We published a book!

Emily Thompson 0:00
All right, the being boss book is here, and you can buy it wherever books are sold and bosses. It's

Kathleen Shannon 0:06
beautiful. If you've bought the book and want to help us make it a bestseller, please leave us a rating and review on Amazon. Hello, and welcome to being boss,

Emily Thompson 0:19
a podcast for creative entrepreneurs. I'm Emily Thompson.

Kathleen Shannon 0:23
And I'm Kathleen Shannon.

Hey bosses. Today we are talking all about the being boss book. So we're going to share some behind the scenes and process and really what goes into writing a book. So if you've ever thought about writing a book or if you're more curious about the being boss book and what went into making that, well just listen up. And as always, you can find all the tools, books and links we reference on the show notes at WWW dot being boss club. I know that we have a lot of aspiring entrepreneurs and side hustlers listening to the show. So if you're sitting there thinking about becoming your own boss, there is a good chance that your idea of how challenging it will be, won't exactly match up with the reality of how challenging it's actually going to be. Now, this is not an attempt to talk you out of it. In fact, it is the exact opposite. Because there is so much amazing help available, you've just got to know where to look. So our friends at freshbooks make it ridiculously easy to do cloud accounting for small businesses and they have helped millions of folks just like you make the brave leap to being their own bosses. With freshbooks you can create and send perfect looking invoices in less than 30 seconds. You can also take photos of your receipts from your phone, which makes managing your expenses a million times easier. Now to see how freshbooks can support you and becoming your own boss, we want to offer our listeners an unrestricted 30 day free trial. Just go to freshbooks comm slash being boss and enter being boss in the How did you hear about us section?

Emily Thompson 2:07
We did it Kathleen.

Kathleen Shannon 2:08
We did it. What did we do? We wrote a book. We wrote a book. So the being boss book. It's in the world.

Emily Thompson 2:19
It's like we had a baby today, Kathleen today it's birthday.

Kathleen Shannon 2:24
I'm so excited today little book,

Emily Thompson 2:27
right? I feel like this is a culmination of years and years of creative energy of just like showing up doing the work, cultivating expertise, and then distilling it down into a thing that we made.

Kathleen Shannon 2:48
Yes. And it was pretty intense. So I want to use today's episode to talk about kind of what went into writing a book and the behind the scenes of it and whether or not you all listening should write a book. Spoiler alert. Yes, I think you should, I think everyone should write something.

Emily Thompson 3:08
I agree with that. And just to sort of keep you guys up to date, we did cover how we got a book deal, which I know is always something you want to talk about in Episode Number 130 that we did with our agent Laura Lee. So feel free to go back and listen to that if you want to know specifically about book deal, because we're not really diving into that today. Today, we're talking about creative process and what went in and actually writing this book.

Kathleen Shannon 3:33
But before we do that, I want to give a big shout out to our publisher running press, we were so excited to sign on with running press from our very first meeting with them. We got such good vibes and continue to love the process of working with them to bring our little baby out into the world. Like if this is our baby. Running press is the midwife.

Emily Thompson 3:59
Absolutely, they help massage this baby out. Yeah, I mean, you know, from that first conversation, like you said, it's so important again to like find people who connect with the creative vision like you and I went into this, like almost seeing this book in our heads before we even were able to get it out and to have a team of people and I also just want to point out like a team of ladies, which I still am so impressed with. Who helped who saw the vision that we had and liked it and wanted to work with us to make it I do feel like it was a little bit of like magic moments of like everything just aligning to produce exactly what needed to be produced.

Kathleen Shannon 4:46
So big shout out to Jennifer Jessica fauzia saitta Francis, I'm sure I'm missing all y'all but all y'all A lot of you helped bring this to life. So thank you to running press Okay, and then also, before we get into the episode, I want to let you all know that you can buy the book now. And if you leave us a review, and send us a screenshot of it or tag us on Instagram, we will personally respond and say thank you.

Emily Thompson 5:15
Yes. And that's Instagram at being bossed club. She just that screenshot and a message and Kathleen and I are standing by to show you some love for showing us love is love fast it's happening.

Kathleen Shannon 5:31
All right, let's dig in. So whenever it came to writing a book, we knew that we needed to set some goals. And this is where we always begin whenever it comes to our businesses and any sort of project that we're wanting to launch, we have to kind of set a vision on the horizon of where we want to be, so that we know what we're taking steps towards. So what were our goals for the book? First,

Emily Thompson 5:57
I think I'm just gonna hold it in my lap while I'm talking about it for the next 45 minutes or so. So let's talk about goals really quick. Um, I think first and foremost, for us, it was making a thing it was creating something I'll never forget, after we launched our first podcast episode, back in 15, I guess 2015, the first Tuesday of 2015. I remember as like sharing text messages. And we weren't really texting each other at the time. Like I think this is like maybe some of our first texts, where the episode was live. The first newsletters went out to say to each of our list that that we had made a thing. And I remember those text messages being like, look what we made, we made something and Kathleen and I as creatives, we just want to make things that's in so many ways. That's all we're here to do. We're just here to make things and inspire you guys to make things as well. So I think definitely a very broad goal of this book was to come together and make something else.

Kathleen Shannon 7:05
I love that you say we weren't really texting at the time, because just a few weeks ago, whenever our physical copy, advanced copy of the book came in the mail, I got a FaceTime from you. And I was like we just maybe never happened. That's never really happened before either. I feel like now we've actually like bursted that FaceTime, cherry pop the cherry facetiming a little more now. But um, yeah, it's like really cool just to create something. And for me, my big goal was to grow our brand, you know. And so from day one of the podcast, we realized that we had created something bigger than ourselves, and how do we continue to get the message of being boss and the community that has rallied behind the vision of being boss and really made it their own, out beyond just the podcast, like the podcast has certainly been our hub so far. But from day one, we said we wanted to make a multi media conglomerate, those were the words, right, and a book is a part of that media. So that was also it as well. And that also factored into our decision to do go with the traditional publishing route is that we knew that we would have better distribution and opportunities for you know, growth and bestsellers, lists and to get on, like my biggest vision. And my biggest goal is to see this book, in an airport, I wouldn't be walking through an airport, traveling somewhere and seeing the book on the shelf and signing it. So that's really exciting. To me, that was like my big goal. But then also coming back to and we write about this in the book like values and intentions, this is something that we always come back to no matter what we're creating. And so alongside setting goals, we also wanted to set some values and intentions for the book and really just thinking about the person reading the book, feeling really boss, is boss a good value like can that word alone be the value?

Emily Thompson 9:07
I think we may have turned it into one accidentally. And I mean, Chapter One of the being boss book, or Kathleen and I are like super defining what it means to us to be boss. I think we've certainly distilled it down into its own value.

Kathleen Shannon 9:23
So let's talk about how we structured the book content wise, because getting started is always the hardest part of doing anything. And going into writing a book knowing that you're going to be writing something that is going to be physically printed. There's no deleting it, there's no going back on it, it is in the world. So that gets in the Library of Congress. That can be overwhelming and honestly parallelizing. And so we had to get into organizing the structure so that we could hit the ground running with physically writing it and we had to get really organized because there were two of us working on it and We really did split it 5050. So let's talk a little bit about how we structured the book.

Emily Thompson 10:05
Sure. I mean, we have an exercise, actually braid has an exercise. It's, what is it called, how to write a book, if you if you wrote a book, if you wrote a book where you take like the content, you want to share any write it down, and that basically basically becomes the chapters of your book. So high five braid, for giving us the structure to greet the structure of our book, where we just sat down, oh,

Kathleen Shannon 10:30
and to give this a little bit more context, we actually took being boss through the braid branding process, the first half of it, where we really started to get our vision on paper. And this actually, this exercise, if we wrote a book helped us structure the pillars of content that have gone into our podcast. And so whether or not you will know it in every single episode, we are touching on the boss mindset, habits and routines, boundaries, community, work, and life. And so within those categories are lots of things that can go into those categories. But those categories are what helped make up our brand. It's what helps make up the content of the being boss podcasts, it was actually pretty easy to take that and make a book out of it. We had already done the exercise.

Emily Thompson 11:19
Yeah, whenever you can get that clear with your brand. And again, pointing out that you don't have to plaster this everywhere. You don't have to say these words in every conversation, I wouldn't be surprised if some of you never even noticed that we actually had these hardcore, like foundations in place. But we have, since the first episode, if I'm not mistaken, that was part of our very early branding efforts of really diving into what we recognize as being boss, and what makes up someone who is boss and having that conversation with people and each other over and over and over again. So that whenever it came time to actually creating the structure of the book, we knew exactly what the topics were going to be it was going to be the exact same topics we've talked about over and over and over again. It's just now we have the experience to really distill them down into really concise content.

Kathleen Shannon 12:12
Oh, I should say the name of the book, because this is a question that I get all the time. Whenever I tell people like we wrote a book, they're like, oh, wow, what is it? Because I take it for granted that it's being passed the book. So the book is called being boss, take control of your work and live life on your own terms.

Emily Thompson 12:27
Love it, love it. And in each chapter, they're in their six chapters in all. Okay, so chapter one is an introduction to being boss. to note, actually, that's just the intro intro is introduction to being boss. Chapter One is what it means to be boss, chapter two, Boss mindset, chapter three, establishing boss boundaries, chapter four habits and routines, chapter five, do the work. Chapter Six, live your life.

Kathleen Shannon 13:01
And so from there, we started looking through all of our content. So all of the podcasts we've created, we started pulling all the pull quotes and categorizing them per chapter. So at first, we were kind of mining the content that we already had. But we knew that we didn't want this book to simply be a transcription of the podcast episodes, we wanted to be a little bit more concise. Like if you were a fan of being boss, and you just wanted our best nuggets of wisdom. That's what we're putting into this book. But we also wanted to share anecdotes and stories from other bosses. So we are highlighting a couple of contributors in there. Y'all know we love a worksheet. So we want to get some worksheets in there. And we love that you can physically write in the worksheets in the book, we wanted to have different kind of bite size lists, and you know, action items and prompts. So we've got those in there as well. We wanted the the feeling of the book to be like the podcast where it's conversational, but then also incredibly actionable. So that's kind of how we structured it. We knew what what our pillars of content were, what our tables of content were, and then the kind of the kind of things that we wanted in each chapter. This episode is brought to you in part by 2020, where creative minds get authentic real world stock photos. If you're looking to engage with your audience in your next blog post or book, you'll have an opportunity to use trendy visual content to increase your sharing rate. 2020 has crowdsource millions of exclusive photos from a community of over 350,000 photographers, all available under a simple royalty free license. Today, they're offering listeners of being boss a five photo free trial to start yours right now go to 20 twenty.com slash being boss. That's the word 20 then to zero.com slash being boss to get five free photos. So then it came down to literally writing it. So let's talk about what that was like.

Emily Thompson 15:03
Right? We went into this process into the writing process with the like feedback that we've had from so many authors that writing the book is most painful thing you'll ever do. It's like pulling teeth and having babies and all kinds of other painful things that you don't really think of as being super exciting. So we went into it, just like, almost like prepared, just prepared to do it. And we ended up having more fun than we've ever had doing any work. Or maybe even like having any fun, ever we had a blast, we went into the first two weeks just sort of dividing and conquering picking an arbitrary chapter and going at it and discovered immediately that that was not going to work, the writing was awful, was really, really bad. And so we then got really concise with the entirety of our outline of the book and then started from the beginning, and just started writing through together and then included Kathleen and I getting on to zoom together, FaceTime or not face having FaceTime, video conferencing, and actually writing in real time together and having conversations about it, we found it really helpful that, you know, if we were stuck in writing, just taking your hands off the keyboard and saying what I really want to say is this, this and this, and then the other of us actually transcribing what we were writing. And we found this sort of really, really fantastic and effective creative flow between the two of us, that allowed us to just write the book all the way through together and having a blast while we were doing

Kathleen Shannon 16:39
it. So we started writing the book, let's see, we got our book deal in November. And then we took December off, which I think kind of blew our publishers mind a little bit there was that boss. So they wanted to see a sample chapter. So we included a sample chapter in our proposal. And again, listen to that episode that we did with Laura Lee, because I think we talked a little bit more about that in that episode. But they wanted a sample chapter. And we knew that we could probably write that within the first two weeks of January. So that's where we wrote a sample chapter, we sent it in, we got their blessing. They're like, yeah, this looks great. And then we just kept going. So I think we turned in the final manuscript in April. So from January to April, we were writing. And I want to talk a little bit about kind of the rituals and routines and even the rhythm or how much we would work a day on writing what that really looked like, Did you have any rituals or habits that you had to do to get into writing mode, or was there a time of day that was best for you tell me more about that.

Emily Thompson 17:44
It's funny, I remember the first day that we wrote, I remember, like trying to be really precious about it. I remember making sure I had like a full stomach but not too full. And that I was hydrated but not overly. And I remember getting like my Essential Oil Diffuser in here and having some like, really good focus oils in there. Like all the things and that only lasted like the first writing session or two, like you don't need to really do all of that, in order to be creative. I think we did find pretty early on that mornings were better for writing for us, before we had the chance to be drained by any other interactions, or work that needed to be done. If we were going to do our best creative work, it was going to be done first thing in the morning. And we also found out pretty early on that we couldn't really write well after about an hour and a half. So after about an hour and a half the writing was shit. So let's just stop at an hour and a half.

Kathleen Shannon 18:41
That's exactly right. And it might be a good time to mention the shitty first draft. So that is a thing. Yeah. And that is certainly a thing that we went through. So we just hammered out these first drafts. And one of the things I noticed as far as like habits and rituals and routines for getting into writing, is again, I like to do it first thing before I did anything else. And then I really loved getting on a call with you and reading what I had written out, getting your feedback on it. And that's something else that we really quickly got over any sort of preciousness about real fast. So at first I think we were kind of tiptoeing around each other and trying to be real polite. When it came to our feedback,

Emily Thompson 19:23
I remember leaving that first call whatever we were doing, that like self editing, like or I guess between duo editing, I don't know what you'd call that. Um, and like leaving that conversation super drained and not excited about the rest. Like we were just getting started on multiple weeks of doing this and thinking, well, this is gonna suck because having someone read something you wrote and immediately go like, I think you could do better or whatever it is that you say. It hurts a little bit if you're not super used to doing it. But by the end of it Kathleen and I had no problem just deleting isn't it? And rewriting and throwing out sections or whatever, like, we learned how to not be precious about our creative work. And I think for both of us, that's going to make us so much better. And so many things that we do, especially like having that sort of likes sucker punch in the gut, over and over for weeks, like you just get used to it, it's fine.

Kathleen Shannon 20:24
So I think that you probably wrote more papers in college than I did, I didn't have to write a whole whole lot like I was mostly doing art. So my projects that I was submitting, were really based around, you know, graphic design and mock ups and boards. And there were things that went into it that were really hard. But I never went through like kind of that formal writing paper writing process. I mean, I have written some papers, but I've never even written probably a 25 page paper, like, let's just put it that way. Like I never got really into it. I saw a lot of my peers getting really into it and drained by it. And I know that there's like a formal writing style, there's the AP writing style is that what you did in college was AP writing style.

Emily Thompson 21:03
I did some of that I did another one too. And I can't remember what it was.

Kathleen Shannon 21:07
So I know that I feel like whenever we first started writing, like you were going back to college writing cyl, like, and it was very, it felt very formal. And that's probably the moment that I was like, this does not sound like you at all.

Emily Thompson 21:21
Right here. There were lots of conversations around, you know, what things were sounding like. And that actually even going back to before we actually started writing, in this idea of like, what point of view Are you Are we going to write from? Or are we going to say we are going to say me? Are we going to be talking to you? Or simply all like, what point of view or like what tense even Are we going to bring into this, like some of that really finite grammar stuff was hard.

Kathleen Shannon 21:51
It was challenging. I think that was one of the most challenging parts of it. And so what were you calling it like the universal, universal you, the universal you and so maybe not even saying you and so eliminating those words. So I think that in my shitty first draft, I was just writing the way I would write and then you were actually helping me clean up my sentences to make it more universal, I was helping you bring more of like who you are into your very professional sentences and well structured, grammatically correct sentences. And I think that we really did meet in the middle. And we we eventually found our voice and our tone together. But we found it by actually hammering our fingers away on the keys and trusting. Okay, this is going to come out like once we actually start we don't have to define all the writing styles right? Now we can trust that if we just write this and get started, we'll be able to figure it out as we go and clean it up.

Emily Thompson 22:51
Yeah, and that was a journey. That was definitely a several months long journey. And one that, you know, really also went into a self editing, we never we did finally deliver our manuscript. It wasn't the first draft, which is what it was supposed to have been. It was like the fifth draft because Kathleen and I worked that way. And I don't think we could have went all the way through it, the two of us without going back. And especially as we were figuring out, like what point of view we're writing from and all of those things. But writing it together definitely helped, like raise the bar for both of us. And really kind of really bring that being boss voice that is both of us, but still only one of us into a book. It was a fascinating process. And it's so much like

Kathleen Shannon 23:40
the process for anything that we're creating or launching is you're kind of figuring it out as we go and getting better and iterating. And so going through all those editing phases with each other. I mean, I remember the first time we went all the way through and then we came all the way back to the beginning. And we've already become better writers. Yeah. Do the beginning.

Emily Thompson 24:01
rewrite it. All right. That was that was also a fascinating experience. Like, even within weeks, we were doing so much writing, being able to recognize how much better we'd gotten because we were practicing so much,

Kathleen Shannon 24:16
you know, something else that was kind of challenging is that we are both very visual people. And sometimes that helps us create content to know what it will look like. I mean, I think that we're both very much designers at heart. And so that was another thing that was kind of challenging was working in a big Google Doc. So we were in Google so we could edit at the same time and be in there together. And there's a difference between seeing your words kind of static on a screen versus seeing them the way that we had envisioned the book which was being full color and full of bulleted lists and sidebars and all the things. So I think at one point, I may have even like done a mock up design just to say okay, here's what this could kind of start to look like, and then actually helped us structure the rest of our content a little bit more to really see how it would play out. So I think envisioning the end product was a big part of our creative process as well.

Emily Thompson 25:12
Yeah. And I also have to point whenever we did deliver that final manuscript, Kathleen's typestyles in that Google Doc, were on point.

Kathleen Shannon 25:24
I forgot about that. So I went through and formatted the entire Google documents so that even the way that we were typing out all of our lists, all of our body, copy all of our headlines, and subheads was consistent, and onpoint. And even then, taking that from the Google Doc, the publisher, then took that into a Word doc, that was then tagged, like with legit code, like headline subhead, or like h1, h2, if you had an edit you strike it and say, stetch there was, it was like, it was not like anything I've ever done.

Emily Thompson 26:04
Yeah, it was, it was legit. It was legit. And I love being able to see the whole process for sure. For sure. Alright, I want to talk about like, the greater vision for the book, because we've talked about like writing it and what that looked like, but we weren't just writing a book, like from the very beginning. We were designing a book. And not only the words and not even just what it looked like we had like, Great photoshoot for it. We we had I mean, Lisa Frank, was definitely our like, pinnacle of inspiration here for what this book would look like and feel like,

Kathleen Shannon 26:42
like Stevie Nicks meets Lisa Frank. Yes, yes. And that's pretty much what it is. Look at the back cover y'all because we had a full on witchy shoot in New Orleans. I photoshopped my shirt. So it's a little less seethrough.

Emily Thompson 26:58
Right. I think I have less bags under my eyes, which is fine.

Kathleen Shannon 27:02
I did give you a little concealer. Right?

Emily Thompson 27:04
Right. So it wasn't just it wasn't just the words. For us it was having a book, that would be a handbook, like something you wouldn't mind having this on your coffee table. If someone walked in and having them flip through it. It's full color, it has lots of full images. And we chose New Orleans because it's our place it is it is the unofficial home of being boss. And it's the place where I'm gonna talk about like being who you are 100% of the time and making money doing what you love. I feel like New Orleans is a place that sort of embodies that in a way that I wanted to have it represented in this book. And we wanted to be there to do the photo shoot for it.

Kathleen Shannon 27:46
So at one point, our publisher had mocked up covers with us on the cover. And I was like, listen as good as we look. Because I know

Emily Thompson 27:53
you look good. And we don't mind having our faces on things. We don't

Kathleen Shannon 27:57
want to be on the cover, which is so rare, probably for us to say as people with personal brands and understanding the importance of personal brand, because we definitely see being bought. I mean, this book was written from our voice and from our experience and from our perspective, and we are bringing in guest experts and tidbits here and there to try and you know, cover our bases. But for the most part, you know, it is a book by Emily Thompson and Kathleen Shannon, like we wrote it together. But we definitely see being boss as being a book and a community that is so much bigger than us. And so we actually hired or recruited a couple of models. So our friends, Sarah and AJ. So because we wanted to bring, you know, people who don't just look like us and other creatives and I mean, I would love to just like I would have loved to have had a group photoshoot of like 100 different creatives that we can have peppered throughout the entire book. And but we chose certain AJ as our models and so they're in the book as well, which I love having them in there. I was just sending AJ like a little snapshot the other day of a spread that he's in.

Emily Thompson 29:05
Right. And a shout out to Sarah Becker Lillard Of course, as well for doing all the photos in the book and on the back cover. And even going back to what we what you were just saying about us not being on the cover, we really wanted to make this the kind of book where you could see yourself being boss, even if you don't look like us.

Kathleen Shannon 29:26
We I think of it as like, you know, whenever you're buying someone a wedding card, and there's another couple on the cover of a wedding card. Do you ever buy that kind of card? No, because it's not the couple getting married, like it looks nothing like them. And so that was kind of my thing is I want someone to pick up this book and envision themselves being boss not to envision us.

Emily Thompson 29:47
Agreed, agreed. So all of those things like and that's a lot of things guys that went into the design of a book. It was definitely something that we had this whole grand vision for it wasn't just going to be the words on the paper, but it was going to be the entire package of what it is that you're holding. I mean, it's even a different size. It has a nice like pearly cover. Like all of these things, a whole lot of thought and effort and fantasticness went into the entire package of this book.

Kathleen Shannon 30:17
I do remember telling our publisher, and this is part of the reason why we signed on with them, because they got it. I remember talking to some other agents before we even signed on with Laura Lee about a vision of a book. And I told them what I told our publisher, and they were confused by it. But our publisher got it, which was this, I was like, I want it to feel like a cookbook for creative entrepreneurs like something that they can write in and get messy, and just flip to a page and get something from it. Like it doesn't necessarily have to be read, you know, in order or linear. Like they can just flip to wherever they want to get inspiration. There's even an index in there, which is pretty exciting. And something else that we really have to decide whether or not we wanted to do. But again, along with that cookbook style, there is an index so you can find exactly what you need. And so whenever I told our publisher that they were like, Yes, I can see it, like the color, the photos, the type all of it. So that was really exciting. That was a big inspiration for me. And maybe because I've designed a cookbook before, like that's the only other published book that I've designed has been a cookbook,

Emily Thompson 31:21
right? Or maybe just because that's how your boss take the right ingredients, and you put them together in the right way. And there you go. It is a cookbook.

Kathleen Shannon 31:33
Um, so the design process was a little interesting, because technically, the publisher designs the book. And this is, you know, true in most cases, like it is very rare that someone is designing their own book, and most authors aren't designers also. So we did end up designing our own book and are so grateful that our publisher, let us take some creative control on that and some creative liberty, because we really envisioned it being something really colorful and in line with our brand, but a little different than our brand. And so really taking it to the next level and like having, you know, some fun with it. It's very playful. And so that was really fun.

Emily Thompson 32:16
Yeah. And it's it's the kind of book, I can't wait to have my photo taken next to it over and over and over again. All right, excuse me, while I pause this for a moment and let you in on the most exciting news I've maybe ever shared. Kathleen and I have had a baby, a book, baby. That's right, the being boss book is out and available for you to purchase. It's been a long labor, but it's here and it's beautiful if we must say so ourselves.

Kathleen Shannon 32:46
We wrote this book to help creatives like you cultivate the confidence it takes to take control of your work and to make money doing what you love so that you can live life on your own terms. And because that mission feels so right deep down in our bones, we're here to ask you for some help. We need to get this in the hands of every creative who suffers from frosty feelings, who's stuck in mindsets that keep them from creating the thing, and who struggle with charging what they're worth.

Emily Thompson 33:13
So first, buy this book for yourself. Because if you're a fan of this show, you're going to love what we've got going on in the being boss book. Note, we highly recommend getting the printed book, we've made it to be held written in and become an accessory on your desk.

Kathleen Shannon 33:29
Second, send a link to a friend. anyone you know who could benefit from some boss awesomeness in their eyeballs. It's filled with full color photos, worksheets and tips for being boss, they're gonna love it.

Emily Thompson 33:42
Third, leave us a rating and review on Amazon. Our dream is to skyrocket this book to the kind of success that has every creative in the world feeling like a total boss. So your support there would mean everything to us. Now go to being boss club slash book for links to purchase or head on over to wherever books are sold. Thank you for your continued support. It's because of you that we've been able to bring this book into the world. Now let's get back at it. Alright, let's talk about getting in the mail because that was a moment that you and I waited for for months and months and months and months and then I FaceTime Do you go

Kathleen Shannon 34:24
Okay, so Emily facetimed me I had an open the package yet I am allergic to opening packages and mail. I just don't like to do it. In fact, there's an Amazon box in my living room right now. That will not be open until my husband gets home.

Emily Thompson 34:40
I find that fascinating. So Kivalina had gotten a package and hadn't known it. I had gotten it was actually the last day of recording the audio book which we'll talk about in a second. I got home super drained. I think I was just like sitting on the bed staring at the wall or something similar. And David and Lily walk into the room, waving my book around in the air, and I was so excited. So the first thing I do is I grab my phone and I FaceTime Kathleen and ask her if she's checked her mail.

Kathleen Shannon 35:09
I'm like, What? No. And here's another thing. So whenever you get a book, there is a first run called a galley. And so our galley had just this black cover. It was like, all black and white inside really thin paper. So it's just kind of the content book that would go out to, you know, press or podcasters that we're doing interviews with, just so that they have the physical content. And our publisher didn't want to give out PDFs because they were afraid of the book being leaked, which made me feel so boss. I was like, I don't know if anyone's leaking this book. It's me. Like, if I were dashlane, I would definitely be calling the paparazzi on myself. Like, I'm that kind of person. Probably no,

Emily Thompson 35:52
I could just see you accidentally posting the dropbox link on your Facebook like accidental and didn't even know it was happening.

Kathleen Shannon 36:02
So the galley was my first experience with like, the printed physical copy of the book. And it was exciting, but also a little deflating, because I knew it didn't look like the way I wanted it to look, it's probably like if you're going in and looking at rental houses or a house to buy and you know that there's the potential and you're like, I know, I should be able to see past this terrible wallpaper, but I just can't. It was kind of like that. So I think I was almost a little gun shy to open the package. This is what it is. This is why I'm allergic to meal. Or like, even voicemail is I'm just, I was I was scared of what I was going to see. Like what if my baby's ugly,

Emily Thompson 36:40
right. And I was sitting there on FaceTime waiting to capture it all.

Kathleen Shannon 36:43
Exactly. So Emily, Emily is there I open it and I love it like it is everything I ever wanted a baby's pretty. And only to this awful screenshot of me, she sent it to me, I was like, that's a bad angle. delete it,

Emily Thompson 36:59
but it's so great, because you're just flipping through it for the first time and you have this log of like, total excitement on your face. And then we did it up like legit posing for a FaceTime, like screen capture later. But it was so fun to be able to watch you open it and then to have it and have it in our hands. Like we have a real physical legit, complete copy, which is super. So maybe one of the like, most exciting moments of my life. I even remember Lily sitting there looking at me while I was flipping through it because they had walked in with it. looking the way she goes, Mom, I think is the happiest I've ever seen you like Girl, you are always so dramatic. But maybe. Maybe, hey, so

Kathleen Shannon 37:40
in the front of our book, we have dedicated the book to all of you first and foremost. But then we went ahead and mention our kids because you know, they're the future. So in the front of the book, it says to Fox and Lilly because you're the future tell partner and about Lily's reaction. Well, we

Emily Thompson 38:00
had been having a hard day that day. You know

Kathleen Shannon 38:03
how kids are and total listeners how old Willie is right? So

Emily Thompson 38:06
at that point, she was nine she's now 10 but she was having a really hard day. And just late when evening was actually whenever I got my galley, so it was like the black and white copy. Um, a friend of mine had come over I showed her the galley. And then while she was looking at it, I even think she had flipped her I had forgotten that I dedicated it to Lily or I probably would have said something. And this friend of mine was like oh look Lily or something there abouts. And Lily loses it. She started bawling just bawling her eyes and hugging me and saying them the best ever, as like girl need to get it together. But it also was really really sweet. She was super moved by it. I think I'm going to make it required reading.

Kathleen Shannon 38:53
I love it. And you know, I mean, there's a lot that goes into being a working parent. And there's some guilt that comes with it. There's some sacrifices. I mean, there are a lot of times that you're over here working literally writing a book while David and Lily are going to the zoo or you're going to climbing competitions and my kid is in full time daycare and as much as I love having him in school full time. It doesn't come without challenges or a little bit of mom guilt. And so for me having you know his name in the front of this book is just like look what I made. That wasn't just you like I wasn't put on this world just to make you I was here to make this book and to make a lot of things for a lot of other people. And I hope that you can appreciate that and it sounds like Lily does.

Emily Thompson 39:43
She did that day and she definitely has since. Right I was telling strangers that you're famous right? She does tell strangers so terribly much. Um No. I love that you say that a time because that really hits hits home. For me a lot, and especially like, not only like making our children and making things for other people, but I also feel like we're making the world better for our children like this book will hopefully help creatives who will be more boss and in terms that will make or in turn that will make the world better is that once Lily gets there being creative entrepreneurs easier and, and more accessible in all of these things. So, yes to all of you bosses who are showing up and doing the work, this is for you. And also, Lillian Fox,

Kathleen Shannon 40:36
and for your kiddos to if you have them. Of course,

Emily Thompson 40:40
of course,

Kathleen Shannon 40:41
let's say by recording the audio book, maybe the hardest thing we've ever done in our whole lives.

Emily Thompson 40:45
No legitimately the hardest work I've ever done in my entire life. I learned a lot of things about how my brain processes information and sends it to my mouth. And those two days. And it's not as like that pathway isn't as clear for me as it is for some people.

Kathleen Shannon 41:03
I was just listening to mark Marin's podcast yesterday, and he had a guest on and they were talking about recording audio books. And he was like, I just you know, I thought I could read. But after you record an audio book, you question your ability to Yeah, and I remember you saying that too. And

Emily Thompson 41:18
yeah, I did. I did a FaceTime and I FaceTime an Instagram story. I think the day after my last one, and or my last day, and like if you feel like an illiterate child who cannot read. And it's, but it was fascinating. I say all those things. It was fascinating. I'm so glad I got to do it. I will do it again. Happily for sure. super huge, high fives to our like audio book producer, Karen, who God bless her put up with a lot of shit for me. And then I'm my sound guy a bay also cracked jokes the entire time to keep me from crying. I wasn't going to cry. But I maybe could have if there hadn't been too many jokes. It's just really hard to read something perfectly slowly, with energy for hours on end.

Kathleen Shannon 42:11
Totally. Yeah. So you know, we talked about intentions and values. And my intention before going into reading the book was I'm going to rally, I'm going to be articulate, I'm going to be energetic. And I can read.

Emily Thompson 42:24
And I can read. I know that was my mantra for two days is I can read. I can read. I can read a whole sentence at a time.

Kathleen Shannon 42:34
The you know, I was really scared reading the audiobook because I was like, What am I going to like what we read what we wrote to I kept wanting to riff on the things that we had written and I wanted to like, share behind the scenes stories or secrets or like, okay, but bosses really, here's what I really want to tell you also. But once I started reading it, I was so glad to have that process as well. Even going into promo. The promo phase of the book and read familiarizing myself with the book was huge. And also just feeling really proud of it. Like that was kind of the first moment I had, where I had had some distance from what we had created. And I came back to it and instead of like cringing, I thought I was going to feel like reading my diary is what I thought like, that was my biggest fear. This is gonna feel I know, this is gonna be like me reading my diary to the world. But it wasn't it wasn't at all and and I was excited and proud. And yeah, so we have an audio book, right?

Emily Thompson 43:35
I know, I think it's really huge that we've done our own audio book that was something in the, in the process of like getting the book deal and those sorts of things. It was very up in the air, it wasn't like, Oh, well obviously, you'll do your audio book. And we went into it really assuming that we would not get to do our audio book. So being able to do it was very exciting. And agree that you know, as difficult as it was, and again, like I feel like my difficult thing is, I just feel like very rarely Am I really bad at something like really, really bad at something if I was really bad at it. I'm editing is going to be fantastic. And it did it really put you back in the back end to the content. And really, I've never felt more proud. I don't think of anything that I've worked on in my entire life than I did those two days of reading it out loud. For everyone else to hear it. It was amazing.

Kathleen Shannon 44:30
And you know who is going to read our book if we weren't able to?

Emily Thompson 44:35
Who are you about to say cuz we've talked about tons of people.

Kathleen Shannon 44:39
I went to Jessica Lauren, she's been a guest on our podcast from no real jewelry, and she's an actor, so I bet she can read an audio book with energy for hours at a time. But Jessica Lauren, I love her so much. And I could imagine her reading our audio book. So yes That's who it would have been.

Emily Thompson 45:01
We also we cracked drugs while I was doing my audio but because Kathleen and I did it separately there were four days of recording Kathleen did two days I did two days. During one of my recording days, we were dreaming out loud about what of Denzel Washington were reading this book. Wouldn't that sound bosses? Fuck? Yes. But I also remember channeling I remember having to have a conversation. I am channeling Bill Nye right now. And reading is one of the audio books he did was fascinating with energy the entire time. Or JK Rowling reading Harry Potter when she didn't do her audio books, but I was channeling some cool people, guys.

Kathleen Shannon 45:42
And you know, one thing that inspired me, and you just turned me on to this recently as the podcast launch, by Oh, what's his name?

Emily Thompson 45:51
I don't know. I was trying to think about it this morning.

Kathleen Shannon 45:55
Anyway, it's a podcast called launch. And it follows the story of a screenwriter turned author who's writing his first book and touring the process and is highly produced. It is an amazing Podcast, where he kind of shared some insights in behind the scenes. And it was fun hearing him talk about all the things that we've gone through. And he talks about the audio book and interviews a talent that reads something like 350 books a year. I don't know how you would do that for a living.

Emily Thompson 46:24
I don't either. I really don't either. Lots of practice, I bet you'd get really great at it. I it's funny. I always remember wanting to do that. When I was a kid. I actually remember like in early grade school, there being some sort of program where you read books aloud and take them like on a tape recorder for kids. Like I remember doing. Yes. And I remember being fascinated by it and loving. It's funny. I hadn't even thought about that a long time. But it's always something I've been interested in. And now that I've done it, I'm not keep my day job. Thanks.

Kathleen Shannon 46:58
Okay. So you know, we both read that book becoming supernatural. Hmm. And it talks about kind of like condensing time. And so now I'm fascinated by the idea of time travel. And like the idea of you as a kid reading that book, thinking one day, I'll be writing my own book like those, those moments in time kind of happened at the same time, because there is no time. I know, I'm getting real.

Emily Thompson 47:22
But I like it. I like it. I'm down there, which means I'll probably do it again. Because these things repeat themselves. I'm down. I'm totally down. I'll take snacks. I'm okay. So

Kathleen Shannon 47:32
one thing that I was kind of thinking whenever we had signed on with a publisher was kind of that, like, we just write the book handed in and call it a day, right? But we can't help but get our hands and everything. And I think that this is why our publisher wanted to work with us is that we're really able to collaborate on all of our efforts. So whenever it comes to writing, you know, we're writing it, they have their editor, they have their copy editors, who by the way, really cleaned up like copy editors are no joke.

Emily Thompson 48:02
I thought I was good with commas. I was shown up for sure.

Kathleen Shannon 48:08
So you know, copy editors. So thank you to that whole team. And then now we're getting into like the promotion and price side of things, which is really exciting. And so they have a team that's working on it. We also have a PR that is working on it. And we're going to be bringing her it's Bridget Lyons onto the show to talk a little bit about that and our efforts there. We're kind of doing like this, like, one to like tag team, like I imagine like ladies wrestling.

Emily Thompson 48:40
Okay, okay,

Kathleen Shannon 48:41
what do you know, like the wrestling press? We're like, there's two people on your side. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, passing the baton. I

Emily Thompson 48:51
feel like we're mixing up everything. But I know what you're saying. Right? Like, it's definitely not just us, which is, which is fun and exciting. And it's also not just them, right. It's also not just them, like we're definitely bringing in everything we've got when it comes to when it comes to what it is that we're putting together to promote this book. Because this is something that when Kathleen and I have poured yours into at this point, but to I also feel lots of really grand things around this book, like I feel like the world is ready for it and we need to tell them about it. And I feel like I feel like it's going to make people better.

Kathleen Shannon 49:33
What Sorry, I'm a side tangent. What was your favorite part of the book to write or read? Like in hindsight,

Emily Thompson 49:41
okay, in hindsight, there was only one section that I really had to do it again, because I was not doing it justice, everything else. They were like, just get through it. It doesn't matter. But this was the part in the beginning of the book, and I think it's at the end of maybe the intro where I got to drop the F bomb though it had to be spelled incorrectly with a conversation that we don't need to have today. But it's sort of where I put my like, Emily's ass kicking pants on and I tell people to boss the fuck up and read the book or not, basically, and that one for me. So I read it and I was like, okay, and read this, and our producer was like, Girl, you could do better than that. And I was like, fine, I was like, This section will be a little more Southern, sorry, not sorry. I'm just like, go for it. And I remember when we were writing that is probably the only time in the whole book that we really go there. And we're really get that kind of sassy and bossy about it. But for anyone who knows me personally, that I don't just do that one paragraph in a book like that's me most days and most conversations. So for me, I feel like that was one part of the book, where I really got to say what I meant, like in a really sort of gritty way that does often offend other people. So that one I loved writing it. I loved reading it aloud multiple times. I imagine if I'm ever asked to like read publicly, that's probably the section that I'll read. That section for me was my favorite, followed up by the one where I got to talk about Indy goes West, the 40 day road trip that we took a couple years ago. That for me was also another place where I feel like I hadn't really shared that experience as much as I planned on sharing it. But that was like a culmination of bossiness that got its own little section in this book, and was also one of my favorites to read.

Kathleen Shannon 51:41
Another section that we talked about the life hustle, and that was certainly a life hustle. Yeah, that

Emily Thompson 51:46
was the biggest one. Right? So So yeah, those two sections, were my favorite. What about you,

Kathleen Shannon 51:52
I mean, for me, it just rereading through the book was a reminder to practice what we preach and that these tools really have worked to help us create the work and lives that we want to have. And sometimes it's easy to start to brush your own, like inner wisdom off, especially once you write it in a book, like I felt like, these are things I know to be true in my work and life on a you know, down to my bones. And then I felt like once I wrote it into a book, it's like, okay, it's done, I don't have to do that anymore. And by do that any more things like know my numbers, or meditate, or celebrate my accomplishments, or do the chalkboard method even. And so like there's some things I have gotten kind of, you know, lazy or lacks about. And I noticed that whenever I do get lazy around these things, that my mindset starts to follow, right, and that I start to feel things that a lot of bosses feel like anxiety and fear and doubt. And I know for me, whenever I practice, the habits that we preach, I feel more confident, I feel more self reliant, I feel a lot more calm, a lot more resilient, resilient. And so I for me, it was a big reminder, like one to start meditating, again, that has been huge. And to to start making lists to write down what I want on paper to really journal it out, has been huge. And then the other thing, this is kind of like silly, it feels kind of fluffy. But we talk about celebrating your accomplishments. And in the book, we talk about celebrating with jewelry, that's something that we've been able to do that you know, every time you put on that ring, or those earrings or whatever it reminds you of a job well done. It reminds you of what you've accomplished, we're so quick to you know, raise the bar on ourselves, once we hit our goal that we just start moving on, like we're on to the next thing we don't take a moment. And so actually after recording the audio book, it was a Friday night, maybe even after you'd FaceTime me I had had a couple classes a while. I was going through our feed and I came across this selfie that I took with our friend Mary Beth at our being boss vacation in Miami and she is a jewelry maker and makes incredible jewelry. And I was wearing this necklace that was like this silver, like big chain like really big links in the chain and then this huge. Is it quartz to geode geode like a huge geode in the middle is huge. And it's real chunky and I've been thinking about that necklace for two years. I usually don't regret not buying things. Usually I'm like Oh, good move, Kathleen. Way to practice restraint. And I was like man, I should have bought that necklace. And I haven't have her phone number. So I texted her and I was like Hey, remember that necklace I wore on the beach? Do you still have it and she was like no some reality TV star bought it. But I have saved some of those materials in my personal collection. I can make it for you and send it to you. I was like done. I Venmo her some money. I got the necklace A few days later, I'm wearing it right now. And it has not come off of my body. So I'm going to wear it on our book tour. And I just feel like really, I feel like it is one of those things where I was able to stop and say like, wow, I accomplished something. And rather than brushing it off, like even as we're recording this podcast, I'm like, oh, are we talking about the book too much. And I'm like, whatever, we wrote a book, we should be able to talk about it, and we should be able to celebrate it. And that's what I did with this necklace. And we talked about celebrating with jewelry in the book. It doesn't have to be expensive. It can just be this thing that like marks what you accomplish in a moment of time.

Emily Thompson 55:36
Yes. Good. I'm glad that I'm glad that that was one that stuck with you. Alright, I want to talk about like more celebrating. Because it hasn't just been us. I mean, we've done a lot. But it's also been the listeners. And it's been the people who contributed to the book. And it's been like, our sort of inner boss crowd, like the people who always come to the vacations and who are always you know, who have showed up in the clubhouse, those sorts of things. Whenever we thought about marketing this book, doing a book tour, to visit all those people was always on the list.

Kathleen Shannon 56:11
Yes. So we have a launch team that we put together. And this is another thing like asking for help is something that doesn't come easy to either of us, we're so used to. I mean, we can now ask each other for help. And like really, but even then we almost don't even have to ask each other for help, because we're just able to read each other's minds and do it before we even have to ask. Right, right. And so I think that asking for help is hard. But we we really did ask for help from our launch team whenever it comes to how we're going to get this book into the world. And so we have bosses all over the country hosting local events. And for a few of them, we are going to be flying out. And so so far we've got New York City, San Francisco, Oklahoma City, Atlanta,

Emily Thompson 56:58
I think DC I think there's one in DC and maybe one in Boston, oh, Toronto, oh, yeah, in Toronto, as well. So you guys, be sure to check out our book page being boss club slash book, where we'll be posting information about meetups and book signings and those sorts of events that we'll be doing over the next month, but also the next couple of months. So be sure to check out that page to find out where we're going to be because we want to meet you guys.

Kathleen Shannon 57:29
I know it was so cool. Because our publisher was like, well, you guys, you know, book tours don't really move the needle on sales. Like it's really your online efforts. And us getting the book distributed to stores and booksellers and all of that. And we're like yes, but we know magic happens whenever we hang with our tribe in person. And so even it's not really about moving the needle and becoming bestsellers, it really is about connecting with our people, that's our favorite thing to do whenever it comes to our job is just getting to hug your necks and take selfies and say hello,

Emily Thompson 58:06
absolutely. And I can't wait to do all those things. But along those lines, we do also want to be best sellers, we're not going to lie. So if you guys haven't bought the book yet, and you're interested in picking up a copy for yourself, it's time for you to go order it. And now that today is actually launch day, you can get a real copy. So feel free to visit your local bookstores. Ask for it there. If they don't have it in stock or order online. You can go to being boss club slash book for links to most of the online places that are carrying it.

Kathleen Shannon 58:44
And if you leave us a review wherever you buy the book and send us a screenshot of it or tag us on Instagram. We will personally respond and say thank you So Emily and I will be in the Instagram account at being boss club. checking those out and sending you a high five personally.

Emily Thompson 59:02
Yes. Congrats Kathleen.

Kathleen Shannon 59:05
I you too, Emily. We wrote a book. Let's go write more. Let's know we got to get this book out in the world onto everybody's shelf into everybody's hands in every airport

Emily Thompson 59:17
and every airport right okay Kathleen, how about new goal for you? I don't want you to see on one airport. I want you to see it in three. Too much too much.

Kathleen Shannon 59:32
Hey, bosses, I want to tell you about the CEO day kit. The CEO day kit is 12 months of focus planning for your business in just one day. So Emily and I have packaged up the exact tools that we've been consistently using for years that have helped us grow from baby bosses to the CEOs of our own businesses. gain clarity find focus, get momentum, prioritize your time, make better decisions and become more self Alliant with the CEO day kit go to courses that being boss club to learn more and see if it's a fit for you and your business. We'd like to give a shout out to our partner fresh books cloud accounting, you can try it for free for 30 days no credit card needed and cancel anytime. Just go to freshbooks.com slash being boss and enter being boss in the How did you hear about us section. Special thanks to our sponsor 2020 who is offering our being boss listeners a five photo free trial to start yours right now go to 20 twenty.com slash being boss. That's the word 20,000 to zero.com slash being boss to get five free photos. Thank you for listening to being boss. Find Articles show notes and downloads at WWW dot being boss club. Thank you so much to our team and sponsors who make being boss possible our sound engineer and web developer Corey winter. Our editorial director and content manager Caitlin brain, our community manager and social media director Sharon lukey and are being countered David Austin, with support from braid creative and indicia biography,

Emily Thompson 1:01:07
do the work. Be boss and we'll see you next week.