#220: A Letter from a Copywriter to His Son in the Midst of the Pandemic

Welcome to the High Income Business Writing Podcast, helping you propel your writing business to a whole new level. And now, here's your host, Ed Gandia. Hey there.

Welcome to the High Income Business Writing Podcast. I am your host, Ed Gandia, and this is the podcast for business writers and copywriters who want to earn more and less time doing work they love for better clients. Just a quick reminder that you can find detailed show notes for this episode@b2b launcher.com Episode 220 those notes always include a summary of our discussion as well as links to resources we mentioned during the show. Every challenge carries with it the seed of tremendous opportunity. That's something I can understand and I can accept intellectually. But when I'm in the middle of that challenge, that kind of challenge, especially a big one, it's not always so easy to think about the positives that it might contain. As parents, we suddenly found ourselves having to teach and lead our children with their distance learning efforts. And all this happened overnight. Not only do many of us lack the skills or the training to help educate our children on a variety of subjects, some of which can get pretty complex, but. But there's also the factor of time or lack of time. We've had to do this in the middle of tight client deadlines, perhaps even having to market our business more aggressively than ever before. And the bottom line is that for many parents, this has been a very stressful few months and no one knows what lies ahead. And while it's easy to focus on the negatives of this scenario, there's also a lot of positives.

Right?

Our new schedules and responsibilities have given us. One beautiful example comes from my guest for today's episode, Matt Brennan. So Matt is a busy working copywriter who found himself working with his seven year old son four days a week when school was canceled in March. Matt's wife is a nurse who works long hours, so the majority of the childcare and homeschooling responsibilities fell on Matt. What I love about Matt's story is how he chose to view his challenging situation as a real blessing rather than a burden. And how he chose to use his time to write a book for his son to make sense of this current reality. The book is titled the Virus in US A Letter from Father to Son in the Midst of the Pandemic. It's a letter meant to provide historical context and personal assessment of how the situation impacted his family. It also discusses what it's like living in a pandemic with an autoimmune condition, which Matt suffers from. So Matt has inspired me to start capturing my own thoughts and feelings about this historic event and how it's impacting our world, my country, my community and my family. And look, whether or not you choose to do something similar, that's not the point. I wanted to provide you with a different perspective here, a positive message in the middle of all the negativity and ugliness in the news and in social media. I hope you enjoy it.

Matt, welcome to the show, man. It's great to have you here on board. Talk about this.

Awesome. Thanks for having me, Ed.

Absolutely. Hey, you know, before we get into the meat of the episode, I always ask my guests to just introduce themselves. Tell us a little bit about your business, the kind of work you do, the types of clients you work with. I think it's always important to have a little bit of context. Even though we're really not going to get too much into your copywriting business itself, I think it's important for people to understand where you're coming from and what you kind of do on a day to day basis.

Yeah. Again, it's Matt brennan. I'm@Matthewbrennincopywriter.com I am a freelance copywriter and I work with small and medium sized businesses specializing in website content and blogging and other marketing content.

Okay, very cool. And I mean clients. Do you focus on clients nationally? Do you kind of focus on a certain region? Any particular industry or target markets that you're really strong in?

I'm a bit of a generalist. I really enjoy working with technology companies, but I've got a lot of experience. I've been at this over 10 years and I've got a lot of experience in a lot of different industries. So yeah, I don't tend to narrow it geographically either. I've worked with companies all over the country and internationally as well.

Very cool, very cool. And I'm assuming is your business typically full time? I mean, you do this, this is like your main thing, right?

Yeah, typically full time. I've managed to keep a full time workload through most of this too.

And we're going to talk about that for sure. I think it's important just for people to know, hey, this is not like before this. It wasn't a one day a week kind of thing. Okay, cool. So you are in a situation that many of us as parents are facing right now. You're working from home, you're trying to run your business, but you're also trying to monitor your child's schoolwork. So tell us A little bit about how many kids do you have and let's go down that path of what you do, how you're doing this and then we can dive a little bit deeper into some of those aspects.

Yeah. So I guess to start with, I have a 7 year old son and his name is Jamie. He's in first grade and we've recently found ourselves working together. I'm doing my copywriting work, he's doing his first grade distance learning now. And it's been a bit of a struggle, it's been stressful at times, but it's also an opportunity. I knew as his dad that I'd always be there as a resource for him. But because of the way the world currently works, you know, parents of all types are playing a more formative part in their kids education and you know, this situation that we all find ourselves in, it's bigger than us. And there are some blessings in that. Like I say, hard at times, but it's a wonderful opportunity to just play that more formative role.

Gotcha. So yeah, he's old enough to be a little bit more mature than let's say a four year old, but not old enough where he's completely self directed. Like I got a 17 year old so in a way has some unique challenges. Tell us about what kind of rhythm have you guys gotten into? And I'm curious, are you doing 100% of the, let's call it homeschooling? Even though you technically just facilitating. But what role do you play versus your wife and so forth?

Well, yeah, first off my wife is a nurse, so she is an essential employee in all this. She works usually about four days a week, 10 hour shifts and I'm at home with my son for, you know, through the rest of that. So yeah, like I say, about four days a week. And usually what happens is I'll start work at about 6:30 and he'll come out of his room at 7:30. So right there that hour has become just a crucial part of my day.

Yeah.

And it's kind of a sprint to get whatever I can productive done in that hour. I mean like no social media, no messing around, no distraction, just get down and work. And then like when he comes out for breakfast or when he's working on some of his school work right next to me, that's a time where maybe I'll go into like emailing clients or invoicing or something that's a little less, you know, involved so that I don't have to focus completely. But it's just kind of striking that balance between, you know, finding that time where I can, you know, dive into the finer detail and when I need to kind of scale back and you know, have a broader focus with him too.

So what kind of schedule? I mean you don't have to give me hour by hour, but what kind of flow have you found? Seems to be working. So you get that, you know, first power hour. I'm assuming that you plan that so you don't waste time thinking, okay, what am I going to do during that hour? You already know where to start. Right. So you can get going right away. Breakfast and then what happens from there?

Typically, usually he'll kind of settle into his homework a little bit. And I mean I'm lucky enough that he's a very curious, a very self directed 7 year old. So you know, know he can, you know, just kind of go into the homework and occupy himself for a while. So I can get back into the workflow a little bit in that window. But there is this hey dad, hey dad, hey dad element to it where you know, you just got to be ready and be a little bit patient for that kind of thing. But then like in the afternoon he's usually wound down on the schoolwork aspect of things and he'll go to his room and read for a little bit. He might do a little bit of tablet time, that kind of thing and he's usually pretty self occupied in those windows.

Okay, okay, so that's not bad. Yeah, sounds like you said he's pretty self directed.

So I'm curious, what have you found.

Is a solution for you specifically in terms of you have this fixed amount of work capacity before this. Right. And now that's been squeezed significantly. So assuming that the work is kind of stayed about the same or even if it's gone down a little bit, I'm assuming that you're having to get creative in terms of when and where to get the work done. Right. So how are you making up for some of this so you can be available for your son but then, you know, be able to deliver on client work?

Yeah, I mean, I'm fortunate enough that you know, I've had some great clients through all this and you know, I've had a few leads that have still kind of trickled in over the last couple months. But you know, what I would say is, I mean if you can think back to like that high school or college window where they tell you like the athletes and like those who are the most involved, those who have the part time Jobs that those are the people who kind of have the best grades and are the most successful. And at the time, you know, I didn't think much of that statement. But, you know, this situation kind of reminds me of that, where you have to really micromanage your schedule and, you know, account for every spare minute of the day. And when you can fit productive work into, you know, smaller windows, you do better. So, you know, like I said, it's finding that uninterrupted hour, you know, wherever it might be. And then, you know, as I mentioned, I do typically have about one day a week where I can get down to my office and kind of seclude myself and get some of that deeper work done. So that's been helpful. I've worked the occasional Saturday. It helps that we're not dealing with youth sports right now to be able to work those Saturday mornings, but it's just finding whatever window you can. Yeah.

So I think the saying I've always heard is, if you want something done, give it to a busy person. Right? Because like you said, the busy people are the ones who know how to get things done because they don't have the luxury of all that time that the rest of us have. You know, I've always said that constraints are a beautiful thing, because when you have constraints, they force you to get creative, resourceful, and you have a real need there that needs to be met. And it sounds like you've risen to the occasion. It's like, look, man, I don't have the luxury of all this time that I used to have, so I'm going to make it work. So that's great. I want to shift gears a little bit here because I wanted to kind of get an idea of where you are and how you've been able to adjust. But the part that I'm really interested about what you've done is really this book that you've written. So I was hoping you can tell us a little bit about what the book is, about what the motivation behind it was, and maybe share some of the insights that you have in there, because I'm really, really intrigued by this idea.

Yeah, sure. So I guess it all started when all this hit. I needed to process this somehow, and there was so much that I wanted to tell Jamie, my son, that I didn't really know how, you know, So I sat down and I just wrote this letter. And, you know, it is a letter for him, but it's a letter for him to read at a later date. And I'm hoping that at some point, we'll get out of this. You know, we'll have the luxury of being able to look back at this time period and be able to, you know, kind of analyze it from that perspective. And when we get there, you know, I have this asset that I can hand him and say, here, here. This is what I was thinking. You know, so it's got a little bit of a historical context, it's got some societal context in there, but it's also what our family has been going through and how we've dealt with this personally and kind of what my thought process has been as I've shared a kitchen table with him for all these mornings. So that's. That's deep. Yeah. Yeah. I'm hoping it'll help.

So tell me a little bit about how vulnerable were you in explaining this and maybe also tell us as you were writing it, how old did you envision he'd be when he would read this and be able to understand not just the context, but why you were expressing yourself the way you were?

I mean, I think that, like, you know, by the time he gets into high school or, you know, something like that, you know, that he'll be able to ask more intelligent questions about this time period and be able to have that capacity to wonder what it was like for those around him. And when he starts, I don't know how old he's going to be, but whenever he starts asking those kinds of questions, I think it's kind of viable to hand him the letter and see what he says from there. But, yeah, that's kind of what I imagine for it.

Would you be comfortable sharing maybe two or three insights that you communicated in the book, especially anything that you felt maybe it was surprising that just kind of surfaced as you started writing. Anything you feel is really, really important that your son, when he reads us, understands. I'm just curious what some of these lessons and insights are.

Well, the first thing that comes to mind is for a lot of families, this stay at home aspect of things or the quarantine aspect of things might bring the whole family together. But in our house, on most days, there's Mom's not there, and I want to instill in him a healthy respect and admiration for what she does as a nurse. Now she's not on the front line. She's not dealing with COVID patients directly. But, you know, the work that she does is still vitally important, especially at a time like, you know, like now. Sure.

I mean, she's out there in the public, so I Think right away is, you know, it's. You're putting yourself at risk.

Yeah. And, you know, I. So I want him to have that healthy respect and admiration and to know that what she's doing is truly noble. Yeah. So that's something. But, you know, on my side, I did kind of open up about a couple things with me directly. You know, I'm a copywriter, but I also, like, you know, within the last two years or so, I was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis. And, yeah, I talk a little bit in there about this because when I was diagnosed, I was at an unhealthier stage in my life. And, you know, my diet and, you know, just my daily habits were not very conducive to managing this disease. And, you know, so I talk about, you know, some of the changes that I made since that diagnosis and how those things have helped me, especially in light of, you know, the pandemic and all the health concerns that everyone has today. So there's that, and, you know, just managing some of my anxiety. You know, I've always been someone that had a little bit of anxiety, and, you know, just how I've worked to keep that in check. And I kind of talk about these things a little bit in the book just to give a wider context for him as to why every day looks like it does.

Anything in particular to your relationship with him and how that's grown and working with him with schoolwork, something that you probably didn't expect you'd be doing, and some of the things you've learned, some of the things that you're grateful for during this time together.

Yeah, I mean, I just really grown to enjoy spending this much time with him. And the house is going to be very quiet when things go back, but it's been great. And I've gotten the opportunity to, you know, to take a few breaks that I otherwise wouldn't take. And, you know, for example, every afternoon before we do lunch, we have a Nerf gun fight.

I love that.

Yeah. It's just nothing I would have ever been able to do before. And it just lightens the day that way. And it's just been great. And we've taken walks. We've had just random conversations where he's asking questions that I've been able to talk with him about, and I just really love that. I love the time together, and it's been really helpful.

That's really cool. When did you realize, hey, you know what? This is something that's beyond a letter, and I need to put A book together here. And I want something that I can hand to him because there is a legacy there that I want to leave behind. How did that click? When did that click?

I think that a lot of the things that I wanted to say were universal. That again, the whole we're all in this together aspect of things. There's a lot of working parents out there. There's a lot of parents who might find themselves working from home for the first time, or maybe they're just a little overwhelmed with their new office mate. Whatever the situation may be, I'm talking to him first and foremost, but I think it's something that everybody can benefit from.

What would you say for someone listening.

Who is thinking, I want to do something similar? I don't know if it would be a book or if it really will be a letter or just a few pages of my thoughts or maybe a journal. Someone who's inspired to do something similar, but they're worried. They're worried that, you know, maybe they don't have what it takes or they don't have the time, or they're not really sure what to say, what to write. What would you tell them?

I would say just. I mean, I know it sounds kind of corny, but just sit down and write and see what comes out. Don't put a lot of pressure on yourself. Don't put a lot of weight on it. But, you know, think about those things that, you know, as they pop into your head that you'd want to say. What's the message that you want your kids to get out of this time period? You know, because for us, there's a lot of stress. For us, you know, it's easy to look at how overwhelming this can be, but your kids may not see it that way. And I think the idea behind, you know, a project like this or anything that, you know, kind of helps build that legacy is, you know, just to think of it from your kids perspective. What do you want them to take from this situation? How do you want them to think about it, you know, years from now and just do what you can to answer those questions?

Yeah, I know, I know. For me, you know, sometimes having two or three prompts in the format of.

A question can really help.

And I'm with you. I just start just writing. I've had no choice in my career but to write, even when I'm not inspired. Yeah, and it's funny. That's right. You have no choice. You got deadlines and, you know, which is great. I hear about all these people with writer's blog. Like, I don't know what you're talking about, but I, you know, sometimes just kind of, I like stream of consciousness writing, you know, just, hey, this is what's on my mind right now. And not being judgmental about, well, is this something that I want my kids to see or is this something I would want published? Because the moment you tell yourself that you put those constraints on you and your writing, it's not going to come out. So I don't care about editing right now. I just care about just pouring my thoughts out on paper and then later I can kind of piece things together. At least that's what's worked for me. So honestly, you know, Matt, you have inspired me to do something similar because it's interesting how most of our lives we've read about history, right? And I really believe that we are living history right now. I mean, we're always living history, but this is like what's happening right now this year is historic to the point where they'll be talking about this for decades. It's a special moment in that you have an opportunity to put these ideas together and make sure that they live for a long, long time. And I think we just get caught up in the day to day. I know I do day to day busyness and before, you know, it's like the end of the day, you're exhausted. I'm already seeing the opportunity slipping in a way. And what you shared today is a reminder that I shouldn't do that. Not because shoulds, it's just because I don't want to do that. So thank you. So tell us the title of the book and where people can learn more about it. They want to check it out.

Yeah. The book is called the Virus and Us and, and there's a page about it. It's available on Amazon. There's a page with a little more background on the book and the project on my website, matthewbrennoncopywriter.com and I'm on LinkedIn as well and Facebook as well.

I love the subtitle too. A Letter from Father to Son in the Midst of the Pandemic. That just says it all. So people can just go to your main, your homepage and they can find the page about the book there.

Yeah, I think it's just backslash virus on us, but okay, well, I mean.

We'Ll include that link in the show notes. That's why I was asking.

Yeah, okay, great.

Listen, Matt, thank you very much. I appreciate you sharing your story with us. It's been wonderful. I really enjoyed our conversation.

Thanks so much for having me on.

The High Income Business Writing Podcast is a production of B2B business launcher. Learn more at B2B launcher dot com.