5-Days to the 'Small Town Bigger Dreams' - Conversation with Sherly Green

Hello everyone, welcome to day 19— no, sorry, day 16. I tend to forget math sometimes. Yeah, day 16 of 21-day live challenge, and we are just 5 days away from the launch of the paperback edition of Small Town Bigger Dreams. And as I said earlier in the week, this week is all about interesting, inspiring personality So I'm going to be talking less. I'm inviting them so that they can talk more and they can share some nuggets of wisdom. And today is very, very inspiring and very, very interesting for me because about 1.5 years back, when I thought about writing a book, this small notion of thinking about a book came to my mind. That's when I thought, where should I go out to? Many of you know I am a member of Darren Latrovice's Taste Time University.. And they were having a book writing bootcamp for 2 days. And I thought that is probably the perfect opportunity. And that's where I met Cheryl Greene. Cheryl Greene is a keynote speaker. She has done so much of that. She is a book writing— I mean, I think she has wrote 5 books. How many books? I don't even know. She actually coaches a lot of writers. And after going through that 2-day workshop, I learned so much that I still try to grasp and I still go back to my notes. Thank you so much, Cheryl, for coming here and I'm really excited to have you here.

Thank you for having me. This is awesome.

All right, Cheryl. I know a little bit about your journey, but I would love for you to talk us and I give this interesting challenge to everyone to talk about their journey in next 2-3 minutes, which I know is not fair. But I'm pretty sure you'll do a great job of talking about what kind of work you have done, what kind of things you do. So please share with us.

2 to 3 minutes. Okay. So I actually went to school for forensic psychology. That's what my master's degree is in. And when I moved out to Vegas, it was because of a pretty horrendous divorce. And so I started writing. I took a writing class at the local community college. And he said, you know, write about something you know. And I was like, well, I know about serial killers, and there's somebody I'd really like to kill in my book. Um, so I actually started writing fiction and writing mystery novels. Um, and I did get to kill somebody in my book. So I— when I decided I wanted to be a speaker a couple of years later, everybody said, I— well, you know, you have to write a book. You have to have a book to be a speaker. I said, well, I've actually done 3 of those by now, but they were all fiction. So I switched over to nonfiction, knocked out my first one, which is Surviving to Thriving: How to Overcome Setbacks and Rock Your Life. And it's all about resilience. And then I just kept writing from there. It's been a journey. And I had a few people that asked me, how do you write a book? How do you get it done? So I wrote a book about how to write a book, and I started coaching and helping other people because there's so many good ideas out there and there's so many people with amazing stories to share, and sometimes they just need a little nudge in the right direction.

Thank you. You indeed completed in Korean.

Extreme overview.

I can totally understand. Now, uh, you alluded to book writing and the process, and you help with that. And I'm so honored to say that I was coached by you in that program. Uh, so what do you think are some of the myths that people have, especially the first-time authors? What are some of the myths that they have about writing or the whole process behind it?

Um, some of the myths. So I think part of it is that it's this huge mystifying process that it takes this amazing personality to create or this amazing brain to create. And honestly, when you break it down into steps, it's not that hard. It's hard, don't get me wrong, but it's doable. And I think people, they get very overwhelmed just thinking about this huge project in front of them and they think that they can't possibly do it. But they can. So I think that's kind of the biggest myth that I see. And the second one, and people yell at me all the time for this one, I don't believe in writer's block. A lot of writers, I really, I do, I take a lot for this, but a lot of writers think that they sit down at the computer and their brain is just empty and they're like, oh, it's writer's block. It's not writer's block, it's lack of preparation. If you outline properly and you plan properly and you know what you're going to write, you never sit down at a computer with a blank brain. You're always thinking about the next chapter you're going to write, the next section. And as soon as you sit down at the computer, you just kind of puke it out, for lack of a better word. Um, so I don't believe in writer's block, and there's probably going to be like a mob of writers outside of my door one day take me down. But planning is key.

Absolutely agree. Absolutely agree. And I do remember going through the course where you talked about, and I did create the structure, even though I would still say I have a soft spot for all those people who say writer's block, because I procrastinated. Yeah, I procrastinated for months before I said, no, I need to hire another coach, which was Mr. Akash Gargi. We got him about 3 days back in the show, but I got a couple of accountability partners and having a coach which nudged me. So I thought maybe sometimes it's more of procrastination versus the writer's block where people don't do systematic work.

Absolutely.

And you had an interesting book. When people look at your profile, you wrote a book that The book was about a book about— I tend to repeat myself, but yeah, a book about busy people, something, uh, how to write a book for busy people. You want to talk about that?

Yeah, um, Book Writing for Busy People, um, which I will say that I wrote in a week and a half. Wow. And everything that I tell people not to do, I did on this book. So you, you do get to break rules. But yeah, I had so many people asking me, how do you actually write a book? And that I just decided to sit down and get everything that I knew at the time into a book so that it was like an easy reference guide for people. And it takes you through starting out with the mindset because that's a big issue with a lot of people. And I struggle with that too, that like, oh, who am I to write a book? What do I have to contribute to the landscape? Like, ugh, I'm no one, I'm nothing. Like, you have to get through all of that. And then kind of moving on to the deciding on your audience, deciding on your topic. For some people, that's not as obvious as for some others. Planning it. How do you actually plot out your book? How do you structure it? And then from there, like, writing it, finding the time. And that's why I named it Book Writing for Busy People, because that you ask anybody, how are you doing? And the answer you get is, I'm busy.

I'm busy.

Everybody says it. Me too. But yes, you are busy, but there's ways that you can carve out time no matter what's going on in your life, except for maybe a brand new, like, newborn baby. I would not suggest writing a book for those people.. But anybody else, stop watching TV or watch less TV. Stop reading the newspaper. Trust me, there's nothing good in there. You know, give yourself a couple of weeks to dive into a project. So there's always time. You can always find time, even if it's just like a 5, 10-minute increment. You know, you sit down each day and write for 10, 15 minutes. It's better than nothing, and you're eventually going to finish your book. So we talked about that and then a little bit on marketing and publishing. I've done the self-publishing route and it's not hard, but there's a lot that you need to know.

Absolutely, absolutely. Once you go to the stage, that's when you realize that book writing was actually easy. Marketing and publishing and reaching out to people is way too hard.

Yep, every, every stage is the hardest until you get to the next one.

All right, uh, so my next question to you is, and I know you are an animal lover, and, uh, how did it all started? I know whenever I see Cheryl's photo, one thing is must is there has to be a dog somewhere in the frame. So how did it all started and, and why so much love only for dogs? Dogs, not for— why not for cats?

I, I love cats too. I just always forget them. It's so bad. It's so bad. Um, so he's not in frame, but he is sleeping on the floor, just so you know. My dog is there. Um, however, yeah, I, uh, when I moved out to Vegas, as I mentioned, it was because of a divorce, and I went through a pretty bad depression. Um, it was, uh, kind of walking away from an old life and starting over a new one. And, um, my dog is kind of what got me through the beginning stages of it. And animal rescue is what really got me out of the depression. Being able to focus on something besides myself, besides my own problems, was huge. Finding a sense of purpose in the world was absolutely amazing. And animals are special. They just have this healing power. That you— it's hard to describe if you've never, if you've never had an animal, you've never been a pet parent. One, I mean, go do it, adopt an animal. But yeah, they just— I say for every animal's life I saved, they saved me right back. So now pretty much everything I do in some way impacts animals for the better.

Amazing. Amazing. Thank you, Cheryl, for sharing that. So what is Cheryl next up to? I know Cheryl keeps doing something new. So what's your next venture, next big thing you're doing?

I was afraid you were going to ask that question, actually, because it's been a while since I've sat down and written my own books. I will say that I've had one in process for 5, 6 years about online dating. Because that has some stories. So that's kind of sitting there in the wings waiting to see. I started a second, kind of a sequel to Surviving to Thriving, just because that was, what, 6, 7 years ago, something like that. And I've learned a lot since then, and I've been through a lot more crap since then. So started writing that, and I'm actually gonna switch over to fiction for a little while. And, uh, you know, try my hand at that for a little bit. So still writing, just not necessarily books coming out at this exact moment.

All right, all right. And that actually, it was not— I was not thinking about, but since you mentioned, uh, we talked to a lot of non-fiction, but that there is one question that comes to my mind: how is it different in terms of, uh, fiction versus non-fiction writing? There's this lot of, you know, go to internet and search, you'll find millions of results. But I like to hear your opinion. What, what exactly is the basic difference between those?

Um, fiction is really freaking hard. I, I— that is the, you know, people joke around about like the Great American Novel and stuff. Um, fiction, you know, when it's non-fiction, you're, you're citing sources, you're using your own personal your experience, you're talking about stories that have happened to you or to someone, you're talking about your clients. You don't really— you do have to get creative, but you don't have to, like, really reach very far from material. Fiction, whole other freaking worlds. I mean, you are literally— even if you're not world building, which they do in sci-fi and fantasy, Even if you're not world building, you're still creating an entire people and settings and all of this stuff, and you're weaving a tale, you're weaving a story from beginning to end. You don't have the freedom of a nonfiction book where you can be like, you know, chapter 1, I'm talking about this, chapter 2, I'm talking about this. And it really has to be this cohesive narrative. So it's really freaking hard. That's the main difference. It's usually for entertainment purposes rather than business or self-improvement or anything like that. But it's quite the undertaking. And I'd have to give some credit to people that I've got a lot of friends that have been writing since I've been writing, but they've been doing fiction in and they're crushing it now and it's hard. So that's the difference. It's really freaking hard.

I can totally assume that, yeah, nonfiction is still easier and compared to that. So Sheryl, you want to talk about what are the topics that you speak or what are the things that you do? Feel free to talk about that.

So one of the big things that's close to my heart because of animal rescue and because I've spent time with me, basically with my hand out begging for donations for the rescue is something called cause marketing. And that's the last book that I finished or that I published. It's called Do Good to Do Better. Yes. Did I lie? No. Do Good to Do Better, the Small Business Guide to Working with Nonprofits to Build Your Business. I think that's it. I haven't said it in a while, but I talk about really, um, the benefits for a small business. And larger corporations, they've got, you know, their corporate responsibility programs, which are important too. Um, but as a small business owner, you can get involved. You can build your business. You can increase, uh, your audience and increase your sales while raising money for an awareness for something that you care about. For a nonprofit, for whatever cause that might be. For me, obviously, it's animal rescue. But, you know, just some examples. We've got one of my best friends. He's my brother from another mother. He is a loan officer, a mortgage loan officer. And whenever he closes a loan, he donates a portion of his proceeds to the rescue. And when he sits down with somebody with a potential client and they're saying like, oh yeah, I was also talking to somebody at Wells Fargo and I'm not sure which one of you to go with. And he's like, no, he's like, you know what? They do a great job too. But when you close a loan with me, animals get fed. He also works with a group that puts shoes on kids in Title I schools. He's like, so animals get saved, kids have shoes, and blah, blah, blah. And they sign immediately. Like, it's just a no-brainer for people. Like, I can do business and I can still support something that I care about. So it's a really important topic, and I don't think it's something that enough people know about and enough businesses know about. People think, oh, well, I'm just I'm just a solopreneur. There's nothing I can do. It's not true. It's not true. No matter what stage of your journey you're in, you can definitely make a difference in the world. So that's one of them. Do you want me to talk about the other ones? I don't know what time-wise we have here.

Go ahead.

Go ahead. Yeah. Okay. So one of the other things I do is storytelling for sales. Um, because any good salesperson knows that you have to connect, um, that you have to, you know, people are going to do business with people that they know, like, and trust. And you can do all of that with stories. And I, I wrote a book called Once Upon a Bottom Line, and it's all about that. How do you incorporate different types of stories into your sales pitches, and how do you really make that connection with people. So those are kind of my business things and then our business topics. And in terms of personal development, it's all about resilience. When I looked at my history, people are saying like, oh, well, find out what you're good at and what you can share and what you've learned. And I was like, you know what? I'm really good at getting knocked on my butt. And getting back up stronger. And I was like, oh, I can talk about resilience. It's important. It's important with businesses, but it's so important with individuals. We're just— especially this past year and a half, 2 years, whatever we're up to at this point, the time has melded together. But just knowing that there's— the garbage is going to end soon, and, you know, things are going to be okay, and you're going to come back stronger than when you even started out.

So thank you, Cheryl. That was so inspiring. Yeah. And one of the things that I learned from you, the cause marketing, and that's why I publicize everywhere that I've connected with one of the NGOs in India called Change with One Meal. And wherein I've said that every book sold of Small Town Bigger Dreams, we sponsor 2 persons' meal through that organization. And organization, they arrange food at a really, really reasonable cost for all the poor people who are not able to get nutritious food, and they need some bit of support in terms of getting that. So I partnered with them to help sponsor at least 2 meals per book sold. So That's how I applied it and it's a great concept. So thank you for touching that.

That's amazing. No, thank you for putting it into action and helping people. That's amazing.

Awesome. So, Sheryl, thank you so much. First of all, I'm so grateful you took time out of your busy schedule and it's a time difference between UK and Vegas and then we have audiences joining from India. It's amazing how the time zones work, but thank you for making time for me. I'm really, really grateful.

Thank you, and congratulations on finishing your book, publishing your book, and it's getting some pretty good reviews and press out there, so that's awesome.

Thank you so much. Thank you, Sheryl. So that was Sheryl Greene, who was probably my first coach in terms of the book writing. So I am back on 21 Day Live Challenge. I'll be back tomorrow, hopefully. I still still not confirmed, hopefully with another interesting personality. Until then, as I say every time, keep learning, keep growing, and keep going out of your comfort zone. This is Haritosh Srivastav on my 21-day live challenge, and I'll be back tomorrow. Stay blessed, stay safe.