Rocky and Cheryl Detwiler: The Power of Words | The Authors Unite Show #962

Alright guys, welcome to the show. Rocky, Cheryl, Detweiler. Welcome to the show.

Thank you. It's great to be here.

Yeah, thanks for coming down and visiting me. Absolutely. You didn't come down just for me, actually. I said that.

We came to Miami.

Yeah, yeah, that's true. Oh yeah, that's true, you did come to Miami. But what were you doing? Actually, you came to Florida for something else though. What were you doing in Florida in general?

Yeah, we were in Sarasota. So we do, um, business coaching. So we coach authors. It's kind of cool because you work with authors.

Yeah, perfect match.

Yeah, it's a perfect match. But we specifically coach authors on how to monetize their message. That's our, that's our specialty. And we, you know, so we ended up One of the gentlemen I was personally coaching, and a lot of the people Cheryl and I coach together, this gentleman I happen to be coaching kind of alone, so it was he and I working together. And he said about a month and a half ago, he said, hey, would you be open to coming to Florida and working with me one-on-one? And so we live in Idaho.

Yeah.

So we have four seasons. So right now it's, you know, 30 degrees. And so I had to think about it really hard. Warm in Florida, get paid, coach. Hmm, yes. So that's about how long it took me. Yeah, so I had really little posture on that one. But yeah, we, we ended up coming down, um, we just worked it out. Of course we get paid to do that, so we orchestrated that into, um, the whole agreement. And it was extremely effective for him because he, he works really great just kind of one-on-one in person. We could be very hands-on. And so she has a different set of skill sets than I do. So it was pretty spectacular for him to be able to get both of our skill sets just being able to help and assist. So that was in Sarasota, which is the west side.

Yeah, yeah, west and a little west side of the state. Yeah.

And so, um, you and I had already talked and I, I, you know, said, hey, I'd love to come down. Prior to that conversation, he said, hey, anytime, you're welcome. So literally, this is like maybe 2, 3 weeks later, like, they were coming down. Yeah, so we literally planned a trip. Yeah, over here to Miami. Um, but we've been really engaged the past day or two in alligators.

Oh yeah, yeah, I wanted to ask, that was these, and oh yeah, that was gonna be my next question.

It's been too cold. I know, divers and snorkelers, and I know we live in a cold part of the world, but we make sure to get out. I mean, we were in Mexico like last month in Cozumel doing some diving. It's beautiful. And so we get down here and you guys, I don't know, we brought cold weather with us, I guess.

So somebody said taking 75 across, we literally took 41 through the Everglades, the lower part of the Everglades, hoping to find like a snake just like, you know, getting warm on the road, something exciting. No, man, no, there was no snakes out on the road. We even went back roads trying to find something. Oh yeah, yeah, we didn't find any. We found like a black Um, it was like, it was just angry. Yeah, like his claws come out, he's ready to do battle. Yeah, but that was it. That was the most exciting part about opossums.

Opossums, we don't have those at home, so that was exciting.

Was it on one of those like the boats from like Waterboy, I think it's called, like that movie? Like, is that— I, I've never actually gone on like the alligator escapade thing. Is that, is that what it is?

He just stayed on the main road.

Oh, you drove? Okay, I thought you went on like a, uh, no, this was just driving across you know, the part of the state through the Everglades. Gotcha. Yeah, okay.

The last couple of days we did pay the entrance, we went into Everglades, we drove through the park, and got it. Okay, we found one alligator.

We found one alligator.

Sorry for him.

What happened to him?

I'm sure he's fine. So, you know, uh, anyways, uh, you might get in trouble for this. Yeah, and I don't think so. No, he's— listen, the guy's fine, he's fine. Yeah, but, um, I'm thinking I'm gonna just pull a reed out of the water, right, and just poke the guy in the back and just get, just get a little something. He, because he's the poor— he's sitting there all day.

Yeah, right.

He's not moving. I just wanted to get a little exercise, so I ended up pulling the whole reed system out of the water. So like the root system of the reeds, you know, tall reeds.

Yeah.

And so I'm like, oh, this is not a bad idea, you know, maybe I'll just— so anyways, he's like over there 20 yards and I'm pulling this whole thing right, because it's probably 10 pounds, all the way over. He's on the bridge, so we're walking on the bridge and I'm hauling this thing over. And, um, and we should have been videoing, but anyways, yeah, right below us, he's right below us, and he's got such a big thick back. And it was the perfect opportunity to drop this 10-pound reed system right on top of this guy. It lands on his back and the thrashing starts. He's going The whole— like, the whole area just is thrashing like crazy. He wiped out all the reeds in that system and disappeared. I'm sure he told his buddies, don't go over there, that area, right?

He was freaked out.

But I have to tell you, Rocky was laughing 4 hours later about it. He would just be giggling.

I was in the shower and I was laughing because I was thinking, man, what if— anyway, this poor alligator just hanging out there all by himself, and all of a sudden you know, something hits his back. It had to freak him out. This is the Predator. Nobody, you know, scares this guy.

Yeah, yeah.

And all of a sudden—

no, that's wild. I have not heard one like that. Yes, we got to get to the Everglades.

I think it's, it's not far. You're not away.

You're hoping to see snakes or crocodiles, stuff we don't see at home.

I mean, yeah, we've done research on your Everglades. You guys, it's being taken over by the boa constrictors, the pythons.

Okay.

Yeah, it's pretty—

yeah, it's Yeah, were you a little scared at all? I feel—

I don't know.

No, yeah, no, because you're on the road the whole time. Oh yeah, but it's not like they're gonna jump out of the water.

Yeah, yeah, things and get you.

Yeah, there's too many people.

Gotcha.

Okay, cool to see some more.

Totally. Okay, so let's go back to the beginning because I, I, I know some of your story. So like, now we're here, we're in Florida, and, and you guys came to Florida for, you know, a reason, up in Sarasota for this, but tell us a little bit more about both of your stories. But obviously, like you said, it starts kind of with your story. And I know on the summit with Jack Canfield and all that, we talked about this, but not everybody that sees that's going to see this. So I guess, how did you get to be coaching authors? Like, what— where does this stem from?

Great journey.

Yeah, it's been an awesome journey. So essentially, it was just my story. Mm-hmm. So the book was wrote. Cheryl assisted and helped write the book.

Yeah.

And, you know, what we know now would have been the both of us. But at the time, it was—

we sat in Jack's living room, Jack Hanfield.

Yeah.

You know, he's looking at our book and he says, why did you not put your name on the COVID So we're supposed to do a rewrite and include me in it. But it was initially his story. And so, yeah, even though I ghostwrote and I put the whole thing together and helped him with it, I didn't see the point in putting my name on the COVID Things have changed.

So we redo that, right? But this is part of the learning process when you're an author.

Totally.

So now we are a lot smarter and wiser than what we were when we first started. And that's why I think right now the information and the wisdom that we carry is worth its weight when we help and train people because we've kind of gone through a lot of the difficult situations from book covers to information in between and all that. But it started out with my story and my— I'll give you the snippet story. Was that I was living in Arizona and had, you know, really kind of reached that place in life where I could retire. And I had done that, was married at the time, and ended up receiving a phone call from the Arizona Corporation Commission. It was an investigating attorney saying that I had been a victim of an Arizona Ponzi scheme.

How old were you at the time?

Uh, it was in my late 30s.

Okay, so you were going to retire your late 30s? Yeah, that's pretty simple.

Yeah, yeah, right. So, um, so So I get a phone call. So I, you know, I lost everything, lost my home and land and possessions and ended up moving out of state for work and ended up really going to a dark place in life, suicidal and depressed and fat and just like a fat, suicidal, depressed guy. That's the worst case.

It sounds worse, actually, the way you said it last time.

Yeah. However I word it, just horrible.

Yeah.

Look at it.

Well, no, but the first way was like gradual. The last one was just like, I don't know what the hell.

How did I get here? Yeah, so, you know, it was one of those nights that I, um, had to make a decision to live or die. Like, that's where I was. I was at a real crossroads in my life, so I decided to live. And thank God he was in my life, Tyler, or I wouldn't be sitting here today. Yeah, I went through a process of making decisions, and at that time I started thinking about words because I remember seeing words on shirts, a lot of Gothic words at that time. This is back in the kind of 2008, '09, gothic and negative words. And a company was around and it was just really rough looking words. And I thought, what about positive words, right? So I started thinking about this. And it was shortly after that I moved to Idaho, lived in my brother's treehouse for a year.

Oh yeah, I told him about that.

Yeah, dude, I lived in a sweet treehouse. I lived every kid's dream.

Yeah, I think it's like, I gotta live in a treehouse, dude.

I was a grown man. Come Come on, you know, that's not the place you need to be living. But I did.

I gotta hear about this.

Yeah, so I lived in this treehouse for a year. I mean, but listen, it's not in Miami. I'm in Idaho. It's negative 5 degrees.

Oh yeah, no insulation.

It wasn't the warmest place in the world to be living in, you know. And I had just had everything, and now I've got nothing.

And you can't have a fireplace in a treehouse.

No, no, it's not— you could, it's maybe not the smartest thing though, right? Not smart. It's like you have a fire in a boat, right? It's not smart. I wouldn't do that.

Potatoes in there?

If I wanted them, I could have put— I could have Cooked them, maybe had a little— so no potatoes. No potatoes.

Oh, we're having too much fun.

Yeah, so, you know, I'm in Idaho and I'm, uh, living in this freaking treehouse. And, and anyways, I ended up getting a coach.

Yeah.

Uh, now I've had many through my lifetime, but I'm going to give you a specific, um, two specific ones that changed my life forever. And it's the reason I'm here today too. So this coach, um, helped me get from, um, where I had never gone in 2 or 3 decades. I'd say 3 decades of not getting physically fit like I really wanted to. I couldn't do it. I'd be up and down and up and down a roller coaster, but I took the coach's advice and next thing you know, I just get bodybuilding ripped.

What was his advice? I'm curious.

To follow his program.

Okay, what was his program?

Tell us. So here's what I did. Here's where I'm at. Here's where I want to go. Can you take me there? Yeah. Yeah, he outlined it for me.

Oh yeah, it was kind of a little bit custom, but that makes sense.

Yeah, I just followed— I followed the eating program and the workout program, didn't deviate from anything. I did what the coach told me to do and I got the results that I wanted.

How do you think though, like, your mindset, because of where you were, right? Like, what was it about him or the situation that made you actually follow the protocol? Um, because you weren't following things before.

I would not have a coach before.

Okay, so it was the coach. Okay, so it was him. How did he hold you accountable? He didn't really.

I held myself accountable.

I mean, You were just fed up.

Yeah, I was just like, you know, here's where I'm at, here's where I want to go. And I wanted it really bad enough that I just wanted to follow what he had for me.

Got it.

Right.

I think too, at that point, it's in the book and he's mentioned it before when he spoke that this was like the one area of his life he had any control over. He had no control over his work situation or his, his marriage that was falling apart, where he would live, but he could focus on what he was eating and if he was going to the gym. And so it was like that one thing he could do.

Makes sense.

Okay.

So we just don't get any random.

That makes sense.

Yeah.

Got it.

So when we work with authors, we do our very best to give them small little things to do because as you know, in the author world, there's so many things you can do.

Yeah.

Right? And we find that authors that are not successful, they're trying to do everything. When if you just focus on this, get this done, focus on this, get this done. Same thing with the fitness world. I just focused on my fitness.

Got it.

What I'm eating, you know, and go to the gym, simple stuff. Simple things that I'm going to do anyways. So I ended up having great results out of that. That story gets posted, goes online, it goes viral. So going viral meaning I'm getting emails from people all over the world. They're like, oh my gosh, this guy that had nothing, lived in a treehouse, and now is this, you know, looks amazing. And so became a champion on bodybuilding.com in two different divisions, and they said, wow, this is great. You know, I invited myself to bodybuilding.com. Well, I got invited to bodybuilding.com to pitch an idea. And so the idea was wearing words. You know, you can see my words here, right? So these are actually taken from a nonprofit company that we work with. We custom do a— we custom words for companies. So I became a word expert. And then, then we, we decided to build an online program. And then, um, You know, Cheryl's my spoken word bride. So yeah, um, for those out there that are single that will like want to meet their incredible next, you know, their mate for life, she— I wrote about her, dreamed about her, believed for her, prayed for her, and wrote specific details, and she showed up.

I like that.

Okay, yeah, she showed up. And so she helped, you know, one of the first tasks we had was working on the book together. Um, and so in the past 5 years, we've done an incredible amount of traveling and helping people, probably hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people around the world with, you know, our book and our programs. And, uh, but you asked the question, it's taken me a while to get to how do we start working together. So you should—

that's what led us to this is like when I met him, he'd been speaking, but always for free, but he had a great message and he's very gifted as a speaker. He inspires groups. And so my first question for him was, hey, why don't you have this in a book? You'd reach a larger audience. You know, my little mind working. And he said, oh, I've wanted to write a book, but— and I've thought about it a dozen times over the years, but I just don't know how to do it. Yeah, I had no idea. I was like good in English class in college. Like, I'm like, I'll help you.

Yeah.

Oh, so I figured out, like, I took an editing class, I started pulling— he had 120 blog entries on a blog that he had kept. So I just downloaded all of those and I started piecing together this book. Book and filling in gaps and saying, hey, you got— do you have a story about this? Write about that. And before you knew it, I mean, it took us a year from idea to completion, book in hand. But that was the point where we went, okay, now we have a book. This obviously is not just gonna sell. I mean, it won't even get into bookstores if we don't do something. And so we were kind of late to the party of like focusing all on writing the book and then on the back end going, now what do we do? And so it led us to the next coaching experience, which really changed everything for us in our business.

Having a coach.

Oh yeah. So the next coach.

Yeah. So the next coach was a business coach. How do we take this awesome, amazing book that we were given, this message that we were given, how do we take that to the world? How do we get people to buy that? How do we get people to hire us to speak? How do we get people to want to coach with us? I'd never done it. I'd never been a bodybuilding child. I didn't know how to do that. So I'm online one day and I see someone who really intrigues me with the skill sets that I'm looking for. Like, you want to take your message to the world. He's saying all the things that I want to hear. And he's like, okay, I need this guy. I need him, right? So I ended up talking to one of his sales guys essentially and really asked some detailed questions. And I thought, you know what, if I'm gonna do this, I'm gonna do this. Yeah, you know. And so I talked to Cheryl.

I was a tougher sell.

She was, she was tough, and I knew that, you know. I had my ducks together and like really know that this is something we were gonna do because it was a high price tag, you know. For us at the time, it was, you know, $11,000 or something.

Yeah.

But you know, when you don't have $11,000, no, you don't have anything, and it's all credit cards, you enough to put them all together. And I mean, it was a very big decision. Yes. I mean, just even saying that, it was a lot of money for us. And then we had to do that on monthly. It was just expensive. It was really expensive for us.

Yeah.

So my comment at the time, I was like, you know what, I respect you, I believe in you, so I'm not gonna fight you on this. If this is really the direction you think we need to go, let's do it. But we're gonna jump all in. Whatever they say to do, we're gonna do it. Like, we are going to follow, even if it seems odd or outside our comfort zone. On his own. And so I have to say I'm really proud of him because he did. I mean, and it worked. It totally, completely worked.

I think if you want to have great success, you got to do— you got to be willing to do things other people are not willing to do. Definitely. And I was willing to do that. So I knocked on doors, I made cold calls, I made calls to friends I hadn't talked to for a long time. And, you know, the coach is like, hey, go have a workshop. He didn't give us a map on how to do a workshop, right, or what to do the workshop on. Just go do a workshop. That's it. And so I'm like, okay, well, I'll go. So I sold a workshop to, you know, 10 or 15 people that I knew for $300 or something. And then I come home, tell her, and she's like, we don't have a workshop. Like, we didn't have a workshop. I sold the workshop we didn't have.

I've got 20 people coming to a 1-day workshop in 3 weeks. And I was like, what are we going to talk about? Are you kidding me?

That is the best.

So we got money on something and so we created it. And guess what?

Yeah, that'll make you creative. Totally. Yeah.

And it worked. And that was the first, like, it started to build our confidence, right? It's like, hey, I'm going to the gym, I'm starting to feel better. I'm looking to start to see the definition come in. I'm starting to feel a little bit better. That same thing happens when you start having success with your book and someone wants to buy my book. Really? We had people that really want to hear us. Yeah. People want to hear you. They want to hear your story. You've got a message. Most people don't believe, Tyler, that they have an important message that the world needs. They do. It doesn't matter what it is. They really have an important message. They lived a lifetime. Their message means something. And so, you know, we learned how to do a workshop. Then I learned how to get a paid speaking engagement. Oh yeah. And then I learned how to get a contract for not just a couple of months, 2 or 3 months, but for 6 months and over a year. So we ended up getting 6-figure contracts put together. We ended up selling our book in bulk, and then we realized that with all that experience of learning how to sell our book in bulk and learning how to get speaking engagements and how to do contracts, it's like, wow, you know, we have a lot we can offer because we're doing things that most people aren't. We're in New York City.

At the same time, you know, we continued with this coaching program It was like a year and a half. And so after a year in the program, they sent out a notice. And by now—

Oh, so this is so— excuse me. So we, we, yeah, the program that we spent the money for.

Yes.

Yeah. They put out a contest.

They send us a notice. Like we're running a contest. Who had the biggest quantum, you know, the growth in this last year in your first year in the program. And, you know, he said, he said, let's enter this. And I said, oh, we haven't done that much. And we are busy. By then. Like, we have speaking engagements, probably 3 a month. We're leaving our state, flying out of state, doing engagement. Like, we're doing well, but it's busy. It's keeping us busy. Um, and so I was like, no, we shouldn't even. And he says, yes, we're gonna enter that and we're gonna win it. And I'm like, okay, whatever. So he puts together the outline of the essay, and I go through and I doctor it. By the end of that essay, I realize how much we've really done in this year. And so now I'm starting to get into this. We put together a video, we submit it, third party looks it over, these judges, and we win. We win their contest.

It was a $10,000 cash prize.

Oh, so you got your money right now, right?

Or it was a trip around the world. So now what we decided to do was we took the relationship.

Totally.

So it kind of— what we're doing, we have a relationship, you know, I have a, you know, business relationship. So we decided to take this relationship and And we've been so fortunate because that has built us a stronger relationship with that organization, with the founder of the organization. We've been on their stage, um, sharing, you know, our testimony, what they've done for us. And that has enabled us to gain credibility with all of his, you know, clients, if you will. And it's been a real blessing for us. That alone has made us six figures.

Yeah, we also learned through through the program, through the other individuals, and why we won, and we've been involved for several years now, is there are so many authors that don't take the action. They'll join this program, that program, they don't actually do what we did, which was go out and put it in action.

I mean, we're sitting at the tables, breakfast tables with 10 people at a time, breakfast, lunch, dinners, and these are mostly authors from around the world, okay? Not just here in the United States. I mean, all over the world. And, you know, after interviewing 1,000, we found out that we had something they didn't have and we were making money. And I'm thinking, these people are smart, dang. These people are smart people, man. Why are we having success? It was almost like I felt a little guilty sometimes. Like, man, we're speaking on stage and we're making money and these people are smart. They got a great book. I mean, but they weren't making money. So it took me some time to like figure out I had something to offer the world, and that was to be able to help people start making money. And I got to tell you, it's so cool. It's so cool, man, when you can help someone make money. And we've proven that now. And so now we coach people on how to monetize their message. Tyler, that was your first question.

Yeah, yeah, 50 minutes ago. No, that's why that's kind of a little bit of the story.

So you You know, as— yeah, we didn't just show up here. I mean, we went through the grinding process of figuring this stuff out and doing what we were told to do just over and over and over. I still make the phone calls. I called you, that's how— yeah, you know, you didn't call me. I reached out to you and here I am sitting in your, uh, you know, beautiful place in Miami, Florida. Yeah, it's freaking cold outside, but I'm here.

We're here, right? It's awesome. The only day it's cold.

Yeah, and a great relationship, but That comes from doing the harder thing, which is making the phone call. Yes. And setting the appointment.

So, so I've— there's a couple questions that come to mind. First one, why or how— why and how did your story go viral? Like, what, what do you think about it, or what did you take action on after the story was told to make that happen?

Well, I think the first thing that he really had the foresight on is he took an amazing before picture.

Okay, yeah, it is obviously a significant story story, right?

Just—

but yeah, even significant stories, they don't always take off, right?

That's true.

I'm curious why or what you guys did.

So your first question is why and how. So yeah, the why did I— why did I do it was I'm at the gym one day and, uh, I had— so this is the power of your story, everybody listening. Your story has power. Almost every book is wrote about something, something in your life. It's a story, right? Something you did. And so I'm at the gym one day and I am lifting weights and I look great at the time. And this guy I know at the gym looks amazing as well. And so this guy, this another gentleman comes in from bodybuilding.com, which was the largest online transformational fitness portal in the world. So 10 million customers and 50 million people visited their site every single month.

Okay, this is crazy.

A lot.

Yeah.

So, you know, anyways, Chris walks through the door and he works at Bodybuilding. My friend tells him my story. I didn't tell him my story. He told my story. He's like, you gotta hear this. You gotta hear Rocky's story. He tells my story. And this guy says, bodybuilding.com says, dude, you gotta send your story in yesterday. And I'm like, really? I didn't think my story was anything, you know, nothing.

Good stuff.

So I sent it in and the why was to help other people. And so I sent the story in and when it went live, It helps so many people that they normally keep it on for a week. They kept it on for 4 weeks, meaning they left my story live on for a month, which they never do.

Okay, got it. And the traffic from that really propelled it.

I would add here though, by the time I came in, this whole bodybuilding thing had happened 2, 3 years, maybe even as many.

2011, so yeah, about 3, 4 years.

4 years before we had the book. So we get the book done in like 2016, and there was part of me that was thinking, man, that's kind of old news. We're gonna have to move on something new. After the book came out and we got into this coaching program, we were learning about media and how to market yourself and how to use and leverage media to sell and to help build your credibility. So he approached— this is an amazing story that we use with our clients— he approached some local avenues again in our area. So a gentleman who had an online magazine in our area And he said, yeah, I'd love to do an article about that. That's a great story.

So I reached out to him, even though it was— he didn't call me, I reached out to him.

It didn't matter, like it still was fresh and new.

It was still a story. So he does—

you reached out there?

Yes. And he's like, yeah, I'd love to do a story. So he takes the, you know, the pictures and puts a story on. And then I call Channel 7, which is the biggest station in Idaho, and they're like, this is a cool story. Yeah, we'll do a story on you. So Channel 7 does it. I then reach out to Idaho Statesman, which is the largest publication, a newspaper publication in the state of Idaho, and they do a story on it. And I don't know where it's gonna go, but I walk into a Walgreens on a Saturday and I'm on the front cover. So we're giving a talk down in Utah.

We're at our first paid speaking engagement down in Park City, Utah. And as soon as we finish and actually get our paycheck in hand, he gets a phone call.

Yeah, and this guy calls me and says, uh, hey, this is Jordan— remember his name, Jordan— and I'm with ESPN and we'd like to do a story with you. And I said, Jordan, Jordan, what are you— who are you with? ESPN. And I'm thinking, ESPN? I've heard of ESPN. I mean, like ESPN? He's like, yes, ESPN Sports Talk, you know, you've heard of us?

Yeah, yeah.

And I'm like, What are you calling me for? Like, how come you're calling me? He saw my front page article. Well, their producer saw my front page article on the Idaho Statesman. I didn't have to call him.

Wow. Okay.

They searched me out and they did my story on bodybuilding.com, but we talked about my book.

Yeah.

You know, and the power of words and how it saved my life and how we're helping other people now. That's how that happened. Now we got really good at pitching media. So now we've been featured on ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox, Um, A&E. We were on A&E reality TV show, been featured on ESPN.

So all the major networks. Show again, isn't that Rooster and Butch? Yeah, yeah, that's right.

Yeah, Matthew McConaughey's brother, you know, was Matthew McConaughey's brother. Yeah, he was the, um, investor. Oh, dude, we could do another story on just that alone. Yeah, it's amazing. Get flown out to West Texas, Alpine, it's hot out, we're pushing a wheelbarrow down their highway. The cops are like, what are you guys doing? You know, and they're filming the whole thing. We're sweating like crazy. Oh, anyways, that was one of the things they had to do it. They wanted us to do because we're motivational, you know, speakers.

Yeah, yeah.

We were in the— we were in a cow pen with like cows and how to round them up. And anyways, I saw, I saw a picture from it.

All right, we briefly touched on it before. Um, another question I want to ask is about writing the book, because a lot of our listeners, they are authors or aspiring authors. Yeah, so I'm just curious, like, from start to finish, you said it was about a year and it was like 120 blog posts, and then there were some other aspects. But if there's any advice you would give authors, like, what would you say to help them finish the book?

I've since learned that using blog posts like that is actually a really good plan on writing a book. Yeah, a lot of people do that, and I didn't know it at the time. I thought we were doing this totally backwards. But it worked. I just have this real organized brain. So if I had any of his writings, it quickly developed into 14 chapters. I had no issue with that. So it was almost like I had 14 buckets and I would look at a new piece of writing and some blog posts got split into 3 different chapters.

So real quick though, how did you view the blog? Like, did you put them all up on a board or like how did you organize it?

I copied and pasted them actually into Word docs. And then I tried to title—

and you read them though? And then like after each time you read, were you like, this, this is a section, this is a sec?

Then I start piecing them from there. So I'd have part of one paragraph that I was like, oh, that's definitely chapter 2 material. Oh no, that is chapter 6, you know?

Yeah.

So I'm kind of that organized brain. I don't think most authors have that.

Yeah, but there's research with 120 though. Like what I would have done for me, because I'm not that organized, or even to be able to really remember what chapter 6 and 4. So I would have to put like head titles or whatever on a board and look at them all together and then be like, okay, you're here, and like maybe mark it in different colors or something.

Exactly.

That's what would work for me. But you were able to do it in that way. So that's— but similar though, same thing, kind of.

Yeah, yeah. And then as you're reading through, I just knew that there were gaps. I'm like, okay, we need a transition here. This doesn't— we need to explain a little further here. Some of that is gifts, and some of that is the training that I did going through the editor training.

Oh, that's cool.

We did use a professional editor, so we partner published. We didn't self-publish.

Yeah.

So when it came to an actual professional editor looking at it, I started to doubt myself. I'm like, oh man, what is she going to tell us? And maybe I really messed up the organization of this book and something needs to be— oh no.

Yeah.

I mean, she looked through and just gave us some basic, real basic changes throughout. I was really surprised.

That's awesome. Yeah, you normally don't hear that, so you definitely did it well.

And there was one mistake out of the entire book. Oh yeah, final print, we had one little typo, which is like almost next to impossible.

Yeah, one reading, one.

And I—

what was it? I'm just curious.

It was is, is— no, I'm kidding, I have no idea.

Yeah, I can't remember now. It was some Silly little typo and spelling error that I had missed in the proofreading.

So that's one part. The other part that I want to speak to the authors is about that we've seen now over a period of many years and thousands of authors is they stop, right? And they don't do the marketing side of it because they're scared or they don't understand or they don't have the connections or whatever that is. They'll stay in their comfort zone. Which is, I think I need to do some more editing, or I need to write another chapter, or I need to order another program, or something that doesn't help get their book marketed and into the hands of other people, um, or out to the world. Because they wrote this book for a message. We, we met a gentleman who literally spent over 6 figures and has never made a dollar, has never sold a book. And all I can say is, my goal when we work with people is my specialty is not to help you get a great website, right? That's not it. My goal is to help you make money. Yeah, with your book. And we have, we have simple strategies. Like, we were, we were on a street, on a street, on a shoestring budget as well.

Yeah.

So, you know, ours is real simple and we're effective when people do follow what we say.

Back on that topic of like actually finishing, I would say from our experience and from the authors I've spoken to thus far, which is quite a few.

Yes.

If you're anything like that minded, just free write. I mean, act like you're writing little blog posts. It works so well for me to just ask Rocky, like, hey, do you have a story about this? Or do you remember, was there a time that, you know, can you write more about that? And he would just free write. I'm like, don't worry about, you know, how to sentence structure any of that. Just get it out. I can fix it. And that worked really well for us. Then I could just get that raw material from him and I could coax it into where I needed it to go.

Makes complete sense. Literally the only thing for me, because the way my brain works, is what would have been to put it up like that. But everything you're saying, like, I need it in smaller pieces.

Yes.

I can't think about it as a whole because if I do that, then I'm like, you know, yeah, yeah. I'm just honestly like, there's no way I could do that.

So I feel like, yeah, that's not gonna happen.

Yeah, yeah.

I'd be just like you.

Exactly. Yeah. But an hour every morning, maybe a blog post a day or whatever, or a couple a week, and then it turns into 120, and then you have something to work with and actually—

and to the authors, we just want them to finish their book. They finish the book and then start marketing their book so it doesn't sit on some shelf by themselves.

Exactly.

Exactly.

So the last question I want to ask you guys here is this: is it seems like you've really built like a lifestyle as well, right? So it's not just about like growing, like, yeah, it's not Although you help authors make money, it's not just about growing like a 7, 8-figure business. It's about like a lifestyle where you guys are happy. So I'm just like, what does your typical week look like now with lifestyle but and work? Like, what are you guys doing to maintain both? How you do? Because it seems to be working very well.

You could literally bring us on here. We could talk an hour about just our lifestyle.

Okay.

But I mean, so yeah, I love this part.

We have a wonderful— when we first started on this journey, I was still working full-time just so we had a steady income to build this business. But it was always our goal to get me out of that. So we did. Within a couple of years into this, we got me out of it and we've just been full-time ever since. I did start working with a nonprofit a year and a half, almost 2 years ago, I guess. Very part-time on the side, very flexible, and it just pulls at my heart.

And it really was a God thing for her. That's why she's doing this.

Yeah. But I would say otherwise, our typical schedule, oh my goodness, this summer, 3 days a week, we were on the boat and we were boating with the boys. And around that, for a couple hours here or there, we would have our calls at home over Zoom. That was our work life and that was our play life. We played more than we work, I would say.

I don't know what super— honestly, what super rich people do, but I have to just— I'm kind of not envious is the where I'm just so grateful because, yeah, we seriously have a lifestyle that if we had a yacht like across the waterway that we were looking at, that yacht would be used all the time. We'd have friends in it. I mean, it'd be great. So we have everything we have, we use, whether it's our trailer or Razor or snowmobiles.

We have all the toys.

Seriously, we love life. And, you know, part of the Sampson effect was that your thoughts— so this is 5 steps. Your thoughts become your words, your words become your actions, your actions become your habits, your habits become your lifestyle. How you live your life, Tyler, I mean, look around, all that, you know, how many people do you know really enjoy their life? Just take time out to do what they want to do. I mean, we've been in, I don't know how many people around here been to the Everglades, but they're an hour away. Yeah, we've now been there twice. Yeah, well, 3 times. We drove through it, went back, then went back today. And we've been to the Keys. And so we just love life. We really truly enjoy— yeah, we're like this super cool fun couple that we just do the most exciting things.

And even in the cold, we're going home to 3 days a week, we'll be up snowboarding on our ski hill, and then we'll be riding the snowmobiles on the weekend.

So like, so we obviously work, and when we do, it's focused, it's intense. When we were over there at Sarasota, it was focused, we did our job. We're coming here, we're talking, you know, to you Yeah. And, you know, we've been really blessed with— this is our lifestyle. We don't want to just work our life and have no experiences and no fun. And no, we, we really want to enjoy our life. A couple weeks ago, we were in Cozumel for a week diving and just building new, you know, great relationships. I love it. Yeah. So, I mean, that's part of why we do this, is we want to help other people have great lifestyles too. But I don't know too many cool couples that can do what we do.

No, well, for sure. And I think that's— and that's why I wanted to ask that, is because I think a lot of people kind of get sucked into just more growth, growth, growth. And growth is great, honestly. I think it's a part of living.

Sure.

Well, obviously it is, but you need that too. And maybe— do you need— it's— I think it's optimal though to have it, right? Because would you rather have 7 figures where you're working 90 hours a week, or would you rather have 6 figures where you're working, I don't know, 25 hours a week and you have time family, kids, whatever, and the whole thing, I would choose the second option, honestly. So for sure, absolutely. And I think that's a huge point to make.

So yeah, thank you.

Yeah, yeah, I absolutely love it. Yeah, last thing is, if there's anything else you want to share, please do. But then also, where could people get the book, website, socials?

Where could you— this is the part that I, I for a long time never really got— I was never good at because it was the self-promotion part. Yep. That a lot of authors and speakers are not great at, and quite frankly, I wasn't either, um, because it was selling myself and that I'd ask people for the sale, that sort of thing. But I got really good at negotiating. Yeah, like really good. And I got good at getting the business. And so that's part of what has made us successful, was being able to overcome that fear of rejection, that fear of whatever that is. So this part I love because I get to talk about how we can interact and build relationships. So you can obviously find The Samson Effect at samsoneffect.com. You can find it at rockydetweiler.com.

It's on Amazon.

It's on Amazon.

It's on English.

You can find it everywhere. You want to transform your life, this is the book to have. I think it's the greatest book in the world for transformation because I lived it and now we talk about it. And after each chapter is like, you know, 3 or 4 questions that really are prodding. So companies, corporations, schools, government agencies has this in it. To transform their lives or organization. As far as us, we love to work with someone, an individual or a company that would like to take their business or their book to that next level. That's what we specialize in. Obviously, we're really trained in the power of words. That's our specialty. We wear them. I don't know if anyone else does this. We wear them, we talk about them, we believe that your words are ultimate power, that they raise up and tear down, they bless, they curse. Curse. So, you know, we want to, you know, we want people to reach out to us and ask us questions so they can get engaged on how we can help them. That's our goal. We want to help anybody we can take their life or business to the next level.

Nice job. Yeah, you did that well.

That was nice.

It's not like you've had some practice.

Yeah.

And I mean, think about it, you get to work with a cool couple. Yeah, yeah, with a fun couple. I mean, really, I mean, we have people in our church just going, what do you guys— how do you do this? Yeah, you know, they're seeing all these posts. I mean, all these pictures. Yeah, they live vicariously through us. And I don't say that to brag, I just say that because it's a life we designed totally by design. By design. This is our lifestyle. Like, you can hear people talk about it, but we live it. We truly are living. Just go look at our Facebook, you'll see. Yeah, no way, these guys really do it. So we do truly enjoy it. We're so grateful for everything we have, you know, because I know from experience, it could be taken away from you. Definitely. It can be gone that quick.

Yeah.

So I just am so appreciative for my amazing wife and the relationship we have and for the people that we get a chance to work with. So if, if you're where I was years ago and you're like, I need help, please reach out to us. We want to help you.

It's true.

Yeah, we want to help you.

Beautiful. Thank you again, both of you, for coming on the show.

Thank you.

Thank you. This was fun.

This is great. Yeah, cool.

Oh dude, we could have gone for 6 hours.