Host Of Accented Podcast: Kimberley Law AKA The Accent Boss – S2E13 (#41)

S2E13 – Kimberley Law – powered by Happy Scribe

That’s recording, that’s all right, three to one. Welcome welcome back to Boss uncaged podcast. On today’s show, we have a special guest from the land down under Kimberley Law. The way I met Kimberley was through Pod First Global this year. And we just kind of made some connections had some conversations, and then she invited me out on her podcast. And I just thought her podcast was just such a great concept, such an original idea. I’m not going to take away any of her thunder. I would like her to kind of present it to you. So without further ado, can be.

Hello, thank you. Yeah, my podcast, so I’m an English teacher and I have been teaching English for over 10 years in multiple countries. Well, not too many, but France, Italy, Australia. And I guess I’ve had students from all nationalities. And what I noticed every time that I teach is they are asking everybody wants to get rid of their accent. And I don’t understand why. I think that’s, you know, part of your identity. You know, I have I have this Australian accent. You have this American accent. And even in different parts of America, you all have different accents. And I would always be asked, how do I have an American accent or a British accent? And I said, well, what what type of accent do you want? Because there’s hundreds, you know, even in America, like, I guess your accents quite. I don’t know. What would you say your accent is?

I would say is a little bit on the neutral side. I mean, obviously, I have a little New York swang to it, but I try to keep it as neutral as possible just for business purposes so somebody can’t really tell where I’m from.

Yeah, and I think mine, yeah, to be honest, mine is quite neutral now because after teaching for so long, sometimes people don’t understand what you’re saying. Like when I moved to Paris, I actually had to adopt a lot of American words like trash candy. They’re not the words that we use in Australia. Put a pullover. We call it a jumper here. We have just so many words that I had to change. So my podcast is I realized that people move to Australia and maybe they used to American English or they used British English. And I just wanted a podcast that people could listen to and listen to a variety of accents, not just American or English accents, even accents like the French accent when somebody’s speaking in English and they have a French accent, or if they have just recently interviewed a Nigerian couple, you know, accents from all over the world. And I think what I find is my students have been studying for such a long time and then they arrive in Australia and they’re like, I don’t understand anything. So, yeah, that’s what the idea for the podcast.

Slows a step back a little bit. I mean, obviously, that’s that’s crazy in itself. And it’s a very impactful story because you’re not just doing it to do it. You’re doing it to help people understand different dialogues and different cultures to a certain extent. So, I mean, how did your journey start? I mean, who are you?

Oh, that’s a really hard question. My. Well, I guess I’ve always. Well, I’m born in Australia, I never thought I would teach English, and I studied a degree in education because like in the USA, Australia is lacking in teachers and the government was giving these cheap courses. And and I’ve always I’ve always wanted to learn a second language. And I thought you know what I’m going to do a lot of Aussies like I travel. And I was like, I’m going to get this teaching degree because I can teach anywhere. Everybody wants to learn English. So I got this teaching degree and then I took off and ended up in Italy. And yeah, I didn’t know my passion for teaching languages grew from there. And then I don’t know, I also. It’s interesting, this idea that people want to learn a British accent because it’s considered, I don’t think of the word it is eleven-thirty at night here. So it’s. You know, trying this this sort of hierarchal system with accents and I’ve heard people want to get rid of their accents as well because they think that they get a better job or they’ll get this. And I just think that that’s. Yeah, I don’t like that idea of things, my students wanting to have this British accent because it’s quite prestigious. That was the word I was thinking of when I think we shouldn’t be trying to change ourselves. We should be, you know, embracing accents. And it’s, you know, it’s what makes us unique.

Yeah. I mean, that’s a good gateway to I mean, that is part of overcoming some hurdles. Right. So that’s one of the hurdles that you’re dealing with on an ongoing basis, which are students. What are the hurdles? Have you had to overcome to kind of get to where you are currently?

Hmm, well, you’re giving me really tough questions hurdles to overcome in my teaching or with launching the podcast.

I mean, just generally, I mean currently where you are, right? I mean, there’s just different levels of success. And if you’ve achieved a lot of different things. Right. So just to get to where you are, you’ve had some hurdles. You’re saying one hurdle was you have students that want to achieve these new accents, but you really don’t believe in achieving these accents. You kind of just want people to embrace them for who they are. So that’s kind of like a hurdle. So I’m saying in addition to that, what other hurdles have you had to overcome to get to where you are? I mean, you’ve done some traveling, you’ve been to Italy, you weren’t to France, and you were teaching in all these environments. I mean, you had to experience some kind of hurdles on these years.

Yeah, I think. The hurdles are, I think. Yeah, it’s hard, I say. I’ll start again, I think the good thing is that I. I had never learned a second language until I moved to Italy until I moved to France and then and being on the other side and realizing how it is to learn a second language. I think that has helped me understand the students that I have understand their difficulties. Also, it’s not just learning a language, learning a culture. Know, I have students arrive in Australia from China and that’s a huge cultural difference and, you know, trying to learn a language. And then you’ve got to remember, when I was learning Italian and French, at least it was the same alphabet. I’ve got all these things to learn. I think my hurdle is trying to understand my students culture and how do I teach in the how they have been brought up with education, that that’s definitely a hurdle. I think that I find is trying to understand my students and to try and. Get across to them. What I need to, but in doing that, I need to understand where they’re coming from.

Got you. So you’re saying I mean, so I mean, you just listed off French. Italian. What are the I mean, how many languages you speak totally?

I, I learned I did learn Italian and then I’m a Frenchman and then I learned French, but my Italian is very oh I think I can understand it now. It’s very similar to French, but that was just from living in those countries. I didn’t in school in Australia I learned German. But, you know, I, I guess it’s the same in the United States. We don’t learn it to the extent that people in Europe learn languages. I don’t know. Do you speak a second language?

I do not. I mean, it’s kind of like one of those things that if you put me in a Latin speaking country, like the muscle memory starts to come back and the words that I need to use start to come back, but I can’t speak it fluently.

Yeah. You know, it’s I yeah, I think I think living in a country is the best way to do it.

Yeah. Yeah. And then obviously there’s other language like it’s funny that my mom and her siblings came up with this language and it’s called gibberish and it’s kind of like this broken Petawawa. And my mom used to talk to her sisters to make sure the kids didn’t understand what they were saying. And so it was like this weird, weird little thing between them. And then as I got older, I started. I couldn’t speak it, but I could comprehend it. And it’s funny because, like my now my son, she’s been teaching him over the years and now he speaks it and understands it. So it just kind of weird how that that works.

Yeah, no, it is it’s fascinating. It’s really interesting.

So on your journey, I mean, how long did it take you to get to where you are? We always hear about the 20 years it takes someone to become successful will get to the level of success where they currently are. And it seems to be an overnight success story. How long was your journey?

I guess for the podcast. Yeah, that. Just trying to think back, it was about when my daughter was born, so it was about two years ago, but the podcast didn’t launch. It’s only been going since February this year. So I’m quite a perfectionist and I wanted to make sure that what I was going to launch would be correct and or it was something that I had the right format for. I guess just before my daughter was born and I went on maternity leave, I was just thinking of things that I wanted to do, like how could I? Inspire students. There’s this one teacher here in Sydney who is all over YouTube, and he’s a math teacher and he’s helping students learn math and the way he has these great YouTube videos. And I just saw I want to do something to help my students with English, you know, new immigrants, English as a second language. And it just kept coming up this whole idea of every time I taught students not wanting to speak or being afraid to speak because they felt that the accent was a problem. So I just thought, you know what? And also my husband being French and being in Australia, he I remember he said the first three months of being in Australia, you know, he knew English. He spoke with me, you know, every day in English before that. But moving to Australia, he was like it took him quite a few months to get used to the accent, but not just the Australian accent. Like 50 per-cent of his co-workers are international, you know, so he’s listening to an Iranian accent or, you know, a Brazilian accent. And so it’s trying to adapt to all this. So, yeah, I think that it’s been about two years and then so it was about a year. Maybe a year and four months before I launch the podcast, I try to do a lot of research before creating it and just making sure that the format that I have is what I wanted to I wanted to keep the same format and yeah, just see how that went.

So, I mean, even with that, I mean, you’ve had some by leaps and bounds successes as well. I mean, you’re kind of like an international podcast. You’re not just an Australian podcast.

No. Yeah. Yeah. Sorry. And yes, I was agreeing with you. You say no and then we say yes. That’s a really weird thing. Yeah, you’re right. It’s look, it’s growing slowly, but yeah, I’ve had over one hundred downloads in over one hundred and fifty different countries. Like that’s incredible. I’ve just in this week I’ve received an email from Argentina and Germany from two listeners who say they listen to my podcast every time it comes out and they they love the fact. Also, the other thing that I wanted to make my podcast was not just about accents, but to be genuine. I feel a lot of the language listening activities out there are made for English learners. So it’s it’s it feels quite a little fake. You know, it’s created for you to listen to. But why can’t I have a podcast where I’m just like you and I are chatting now, why can’t English learners listen to that? But what’s the problem? You know, that’s that’s real. You know, that’s a real conversation.

Yeah. Yeah, definitely. Definitely. And definitely, that’s one reasons why I wanted you on on my podcast just because listening to your podcast and listening to what you’re doing right there, it’s a unique thing to create a podcast that’s reaching out just on that particular niche. And that niche is gotten you to where you’re becoming a global thing. So it’s kind of what I’m talking about, like marketing strategies. Also people that you have to figure out what your niches. So write off that you jump off with your niche without having to even think twice about it and you’re reaping the benefits of it.

Yeah, and it’s interesting you say that, because when I was I was on maternity leave, I downloaded, of course, is Lynda.com and it was a little like a six-hour course on how to make a podcast. And I spoke all about that. And they were saying that, you know, it doesn’t work with podcasting. You could just have the smallest idea. And it works. You know, it may not work in other platforms. And I thought, oh, wow, you know, and they said to try and make it unique, you know, try and make it. And I was I did a bit of research, too, to see what was out there, what were there any podcasts doing, what I was doing as well.

Yeah. Yeah. I definitely commend you for that for sure. So the next question I have is just like, so what would you have done differently to get you to where you are a lot faster? If you could do it all over again.

I could do it all over again. It would be nice to have some help, I guess a more time I did well. Yeah, I’m not. I’m not too worried about like if I got there fast. I don’t know if it worked well, I guess it was nice to have. It was great to spend time with my daughter on maternity leave. But then it was also nice to have a little project that had my brain working, you know, for a couple of hours a day. So I probably wouldn’t have rushed it. And I don’t think I need to rush it because I still I’m still a teacher. And it’s this is sort of a hobby at the moment. But because of the exposure and seeing how many countries it’s reaching, its got potential. And now I can say, oh, where where is that potential? How can I where can I move this or. Yes. So that’s that’s exciting. So I don’t know if I would rush it. I don’t know. It’s interesting,

and I think I’m happy you brought that point to where it started off as a hobby, as a passion. But now you’re seeing the opportunity behind the process, like potentially how could I monetize it? How can I scale it? So, I mean, obviously, this podcast is for entrepreneurs. And I view you as an entrepreneur in all aspects of it because you’re on that journey to become pretty much like a podcast mogul. You’re in that genre and you’re going down that path. So do you come from an entrepreneurial background or any family members, your dad, your mom, anybody?

Yes, I do, actually. It’s quite funny. Yeah. My dad, he’s had his own business. He was in the military and left. And straight after that he started like a team building sort of business. And for that, yeah, that they were his two jobs military and then just starting his own. It’s quite funny, like he was at the beginning of all those boot camps. So people like to be yelled at and he makes them exercise, you know, my cup of tea to be yelled at. But other people love it. And yeah, he’s written a few books and. It’s interesting because even before teaching, when I was 18, 19, I did a music degree and I actually came to the USA and I’ve actually played some shows in the USA and we actually sold one of our songs to a Burger King commercial. So I was sort of managing a band that I was in for about seven years before that. So it’s definitely something that, yeah, for some reason, I’m always I’ve always got some ideas. And this. Yeah, so we wanted to.

So it’s a great. I would think that that’s part of the factor to why you’re running the podcast as effectively as you are, because you’re coming from an entrepreneurial mindset without thinking of.

Oh, definitely. Yeah, and that’s true. And even my sister, she’s also got that mindset, too. She’s written a book as well. I guess on the other one hasn’t written a book. I’m the one starting the podcast, but yeah. No, it’s definitely yeah. It’s not something that I guess I’ve been around it. I’ve been around that. It’s not that it’s. Then I looked at my dad, I was like, oh, I’m going to do that, but I guess being brought up in that environment, I guess you you see that next to it.

Yeah, yeah. And I mean, even with the book thing, I mean, obviously I’ve written several books at this point in time and I started a podcast and then it dawned on me as I started to podcast, my podcast could easily be converted into a book. And what does that look like right now? Well, if I’m interviewing people, then every chapter could be about that person’s journey in that particular genre of expertize and kind of quick tips on how did this person get from where they wanted, where they were to where they want to go. So for you, I mean, I think you could easily take your episodes, transcribe them and have a conversation about what this person is from Russia and give a little dialogue about the history of Russia, you know, things that you need to look out for as far as the accents. And it could be like a self-help guide based upon your podcast episodes. And you could easily do that. At the end of every season.

You give really good advice because I took up your advice before about outsourcing, and that is definitely helped me because I have outsourced and this person has got my transcripts together and I thought, oh, I’m so behind. And then within two weeks of my transcripts are up today and I’ve decided this is fantastic.

Yeah, yeah, definitely. I mean, that’s what I do. So, I mean, I definitely I’m happy to see that you took that advice and you ran with it. I mean, it’s all about being effective in creating systems, so.

Yeah,

definitely.

For sure.

So, I mean, obviously, if you’re married, you have kids. How do you juggle your work life with your family life?

You know, that’s hard, and that’s one of the reasons I outsourced because I’m trying to I want to focus on the podcast, but then I’m trying to get new followers as well and. I need somebody to look after. Help me with those things, because there things that, you know, I’d rather be spending, you know, maybe I can get somebody to do that while I focus on creating the podcast and I spend that time with my family. So I think outsourcing was such a great idea. Yeah, I guess, and also I’m good with schedules, trying to stick to schedules and having one day a week where I can really do most of my podcasting, when I also schedule interviews, I try and do it at a time that’s not going to affect any family time. So, yeah, I think it’s just trying to. Yeah, just be diligent and have calendars, but that’s me.

I mean, I think I think anybody that has success or gets to a level of success, you have to have a schedule. I mean, you can’t juggle as much things that entrepreneurs try to juggle. You can’t do it without having a schedule. And if you try to do it all in your head, eventually you’re going to drop the ball. It’s just a matter of time. Yeah. So, I mean, what’s your morning habits, your morning routine? What does that look like?

Oh, my goodness, we rush out the door. I have to teach at eight, 15 in the morning, so I’m. Yeah, it’s pretty much I try and get everything prepared the night before and we’re a bit out of whack because as I mentioned previously, we’ve been living in A, B and B for the last eight months because the whole the other reason I launched the podcast was because we were moving to Canada and I knew that I probably wouldn’t have a job for a while. And knowing me, I needed something like a project. And I thought, well, I’ll start a podcast and then we’ll see where that goes. And then covid happen. And here I am. So.

Yeah, I think you’ve the beauty of Covid, it kind of gives people the opportunity to get very creative and find opportunities that they probably would’ve ignored before. So, I mean, without Covid, I mean, your podcast excepted probably wouldn’t be here.

Yeah, yeah, probably, yeah. So so the mornings, yeah, we we wake up and but I just get everything done the night before, make kids in Australia, we have school uniforms, so I make sure the kids school uniforms are ready. I’ve got my stuff ready because we have to get up at 6:00 and be out the door by seven. So it’s a lot of organization the night before.

So earlier you alluded to like your dad wrote some books and you said you were taking some online courses. Are you a big book reader? Audiobook person?

Oh, my goodness, I. Or it’s more audiobooks at the moment. I you know, and it’s so bad, I wish I had the time to read more. The reading that I have done in the last couple of years has been very dry reading, and it’s like French workbooks or anything. And since we’ve been living in Australia, I don’t want to lose my French. And it’s trying to keep on top of that. Or just recently I did a postgraduate certificate, edits the texts, you know, the academic texts that I have to read.

So thick books.

Yeah. So it hasn’t been I would love to read for pleasure. I guess my leisure is putting on a podcast or putting on an audio-book. That’s yeah.

That’s what I’m an audio-book. She was in Toronto

last year, a book I listened to. It was a Canadian what was it called? Oh, my goodness. It was really a sad story, actually,

One non-fiction or fiction.

Well. I’m non-fiction, and it was and I’m pretty sure it was based on this woman’s life, but it was an audio book. I need to find the name, but it was Canadian. It was based in Toronto. And, yeah, it was about her getting divorced. It was really quite sad, actually. But yes, it was non-fiction.

So where do you see yourself or your podcast in 20 years?

Yuji’s. I don’t know, um. It’s funny because some people have said to me, would I change the format? I’m like, no, I don’t think I need to change the format because I could have the podcast for 20 years because I think there’s thousands of accents out there and I’m doing two episodes a month on. Depends, but I don’t know, do people get sick of a format? Do you need to change it?

Well, I mean, look at it like what? What works, right? I mean, Amazon, Walmart, McDonalds, all of them have formats, but they tweak them on a regular basis. Right. McDonnell always comes out with some new random thing on the menu from time to time or another option to value meal. So they’re not really changing what they’re selling. They’re just repackaging it. Or they may. I think recently they had like celebrities. So celebrity burgers. So it’ll be like a Big Mac with the Big Mac or have bacon on it. And it’s a celebrity version of the burka, so it’s not really changing the format, it’s just mixing and matching things to a certain extent.

Yeah, that’s true, um. I don’t know, I would like to do. It would be great to do more collaborations. I’m really liking the podcast community. I think it’s especially, well, Australia’s quite lucky. We’re not entirely in a lockdown. But when we were in lockdown, it was so nice to interview guests and then chat to people internationally and even the Facebook group, some part of these all these podcast communities and even how we met. I’m yeah, I would like to do more collaborations and. I’m just finding that it’s not. I don’t find competition, I don’t feel that people think we’re competing. I think everybody is trying to help each other out. And it’s it’s it’s a really cool community.

Yeah, I definitely concur with that. I mean, when you I grew up in a graphic design environment and it was just a highly competitive environment. Everybody was trying to outdo somebody else. And to your point, like once you get into a community of people to where we’re not all competing for the same dollar, like podcasting, there’s enough content and enough viewers for everybody, it’s a worldwide thing versus a localized thing. So just by being a worldwide global system, there’s no reason to even try to step on anyone’s shoes. You can help everybody climb the ladder together.

Yeah, it is really, yeah, it’s cool like that, so I would I would love to do some collaborations with other podcast hosts and yeah, I think that’s something that could be in the future. That’s how I’d see it going.

You know why you were saying I was thinking of like another concept. I’d probably cool if you could kind of do like a battle of the accents. Maybe you could have two people come on your show, you’re interviewing them and you have maybe a German accent versus like an Eastern or Western UK accent and let all three parties have the conversation. And then you can kind of go back with what you usually do, which you kind of find the terminologies and you can say you really like this word because this word means this and this language wouldn’t this other language would be something completely different. So that’s something that you can add on to your podcast, that you’re not changing the format, you’re just adding a new individual to every episode.

They’re very good ideas. And this is the thing to one thing that I do wish that I had is more time for it, because I it’s not at the format I envisioned, but it it has to do with everything that I’ve got going on, working full-time kids, family. But, you know, if I if I had more time, there would definitely be other things that I’d be doing. I’d really what my main goal was, is to really pull out even grammar concepts. That’s what I feel is hard, is I teach grammar concepts to my students, yet I. You never like they go. How would you say this in the present tense and then I’ll write a sentence on the board and then but it’s never in context. I would love to actually pull out those things and go, wow, that’s where we actually used it in real life. But at the moment, I don’t have the time to go through that. Maybe I could ask the person who is outsourcing to help me locate that.

Yeah, yeah. And I think you’re definitely on the cusp of I think in the next couple of years, if you keep on the path that you’re going and once you figure out, like, how to monetize your podcast, then I think you can kind of you know, I don’t know if you ever want to give up teaching the way you’re teaching and then change your teaching to more of a podcast teaching. And that way you can get a larger reach and help way more people. You put more effort into that. But I think sooner or later you’re going to be presented with that. Right. Later, you can probably get some offers from somebody to say, hey, we want to sponsor you, and then you’re going to start thinking, Hmm? Which way do I go?

Possibly that would be cool, really cool.

Yeah, definitely so, I mean, what to do you use that that you wouldn’t be able to do what you do without.

Um, I’m loving Descript, that’s a tool I’m using to edit my podcasts, maybe because I love looking at words, but have you used it before?

Haven’t.

And basically, it records the audio and then transcribes it for me, and I was originally using GarageBand and then Descript I find so safe I want to delete a phrase or a sentence. I just delete the like the transcript and delete the audio. For me, it’s brilliant.

Yeah, it definitely sounds like a very intuitive way to edit a podcast without having to go back and forth. And you also have the transcript right there.

Yeah. And maybe that’s the way like visually I can see the words and I can see what just. Yeah. For editing I just find it really easy to use.

Oh cool. So if I’m an individual right and I’m going to actually like, what’s the final word of wisdom that you would give to someone that wants to step into your space? Maybe it’s a current English teacher, maybe somebody that does a lot of English as a second language kind of learning. What would would you leave behind for them to transition them from where they are to be into a podcast or into online education? What words would you have them?

I think you need. Yeah, I think you need to be passionate about. What it is you want to do, I’m really I just for me, I feel that I wanted my students to know that it’s OK to have an accent, you know that. It’s like we’re all equal and we should all be equal, we shouldn’t be judged on how we speak, and I think that was something that I was very passionate about. I have bilingual children. I have, you know, so this area listening comprehension is a passion of mine. So I think if you’re passionate about something, then go ahead and make a podcast. People are going to listen.

I think that’s it’s funny because one of my first books, the core information of that book, was about finding your passion and establishing your passion. People don’t really understand the value of it, because once you decide to go monetary but you don’t have passion behind it, you lose interest and then you can’t continue to move forward. So if you have the passion and the desire, it can kind of become a lifelong thing that you’re going to start and you’re going to end the same way you started with the same ambition behind it versus you lose interest two days into it and you move on to the next thing that pops up in front of you. So, I mean, I’m definitely happy that you brought that to the table. It’s definitely an insightful thought that people need to hear.

Yeah,

yeah, so how can people find you online? I mean, what’s your Facebook, Instagram, your podcast address?

So Kim accented of Instagram, Facebook, I’m pretty sure. Or you could just go to my website. Kim’s Law of English. Bit of a play on words there. And Facebook is the same pimsleur of English, but if you go to my main website, it will it has all the links there or even just Google accented in any podcast platform that you use.

So I’ll give you a couple of bonus questions,

OK?

All right, so first, but if you could spend twenty-four hours with anybody dead or alive, uninterrupted, who would it be and why?

Goodness. Who would it be? That’s so tough, I don’t think who would it be for you, could you just say it now?

Yeah, I mean, I’ve been I’ve been asked that question. So my my first response has always been Einstein. Back and forth from multiple different reasons, I mean, Einstein is just not only he a genius, but he’s overcome hurdles and everybody in life is going to overcome hurdles with Einstein is dealt with racism. He’s dealt with world wars. He’s dealt with Nazis. He’s dealt with a lot of different things. Right. He’s dealt with a lot of learning curves. And as a child growing up, he was viewed to be a dumb duck. And look who he is now. And think about that. If you’re a kid in school and they’re saying that you’re stupid and you’re slow and then you turned out to be one of the greatest minds ever is kind of like kind of opens your mind to really think about things a little differently so that no matter who would it be?

See, I’ve never I’ve never even thought about that. When they say, would you have the dinner table? Five people. Oh, my goodness.

Yeah, that’s a good alternative question. Five people at a dinner table.

I’m just you know, it would probably be a musician because of music. You’re probably someone I just love to hear about. You know, I. I’m a huge fan of English, the whole English punk and ska era, the 70s and 80s. I’d probably ask somebody. From that era, I’d say I don’t know Joe Strummer from The Clash, possibly because he was very political with his music writing. But I find it fascinating how, like the influx of Jamaican refugees and how they intertwined within the punk scene with the ska reggae music. I just find that to me and I guess and it kind of relates to me being interested in accents and immigration and all that sort of thing, because England at that time was just. It wasn’t good, there was a little racism at the time and. You know, that that music scene coming together with sort of, you know, a fighting that and trying to unite in England, so yeah, maybe Joe Strummer from The Clash.

Is pretty interesting as well. So, I mean, outside of your kids, what is your greatest achievement today?

Oh, oh, no. That’s so hard, my greatest achievement outside of my children.

You have to learn, because when I ask that question, usually when I ask that question of access to a parent and 99 per-cent of them always say to kids, first, I have to ad-lib, it’s OK outside the kids.

Because you do have to say that and then I’m like you say, like getting married to my husband, either because he might be like, hey know, I would say learning French, then that was that was so cool. I remember living in France because I knew no French woman, my husband. And after six months of living there, I had like a fine canvasser call up and I said something to them, French basically, like, no, not interested or, you know, had this conversation. I remember hanging out and my husband going, You don’t need me anymore, which is like you did that all in French. So that that’s a huge achievement. I think in my late 20s, early 30s, learning a second language and being able to use it is pretty cool.

Nice. Nice. So coming into closing on the podcast, usually what I do is I kind of turn the microphone over to my guests and give you an opportunity to ask me any questions that you may have.

Oh, interesting. I am going to try it is after midnight, though. Oh, some Christians and. So what is it that keeps you going, you know, with your interviewing all these entrepreneurs, so what is it that excites you about your interviews?

It’s it’s one of those things is like just like when I realized that I was 50 per-cent analytical or 50 per-cent creative and then I owned it. And then I continue on that journey and now I’m realizing, well, throughout my journey, I’ve made all these relationships, all these partnerships, all these different business ventures and even like meeting you. And I’m like, it’s only an opportunity for me to kind of give back my community of people back to everybody else and tell their stories. So for me, it’s kind of like not only. Shaking the hands or giving love from the people that have helped me on my journey, but taking their stories and inspiring other people with them, and then the more and more I look at my every time I look at my Rolodex and every time I go to a networking event, every time I do a speaking engagement, I’m like, the list is never-ending and I want to get to the bottom of the list. So I’m like, I have to do more. I have to produce more. I have to get more content out there and I have to do more interviews in order to make that happen. So it’s a never ending thing for me and I’ve decided it is going to be a life-long thing for me. And at the end of that journey, it’ll be an opportunity for like my kids and my grandkids to kind of see my progression and learn from all the people that I’ve learned from and take bits of somebody may take a bit of this podcast and want to learn French just because they’ve seen what you’ve done with it. Right. Another podcast, somebody you know, he’s a model. Somebody else is a photographer. But they all have these individual journeys of success and how they’ve gotten there and the steps that they took in the crossroads that they went down, which is an opportunity to share all that information.

Yeah, great. And are you happy with your work-life balance?

It’s in the beginning, I would say hell no. In the beginning, it was kind of like I would work twenty-three hours out of twenty for 20 hours out of 20, for every single day, all day. And now there’s some days where I kind of work more than I should, but I’ve always have an opportunity to say, OK, look like the weekends coming, let me go hard on Friday, but then Saturday I’m not responding to anybody or anything and I’m just going to spend time with the family and just do whatever we want to do or Sunday, go sailing or just do something with the family. At least that way. We always have the connection because after one week of working really long and then you work throughout the weekend, it turns into two weeks, three weeks, and you start to see the separation. You start to lose that that that contact or that connection with your family members. And I don’t want to go down that road.

So now when you say in your free time, so say you’re passionate about this project, your business model, you’re passionate about it. So in your free time, are you still working on it? I mean, something else?

No, I mean, if everybody is sleeping, nobody is not looking. I’m I’m I’m like just recently, to your point, when before this episode we recorded that form, I just created that form like maybe the last two weeks. And it was like something that was like I got all this tech behind me. I understand how to build and develop stuff. I need to create an intake form for everybody I’m going to interview. And then in addition to that, I was working on a new project manager and I it’s like we’re producing books, but we’re promoting the books. We need to kind of have a set up to where we can kind of preschedule it. So I went into Excel and did all these different codes and structured it to where a form inputs the information into Excel and Excel, updates the calendar and then the calendar automatically posts on Facebook. So it’s a system that if I didn’t think about it in the middle of the night, it probably wouldn’t have been here. And it makes my life way easier because now I don’t have to hire someone to do it. All I need is somebody to put the data in and then the other elements will take care of the steps.

So you’re not switching off?

No, and it’s one of those things that I’ve learned to accept, like when I’m with my family, it’s off and I’m playing and doing whatever it is. But 20 minutes after that and then everybody is kind of settle down and they’re watching the movie and everybody is kind of going their own separate space. And once I step away from my family, it automatically turns on. It’s like an instant up. And then I’m taking notes, I’m writing something down, and I literally go to bed and wake up exactly the same way.

Well. That’s great as it sounds, it sounds similar. To me, it’s odd, I think it’s really hard to switch off.

I mean, I just I just learn to accept it and it’s just kind of like, OK, when I have to switch off, obviously, my wife would say, OK, switch it off, OK? I’m like, what are we doing? Let’s go. And like, whatever that event is done or everybody sleep. I’m like, OK, right.

That’s and that’s what I’m trying to do, is schedule things so that I’m like, OK, this is dedicated time to my family and I need to. And it was good this afternoon. I did that. I had I brought my kids home and I knew we were doing this late tonight. So I was like, OK, I’m going to spend some time to hang-out with them and then put them to bed and then get back onto this.

Well, I definitely appreciated your time. I mean, it’s funny, when we started off this podcast, we were talking, OK, you’re in Australia, I’m in Atlanta. And it’s like 16 hour difference, which is just crazy when you think about it like you’re technically in Saturday. And I’m not right now, but I definitely appreciate you taking time of your evening. And I think this podcast episode would definitely help somebody out there. And everything you’re doing just keep on doing. I definitely appreciate it.

Thank you so much. No, it’s been a pleasure. I you know, I think it’s great what you’re doing to it’s really, as you said, it’s helpful for entrepreneurs or people who have ideas. So thank you so much for inviting me.

Definitely. It’s a pleasure. And we look forward to seeing more accents. I mean, you said you had like a thousand of them and probably when you hit on, like, a couple. Right. So we went,

yeah, I was what was really cool is I got to episode eighteen and didn’t even have an American accent. And I thought that was quite an achievement because you would think, oh, yeah, I’d have to have it by then. I had so many.

Yeah, it’s interesting. I mean, to your point, I mean, even in the US, I think every state has an accent and then there’s multiple accents in every state. So just by the sheer number, it is at least one hundred fifty accents in the US alone.

And I, I know. So I’ve got a lot to get through.

Yeah. All right. I definitely appreciate it. That’s S.A Grant over now.