I graded you like a high school student. Like a high school senior. So this paper, I ripped your paper apart. I didn’t want to make you cry in class by handing it to you.” Because, you know, seventh grade…you’re emotionally unstable.

 

Tesa Colvin  

So the red on your paper, it’s gonna be a little bit different,

 

Richard Matthews  

It’s gonna be a little bit different. And he’s like, “Essentially, you got 100% on this paper but I ripped it apart because you could do something with this. The other thing I want you to do is like, I want you to come by once a week after class, and I want to do some writing workshops with you, and help you improve your writing.” So I got permission from my parents to do that. And he spent the year teaching me how to be a better writer. And it really changed my trajectory. And it’s something that has happened a number of times throughout my career. I had a bunch of – I had a number of teachers that really like, you know, you’ve got a gift for this, you should really push hard on it. And, you know, I’ve never done fiction. Mine’s always been nonfiction writing and historical stuff. That kind of stuff. But anyway, it’s amazing that you can have… when you have someone who really makes a change for you. And it’s like, I get paid professionally now to help people write. Or to write for myself. Things like that. So it puts you on a path.

 

Tesa Colvin  

I love that. That is so… Like, I’m not gonna cry. But that’s awesome because that’s what I aspire to do. To be that light bulb for someone that they can own their greatness. Regardless of how they started out. Regardless if there have been bumps in the role that they can own it like that, and then turn around and help other people. And you know, this is a little bit selfish. I want to help people so they can help more people.

 

Richard Matthews

It’s the ripple effect.

 

Tesa Colvin

Yeah, but you know, I mean, there’s just such a power in knowing that you touch lives that touch lives that then touch lives, and so on.

 

Richard Matthews  

That’s why we bring up this question. Your own personal in heroes. Because we realized that the reason why you are a hero today is that you have heroes in your life that helped shape who you are. And when you step up, and you do that for someone else, you’re doing the same thing. You’re paying it forward, right? You’re helping to be a hero in someone else’s life and turning them into the hero they know they can be. So the last question I have on the show is your guiding principles, right? So let’s bring it home for our listeners. What are one or two things – actions or principles that you do on a daily basis that help you contribute to the success and influence that you enjoy today? And if we could be more specific ones that you wish you had started? When you started your business?

 

Tesa Colvin  

That one. Okay.

 

Um, one of my guiding principles is the power of a team. It helps me remember that it’s not always about me. Even on my worst day, it’s not all about me. And with that, it doesn’t just take me. It makes me value my team. And that’s something I wish I had done. From the very beginning, I wish that I had gotten the right people around me to help push a vision forward. Even if it was mentors, even if it was just putting myself in those circles that would stretch me. I wish I had done that. I played it safe for a long time because I did make it all about me. I didn’t want to ruffle feathers. I didn’t want to have to deal with opposition to my theologies and the way that I think. I wanted it to be safe. And one thing about being a hero and saving people is you can’t do that. It’s not about you. You gotta run, jump off the building and save them. As they plummet to the ground, you know. You can’t have this idea that you know, “What, if I miss? Or what if…” You can’t make it about you, because that moment is not about you. It’s about their life. And I wish that I had really got that early on. I wouldn’t have fought against making the transition from business to books for so long. I wouldn’t have had writer’s block for so long in that transition period. And I know it was all a part of the process and a part of my story. But I truly went into myself and made it about me when there was so much more so many more people that it was truly supposed to be about. Do you know what I mean?

 

Richard Matthews  

Yeah. Yeah, one of the things I love that you said in that was that you were afraid to have your ideas challenged. What’s interesting is an idea that’s unchallenged is not a good idea. Right? And it’s the kind of ideas when the ideas can stand up to the challenge, then they’re great ideas. Right? You’ve discovered that. Now you have a suite of services. You help people and you do those things, but part of it was like you had to step out and experience a little danger, right? Have your thoughts and your processes challenged a little bit to realize that they’re good, right? And then that helps build confidence. And you’re like, you realize that “Hey, you don’t have to be afraid that someone’s going to challenge you because you know that your ideas stand up to the challenge.”

 

Tesa Colvin  

Absolutely. I get to say that to my clients when they try to pad their writing with a lot of data. I can feel that. And so it just strengthens my superpower.

 

Richard Matthews  

Super cool. Awesome. Well, the last thing I do on every one of the shows is something I call The Hero Challenge. It’s pretty simple. And The HERO Challenge is just this. Do you have someone in your business network that you think has a cool story? Who are they? And why do you think they should come on the show and share their story?

 

Tesa Colvin  

How do I narrow that down?

 

I do have someone I think would be just phenomenal.

 

Her name is Beverly.

 

She’s my biz bestie.

 

She is someone who challenges the belief system around money and your relationship with God or Christianity or universal whoever it is for you. A lot of times I’ve seen her pull back layers and tell people just because you have this affinity for helping people doesn’t mean that you should reject the money. It doesn’t mean that you can’t attract money. It doesn’t make you a bad person to admit that bills take money. And so she’s very powerful in that and she does it in a way that isn’t marketing. Like you hear a lot about people talking about six-figure this seven-figure that she helps people really build businesses that they are proud of. To be integrous and be who they are. And whatever their belief system is. And I think that’s a superpower. She says it’s not either/or. You can have it all. And it’s okay if you want it all.

 

Richard Matthews  

yeah, awesome. So well, we’ll reach out after this. So if we can get contact details for that.   thing is, how can someone get a hold of you? If they want to get help getting their book written? And the second question is where should that person be in their process before they reach out to you? Like, you know, what would an ideal client be?

 

Tesa Colvin  

Well, it’s really easy to find me. BookStrategiesWithTesa.com. I keep it simple. It’s spelled how it sounds. BookStrategiesWithTesa.com. And that will get you right to me. And even on social media platforms, @bookstrategieswithtesa or @TesaColvin. And this is where they should be, they should be certain that they’re ready to write a book that helps people. They’re not trying to rehash their story per se, but they’re wanting to use their story to empower people. They may have written a couple of hundred-thousand words but they know that it needs some honing. They know that something’s missing. They know that they have been holding back the secret sauce, that is them. And that is my jam. Helping them to make sure because you can tell people exactly what to do. You’re still the secret sauce. There’s no such thing as giving away too much. It’ll never happen. You’re still the genius that they need. You’re still the genius that they want to connect with. And so that is where they have to be. And even if they have written the entire manuscript, there is still room for improvement because I’m a voice editor. I can go through and make sure that you haven’t filtered with fear. That’s a big thing. People will filter with fear in their writing. So that’s it.

 

Richard Matthews  

Awesome. And obviously, if you’re listening to this, you can tell Tesa knows what she’s talking about. So if you are at any place and getting your book written and you want to get it out there, make sure you reach out to Tesa. It’s BookStrategiesWithTesa.com. And Tesa, thank you so much for coming on the show. It has been an absolute pleasure having you on here. Super cool.

 

Tesa Colvin  

I’m so happy to be here. Thank you so much for having me.

 

Richard Matthews  

You’re welcome.