In this Business Blast Podcast episode, host Tyler Wagner interviews Hope Katz Gibbs, founder of Incandescent PR and author of two books, "PR Rules: The Publishing Playbook" and "Why Divorce?". Hope shares a vivid personal narrative about leaving her marriage, moving to Richmond, and going on 108 first dates, which informed the themes of her second book that categorizes men into five types and explores the search for true love. She discusses her lifelong passion for storytelling, describing how she transformed it into a full‑service PR firm, a business magazine (Be Incandescent), a radio network, a TV channel, and a forthcoming women‑focused TV series called Truly Amazing Women. Hope offers practical business advice—knowing every facet of your product and working on the business, not in it—and personal wisdom about being kind to oneself and finding happiness through love and community. She also reflects on literary influence from Anne Morrow Lindbergh’s "A Gift from the Sea" and shares favorite quotes about solitude and the value of a single moon‑shell. The episode concludes with a rundown of her online platforms (incandescentpr.com, inkandescentpr.com, powered‑by‑hope.com) where listeners can explore her services and media projects.
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Welcome to the Business Blast podcast. I'm your host, Tyler Wagner. This episode is brought to you by Authors Unite. Authors Unite provides you with all the resources you need to become a successful author. You can learn more about Authors Unite and join the free community at authorsunite.com. Now let's jump into the episode. Alright everyone, welcome back to another episode of the Business Blast Podcast. I'm your host Tyler Wagner. Today I have Hope Katz Gibbs with us. She's the founder of Inkinescent PR, a full-service PR, social media, marketing, and publishing company focused on helping entrepreneurs get more visibility. She has been a journalist since graduating from the University of Pennsylvania in 1986. And her passion is telling great stories. So welcome to the show, Hope.
Thank you so much.
Of course. Thanks for joining us. And we will dive in. The first question that I have for you is, what's the best story from your life that has an underlying valuable message?
Oh my goodness, there are so many to choose from. You know, digging deep, my dad was a bookie. I got left at the altar. I left my husband 4 years ago and moved from our house in Northern Virginia to Richmond to grow my business. And there I proceeded to go on 108 first dates to see what the world was like as a single person to see if I could recouple. And that actually inspired my new book called Why Divorce? This is my second book. My first one is PR Rules: The Publishing Playbook, PR Rules: The Playbook. It's teaching entrepreneurs in 200 pages how to do PR better. So I think all of that just inspires me. The theme that strings it together is that no matter what challenge I was facing, I just listened to my gut and my heart and I let my intuition pull me like a magnet.
And just because I'm interested by this specifically, so was there anything that you learned? Because that's a lot of dates in a short amount of time, it seems like. So 108 dates. Was there something that you realized or that you learned from doing that?
Yeah, I mean, I sort of put on my journalist cap throughout the whole thing and was just really curious about what men think and how they think. I wasn't interested in having a relationship with most of them. In fact, in the book, I talk about the 5 categories. This is the introduction to my— to Why Divorce. The introduction is called 108 First Dates and One Perfect Lover. And throughout it, I figured there were like 5 types of guys: the narcissist, the hedonist, the high school heartbreaker— I liked them, they didn't like me back— the friend, they liked me, I didn't like them in that way, but I wanted to be friends with them. And then true love. And, you know, of course that was my goal, was to find true love again, someone that I could spend the rest of my life with. So it was a year and a half process. And, you know, I say in the introduction, I wasn't serial dating to be mean. I was— and I would pay for myself quite often, you know, I was just really exploring what it was like to be me without my husband anymore.
Yeah, of course. Very, uh, interesting. So I, I was just curious if there was any common themes. So it looks like there were, and that'll be in your book. So And next question I have is, what's the most valuable piece of information we should know that is within your expertise or industry?
Well, as you said in the introduction, I love telling great stories, and I honestly believe that everyone has at least one great one in them, whether it's a book or just something that really motivated their lives and directed them in the place that they needed to go. I think it's a matter of dragging it out and telling stories well, but that's what makes me love being a journalist. I wish I could have just done that for my whole life, but financially not so much. And then the whole industry kind of tanked. But I've, so I've transferred that passion into storytelling into Incandescent Public Relations. And I founded that 10 years ago in 2008. And since then I've worked with hundreds and hundreds of entrepreneurs. I founded a business magazine called Be Incandescent, which I've been publishing since January of 2010. And we've written about 400 stories, cover stories with amazing entrepreneurs. I have a radio network as you do, Incandescent Radio, and a TV channel that has about 130,000 views on it at this point. So really just taking people's stories and figuring out how to tell them well, whether it's through words or video or podcasts. That's what I think.
And what's your best piece of overall business advice and not necessarily industry specific?
To have an intimate understanding of what you are selling, right? So you have to know your business from all the angles possible. You shouldn't necessarily have to do every aspect of your business. Like, I suck at copy editing. It's just not my thing, but I'm really good at content. So I have people in there to make sure that, you know, that we don't print typos. And that's, you know, the e-myth, you know, work on your business, not in it. But still, I believe that you really have to know everything about what you're doing so that you can do it well.
And if you could give your younger self one piece of advice, what would that be?
Well, I'm still struggling with it, but it would be, uh, be kind to yourself. You know, I, um, actually, uh, the end of my story is that there— it ended in heartbreak, and I took myself immediately to the beach, was my fantasy. You know, I kept saying I want to put my toes in the sand. And so a month ago, after we broke up, I came here and I've been trying to take this advice very much to heart to be kind to myself.
And in your opinion, it might tie in, in your opinion, what's the key to happiness?
I think being surrounded by people you love and who love you and being able to make your way through the world that way.
And what's the best book that you've read and what was the number one thing that you learned from that?
You know, I have about 2,000 books in my collection and I do a book of the month. So I think that I can't tell you what my favorite book is, but I can tell you what my favorite book is that I'm reading right now, and that's A Gift from the Sea by Anne Morrow Lindbergh.
Awesome. And what's— I don't know how far you are, but what's the number one thing you learned from it so far?
She's so quotable. You know, she— her life was crazy and beautiful and remarkable, and she was such a powerful woman. And so there's one quote that really jumped out to me. I find there is a quality to being alone that is incredibly precious. Life rushes back into the void, richer, more vivid, fuller than before. And so I'm trying to be in that space, that peace, knowing and hoping that my life will get even better going forward.
Awesome. And, you know, the last question I always ask is, what's your favorite quote? So I didn't— did you want that to be a quote? Did you have another one you'd like to share?
Actually, she also has another one that really spoke to me. I was walking on the beach And my son called and I put this, the phone back in my pocket, but actually I hadn't. So, and I was picking up shells and distracted. I take myself on 5, 6-mile walks every day. And so it was, this one jumped out at me because, you know, I thought there was a real lesson into losing my phone. One cannot collect all the beautiful shells on the beach. One can only collect a few. One moonshell is more impressive than three. There is only one moon in the sky.
I love that, and I have to say this as well. I actually do like 5 to 6 mile walks every day as well, so very cool on that. Walking has changed my life immensely. Last thing just before we let you go, where's the best place for people to find you online?
People can find us at incandescentpr.com, and incandescent is with a K, I-N-K-A-N-D-E-S-C-E-N-T-P-R.com. There's also a shortcut, I-N-K-Y. Www.incandescentpr.com. And there you'll find a bunch of tabs that will take you to Be Incandescent magazine, Incandescent radio, Incandescent TV, Truly Amazing Women, which is a project that I'm turning into a TV show this summer. So we'll be traveling around the country doing videos with amazing women and having events. And Incandescent Speakers is our speakers bureau, which we are now going to do just for women by women. So we'll have women speaking around the country on amazing issues from business to love. And then my website, my journalism website, if anyone might be interested in learning more about me, is powered-by-hope.com.
Awesome. Thank you so much again, Hope. We really appreciate you coming on.
My pleasure. Thank you.
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