Your Message & Saving Death Row Prisoner | Ep 123 | Tracy Lamourie

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Hello Tracey, thank you very much for joining me. So we were just talking before this about the COVID world that we're living in as well. But how are you personally? How is work going? How is all of that stuff and trying to inspire people from, from, from your own home? How's that going?

I can't complain about the work stuff at all. I actually ended up using Covid so well that the last three months, I'm almost embarrassed to say, have been like my best business months ever. And part of that I think is ramping up intern my own brand as opposed to just my clients brand international podcasts. I'm doing like this speaking to people around the world and continuing to network and market and you're not even markets which is networking and you're doing media which is resulting in, you know, the same results as marketing would right here from my, you know, my basement. So none of us. Part of what I talk about is how none, you know, as much of a drag as this all is, none of us are really limited by it and there are actually a whole bunch of new opportunities and if we use them well now will come out well on the other side, maybe even ahead of the game.

So I think that's a great point is a lot of people as, as awful as the environment we're in and the situation is that people will also use this as an excuse not to push themselves, not to encourage themselves, not to find new opportunities. And with all my clients, I'm trying to get them to think about this time, rather than going, oh, let's see, what happens when it ends is that actually everyone's going to be anxious and stressed when it ends because they're going to go, oh, hang on, what do I do now? How do I, how do I revert back to this way of life? And I want all of my clients go jump ahead of that queue or jump ahead of that line in whatever area and go, this is right, you're all sort of working out what to do. I know what to do. So I couldn't agree with you.

And one perfect example of that is even just the podcast. As a media girl, originally I was thinking a podcast guesting as an alternative additional thing to media and another media spot, which it obviously is. But what I've learned, like I said, and I wasn't thinking at all about the marketing, is it's a. It's huge for networking and huge for marketing. Literally four and as of today, I think five podcasters out of the 50 or 60 that I've been on a show have approached me to hire me. And that wasn't even something I was looking for, but because, you know, especially for B2B services, right, we're all building our brands and when we hear about things, it's like, oh, gee, that would work. So because of that, what I started to think now, and I'll never stop doing the PR because I love doing the work in the serotonin rush of getting those media hits I got you in the Reader's Digest or whatever. It's fun. But I've noticed too, I've opened up a giant opportunity for myself that I wasn't even thinking about. Because now on the other end of COVID I'll be able to say by then I'll have done literally 164 podcasts that I got booked between last October and this April, speaking to entrepreneurs and executives. So nobody on any of the planet would be able to say that I'm not an amazing speaker to be put on any platform. So part of what I'll be doing is segueing into speaking more about PR and explaining to entrepreneurs why they need it and looking for speaking engagements. So I've literally developed a whole new part of my business that I didn't even expect to just by sitting here talking to podcasters like you, thinking, oh, Geez, now I can, you know, turn that around. So yeah, that's what I'm telling my clients. Same thing, time to use. Absolutely. Because I mean, I work with everybody from celebrities to entrepreneurs. So I know it when I say everybody right now is in the same position, no matter, you know, they're all sitting in front of the computer, no matter how well named, known their name is wondering what's next and how do I know, navigate. So basically, I mean, I can tell because I work with celebrities, that everybody, from the celebrity to the solo entrepreneur is doing the exact same thing we're doing right now. Sitting in front of a screen, you know, the screen and wondering how to navigate this new world. And that is. So in some ways it's leveled the playing field. So obviously there's still people with privilege and those without. But everybody right now is sitting in front of the computer trying to figure out how to navigate this world. What can I do? What's going to happen? So what that means is a, you have a lot more opportunities, like I said, they're out there. And B, to network with those people. If you have an idea, reach out to somebody, don't even be intimidated who they are. Think about it. This is a whole new world and nobody knows where they're going to be in the space now to come out of that. So get your thinking cap on and figure out how to position yourself and then you'll be in a good place.

Absolutely, absolutely. And so for, for those listening who might not know who you are, Tracey, could you tell us more about, about your story and about your journey and how you've got to this place full of energy.

So yeah, the story of how I arrived here is a long one, but essentially where I am now is my international award winning publicist working across industries. And what that means is my, my job is essentially to, I thought of this on a podcast, is to elevate what other people are doing. So basically I shine a light on the amazing things creatives are doing, filmmakers, musicians, artists, all those people that you normally think of when you think of a publicist. But the other side of my business, and a very huge part of my business is solopreneurs, entrepreneurs, small business, medium business, and getting them media attention, getting them on stages, getting them in award, just getting them in the public eye in different ways. And when I talk about who my client lists are, people are surprised because everyone knows, you know, celebrities, sure. But when I say it's also, you know, small business owners like luxury real estate agent and health care Providers and somebody who, you know, invented a hair care product and, you know, all that stuff. So really is anybody, no matter what you're an expert in, there are media opportunities for you. And the super fun part of my job is showing people that actually real. They hire me, they've never done any media. And then all of a sudden a week later they've got, you know, profiles of them and articles and Readers Digest quotes and they're like, what? Because it's not magic. There's a. The whole world of media is something that people just don't know how to navigate, but there are ways in. And that's what I teach people and how people do.

And so what made you want to elevate other people's, you know, other people's messages or other people's worth and obviously an extremely noble thing to do. But what made you go, yeah, that's absolutely what I want to do in life?

Well, it started, I never want, I never thought of being a publicist when I was young. I wanted to be a journalist or a writer. And then that just went along the wayside, as most childhood dreams do. And I was kind of in a early sale, just entry level sales and whatever, telemarketing and most jobs in my early 20s and certainly PR and you know, VIP parties and all those things were not on the radar because I didn't have that kind of education, I didn't grow up in that world. But I was an activist and an advocate. And that's actually what brought me to that in a really crazy, roundabout way, which is I found out in my 20s, myself and my husband, Dave Parkinson, we had a radio show, ciut FM Radio in Toronto. And that was kind of an activist show where we brought up issues of anti racism and things people would call social justice. I'm happy to be a social justice warrior, kids. I still don't know how that's an insult. But anyway, so we had a radio show where we talked about all those issues. And when that radio show was no more, we were just doing our regular sales jobs. The Internet came along. So that gave us a platform to talk about things that we cared about. So we were just making a little page in the early days of the Internet, when it was easy to do that, just to share some links about things that disturbed us or things that we thought needed attention. And somehow we fell upon the case of Jimmy Dennis, who was a factually innocent man still on death row in Pennsylvania. He'd been convicted in 1992 of a case that we now Know, the whole world now knows he had absolutely nothing to do with. Absolutely not even connected, didn't know the people. But at that time, he was convicted of. He was convicted and he was on death row. And we found out about this case, and we didn't any knowledge about the death penalty, any thought about working in that kind of world or anything in advocacy. But something called us to write him and say, well, how innocent can this guy be? Send us your information. He did. He sent us 18 pages, small letters written on both sides, documented all kinds of whatever court information he had in his cell. Later we were able to go into the courts and thanks to Jim and Tonya Snead, who paid for, you know, tons of boxes of evidence, which is frightening because, I mean, if you just sit on the cell, this is. You can't get help unless somebody's willing to go and pay thousands of dollars for your files. So Jimmy was lucky that he managed to get a small group of us that did. And ultimately that was the introduction to the death penalty for us. And it was terrifying and horrifying that a factually innocent man, so clearly innocent, could. Could still be going through the steps. And it ultimately took 20 years, 25 years before he was released in 2017. We got involved in 1998. So obviously that was a long, long journey. And that's where I learned to write my first press release. So it wasn't a job, anything to do with the business or thinking about being a publicist. It was, how do we get information out about this website we made and about this guy. So I literally went to the altavista, which is the precursor to Google, and I literally learned how to write a press release there for immediate release, paragraphs, contact. And I found it two years ago, my first press release. And I was like, that was a good press release, right? And we ended up getting attention, not stateside, because it's very hard at that in those days to get attention for somebody who was still convicted. There was before all the days of all the wrongful conviction podcasts and all those things. So if someone was there, that's it. They were done. It was very hard. They were out. But internationally we got some attention and we managed to get, you know, everything from Der Spiegel to whatever, Turkey and, you know, Netherlands and Australia, and ultimately a little team came together and we stuck together for years and years. And like Jimmy, Dennis would obviously never, never give up. And I give him credit as our project manager, really, from that sell in death row, because he kept us all inspired and, you know, and about two years before he was released, this is where it comes back into a business story. I suddenly had a light bulb moment. Huh? Like, it was literally like if you could light a light bulb in a cartoon above my head, I suddenly realized, wait a minute. Because we had of doing all this messaging, not just for Jimmy Dennis, but then we formed a group called the Canadian Coalition Death Penalty because we were so disturbed what we learned about the US justice system through the Jimmy Dennis case. And then that though it wasn't easy to get attention for Jimmy Dennis, our organization, the Canadian Coalition, it's the death penalty, got a whole lot of attention because we did the radical thing in those days of imprisoners had no access to the Internet, so they never looked at the Internet. But we did the radical thing of taking the information they would give us to put it on the Internet for people to see it unfiltered, not on the true crime show, not through the prosecutor's eyes. And that was. The world freaked out. It was major news for years stateside, all over Europe. And so that's where we learned to be on the hot seat to deal with the media. We were never crushed. We were always respected because we always were able to speak well, anyway, that's the hot seat. When I learned it wasn't just with the innocent guy on death row, but we started to do work on the American death penalty. So it was a very. You had to be like this. You had to know your stuff, you had to be ready to be confronted by media, yada, and you had to be good at communications. So in 2015, it actually hit me, wait a minute. As I was making telemarketing calls, that I didn't want to do this again anymore. I didn't want to make. Literally at that next hour, I didn't want to make 25 more calls for something I didn't care about anymore. And it hit me like a brick. I was like, wait a minute. These are all that stuff I've been doing. Those are actually, like, skills I can monetize. Not the death penalty stuff. I would never. But the writing the press releases and dealing with media. And from that moment, I literally went, you know, started doing freelance work. About a year after that, I was brave enough to go say, well, I guess from a business and start as a general partnership. And that was five years ago. And this year, in the middle of COVID I'm proud to say we scaled the heck up and we incorporated. So now we're a corporation. And that's a whole other thing. And I hope creator this next year and, you know, get other people jobs. I don't care if they've been in PR because I didn't get trained for it. I'll train them. I just want the personality and the people that would be good at this.

I mean, that's fantastic. I mean, what an education as well. And I've just written down, you know, a load of different things that I want to ask you, especially about your business. But. But I can't help not ask about that particular case, because such a monumental case, obviously, one that had a profound effect on you. And so just just one or two questions on that is absolutely.

We still talk every day. Jimmy Dennis is still a major part. He's our family. We still call him our brother. He calls every day and says, how's my niece and nephew so happy. And I say, I tell him every day that I still talk about them on these podcasts, and we laugh about how, you know, their business podcast. And I end up turning them into, like, human rights to the death penalty. And. And then I call them up and I say, we just had another episode of, you know, the Jimmy Dennis Business show. So we love that.

All right.

Okay.

So, I mean, to be in that situation, in that position, it sounded great because it sounded like he gave you all that kind of. He had a level of spirit and encouragement that allowed you to persevere as well. As well as your own to do so. I wanted to ask about from your side and from his side, what you feel like you both, and obviously your team of people as well, had internally that allowed you to stick around with that, because a lot of people can't stick around for that long for something like that. What do you think he had? What do you think you have that allows you to do so?

Yeah, that's where I said that project manager thing, because I started to think about that recently in those terms. You know, before that, it was we were just going along, you know, as you go along, we're gonna do it. We're gonna do it. But then recently, you know, when I'm telling this story, I look back with, that's the 20. Just thinking about it as a campaign. You know, we weren't thinking about it as a campaign in those days. We were thinking about we're saving our friend's life. Right. But thinking about it as a campaign. Yeah, 20 year. Like, how do you maintain that group? People? We had eight or nine people that for, like, a good decade, they weren't all there. At the beginning, they weren't all there. Yeah. But for a good decade, there was a strong, you know, people that was a major part of their life. And he and Jimmy Dennis was a stranger to all of us. So, like, there was that wanting justice, but also what else? Right. So I really credit him with that. With, you know, he. He did so much work from that jail cell. You know, he had to write. Like, imagine that, you know, when you understand that kind of trauma. And, you know, and that's what's amazing to me. And he had. Every day he would get up, right? You know, just communicate with all of us and like, this is what. Talk to my mom. And I don't mean he would. Like, we were campaigning, but I mean, really, he has to be the strength center of that because it'd be so easy for everybody to be like, I've got 15 other things in my life right now that's calling my attention. You know, I gotta do this, I gotta do that. I gotta pay the bills, which all is true. And then all we had with this person was a stranger was letters. And then, you know, once a week, phone call. So that's a miss. You know, I don't know. I still say, like, I mean, I'm not a religious person, but from about. Whatever that is, if there's any spirituality in the world, that's what makes me believe in it a bit. Because, like, why. Why do we even find that letter? Why did. Or that call out that he had that little thing, I'm innocent on death row? What. What made us right to death row in the first place? Right. That's the question.

Absolutely.

That's so, like, because it was actually not just sending an email. We. It was the old, you know, we had to actually write a letter, put it in an envelope, go buy a stamp, and then go and mail it to death row. And we don't know that person. But I'm so grateful that we did. But so sometimes you, you know, the universe, I don't know. Yeah.

Well, to quantify that thing, that force that allows us or create a. A pathway or a particular road or journey that you couldn't really expect, but whatever it is, it's obviously led you to great things. And so I want to. Want to get into a little bit about your. About your business, but you mentioned about writing and you said about, you know, training people and PR and things like that. And it's something I have an interest in. When it comes to people's messages or messaging, what do you think is the most Important part of it, because a lot of people, I think, put a lot of emphasis in terms of how sharp and how polished it is. And I don't know about you, but I feel like messaging, maybe in the last decade, possibly because you've got so many different mediums now on social media and etc. Is it's more about honesty and being able to communicate who you are personally and actually empathy and things like that. More so than this really sharp, polished piece. Now, obviously it's different in every medium, but I just wanted to ask your expert opinion. When you are conveying your message, what is the most important part?

I absolutely agree with you. In genuine authenticity, in genuineness and in messaging and also just in your own. In your own messaging, in business, in terms of who you are and how you present yourself. Especially these days, as you said, with a million forums and all that, if you're not authentic, if you're trying to be what you think someone should be, you're gonna, you know, you're gonna be found out. You're not going to be. You just won't resonate. You know, there's too many forms. You're gonna mess up. You're gonna not sound authentic. So just be authentic. Don't be afraid to be your authentic self. I mean, I'm very successful in business. And if anybody had advised me, you, when I'm starting my business and I say I want to work across industries, I want to work internationally, I want to work, they probably would have said, number one thing you got to do is get rid of that bright red hair girl. That's just not going to be taken there. You can't walk into boardroom. You can't. You know what? Forget that. That's my now. Now it's my brand. I joked the other day I posted, my mom would really. I'm 51 and, you know, I've had my hair like this 20. And I said on Facebook the other day, my mom would really love me to just go back to go to my gray. She would just love me to stop dyeing my hair bright red. And people are like, but that's your branding turned into, like a positive. And everybody in the world would have said that was a negative. And also everybody in the world you're going to start. If you're saying, I think obviously it was not in my head that I was ever going to start a PR company. When I was doing that death row stuff, I didn't even, you know, that was 10 years later than I had that revelation. But if you if again, if you were going to advise somebody how to start a PR company where you're going to be mess giving doing other people's messaging and you would not necessarily advise them to start by building a giant international public profile personally on a controversial issue.

Yeah. Right.

So I've done all these things and nothing ever stopped, you know, that you would be advised not to do. And in fact they not only never stopped me, but they've been positives. So I'm sure there are people who googled me who are maybe considering hiring me but hadn't contact. There's never one been a person who said I'm not going to hire you because of this or that. I'm sure there are people who, who maybe decided that before they contacted me, maybe they looked me up and saw that death penalty stuff and were like, oh, oh no, I want to kill them all and let God sort him out. I'm not having that death penalty, I'm not having that girl do it. But I never. And that's fine. The people, and I don't want to, they wouldn't resonate with me in other ways. Right. So the people that I do hear from are the ones who either that doesn't matter and they don't think about it or the ones who they look at that. And I've had this in my early days when, because now when you google my name, all this, you know, successful PR stuff comes up. But 10 years ago when you googled my name, all this anti death penalty stuff came up. And the first time that ever came up in a conversation when someone said to me, oh, and I had. Because I had a big presence, you couldn't google my name and not find that. Right. It was there. And the first time anybody did google my name had a separate second call and they said, oh yeah, so I googled you and I thought this is there, I'm gone, you're not getting this. And they said, looks like you're a real go getter. And I was like, you're right. Like, so what they stop from that is like clearly you know how to get your messaging. It doesn't matter what you know, like yeah, you're. And so. And they were right. And that's what I done again. So in the end, you know. Really? Yeah. I mean, I guess in some ways you have to follow these business things, but really if you have confidence in yourself and you are really good at what you do and you can find avenues to do it, you get to the point where now you know that those same people that wouldn't have hired me, now when I come into a room, they're like begging me to speak and go and you know, be on there, you know what I mean? Go and speak on their, on their panels about how, how to get media attention. Whereas before, you know, they wouldn't have hired me because I got the red hair in the boardroom.

So yeah, I mean, when I was doing my research, it's, you know, it's, it's the thing that, those two things that you mentioned, they are the things that help you stand out obviously and you know, in amongst where you just get a, of sense sea of content, you know, people, people are drowning information but they're really looking for insight. And so it takes something different to find someone who provides genuine insight and actually can help make you progress in a certain area. So to go back to that authenticity point, you work with celebrities, have you had to speak to them and say this isn't you, like what they were already doing, this isn't you, this isn't, I can tell this isn't you. Or we need to show, you know, you've got this great background, a great story or great thing you're doing right now. You, but you don't know how to communicate. Obviously that's why they want to work with you. But do you have to have those conversations saying what you're currently doing isn't you as a person? And what's that like, having that conversation?

Yeah, sometimes. Yeah, exactly. Not only just with celebrities, but just because people have a perception, individual, like high level executives too, because again, people have a perception of what that person is supposed to be like with this poster and you know, it's like, no, again come back to you. There is no, there is no support supposed to, especially now, like you said, just be, literally be yourself. And then I joke with you. Unless, unless yourself is like a horrible, racist, terrible person. Then you need to do some, you know, and you need to do some work on yourself and then we're confident that you'll come back to social media. We can all be happy. I had to put that aside. Some people, I've seen them be themselves this year and it's not pleasant and it doesn't make people want to work with them. But you know, aside from behavior that we all agree as reasonable people, you know, is not acceptable. Be yourself.

Absolutely.

So different opinions is one thing, but you know, respect. As long, I think it comes down to, as long as you respect other people, then you can have a conversation and if you, you know, all of the people. If you don't respect all other people, then some of the things you're saying, we're going to see that in, you know, But I mean, opinion is one thing. As long as your opinion can be attached to respecting all other humans, then your opinion can discussed and we can have a differing opinion. If your opinion is that, you know, some humans don't deserve to be respected, then obviously that's not an opinion. You know, there's no way we could get past that one. Right.

So on that particular point, do you have or have you had clients where that sort of point you just made, then where for their own good, there's certain parts that can't be emphasized, can't be communicated because actually they are flaws, they are problems, they are issues, they still have value in a different way. And we can present that, but they actually have those types of flaws or opinions or whatever it might be that we go, actually, we need to find a way to cut. Ideally, change those ideally. But otherwise.

I would agree with that. Right. I think that would be the norm. But me personally, I wouldn't take that client.

Yeah.

Advocate first. And every single person that I take, I either love what they're doing or I really. Or, you know, like, here's something amazing in the world which would. They wouldn't be like that if they were doing. Or it's, you know, I really resonate with that person and I just want to see them successful with the little job they're doing or whatever. So I have had some situations where I wasn't aware that somebody had that kind of a thinking pattern. And that came up this year twice. Once where they. I think they just. I don't know. I think it came when they didn't realize that. And the other one that I think they became, they started thinking that way in the light of all this QAnon and whatever else stuff was going on. Thankfully, in both instances, in one instance, it was a past client who occasionally comes back, you know, to hire me again. And I was. And I made that no longer a possibility. I literally blocked it on everything. And we would. We didn't have anything current, so it didn't matter. And the other one was about two weeks from the end of a contract, a musician who all of a sudden got these crazy ideas in her head about the QAnon and stuff, which started to lead to all this other stuff that she didn't say anything outright racist. But I was like, weird, this is, you know, problematic. And I literally tried to talk to her as a friend and whatever, try to show her like, you know, not even just because I'm working with you, because this is not stuff you should be putting on your messaging. It's not helpful to you. You've built a 10 year career. A lot of people like you. I look at that now and I'm going to be like, who's this whack job? And I would be sharing it and telling people to say, you know, so I'm like, you need to stop doing that. Right. And it was just 100% the other way. No, no, no, you just, just dig the heels in and whatever. And so I was just did not allow them to renew the contract. So I feel like I'm lucky that that didn't happen when we were in the middle of a contract. And I would, you know, because I would have an ethical issue. I would probably just refund their money.

Yeah, that's great. That, that's great. That's great to hear. And, and it's nice that you can, I guess, have that kind of relationship where to be at least in this kind of area or niche in their life, to be a mentor to them as well. It's nice. It sounds like you have that personal relationship with them that means a lot to people. So when I talk to people about self belief or confidence, I tell a story of when I was younger. I had a coach, football coach, who said, David, you really need to believe in yourself more. And I, they turned and walked away and I said, how? And they said, well, what do you mean? I said, well, you told me I need to believe myself. How do I do that? And they were just completely blank. And it's the sort of question where if you ask anyone that, they don't have an answer. So to go back to the point in terms of being yourself might be a hard question, might not even be one you think of in these terms. But when you tell people to be more like themselves or be authentic, how do you actually get people to do that? Because a lot of people don't even really know who they are. So how do you get people to.

Steer towards that point? Don't know who they are. Yeah, that's an interesting point there. How do you. That's true. Because then when you say to them just be just, you know, and they're like, I'm so busy trying to pretend to be who I am, you know, I'm not actually sure what that is, but I would say it comes down to just stop second guessing yourself. Stop. You know, you Know when you. And you know, and honestly when you. Because it comes down to the two. When I often really accomplished people will send me their details of their bio. Not an actual bio, but just a point for me to put together in a bio. I talk about this a lot and then I'll put it together in like, you know, like nothing. I haven't made anything up. I'm just putting it together the way you would in like a magazine profile. And they honestly, this has happened four or five times. Almost exact same words, specifically women, where they'll say to me, oh my God, you made me sound so good. And I'm like, that's literally. I didn't even research. I didn't go and look up any information. This is literally everything that you gave me. You are that good. I literally just put it in paragraph using some compelling words, you know, but that shows me that right there that the answer that sounds like it's not the answer to your question, but it is because they don't realize that they are already accomplished. They are already. So really it's just be yourself because just stop worrying about what other people are thinking. I know that's not easy to do either. But I mean if you can train yourself to start thinking that's who yourself is. The you that you are when nobody else in the room. Right. When you're like not trying to, you know what do you know what I mean? Like, so the interest that you have, things that you look up, the things you care about, you know that when you're not trying to impress other people, that's you and that. And you know, and there's nothing wrong with you.

Yeah.

Unless you have those racist issues where you need to check your. But you know, ultimately even if you have those issues, you just need to check yourself and realize those are fear based and ignorance based. And I don't mean that in a rude way. I mean. Yeah. You know, or it's fear based or you're working on information that somebody's given you that is not actually true. You know, so people, everybody thinks they're right and nobody thinks they're a bad guy.

Yeah.

And so when we realize in conflict too, even when we deal with people that we find super hateful, that as an activist I'm like, man, I don't even want that in my table. I have to check myself to realize a person was not born that way. There's some information going on. There's some something going on here because everybody believes they're a good person. So in order to behave that way, there's something that we need to address, you know what I mean? So I always try to think of that way, not think of people as my enemy.

Yeah.

Because I know, especially now times are so obvious, especially talking America lately I've been saying you guys are so polarized right now that you don't even. You're so like, looking like before you even meet somebody, before you even like, ask their name you want, you're already looking for the signs. They might be on the other side. So you can punch them or throw something at them or call them a name.

Yeah.

You know, before you even know a thing about them, they're literally looking for those signs first. So they're like this instead of like that, you know, like further apart instead of closer together to the point where I don't even know how it can be fixed. So it's that same kind of thing. Believe in yourself, be genuine. Don't you know, and believe that other people are not the. Their opponent is not the devil. There's no person. I know this from my death penalty work. I've dealt with people that have, like, murdered people, you know, that you need to be in a cage for whatever. And yet we say in the death penalty work everybody is more than the worst thing they've ever done. And that's a fact. It's not an. It's not a. It's not a airy fairy thing. It's just a fact. Everybody is more, you and I, as well as that killer. None of us would want to be identified only by the war, even if we're not, Even if we haven't done anything that bad. None of us would want to be identified only by that one thing because it wouldn't make us look, you know, however, obviously none of us by that same thing. I also say because I work with celebrities, nobody is as good as their, you know, nobody's as good as their best day either. So the reality, I work with celebrities. I work with people on death row. I've worked with, you know, world leaders or country leaders. And I always say, if I could put 100, if I could put 50 of those people, death row prisoners, musicians, celebrities, politicians, all in a room together and take off their uniforms. I bet you all wouldn't get. You wouldn't have any idea who was who.

Yeah, you're probably right. You're probably right. And so how. How has communication in America changed In the last 10 years, do you think?

How is it going to change?

How has it changed? If you feel it Has. I don't know if you feel like.

It has in so many especially. I mean, I don't know if you mean communication in terms of just people or in terms of my business or business. Yeah, I think in general. Yeah. Because, you know, I was thinking in terms of my business when you first asked it. But it's the same thing in general because the Internet obviously was the giant change. Right. But then Even that was 20 years ago. But in the last 10 years since the Internet, as big a change as the Internet was, I think the Twitterverse was a second as big a change. So when the early days of the Internet, we had the dot coms and we had email. When I started my work, that's what we were doing. We were reaching out by email. There was no Facebook. Yeah, someone mentioned me, lady. I forgot that when I did all the death penalty work, there wasn't a Facebook and there wasn't a Twitter. We had email and we thought that was amazing. But now that I think about it, someone said to me, wow, you did all that work before you could just tweet reporters, before you could just. I said, oh my God, that's right now. So now we have all this communicate, not just in terms of reporters and media, but we have communication tools times 10 from 10 years ago now. And that's changed everything. Obviously something for good, I think. But also Twitter, I don't even like Twitter. I stay on Facebook and Instagram personally, even though Twitter is super important for conversations and there's a lot of politics, there's just so much crap there. And that's where all the angry people are and all the people who don't want to have a conversation feels like that I end up. Personally, I don't even use it as a social. I mean, I'm on it, but I prefer Facebook, where people seem to be more like talky, you know. And on Facebook, you know, you can. Even though you're limited, you only have 5,000 people that you're talking, which is a negative of it at least. When I go to their page, I see their children, their aunt, their dog. There they have a more whole life. Whereas I think on Twitter, it's like I'm the angry person that's just here to yell at you. I've never had that experience, but I just. In general with the Twitter.

Yeah, I agree.

You know, so there are definitely changes in the way we've communicated for good and for bad. I think as a result of all these socials we have, and it's unfortunate, I think that shows a bad side of human nature because we've been given every tool here, and I. I think I've used it in an amazing way. Like, not me in a job, but I mean, me, people. Like, I use it to communicate, not talking about work here. I mean, I've used it before I started my company. I've used reaching out to people, talking to people. I've built this amazing network on Facebook of people that are real friends, all kinds of people from all around the world, and we all have a different window into each other's whatever. And, you know, I think when you have. That's a lot harder to hate people, right? When you can see their aunt and their mother and their whatever and, you know, but we don't look at that. We look at just, what. Who are you? And what are you. What flag are you waving? And, you know, we have not. And I mean, I've been on my. You know, I've been on the other. I've been, you know, the lefty yelling just as much. Right. But now I realize that, no, it's. No, it's not. We can't do that anymore if we're just screaming and yelling at each other.

Yeah.

It's. This is where it's brought us. And we're not having the conversation. We're getting further and further and more and more people who maybe are good, people who maybe aren't, you know, racist or whatever, are getting pulled into those other things, and we're all just mad. And there's no, you know, it's just gone nuts. So people need to, like, stop listen the way we do. One on one. How do we have a conversation one on one? How do we hear each other? We shut up and listen. We listen first. And if we start doing that, then we'll realize every human on the planet, no matter where you live or what you have, you know, what you don't agree on, no matter whatever, we still have 90 of the stuff we have in common. Yeah. So we stop Talking about those 10 of things and we talk about how we love our kids or we traumatized we. All those things that we could be talking about that we would be agreeing on and. And bonding over instead of deciding on, you know, what minute, little things we can find to shoot each other over or not even minute. Some of these things are hugely important, but we can have these conversations and make things right, you know, without looking for enemies under every barrier.

Yeah. And I. And I think TV screws us up because communication on TV shows or any other kind of thing is entertainment and it, therefore it's, it's mostly about conflict. If you watch kind of any reality TV show or whatever it might be, the communication is a form of conflict and I think it confuses people when they think, oh, that's communication and they're.

Up on the pedestal.

So therefore that must be effective communication. And it screws up the day to day kind of dialogue or talking about important issues. So I agree with everything. Yeah, I have also what I wanted to know was I think for the people listening who a lot of people listening to this be entrepreneurs or have their own brands or have their own thing going on. Not to simplify what you do, but if you had a few insights that you could give people to help them amplify their message. Right. Very top line themes in terms of what people could be doing better. I think people listening would really appreciate that. So if you had two or three things.

Yeah. So if you haven't been, the first thing is if you have, it's kind of meat if you have a business or whenever you're used to thinking advertorial. So you need to kind of forget that everything you've learned about advertorial and your product is not what you're doing. You're thinking editorial. So editorial versus advertorial messaging. So editorial is where you have a story, you're presenting content, you know, and if you're going to be reaching out to any media, whether it's a newsroom or podcaster, the number one thing is a make sure you understand their audience and what they're who they're aiming at. Because otherwise it's just ridiculous and you will burn bridges instead of building them. And number two is that pitch, your pitch about you. Every pitch is different, you know, depending on what you're going to be talking about, what you're going to say. But your core pitch, which is your. About you, which is not the same as your bio. It's like a little paragraph, you know, maybe two. But it's the compelling stuff that makes you a guest. It's got some stuff from your bio, but it is, you know, what makes you an expert. And there are a whole bunch of different ways. So that's if you want to reach out to mainstream media. But there's a whole bunch of easier ways that you can do like right now, before you get your head around all that, which is look for things like first understand that you're an expert. Number one, you are an expert. You are just as worthy of speaking on podcasts. And being interviewed about your field as anybody else. And that's the key right there. Because before you, you know, people don't really understand that. They say, well, I'm just. Or whatever. And those people on TV are what? No, the people on award show, the people on TV who are doing your job, they're just the same as you, except for they told the media about it. For some reason, they got in their, you know, they got noticed. So how do you do that? Well, in the podcast world, there's things like Pod Match and Matchmaker FM and a whole bunch of services that will connect you with podcasters. So once you have that little pitch, you can reach out to podcasts. And that might be, you know, because there's some of them that are huge and have 300,000 downloads a day that are hard to get on as media. There's other that are just starting out, that are really looking for content. And you can start building your thought leadership that way. If you're a writer, I don't know if you think about Medium, but a lot of people think Medium is like Huffington Post. It's not. Medium is something anybody can go and write on. You put a picture on, you write the thing. And it literally looks like HuffPost. It looks like an article. And actually if enough people read, you know, if they love it, then they'll put it on the front page. And it is HuffPost, you know, but basically starting to generate those little things and easy ways that you can do yourself. And then go over to Hera, which is help a reporter out and source bottle in Australia, which those will blow your mind. And you'll see, literally, these are free services, hundreds of requests every day from reporters. And I've gotten clients not even using press releases, just pitching them to these reporters who are already doing stories. I've gotten them in that New York Times, Reader's Digest, the New Yorker, Good Housekeeping just responded to those. And what those are is reporters say, with a deadline of Tuesday at 2, I'm looking for a real estate agent who can tell me about how houses are sold with, you know, yellow paint that makes them sell more or whatever. Literally every in generic industry. Like things like looking for an entrepreneur who can talk about mindset and, you know, looking for like literally across the board. And that's, of course, you have to. You can't just say, I'm Bob. I can talk about that. You have to present your pitch and say, hey, this is what I say about that. This is about me. And they're getting a whole Bunch of them, right? So they could be getting 100 or maybe 10, depending. But you got a direct line, that reporter that they're reading every single one of them. If you. If your pitch is strong enough and you made, then you're in. All of a sudden you're in Reader's Digest. You get. One thing like that is career building. That's what I do is, you know, teach people how to do that and also do it. So that basically get your pitch together, so your confidence and then your little mini pitch together. Build up a couple of things by using things like medium and podcasts, the younger ones that are just starting to get guests where they're, you know, if you're an expert, credible, and you can get a. A spot, then you have those couple of things, and then you can go up and try to get other things. And try to get other things.

Great.

Well, yeah, I'll look into a few of those myself as well. But no, I'm sure that they're really, really helpful resources.

Those are gold. I'm telling you. Those are really good. Like, those are resources that we use a lot. And I, you know, but you just have to remember, like, it's all in how you use them, right? Because you can use them to not do it, right? And then be like, I don't know what that girl was talking about. She, I got nothing. You know, meanwhile, I do the same things, and I get 50 that day. So it's all about. And it's not because I'm a publicist, because they don't care. They're just looking for content. You know what I mean?

So awesome. So before we talk about where people can find out more about you, I want to ask you one more question, which was when you started doing this, this particular work that you're doing now, you would have had a. A picture or a vision in your mind of where you could have taken that. And it might have been, you know, I don't know how big that picture was, but you'll have had an idea of picture or vision? So the first question is, at this point, does it look like the picture you had when you first thought, oh, it feels like this? And the second question is, what footprints do you want to leave in the sand for other people to follow? So first question is, does it look like the picture that you thought it was going to look like?

I could never, you know, honestly, if I had pictured this, I would have told myself I was crazy. I could not ever imagine that I'd be winning these kind of Award. I certainly couldn't have imagined that. I mean the travel in 2019, before the world closed, I had nine business trips on eight different projects to five countries on four continents, all paid for by some other people. So like I would never ever have dreamed or pictured that or the VIP parties or all that. But you know, or that Rosa Parks cousin would come to me for six years I'm working with her, you know, things like that with these amazing. So no, this is way. I could never, literally never have dreamed this job for myself. Honestly, it's beyond what I would have dared to. I wouldn't have imagined it. And it like, you know, how did that happen? Literally step by step. So I learned how to write that. Press, please. Then I thought, okay, gee, I'm gonna. I think I'll just start doing this for some, you know, but because I am who I am and I know how to do what I do. Every little success, I know how to build on and I build on and I talk about, I talk about it, I go to it. I'm not shy. And I go to the next one and go to the next step, you know, and that's what I tell my clients to do. You just keep building. You just keep. Because I had zero education. Not only did I not have education, communications or pr, I have no secondary education. I graduated with honors and grade. You know, we've read 13 in those days. Now it's grade 12. And then I went July. I had to start working. I just started working. I had to live right. I always wanted to go to school, but never could. So literally I could never have imagined that I could have the job that other people, they, you know, they put on TV as the cool job. And then I then, then further advance so much now that I'd be on stages telling other people how to do it. So this is definitely not what I was picturing. And I was just trying to write a press release to get a guy off death row. And then I was just going to keep being in telemarketing probably till I died, right? Entry level sales jobs where other people would pay me. I didn't even conceive of having building a business. It's like I started doing it, then realized it was a business and then made the business bigger and then made the big business even bigger. How would I tell people? You know, so, so my. I have a really weird trajectory. It's hard to follow my exact trajectory. But I would say, what I would say is, you don't need to. Clearly you don't need to go to school for five years for pr. It's four years. I have no idea what they teach in four years. I'm sure it's awesome and I'd like to hire somebody to come from there and you know, do whatever. I don't know they taught them in four years. But I mean like I said, I've built to the top of my field. I'm not, I've never done that. You know what I mean? So I don't think you need that in pr. I think what you need in PR is a really certain personality skill which you have to have the enthusiasm, you have to be a generalist. You have to be good at figuring things out quick. You have to be good at communicating, you have to be trustworthy, you have to not be impressed by celebrities. These are things they can't teach you in a four year course. You have to already be that person and then just learn how to write the press release.

And what footprints would you like to leave for other people going forward to follow.

To be fully confident in themselves? If that's what it all comes down to is just if you, you know, don't let anybody tell you that you can't do it. Don't let anybody tell you you're not good enough. And I know these are cliche things that people hear and it doesn't mean but honestly like this has been my trajectory. I was the, you know, I should not have ever been able to do. All the things I've been able to do has been purely just on literally on confidence and mindset without even believing in those things. I was never one to read the Secret. I don't like all that stuff. I'm never like go like I just thought that was all crap. I just never paid attention to it. I just kept on living and kept on doing it. I'm just me. And you know what? You're not going to let me. You're not going to tell me I can't do it.

It.

I've always been that way. And that strength of character because. Became stronger because I kept on because I didn't, you know, because I kept believing in myself. Things kept working and you know, I never fail at stuff. And it wasn't doing business, it wasn't trying to make money in those days or I'd be a billionaire now. I've only started that caring about business the last couple years. So watching two years, I'd be surprised where I'm at, right? Let's say job creation next because everything, you know, like I've always believed I could do stuff, right down to helping. And of course, it wasn't just me. It was a team and a bunch of lawyers and everything. But right down to, you know, getting that guy off death row and not turning away from that, that's crazy. Who would ever believe we could have any part of doing that? We're in Canada, kids in our 20s in a basement in another country with no legal expertise and, you know, nothing. We had nothing except the belief that, you know what? I'm gonna. I'm gonna help that guy. So that's what it all comes down to follow, like, just believe in yourself. Not because of the secret, not because of the book, not because of all this crap, but because you don't want. I mean, you've gotten this far. You don't want to let anybody tell you you've made it this far through all that. For every, every human, everything you've been through in life, all the people who told you couldn't do it, everything hard, whether you're up at the top, where you want to be right now, or whether you're just making it, you wouldn't have got this far to only get this far. So that's what I like to leave behind. Fertile Jimmy Dennis all the time when he's still a little stressed in ptsd, you know.

Yeah.

He always said, never, never give up. And he was right because he's free. And so now when we have those little moments, they say, you know what? We didn't get this far to only get this far because I was a telemarketer, me and my husband, and you were on death row and they were going to kill you and no one was listening. And now you're recording music and in Rolling Stone magazine and on panels with JA Rule and I'm an international award winning publicist. Look at us, let's keep going. And that's for all of us. Right? If you were going to jump off a bridge yesterday, but you didn't, you're still here. All the stuff that you've dealt with all this time, you're still here. Why are you still here? Because you got to keep going. There's more to it.

I love that and I completely fallen for your energy during this conversation. It's infectious. So, Tracy, for people who want to find out more about you and interesting in what you do, where can they find you?

So I am@lamorimedia.com on the.com I live on Facebook. Tracy Lamoure, that's L A M O U R I E I am on Instagram which is where you can see all my projects and interviews a lot. Really quickly is Tracy Lamoury PR Media and you can email me lamoriprgmail.com I do work internationally, anywhere in the English speaking world. Is anybody listening? If you're like, gee, show me, I don't believe you can really get me media. Do it 30 minute conference call. Yeah I can. And you can also phone me with that old technology in Canada at 289-788-5881 or my Beverly Hills number which to be genuine and honest really just goes back to my Canadian number but it does save I don't have a Beverly Hills office but it does save my, you know, California clients that are long distance. 424-444-8052.

Tracy, awesome. Thank you very, very much for your time and I hope you continue success in what you're doing.

Thank you so much David. I really appreciate it. I love the podcast.