Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Rowena M: Hello friends, you're listening to Two Booked Up, the podcast where we give you our top takeaways from the business and personal development books we're reading. I'm Rowena Mabbott, joined, as always, by my bookish, biz bestie, Shelley Tonkin Smith. Hey Shelley, how are you going today?
[00:00:21] Shelley S: Hi Rowena, I'm great. In fact, I'm tapping into my inner chill, because today we're talking about the book, Chill and Prosper, The New Way to Grow Your Business, Make Millions and Change the World by Denise Duffield Thomas. So Denise is an Australian author. Yay. She's also a money coach and a self described Chillpreneur, which Which, by the way, was the earlier title for this book.
And really reading this book makes me so grateful to be able to have my own business and spend time talking about cool books like this one .
[00:00:59] Rowena M: Now, perhaps our listeners, you would be interested in running your own business, but it all feels a little too hard. Or maybe you are running your business, but find you are frequently overwhelmed by needing to do all the things. Well, if either of those sound like you, this book and this episode are definitely for you.
[00:01:19] Shelley S: Oh yes, Denise prides herself on finding an easier way for just about everything. And as a very successful money mindset coach, she is a very proud millionaire. She really knows her stuff.
[00:01:34] Rowena M: She sure does. So stay tuned as we share the game changing insights, aha moments and key takeaways. Let's dive in.
[00:01:41] Shelley S: Welcome to Two Booked up. I'm Shelley Tonkin Smith.
[00:01:51] Rowena M: And I'm Rowena Mabbott. We're two well read best friends.
[00:01:55] Shelley S: And now, you are an honorary member of our book club. We're going to fast forward you to the mind blown and mic dropped parts of those business and personal development books that are probably on your must read list.
[00:02:09] Rowena M: Because as busy, multi passionate working parents, we know how hard it is to find time to read. But we also know how much you love learning, growing and making a difference in the world.
[00:02:21] Shelley S: So treat yourself to some bookish conversation, whether you've read the book or not.
[00:02:26] Rowena M: With your two friends on Two Booked Up.
[00:02:29] Shelley S: All right, so I'm so excited to talk about Chill and Prosper by Denise Duffield Thomas. As we said in the intro, she is an Australian writer. She also has a podcast by the same name, Chill and Prosper. And I really love Denise's content overall. She's got some really great wisdom to share.
She focuses her, let's call it, advice around mindset, rather than the, you know, the practicalities of everything that you need to do. But mindset is a really important part of, of the equation, right?
Would you, would you agree?
[00:03:10] Rowena M: Completely. I have been listening to Denise's podcast on and off for, I'd say maybe the best part of nearly nine years. I think she has some terrific content. I also love that she's Australian because she is very practical and she's a Virgo like me. So she's very practical, very down to earth. And I think as Shelley, you mentioned in the intro, she is quite proudly kind of lazy. And she will look for the easy way to do things, which is probably one of the key insights actually in Chill and Prosper the book for me is that she kind of gives us permission to say, running a business, you don't have to do it the hard way. It's allowed to be easier. I guess that was one of my kind of straight away, straight up.
It's consistent with her messaging and her branding and her podcast, but that came through in the book too. How about you, Shelley? What's one of the things that like kind of grabbed you straight away in this book?
[00:04:07] Shelley S: Yeah, well you know, you say it's your key insights, and I think that's a very good word because she's got this idea of the keyless life, of talking about it's allowed to be easy. And so her idea of the keyless life, she was talking about how. She kept losing her keys for her house or she kept misplacing her keys.
And this was really causing a lot of stress and anxiety in her life, because, you know, you need to go somewhere. Now, where are the keys? And, so then she realized, wait a minute, I can make this easier. I don't have to have a set of keys. I can have keypads, with numbers that I can use to get into my house.
She doesn't have keys anymore. Every door in her house is locked with a keypad and she and the family know, the codes. And that was just an insight, like a, or an epiphany moment for her of taking that lesson into her business of going, where can I make my business like this keyless life.
How can I make things easier so that I'm not always up against it, up against a whole bunch of obstacles. And Ro, it actually reminds me of like what we do now with Two Booked Up. We're kind of keeping it a lot more casual, a lot more of a chat about the book and so far we've had some really great feedback from our listeners.
So I think we're, we're walking the chill and prosper talk by just Just being more chill about the way we do this podcast.
[00:05:27] Rowena M: I agree. I actually think that's right. One it's way more fun for us as a lot less, There's less of a burden on us. Like, listeners, you may not know, but Shelley and I spend a lot of time making sure that the content we create for you in this podcast is really high quality. We pride ourselves on that. But maybe inspired by Chill and Prosper, and perhaps the chill part, is about saying it doesn't have to be hard. There are easier ways. And also leaning into the things that you find easy. So Denise talks about There are things that she finds easy to do and she should lean into those. She should do more of those, and the things that she finds really hard, she outsources. She's very proud to outsource all sorts of stuff in her business, which was another thing that I find is really great in this book. She's very transparent and very open about how she runs her business, how successful she's been.
I'm not sure if in this book she puts in actual money figures, but if you get on her mailing list, which if you buy the book, I would thoroughly recommend you do because she's got oodles of great value bonuses as part of the book. She will share the details of everything. She is very open because she, part of her mindset piece that Shelley mentioned is she wants to say, this is what a successful female entrepreneur, businesswoman, millionaire, mum of three kids can look like. And she also says she's youngish, you know, she's, oh, maybe she's just turned 40. I don't know exactly, but she's still pretty young. She's got three young kids. They're all, still primary school age. And she runs her business with her husband. So that's the other thing that kind of comes through a little bit in the book that there's a lot of stuff about how do you juggle a business with family, which was another thing I really liked about the book is that it's very practical and reality based.
[00:07:10] Shelley S: Yeah, very, very similar to I think the people in our audience, and similar to where we're coming from. And yeah, isn't it great to see someone in the, yeah, in the same shoes as us, being a millionaire and really succeeding? I think a lot of us go, Oh no, I'm only in this business because I love doing what I'm doing.
I'm not in it for the money. And she's going, no, you can be in it for both. You can have your impact in the world. And really in the end, she really punts this idea of you are here to leave this legacy and you don't even know what that legacy is. But you can make money, and you should make money, and lots of money, and it's safe to do that.
So there's lots of like mantras that she shares throughout the book on, on that of stepping into like, you can make money and be a millionaire and you don't have to look like Warren Buffett, you know, you can make money as this mompreneur or whatever you identify as, and just because you love your work doesn't mean that you have to like do work for free.
[00:08:13] Rowena M: Yeah, exactly,
[00:08:14] Shelley S: she's got some great scripts on that by the way, because I think some of these things are very awkward to deal with. Like there's the mindset piece that you need to get through. Uh, but then it's also actually communicating to maybe friends and family or past clients of like, oh, I'm, I'm not working for free anymore.
'cause sometimes to get into business and to get started, you might do some free work and she's not completely against that, but she said you need to do that within very careful boundaries and make it clear when that free offer ends. And, if you're going to do it for testimonials, for heaven's sakes, like go back and get those testimonials.
Cause sometimes we just forget that part of it. So, there's some really great advice there and she gives you some actual scripts that you can send off in an email or just like memorize and say back to the person so that you are making money. And yes, earning what you're worth. Charging what you're worth. This is, it's a, a bit of a, an interesting kind of concept because we were all, as human beings, we're all worth beyond any money. But what Denise is teaching you is to actually step out there and feel confident to charge for the value, perhaps is a nice word, the value that you're delivering, to another business owner.
[00:09:35] Rowena M: yep, absolutely, or a client, you know, so she doesn't do just business to business, she, the people she works with are, you know, business to business or business to consumer. The other thing I really like, and I think this is probably an important message to reiterate for our audience, she's not, and this is something that I appreciate, Denise isn't talking about making money just because it's really nice to have lots of money, she says the part of her big reason for doing it is because she firmly believes that the more women who make money, like, and a lot of money, we tend to invest it back in other women. And she cites some research, I'm not sure if it's in this book or in one of her earlier books, but saying that when women make money in their businesses, they tend to invest in other women businesses. They also give back to their communities. And so when you, when a woman is making money in her business, her family and her children prosper and benefit, her community benefits. And so that's why she wants us as women, and we are going to assume that a lot of our audience are, you know, female or identify as female, that, It's important for us to make money, not just to rely on or be limited by what we have seen before and say, well, we can't be a rich woman because a rich woman looks like this and we don't look like that. Um, so I really like that essence of her message, which is, it's about the fact that we can change the world, which she mentioned in the subtitle of the book is that we make lots of money and we can change the world by doing that.
[00:11:02] Shelley S: But now with all of this, it's very important to do what she says,
protect the golden goose,
[00:11:10] Rowena M: Oh, yes, that was a good one. Who is the golden goose. though, Shelley?
[00:11:15] Shelley S: Yes. So the golden goose lays the golden egg and you, a business owner, are the golden goose. So, yes. And so you need to protect your time, your energy, like your resources, and everything in the way that you set your business model up, it's so important to protect yourself and make sure that you are not burning yourself out because I think, you know, In wanting to make an impact, in being very ambitious about our money, we now come at this and we could feel overwhelmed and a bit overburdened and in the end, overwork ourselves.
So, she's got a lot of ideas there for choosing good business models, business models that will protect you and your time and will honour your energy, so looking at your prices, looking at your schedule, looking at the boundaries that you put in place. As I said, she's got those great scripts, and yes, I think this is where, uh, we've unique perspective, different to business books written by men.
So, yeah, and, and really like that this whole message of it's allowed to be easy. And I think so often as very ambitious women, we've done it. So we've, um, gotten to where we've gotten because we've been very good girls and hardworking and we've like attached, oh, hard work equals success.
And it's actually releasing that to go, no, it doesn't have to be so hard. It can be easy and you can still achieve success. And then that then translates into your money. So that like, part three is, is all about money. She, she loves talking about money.
And yeah, she's like, the price is just the price, right? Like, that was very liberating for me. Someone who gets very emotional about, oh, how much should I charge? But the price is just the price. That's just what it is. So pick one. I was like, okay.
[00:13:14] Rowena M: yeah, exactly. And so Shelley, I think I'll just take us back half a step. Listeners, the book is broken into four parts, and then at the very end, the final chapter is like the really nitty gritty, super duper practical stuff. And as I mentioned earlier, there are a bunch of downloads that you can access when you, acquire the book, whether you purchase it or borrow it from the library, or whether it's an audiobook or a print or an e book, you still get access to the downloads. But there are four parts. Part one is all about the mindset, so that's kind of setting you up. Part two are the business models, and that's where the stuff Shelley's just talked about, and really some great questions in there about is this a bad business or do I need to renegotiate and it covers prices, schedules, boundaries, setting up everything like it's it's really great and the keyless life bit comes in there too that idea that it's your business is allowed to be easy. Part three is Denise's bread and butter and it is the money piece and I love that she's got a quote in there about check yourself before you wreck yourself. And that's about making sure that your prices reflect the value as Shelley's just mentioned. And then part four, which is all about marketing. And so I love Denise's very simple version of explaining what marketing is, because for many entrepreneurs, and I would put myself in the same category, when we were first starting out in our own businesses, marketing feels really, really scary. And it, we hear the word marketing and we kind of freak out because it really, we associate it with sales and we're like, Oh, we don't want to be one of those icky sales people. But Denise explains it as saying it's as simple as sharing what you know and are passionate about and making offers. And an offer doesn't have to be anything huge. It can just be, when you're ready to work with me, here's how we can do that. Which is what Denise actually finishes all her emails with. I also loved the idea that she says marketing is manifesting. Um, And it's particularly because a lot of her audience are, spiritual people or they're a little bit more alternative. I think that's one of her cut through messages is that you have to manifest a client, you actually need to market. So Shelley, what did you think about that section? Because you know marketing stuff, so.
[00:15:25] Shelley S: I know marketing and you can make that as simple or as complicated, you can start going down a major rabbit trail with marketing. And I think, you know, from corporate to Marketing. I think we sometimes have this vision and a lot of women entrepreneurs start their journey coming out of corporate and they know they've spent this big market in departments and so can feel really intimidating and Denise just like dials it down.
She's like, no, it's all about just sharing what you know, what you love. And then making an offer, step one and step two. It's not even a three step process, you know, it's just two steps. And your offer, yes, as she says, like can be as simple as, as time with you. Like, so it's like an hour video call or a half an hour video call to get some particular transformation or some particular piece of help. And then you can start thinking about, okay, how do I build this out into maybe an online course or something, you know, that I can do more passively, but that's for later. In the end, and marketing, I don't think will change the marketing side.
You know, your, your products might get more sophisticated, but I think your marketing doesn't get too much more sophisticated than. Like sharing what you know, the sort of educational marketing, and then making the offer. And I think even experienced, solopreneurs and, online entrepreneurs will sometimes forget to make the offer to, they'll just put out free stuff.
And Denise has many examples of that. Put out the free stuff. But then they forget to actually make it clear how that person can work with them if they want to do something beyond what what you're offering for free. Again, it's important for us, rather than feeling that weirdness about sales, it's important for us to go, I can help you further, I can go deeper here, and this is how to do it.
Don't make someone search around on your websites and beg to work with you, you want to like make it simple. So I, I love that advice and she's got lots of, anecdotes and stories. She Does a great comparison to internet dating, and how marketing is similar to internet dating. I thought that was really fun.
But yes, she's operating a multi million dollar business and her marketing still comes down to the same thing is share what you know
and make an
offer.
[00:17:45] Rowena M: Yep, exactly. And it was probably also one of my big, you know, marketing is manifesting is one of my big takeaways as well because it just took out so much fear and angst about something and I think for any of our listeners who are thinking about running a business or perhaps are running a business, that would be something that's really a practical, tangible thing that you can take away from this book. I would also say in that part four of the book there's a so much value. She does share, a lot of very amusing stories. I have to say, I'm quite a fan of Denise's style. She's quite entertaining and she's not afraid to kind of, well, we in Australia would say take the Mickey out of herself.
She's not afraid to share her foibles and her learnings, which is quite nice. It makes it relatable. She also talks about batching and consistency and we've talked about this before in our Lazy Genius Way episodes, which were the Kendra Adachi book that we did in episodes 6, 7, 8, and 9. Kendra talks about batching and Denise talks about batching. Now Kendra Adachi in her book, The Lazy Genius Way, talked about batching for your family and your household. For Denise, it's all about how do you batch your business? So she shares that she will batch content so she will sit down if she says if I've had my hair and makeup done I'm getting all my videos done in that day.
She said I won't have to put up she's got a bit
[00:19:02] Shelley S: That is
[00:19:03] Rowena M: putting a bra on. I know so good right?
She's also got a bit of a thing that she shares quite often about the fact she doesn't like putting a bra on. So there's quite a little bit of a giggle there about the fact that she goes if I've had to put a bra on I want to make it worthwhile. So she's she's very entertaining to listen to and I think Shelley and I both listened to the audiobook version . Is that correct, Shelley?
[00:19:25] Shelley S: an interesting exercise that I've only listened to. She's super funny. I would recommend the audio book, but it's been an interesting one for me. Like I have had to get used to actually taking notes on an audio book. But it's really great to hear all of this in her voice and like, cause it's like, she's coaching you and she's on your team.
It gives you a really cool feeling listening to her actually telling these stories that are, that are hers.
[00:19:48] Rowena M: Yeah, and I love that the way she batches, not just the videos, but she'll batch Like she'll get a whole bunch of social media content done in like a couple of hours for the entire month because she'll just be like, I'm in that space, I'm just going to work in that space. And same with blog posts and videos and everything else.
So she's, she's a big fan of that because she says that helps you get consistency and consistency leads to better marketing outcomes. It also leads to better list building and she then shares stats around list building and stuff. So there's a lot of really tangible, practical stuff in this book. Like, it's actually, it's not a how to book, but it's about mindset, but there's still a lot of really like actionable things you can come away with at the end of it. Would you say
[00:20:31] Shelley S: Yes. Yeah, you're right. I know, because she does say that she's more focused on the mindsets and not on like the actual practical how tos, but I think once your mindset is right, it really does overflow into like, okay, I can do this. And then there's something simple, but then the question is not like, oh, which tool should I use?
And how should I do this automation? And how many days should my welcome sequence be? And those kinds of questions. It's more about, okay, let me. Get out there and how can I literally share what I want to share and make the offer. And then it doesn't matter what tool you're using. So it's not how to in that respect.
For that, you can come, you can come to me. I've got some, some how to's on how to write a sales page.
[00:21:12] Rowena M: Yes, and I can recommend those. I will just say, I will heartily recommend Shelley's products around how to write a sales page. So easy to use and it is a plug in and play. You can, you can learn a lot from that. So yeah, quick shout out for Shelley's products there.
Yep,
[00:21:29] Shelley S: you know, and I think comes down to, making those offers. And I think with the sales page, I think it's a very chillpreneur kind of way of doing things, or a very chill way of doing things. Because, um, I love starting with the sales page and then you can use that to repurpose content.
So my batching or my version of batching is to write my sales page first when I'm doing an offer because the sales page covers everything. It covers every little And then you can go, okay, let me, I'm, I'm talking about this particular problem. I'm talking about this particular thing that people have tried.
I'm talking about this aspect of my solution. And then you can pop those into, even if you want to, into chat GPT or something like that nowadays, and you can generate a whole new A lot of content in a short amount of time. And I thought it was interesting because Denise, you know, as a neurodiverse, she, she has ADHD and she says she struggles with consistency, but she doesn't fight against that.
And for the, also those more rebel amongst us, uh, consistency can feel like a big deal. But big burden and you might think, well, how does somebody with ADHD achieve consistency? And this is how she does it is through batching. And so she's got some really great tips there of going, once you're in that energy, once you've got that focus of like doing podcasts, like she'll do multiple podcasts.
She books a studio for a couple of days and sits and does all her podcasts for a good, like, I don't know, it's like six months or something. So. Batching can be a good, pathway into keeping consistency when that's not really typically your personality, if I could say it like that. So I, I really appreciated that and I was like, okay, I can do this. I can be consistent too.
[00:23:20] Rowena M: Yeah, and I think the batching thing also works even if you don't have that particular challenge. It can work if you want to take a break from your business. So for example, if you want to take some maternity leave, Or, if you want to have an extended holiday with your family, or in my case, when I want to do my creative writing, so I need to focus on some deep creative work, working on the next novel or the next book.
I don't want to be distracted by having to post to social media every couple of days and pull my head back out of that space. So I think there's lots of times when you can utilize batching to make it easier for yourself, which is, I think, the essence of Denise's message. So I guess, Shelley, that brings me to my kind of concluding question, which is, what's the one thing that you took from this book, what would it be for you?
[00:24:05] Shelley S: Yeah, I think, I think to me, I'm feeling very challenged by that marketing advice. Share your work and make offers. There's, as you know, like a certain, I don't know what it is, perfectionism in me. But as a business owner, I want to put really good stuff out into the world. And it's actually sort of releasing myself to go, well, look.
In order to put any stuff out of the, in the world, I've got to do, I've got to put it out into the world. So I feel as a business owner myself, she's challenged me to share more of my work. And that's through this podcast.
And, and then make clear offers and look, I even did it in this very podcast.
So that to me is my key takeaway. And something that I really appreciated, that this book was a bit different to similar books written by men.
Um, and, and it's not even similar. It's like, it's, it's such a new, fresh take. And I think just encouragement to all of us to, you don't have to be like supremely original. Just bring your flavor to the world. Share Your experience of the world, because even if it, if it feels like, Oh, everyone's heard this before, or isn't this obvious or whatever, no, you bring your spin and your flavor to the world.
So that's, that's been a challenge for me. Or just like a rallying call for me. I'm like, I've left this book feeling very inspired, I'll say. So in that way, I really encourage, people to go and read it, particularly, our Mompreneur set. And how about you, Ro, what's, your big key takeaway and something that you'll, you don't want to forget about Chill and Prosper?
[00:25:42] Rowena M: Oh, there are so many, but I think What you've just said captures a bit of mine as well, which is the idea that your message is needed. And there's this idea that you don't need to wait for it to be perfect. So she does talk about, to your point that you're saying, Shelley, she talks about progress, not perfection. And she said, she shares quite candidly about, you know, her very first books that were basically a PDF and it was, had typos and it was terrible, but she put it out there. She said she didn't wait for perfection, she put it out there, and she's put out since then multiple different editions of it, but she just didn't wait, she just got it out there, and when I first listened to her content, well before this book, that was the rallying call that I needed to stop my perfectionism getting in my way, and now from Chill and Prosper, I love the idea that we don't ever know who's going to resonate with our message unless we put the message out there. And so she's part of what the other thing she talks about is it's not our job to kind of decide who our prime audience is, if it's going to mean that someone else misses out on our message. She said, you need to just show up and do the work and be you and the right people will be drawn to you.
She said, you don't know, you don't know what sort of day they're having. You don't know who's going to need to hear that. But the key message is you need to show up consistently and do that. But I also love that she says. You keep telling them the same stuff and that's okay. This doesn't have to be brand new every time.
And having been on her mailing list now for many years, I can see that there are certain things, certain podcast episodes, certain blog posts, that at a certain point every year, that kind of content comes back and I see the same content again. And you know what, it's fine because it lands differently each time. So even if I read the same thing last year, I might take a different takeaway from it this time. So I think she's definitely walking the talk. So Shelley, are we up to choose your own adventure?
[00:27:29] Shelley S: Yes. So now there's lots of actions from this book that you can take. And, Rowena is going to leave you with two choices. So Rowena, won't you, for our listeners, can you give them two options of all these things that we've discussed, two options of actions they could take after this episode?
[00:27:47] Rowena M: So I think number one, option number one is, look at where you can embrace the idea of a keyless life. That is, how can you make it easy for yourself? And now remember, this can apply in your business if you have one, or in your home, or pretty much anywhere else you might find as well. So how can you make it easy? And then option two is batching. Where can you try batching? Give it a go. Let Perhaps in your business, if you have one, or maybe you'll be inspired with the idea of batching in your home life. You know, batch cooking, batch getting the laundry done. Whatever you like, just give batching a try. If you don't want to try making it easier, try batching.
Although, I'll give you a little clue, batching might make it easier. So you might get a two for one on that. Choose your own adventure.
And Shelley, what have you been reading lately?
[00:28:37] Shelley S: Well, I want to highlight a book that I'm reading with my boys. It is called The Penderwicks and it's actually a five book series. So The Penderwicks is by Jeanne Birdsall and it's actually based or inspired by Little Women. So I think you'll like it for that reason, Ro. It's like young adults, kind of middle grade novel, but I am absolutely loving it and we got, so we got all five books in the series and I think if you, if you need something really light and, just heartwarming to read, I'd recommend it. Even read it yourself or go and read it to your kids. Boys and girls will love it. It's about four girls, but my boys are loving it.
[00:29:20] Rowena M: That sounds fantastic. I also love that it's a five book series because I think with reading with kids particularly, if they warm to certain characters, it's really nice to be able to say, and now we've got more adventures and then move on to the next book. I think that's where Harry Potter and Diary of a Wimpy Kid and all of those types of books really hook kids in because they enjoy the characters and they want to read more of their adventures.
[00:29:45] Shelley S: Absolutely. That's what I love about the book. The characters are so rich. So it really does, it does pull the kids in and it pulls me in too.
[00:29:53] Rowena M: nice. Okay, so that's where we're going to wrap things up today, but let's continue the conversation. You can find me at Rowena Mabbott on Instagram and visit RowenaMabbott. com for everything about my coaching services and my books. And of course, remember to visit twobookedup. com for show notes and to download the 24 for 2024 Reading Challenge PDF for free. And where can listeners find you, Shelley?
[00:30:20] Shelley S: Well, you can connect with me on LinkedIn. I'm Shelley Tonkin Smith, and you can learn more about my copywriting business over at shelleysmithcreative. com. And of course, if you want to grab that sales page template, that'll help you to sell an offer, a service or a package. Any kind of product in the most chill way, then go and purchase that at ShelleySmithCreative. com too. So by the way, you are the first to know about this on the podcast.
[00:30:48] Rowena M: Oh, exciting.
I'm Rowena Mabbott, encouraging you to chill and prosper.
[00:30:57] Shelley S: And I'm Shelley Tonkin Smith. We'll see you in two weeks time for another episode of Two Booked Up.
