Today’s Guest

About Stella

Listen to this episode

  

What You’ll Learn

• What’s wrong with old marketing, and why it’s not working as well as it used to
• How to forge a new way forward by experimenting with New Marketing
• Where to find other people and organizations who practice New Marketing
• How Joseph Campbell’s hero’s journey can inspire your business marketing
• How we can create deeper connections with people

Things We Discussed

• Poet Mary Oliver 
• Joseph Campbell, The Hero With A Thousand Faces 

Connect with Stella

• Website
• Facebook
• Twitter
• Linkedin
• Instagram

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Transcript

The transcript for this episode can also be downloaded here (no opt-in required).

Holly:   Hello and welcome to the Business Mindset Podcast, episode 218. This is your host Holly Worton and I am here with today’s special guest, Stella Orange. Stella teaches coaches, healers and consultants how to effectively market their business by telling a better story in their marketing: the story of the hero called to more.

                        A professional copywriter whose writing has generated millions of dollars of sales; Stella knows that the story we tell in our marketing matters a lot; because on a deep level, it shapes how people think themselves and what’s even possible for them. I am super, super, excited to welcome Stella onto the show, because new marketing is something that I have been talking about, and thinking about, for several months now. So, Stella is one of the people who has first, as far as I know, been talking about new marketing; and, she is here today to talk to us a little bit about that. So, welcome Stella!

Stella: Thank you, it is a pleasure to be here with you Holly.

Holly:   So, can you tell us a little bit about your background, and your business journey, and how you got to where you are today, in terms of forging a new path forward with marketing?

Stella: Yep, I will give you the nutshell version!

Holly:   Perfect {laughing}

Stella: Which is that I got into marketing through the backdoor and this whole business thing through the backdoor. I am actually formally trained as an outdoor educator and adventure guide, and public school teacher, and so that in and of itself brings me to this point.   Some of you will be like… well, actually, your audience will be like: this makes total sense. But, when I am talking to a mainstream audience, they are like what: that makes no sense, why don’t you have a degree in marketing or advertising? It is like: well, that’s not how I roll.

                        So, I have been doing this for eight years, and I come to this work from a public education background, I also worked in an art centre, in the non-profit world, and I am also a self-taught dramatist and playwright. So, I had the experience of writing short plays and having them staged at the local theatre, and then that got me into acting and doing improv professionally. I don’t think of myself as an actor, but I do think of myself as a writer who gives other people words and in a performance context I wanted to understand what is it to receive someone else’s words, and actually embody them, and give them life. So, that took me to acting. So, all of that is the nutshell version of how I got to this point; and when I started my copywriting business, I was writing websites, not the coding or the design, but writing the words on people’s websites – that’s how I started 8/9 years ago. And, as a new copywriter, who just made up the fact that she was a copywriter, I had a lot of faith in my own abilities and my skill as a writer, but I didn’t necessarily trust that I knew how this whole marketing and copywriting thing went. And so, I went down the path – like so many of us do – of following what the people say you should do to market your business, which is: write the headline with three benefits, and use all caps and exclamations points and highlight it, and put it in red. I was definitively in the centre of that shit storm, and I thought that was what I had to do.

Holly:   yes.

Stella: And I was probably a couple of years in, of getting paid to write people’s big long sales letters, that make them lots of money and email/marketing campaigns, things like that, along with websites I really got heavily into the sales and persuasive component of writing. And I am self-taught, and I understand how words effect people, and emotions move people, and all of that stuff; because I come from a theatre background. And so, while I am having that experience, this voice — what the poet Mary Oliver calls: the still, small voice within — was getting louder. She was saying: this is shit, this advice that conventional marketers tell us that we must do our marketing in this way; we must touch the “pain”. (You can’t see my air quotes but they are there).

Holly:   {laughing}

Stella: …touch the pain?! of our ideal clients in order, to get them to work with us… There was some nugget of that that lodged itself deep within my heart and my soul and it Just. Felt. Wrong. But, at the time all I knew was I just thought it was really just piss-poor writing.

Holly:   Mm

Stella: And I have written on my life, I have kept journals, I have correspondences that have spanned decades, and I have written for publication – I have written editorial pieces; as I know a thing or two about writing, my playwriting has gotten staged, it has won awards, so I know about words, and writing, and storytelling and I was like: these marketers are telling the world’s worst story. And so I got curious about that. I was like: okay, so what is the story that all traditional marketing advice is teaching people tell? And there is one story, which is: you reader are so dumb that you can’t fight your way out of a brown paper bag. You are in so much pain that you are searching in the middle of the night, on the Internet, like the grand uber of infomercials x 1000, to try to resolve an issue in your life. And I was like: something about this does not add up, and that fascination, and that inquiry, has led me to where I am today…and, fast-forward five/six years; now I see a lot of marketing teachers continue to teach this, and quite frankly it is out of alignment for those who are coaches, who are healers, and who are people who are marching to a beat of a different drummer who are really here to help other people improve their lives. I believe that it is not only dishonourable, it is also disempowering; and the story of the loser who has to buy something to improve their lives.

Holly:   Exactly, and the worst thing is, I see so many people have manipulated the way they sell this shitty marketing, to make it sound heart-centred. So, they say: well we have got to focus on scarcity; we have got to focus on the fear of missing out; because you need to help them make a decision. They need your help and if you don’t feed them this bullshit, this sense of inadequacy, and this: you have 10-days for this fast action bonus crap, they won’t be able to make a decision on their own, so you need to help them make that decision, because they need your help and this is super heart-centred. And so, they are selling it that way…and so people think: well, this feels like crap but what she said makes sense, so I guess I have to do it that way, because that’s how you do it. So, it is being sold to us in a way that: these people that we are selling to are stupid, we need to help them make the decision because they need us, and this is the way that you do it, you make them feel like crap.

Stella: Which is the same, right? So if we…and you are and I were talking before we went live, there is a cosmic aspect of this, and there is a political aspect of this. And the political aspect is that the structure is hierarchical, and it is patriarchal – and this is not against men, I love men, I love women, I love people that don’t identify as either – and, like there is this idea that is very prevalent in mainstream society, which is there are authorities, and there are people that need to follow what the authorities say. And so, there is that, and that’s not very artfully presented, but, there it is. And then we move into the spiritual space, like the spiritual online world, or personal growth world, or coaching world, that tells people: we are here to help you dream big, and create a new reality for yourselves; but they are using the same power dynamic that we see in mainstream society which is: I am the authority and you need to follow what I say. And there is this appeal to fear, appeal to fear of missing out, there is this poking on a naturally-occurring-sense-of-lack, or not enough-ness; and so when we look at the emotional undercurrents that are underpinning these messages, I actually…like, if you want to sell stuff like that then go to, but my problem is really with the people as you are saying: on the surface I must use these tactics, these psychological triggers that push on people’s fear of not being enough, and their fear of missing out, and their fear that they are not going to get into my umpteen thousand dollar mastermind. I need to manufacture this authority, because it wouldn’t work the other way. And it is like okay wait, hold on, hold the phone: do you really think your imagination and creativity is so limited that that you can’t possibly find another way to treat people in order to get the results you are looking for?

Holly:   Yeah

Stella: Like: oh, okay! {Both: laughing} I’m sorry, that that must suck to be in that headspace.

Holly:   Yeah! And it is that guru mentality too, it is like: I am the big whatever, and I have all the answers, and will fix all of your problems if you just follow my five-step-process, which you will pay me x amount of money for.

Stella: Yes, so it is all there, and for some people the guru archetype works for them. There are an increasing number of us for whom we have always felt funny being told: position yourself as the authority… I have been saying for a long time: stop being interested in how to manufacture authority. The way that you become an authority is by embodying authority; like by doing the work, by showing up, by being who you say you are, and there is no shortcut to that. Like, people can smell a fake a mile away. Now there are plenty of people shopping for the fake illusion; that’s how a lot of these empires are constructed, and maintained. There are a lot of people that just want to console themselves buying things, actually, instead of doing the work. I am not here to judge… I am just not interested in perpetuating that. What I am interested in is helping those of us who feel: urgh this doesn’t feel good, come up with new and original ways to spread the word about their good work, and increasingly bring their work to a wider number of people. Because look around us, the current system is kind of getting a shake down right now.

Holly:   Yeah.

Stella: And people are scared; and I work with a lot of healers, and coaches, and body workers, and spiritual folks; and like, what better army to come and show up in our own communities on the ground, to be of service, than us? Like, if you are really a coach who is interested in empowering people like start with what is going on in our communities on the ground, get off the internet and show up.

Holly:   I think this is really scary, though, because we know that the old marketing methods they work, because they manipulate people and they do get results oftentimes, so…

Stella: Yeah…I am hearing different things.

Holly:   Okay.

Stella: So, they work, so part of it is that you have to relax, and trust, that if it offends your own should there is something about it that is not for you. And so, you have got to blaze your own trail. I also had, I have gotten more vocal and more bold about this conversation, I have heard marketers and professional copywriters reach out from behind the scenes, who are writing from these big dog empire folks, and they are telling me that it is not working in the same way. And, I am also witnessing, and I don’t spend a lot of time observing other people’s marketing – I write for the online space but I spend as much time offline as I humanly can – but I am noticing some of the bigger name empires, like big dogs of Internet marketing, are pivoting their messages to talk about authenticity. And it is so funny because you can just tell it is their costume du jour… that some report has come across their desks to say: oh authenticity is the new black. You know, again, I am not here to demonise people but that’s really interesting that you are still using these old traditional, like Internet marketing methods of generating sales, that rely on these undercurrents of these darker emotions of fear, scarcity, lack, don’t wanna miss out, want to belong, all of this stuff, which are completely human by the way.

Holly:   Yeah.

Stella: And then they are putting this sheen on it; like: oh that’s so fascinating. The truth is that people can tell, people can feel it.

Holly:   Yeah, yeah.

Stella: So, anyway, I just wanted to jump in there because I’m in question right now, is it actually working? Or, are these folks who built these ginormous multi-million dollar industries also kind of scrambling because they can tell that there is a sea change afoot?

Holly:   Mm I like that, I like that. So, how do we forge a new way forward, because we have all these examples of the old ways of doing things, but we don’t have many examples of new ways of connecting with people and marketing ourselves?

Stella: Yeah, so there are actually plenty – so first of all I want to say there are plenty of examples of people spreading the word about something good in a completely integrity-filled, authentic, exciting way. You may need to look larger – cast your net wider – then what you are currently looking at. So, for me I draw a lot of inspiration not in the Internet marketing space, because that place is crazy town, I look at community colleges, I look at artists, like visual and performing and musical artists. I look at yoga studios; like bricks and mortar places. Like, basically people that don’t have part of their conversation being this get rich quick thing, because… and also grass roots activism. Like, you can take, there are examples all around us of people spreading their messages in really clever, and thoughtful, and innovative low-cost ways, quite frankly. You may need to widen your scope beyond the Internet.

                        The second piece of advice that I give to people when I am talking about this, and having this conversation and people say: oh my gosh yes, I notice that too, I am so relieved to see that and ok, I am not crazy, because it never felt right for me to to do that when that coach or expert told me to do that. Like, there is this sense of relief.

Holly:   Yes

Stella: When I am having this conversation in rooms of business owners, and the simplest thing I can say is: just notice what feels good, let feeling good be your touchstone. And if, like on the receiving end, if you are on someone’s email list, and their treating you in a way that doesn’t feel good to get you to buy from them, notice that, and then recognise that you are not powerless, you have a choice. So I unsubscribe, when I see people pulling that shit, I am like: goodbye.

                        And then I have clients that we have this conversation in my world, obviously, and we are talking about how do we start to create this newer form that really lifts people up, and I have got clients that are on people’s webinars are are like: oh my gosh they were using the fear-based stuff the whole time on this webinar. And like, while that can be uncomfortable to experience, just notice it. And that noticing it is actually creating room for you to engage your creativity and engage your curiosity and engage your imagination and be like: all right, what did I not like? So, you could actually do an autopsy, when you are in one of those moments, and you are like: oh my gosh I can’t believe that this is happening! And I used to be really timid and shy… I am a well-trained sales person, and I have sold lots and lots of stuff, in writing and then in conversation with people, but I used to be really timid about going to bricks and mortar spaces, like going to buy a car, or going to buy a mattress; I used to be a shrinking violet about that stuff, because it was just really intimidating, it tends to be like a man’s space, and they tend to use these high-pressure traditional sales tactics. And part of the way that I was practising this faculty when I was coming to an awareness about this issue, and where I wanted to locate myself in response to it, I was like: oh wait, like this guy’s using a sales tactic on me, I know a sales tactic, I have studied sales. And so it has been really just using whatever situation you are in, using it for your own edification and education, I think is really important. And so, that to me I think would be the first step, just to start noticing and then bless and release the people that maybe you have learned something… I think that it is really important to honour our teachers, and the mentors and coaches who have brought us to this point.

Holly:   Yes.

Stella: I am really grateful that I got trained in the ways of selling and marketing, because I now know that I can receive money for my livelihood for the rest of my life, like my family will be okay, my great grandkids will be okay, because I know how to ask and receive money; and, like, we also have to pay attention to: okay that got me here, but there is something that is not quite sitting right. So, look, and expand your filters for who is spreading the word, and you might need to look outside the Internet realm and the other thing, that I teach in my world, is that: look at the story that you are telling in your marketing. If you don’t like that story of: hey, you loser, are you struggling or so overwhelmed, that you need to buy 19-dollar info product to get some relief, if that story has never sat well with you, what other stories are out there? And, for me, one of my all-time-favourite stories is Joseph Campbell, he tells the story of the hero called Timur — the hero’s journey story. And that’s the one that I teach, and that really lit my mind on fire, when I discovered it when I was in college – I was like: wait a second, like Joseph Campbell for folks who don’t know – was a guy who was a comparative mythologist, who lived in the 1950s or 1960s, he was in the United States. He basically took to the woods with a bunch of mythology: different cultures, different religions, different traditions; and he was like: you know, there is this one story that keeps getting told, over and over again, and it is the story of the hero who is going on a journey.

                        And it is the story of the hero who is in her zone of comfort, who is in her known world, she is where it is familiar, and she hears a call to more. Stop this, if this is familiar everybody…She hears the call to more and at first she says: I can’t heed that call. And that is called the refusal of the call in this particular story telling – she says: oh no, I’m not ready I need to prepare, it is not the right time, if I went on that adventure it would really mess up the rest of my life. That sort of thing… and yet, that call to more doesn’t go away, and in fact it gets louder, so our hero crosses the threshold, leaves what is known and familiar and comfortable to her, and crosses the threshold into the unknown world. And, along the way in the unknown world, as soon as she crosses the threshold, she finds herself on the road of tests and trials, and this is a road that tests our hero: do you really want what you say you want? Wouldn’t it be easier to go back to the way it was? Wouldn’t it be more comfortable if you stay where you knew how everything worked? Why on this good green earth would you leave all of that to cross the threshold, and go into the unknown and the unfamiliar, in the pursuit of the unknown Prizes?

But, on the road of tests and trials our hero meets with her friends, she meets with her allies, and she meets with some enemies as well. And, as she progresses on the road of tests and trials she moves forward, and she learns things, she gets through it. And then she finds herself at a particular spot on this road, the different traditions and different storytellers were called different things. I like to call it the belly of the beast, sometimes it is referred to as the dark night of the soul; what else? The grand battle is that you will also hear. This is when, for those of you Star Wars buffs this is Luke Skywalker is facing down Darth Vader. It is the ultimate trial between our hero and some aspect in her life and much ink has been spelled about what this “grand enemy” probably is; you and I probably know it is a shadow aspect of ourselves….

Holly:   {laughing}

Stella: But I forgot to say, along the way of tests and trials, our hero often is gifted a magical tool from an ally. And this would be like Luke Skywalker was gifted the light sabre, right? And Dorothy, in the Wizard of Oz, it’s her ruby slippers, and so somehow, some way, that magical tool actually helps the hero face down whatever she needs to face in the belly of the beast, or the dark night of the soul, or the grand battle. And if our hero is victorious in that grand trial, that grand test, she wins some kind of prize, some sort of elixir, some sort of gift that is only bestowed upon those who actually have the bravery or…I don’t even know, sometimes it is not bravery, sometimes we just find ourselves in the belly of the beast.

Holly:   Oh my god, I don’t like it here! {laughing}

Stella: In my community people are like: ah strap it in my backpack and cross another threshold, I thought it was only one, this isn’t how I thought it would be. But the elixir, the prize is only for those who actually go into the belly of the beast, or the dark night of the soul and have that showdown. And that elixir, that prize — here’s what I find interesting about the here and why, I think it is particularly applicable to coaches, to healers, consultants, people who have this incredible sense of service, of their lives being of service to other people — is that the hero in this story arc, is never content to just sit at home with their prize, or her elixir, and just look at how pretty it is and reminisce. She must, like with every fibre of her being, she has got to go back and share this prize or this elixir, with her community.

                        So this too is part of the hero’s journey it is: going into the unknown, the dark, night of the soul, what have you, getting the prize of the elixir, and then going back, returning to the community with the elixir or the prize. I have been teaching on this for the last year-and-a-half, explicitly, and one of the things I have noticed, especially with folks who have been doing this work for a while, like practitioners, whether they are coaches, consultants, teachers, what have you; many of us occupy a different part of this story, we hang out at a different part of the story. So, when I teach this, I teach it on a circle, it’s the hero’s journey story, and as I see it, all of these kinds of businesses that are called to be of deep service to other people, are actually run by those of us who have gone on our own hero’s journey. And they also feel called to activate others on their own hero’s journey…so there is this ripple effect happening.

But, for example, I think I often show up in people’s lives, as an exciting incident, or a call to more. So, I hang out – when people are hanging out in their status quo, or their familiar lives, they hear me speak, and I talk about this, or whatever it is I am talking about, and they are like: holy shit. So, I know, just because I have been doing this long enough, and I understand how I function in my ecosystem, I am just calling people who are ripe to cross the threshold and go on a journey. But, I actually do my best work hanging out in the belly of the beast, I don’t like convincing people to cross the threshold, I am just kind of here inviting them to the party and I then I will be like: okay, I will see you in the dark night of the soul. And I actually don’t do like heavy, emotional spiritual work with people explicitly, I am doing it all through marketing, but the story itself is healing and it shifts people on this huge level. But, I want to be hanging out with people who have already been on this cycle a couple of times, they are like: oh yeah, hello belly of the beast, good to see you again! And that’s where I am like: hey, Stella Orange here, welcome to the belly let’s party, {laughing} there is a whole bunch of us, there are candles everywhere, this is the worlds best disco in the belly of a whale. So, that’s the story that I teach as a framework for all marketing, and from there people are like: great so how do I incorporate that? Like, give me your seven top tips… And I say: hell if I know!

Holly:   {laughing}

Stella: Like, that’s not my role… my role is to tell you a story and then have a conversation; and my role is to spark the conversation and say: isn’t that cool how does that apply to your parenting business; how does that apply to your financial education for women’s business? How could you use this story if you are doing video, or you are doing social media, or you are doing talks? How could you incorporate this story which is just baked into our bones as human beings and human beings have been telling back and forth to one another for millennia? How could you use this and weave this into your world? And that is how we start this new marketing.

Holly:   Yes, and the whole time you were telling that story, all I could think of was: I want to re-write whether it is a blog post, or my about page, or my podcast episode, or something, where I tell my story within that framework. Yeah I love it.

Stella: And I have had people – you know that I teach people as a workshop and I have had people coming back to me saying: like, I get it is tough… see I am also doing something with my teaching right now, which is I am refusing to take people’s power, I am not going to tell you how to use this, because I don’t know. I know that each person that hears this story is going to have their own original take on how to do this. I am hear to brainstorm with you. I had one woman, one student, who was like: ok, so how do I use this hero’s journey stuff on LinkedIn? How do I use this on my About page? And I was like: look, I don’t know, but I will sit with you and talk with you until you figure it out.

Holly:   Yeah, play with it!

Stella: And it is all about… one of the other things I talk about a whole bunch is experimenting.

Holly:   Yes! You have to be willing to go into the unknown and experiment.

Stella: Exactly! And I think that’s the other thing, we go back to this idea of just noticing what feels good and what doesn’t. Notice when you want someone else to tell you what to do.

Holly:   Yes!

Stella: Like…{laughing} and I have this too y’all – I’m not sitting up here on the grand seat like, ‘hahaha you mere mortals, I never wanted someone to tell me what to do’, I totally do, and that’s okay, but part of the reason there is such a market for people giving their seven-step-formulas to overnight instant business success, is because people want to give up that responsibility to another person. But that’s not as much fun, I think.

Holly:   No, it sounds easy, but someone else’s formula is probably not going to be a good fit for you.

Stella: Yeah, and so we can just let that kind of crumble before us and be: oh that’s why I felt like I was forcing myself into something that didn’t feel right, it’s because we are each, we are like pulling ingredients from different places and baking our own cake.

Holly:   And maybe we come up with this totally weird flavour of cake that no one has ever thought of before because it sounds disgusting to everyone else out there, but we think it is amazing and it tastes yummy and then we share our cake and other people are like: oh that’s weird, but yeah I like it!

Stella: Totally!

Holly:   I love it! Oh this is fantastic! Okay, so, I know we are getting close on time, but I will ask you another question: what kinds of things do you do to create deeper connections online with people?

Stella: {laughing} Yes…I get offline.

Holly:   Okay, excellent! So, do you take online people, offline, or do you just go straight out offline and meet people?

Stella: Okay, so this is still quite fresh so I am just going to flow from the dome here, but what I see online is…I am not ironic, I write for an online space, and I am online copyrighter; but, I actually prefer connecting with people in person, or through conversation. It just so happens that given my life experience, I moved around a bunch, and so I wasn’t able to have or develop deep roots in a geographic community.

Holly:   I know what that’s like…

Stella: Yeah exactly. So, that’s actually like my gift, so it is like where healing is happening for me, because we just bought a house in New York, I am so excited to finally be in place. My husband has a ten-year teaching position, so I am excited to be in a place where I can actually put down roots in physical space, and get to know my neighbours, and make a difference, and impact on the lives in my community. And, like so one of the things that I have been doing as I have been kind of a nomad, and itinerant, is collecting relationships all over the place of people that resonate with me and that I resonate with them. So, I have been doing workshops and gatherings for years, and part of that is just so that we can strengthen our relationship with one another, and have shared experiences, so that when we go back to our respective home spaces we don’t feel as isolated, or alone. And I will just say it like: right now, I have only lived in my town for a year, but ever since I started my company eight years ago, I have lots of friends, they don’t just live where I do. And I have a hard time hanging out with like, I want to call them muggles, or normal people…but like the norms. Because I don’t understand anymore going to a job… and I will never forget a couple of thanksgivings ago, we were with some colleagues of my husband, who is a college professor, and they were playing a game of: if you could do anything besides being a college professor, what would you do? And they had really elaborate, planned out fantasy lives, of their alternative work lives because they hated their lives as academics… and they were like: what would you do? And I’m like: I’m flipping doing what I want to do, I guess the only thing that could be interesting is being Beyoncé!

Holly:   {laughing}

Stella: They kind of glossed over it , but I was like: this is not my room. I feel uncomfortable hanging around people that don’t like their day jobs and are still doing it, and not making active plans for their exit strategy.

Holly:   Yeah.

Stella: So, I think for many of us, I think that’s what online life has been, we feel kind of isolated, we feel kind of different, we feel like: jeez, I look at things in a much different way to many of the people in my immediate vicinity and I still hunger for like communion, and belonging, and understanding. So, for many of us, like these online programs, and online communities, have been like a life support. And I am not even taking a breath, let me take a breath… {breathing} Yeah, I lived in Miami Florida for five years and I tried everything I knew how to do to participate in my local community and I just felt like a fish out of water.

Holly:   Yeah

Stella: And it makes sense, everyone who knows me is like: yeah, why did you move from Montana to Miami, Florida, that does not seem like you. And I was like: well, I have got to see about a guy. I was courting my husband, and we were seeing if we were a thing or not, and I know I needed to go there. But now, looking back, I am like: what do you know? That was my belly of the beast. Five years of my life were a belly of the beast in Miami, Florida. {laughing} And the prize in that was that I got a great business.

Holly:   Yeah.

Stella: I had to focus on my relationship with my now husband, who I wasn’t married to at the time, and getting my head on straight on what my company was about. And now I am happy to get distracted with community projects, and things like that, but there are all sorts of stories that we can use to power us forward.

Holly:   Mm I love it! So, can you tell us a little bit more about how our listeners can learn more about you, find you online and work with you. I know you have a fantastic download on your website about new marketing, how to create clients without feeling gross, icky or manipulative. So tell us where people can find you.

Stella: Yep. I am at: stellaorange.com and yeah the guide that you mention it is like a 14-15 page PDF where I basically walk people through what we just talked about today, which is: traditional marketing tells people this icky story, those of us who feel called to tell this story of the hero’s journey, as it relates to our yoga businesses, our therapy businesses, our NLP businesses, our executive coaching and consulting businesses. And then, I am just hosting conversation around that, both online and I write a weekly letter called: the Tuesday letter, sharing my thoughts about what is coming up and what’s showing up in my community, and how I think about that and respond to it in marketing. And then, I do have events where we get together in person and talk about this one story that we just talked about today, and then also I am part of a collaboration of people who are ushering in a new way forward in business. So, we have an event called: beaver-con, with our tongues firmly planted in cheek! But that’s a business building conversation in which I play a mighty, but just part of that conversation. So, we have: strategists, visionaries, things like that. So, for me, it is really about the community and the conversation and the experimentation. So I have aligned my business with those values.

Holly:   I love it! Thank you so much for joining us today, I could talk to you for hours, but I am conscious of time, so I will wrap it up; but, thank you so much for joining us, thank you so much telling your story, and the hero’s journey and giving us ideas – but not templates – on how we can use that in our business and our lives. I really, really love that and I really encourage listeners to follow Stella online, download her stuff and just get to know new ways of doing things.

Stella: Awesome, thank you so much!

Holly:   Thank you for listening and remember to visit: hollyworton.com/218 for the show notes on this episode. Thank you.