FULL TRANSCRIPT

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It's what I call three magic words and thos magic words are Can, I, Just.

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Hello and welcome to the Finding Elara Podcast building worlds with words and sharing those words with the world. A podcast for writers, world builders and Artists that would like to take a mindful look inside their creations. Join me as I dive into the depths of mindfulness and explore world building in all its diversity ever searching for Elara.

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Hi Guys this is episode 13 of the show. My name is Dianna the host of exploration into your mindful creative. In this episode I am talking to Derek Doepker about his unique goal setting method he called POWER.

In the last week it has been a little more relaxed. I did a large amount of work on the website. Actually had the time to sit down and finalise Gum Valley A short Christmas Tale. I am really excited about sharing it with you soon.

The kids are now on school holidays. I no longer have to drive the bus and the kids are free to roam or in my case lounge about the house a little bit more until I remind them they still need excersize. We had the local carols by candle light and have started the first session of swimming lessons which are unfortunately an hour away so I can only work after lunch every day which is half my working time but that's okay.

As always any links that I mention in the show are on the show notes page which is dlnix.com/013. I load up the transcript a few days after the show has aired but I put the notes and links up straight away. Like ko-fi.com/findingelara.

Ko-fi is a way you can show your appreciation to creatives such as myself by buying them a cuppa. Each cuppa costs $3 and for me I am setting those kind donations aside for more podcast equipment and office supplies. My link is k o – f I .com/findingelara If you like what I am doing here then check out my page. Every cup of tea is muchly appreciated.

Or there is always the cheery finding Elara Facebook group. I will place the link for the show notes on to the group page after the show is loaded and feel free to join the conversation or post any questions you may have. The people in the group are very welcoming and there is always something happening.

This week there is also a bonus for checking out the Finding Elara facebook page because I am running a competition  to win a free book. I will give you more information at the end of the show.

So that was my week, now let’s move on with the interview.

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This week I am interviewing Derek Doepker. Derek Doepker is a former aspiring rockstar turned seven-time #1 bestselling author. He discovered proven processes that took him from struggling author to selling over 50,000 books. Now he shares those processes with thousands of authors through workshops, courses, and retreats empowering them to turn their passion for writing into a thriving business.  

I was introduced to Derek work through the write and grow rich book to which he contributed. I subscribed through that and he was so inspiring and motivated with what he was sending out to subscribers that I looked forward to his emails. They were short and to the point. I watched a youtube video he linked about a goal setting system he uses which he calls power. I was blown away by how he advanced my ideas of goal setting. So I reached out and asked if he wanted to come onto the show. His websites are Derekdoepker.com or bestsellingsecrets.com

(H is for host and D is for Derek in this transcript)

H: Hello Derek how are you today.

D: I'm doing well today how are you.

H: Not too bad I am so glad that you could come onto the show with me. You have a wealth of experience behind you and an amazing range of books. Tell me a little bit more about yourself.

D: Well, I didn't think that I would be an author years ago because I got my degree in music. So, I started out as a rock guitar player. I got a degree in music composition. What ended up getting me on the journey to authorship was I moved out to Los Angeles back in, I think it was 2011. and at that time I discovered really the world of entrepreneurship and that idea with the virtual world now, online. who can share their massage ans my passion, one of my big passions besides music was health and fitness. So I started a blog, I started a you tube channel and that's when I first got into writing, but no because I thought that I want to write but because people were asking me for advice. I wanted to help people. I wanted to share what I knew about health and fitness mindset and personal development. When I first actually wrote a book, what inspired that was I got one package. I posted a comment on a blog and inside this package was a kindle e-reader. It just sparked something in me and I was writing blog posts and emails and maybe it was something that I could write a book. So I studied how to do kindle publishing, published my first book, sold about three copies of that book in the first few months and I would say I am pretty sure one of those copies was to my Mum. So I didn't really know much about writing books. I definitely didn't know anything about marketing or anything like. But I kept going. I kept relentlessly studying and at the time I was a valet parker I was also delivering hot wings to pay the bills. So I was sleeping on an air mattress for a couple of years as I moved to LA and the nice thing about that was that as I was driving around making these deliveries I could just listen to podcasts like this. Things like, how do you market a book. how do you market a business and all of these different things so after a couple of years about them and finally published my second book. Did a little bit better but not enough I didn't really make much money from it. And then finally I went to a seminar. I felt like I got the missing pieces at that seminar. I was learning about influence and relationship skills. So as the guy, Brendan Broadwater ran that seminar and within a few weeks I wrote my next book, published it and it became a number 1 best seller in weight loss and made almost $6000 in royalties in eleven days. So in that moment I realised that after years of struggle I finally cracked the code so to speak. I was like okay, I had been trying all these different things, these courses and it didn't really work that well and then finally everything came together and I wanted to share with other authors what I had learned so the next several years, that was in to 2012 I went on to publish more books in health and fitness as well as personal development and business books then have had at this point 7 best selling books. 7 that have been actually number one best sellers in different categories. Sold over 50,000 copies of books but the big thing was, again when I figured out what worked, I know I wanted to share it with other authors what I had discovered so since 2013 I had created kindle best seller secrets and have been working with authors ever since. Teaching them book marketing and book publishing strategies which is what I still do today. Still love writing, still write books, still work with authors, and that's my passion and that's why I'm here.

H: So do you still play the guitar at all?

D: I do. I do for fun. I am not in a band currently. So I was when I moved out, well not right when I moved out but shortly after I moved out to LA I was in a band and we played different gigs, played a, on the sunset strip which was where a lot of bands play in Los Angeles. But right now it's more just a fun thing and that's the nice thin and another reason I got in to writing an entrepreneurship was to create freedom. You know the ability to make music when I want I can do it on my own terms. and I'm not stuck in a job needing to show up for a job but necessarily able to play music when I wanted or do what ever else I wanted.

H: That's fair. You sound really really busy, how do you find time to fit mindfulness into your day and get that balance between fun and work?

D: One of the techniques that I actually teach and this is in, I don't know if it started with health and fitness or if it started working with authors but the psychology of it is the same in terms of over coming procrastination and getting things done. It's what I call three magic words and the three magic words are Can, I, Just. and then there's a micro commitment. So a micro-commitment is something BJ Fogg talks about with habit commitment. Steven Geist talks about many habits. The idea is making really tiny commitments, so that's like 30 seconds a day of meditation for instance. So, can i just do 30 second of meditation? Can I just do, you know one minute of exercise and then I can quit if I want. What I find is that if you can just get yourself started and here's how it is relevant for authors. Can I just write one paragraph or can I just write one sentence and then I can quit and what happens is that many times after you get started the momentum generates motivation. So if I tell myself, oh I don't have time for mindfulness but I don't think mindfulness means sitting down to meditate for thirty minutes a day. There have been times when I have been able to do that consistently. Today, in terms of you know the last recent months, I haven't done that. I could, if I really put it on my schedule what helps me is to just go okay no matter what, Can i just do you know a minute or a couple of minutes and sure enough it almost always ends up being five minutes or ten minutes or something more. So that's a great technique to more directly answer the question of fitting it in it really is just scheduling it and making it a priority. So a lot of the times it's first thing in the morning or there's some, recently it's been like breathing exercises like Yoga breathing practices. So that's been my ritual and again it's just 5 minutes, it's just 5 minutes. Another thing about mindfulness in particular is that it doesn't have to be meditation is another thing that I have learned is that virtually anything can be a form of mindfulness and out walking. you can walk and make that a mindfulness practice. You can wash the dishes and make that a mindfulness practice so the great thing about mindfulness is that you can bring it in to anything that you do.

H: Very true. I like to go for walks in the mornings and that's when I get my mindful moments. Seen as this episode is going to be coming out in December to you have any advice regarding goal setting for the new year.

D: Yeah, absolutely. So one of the things that, what I did was I have studied a number of goal setting programs from top names in personal development. Each one kind of has their own approach and I wanted to synthesis a lot of it and create one memorable goal setting approach that takes the best pieces of everything that I learned and what I came up with was an acronym POWER. The power goal setting, I will break it down briefly, of course you can dive really deep into this. The basic idea that will give you the enough to implement it is first of all.

The P stands for Purpose. So figuring out what you higher purpose is. Now that can be your higher purpose in life that would be something like, I don't know what my ultimate higher purpose is It doesn't have to mean that, it can just mean, what's the purpose that you're trying to accomplish so let's say that it's a goal that you have as an author. What is the purpose, what is the bigger mission behind it and so this is where you expand out over the next several years. maybe the next five years, what do  you want to accomplish as an author? So you first identify the purpose and lets say part of that is to reach more people to make and impact so the next part is the outcome.

And this is the specific goal so the reason why it starts with Purpose and then goes to outcome is because there is a quote like you can climb a ladder and get to the top of the building to realise that you put the ladder on the wrong building. Or it doesn't matter how  hard you row your boat if you are rowing in the wrong direction. So it's one thing to set a goal and reach it but you also want to make sure that goal is really in alignment with some sort of bigger purpose or bigger mission that you are going after.

So you start and you Identify your purpose then you identify the outcome or the goal that aligns to that the W is about way. So what's the way to get there? Now a person might not know the answer to that but that's fine because if you're trying to find your way to a place you've never gone before you might think what would you do? Well you could get a map or you could get a GPS now a days is usually how the maps are you know formed I guess you could say and you could get a guide or you could get a coach or get a mentor right? Figure out how to get there and then the second part of way is what stands in your way. What are the obstacles that might interfere with that? This is really important. the research shows that the idea is not to be just so optimistic that you think oh yeah I could totally reach my goal you actually want to look at the potential obstacles. So if you imagine two extremes. You have on one hand the extreme cynic pessimistic person who's only thinking about what could go wrong and why something won't work. and that's actually a useful temporary mindest to identify these obstacles. the other extreme is the over optimist who thinks nothing could go wrong and really you want that healthy balance or it's really a cycle between the two where it's like, if you are about to drive some where you want to know where you're going you want to have a way to get there so you might put it in your GPS. So the outcome is what you put in to your GPS the GPS that guides you is the way to get there and then you go okay what could stand in the way like maybe the car gets a flat tyre so do you have a spare tyre in the car or do you have someone that you could call in case something happens. What's your contingency plan in case something goes wrong. So you want to consider whatever your goal is how are you going to get there and what can keep you from getting there and what to plan for.

The fourth piece is really big because most people I don't think fail because of they think oh I need more will power there is a quote by yogananda he said that environment is stronger than will power. So E is for your environment. The social circles that you hang out with the people that you're surrounding yourself with. The books that you read, the things that you take in. Your physical space all of that's effecting your productivity and your ability to reach your goal for potentially better or worse. So as an author right I was just reading the book persuasion by Cialdini and an interesting way this applies to authors is he was talking about he was writing his book and sometimes he was writing at a university I think it was. So he was writing there and he noticed, he was looking at different chapters and he was like sometimes part of my chapters or one of my chapters sounds really good you know really conversational like it has the styles that I want and then other times it sounds really stiff and intellectual and academic. He realised that when he was writing at the university and seeing the university buildings and things like that it was unconsciously influencing his writing to sound very academic and intellectual. When he was writing at home, what came out was much more conversational like he was just talking to you know a friend or something. That's paraphrasing it but the idea is that you environment is effecting your mindset. and it's effecting your emotional state. So as a writer, your environment that you're in can effect your writing style your environment that your in if you can have distractions that could be interfering with your ability to reach your goals and obviously if you make it really easy for you to write and make it easier to do the things that you want to do an harder to do the things that you don't want to do and then that' s how you set yourself up. For success when it comes to reaching your goals.

And then the final piece is the R and that's Recalibration. This is part of that contingency plan. How do you get back on track if something goes awry? Or do you recalibrate if you are going along and you realise that actually maybe this isn't the best goal or the best outcome that I am looking for then you need a plan in place to work or adjust you goal or adjust the approach that you are taking and another scientifically validated way to do this are If, When, Then plans. That's what it's called so if, I will use a health and fitness example. Some ones like, I want to eat less junk food or whatever. When people wet those goals It's really, the chances of success are lower and what happens that increased the chance sometimes by more than double of achieving that goal would be if they go okay, when I'm handed a desert menu then i will order a green tea. For instance. So you have a plan plan in place for all the things that could come up maybe not all the things, but the major things that could come up that could de-rail you from your goal. and so you plan ahead or when I'm done with my writing then I will get up and take a ten minute walk. Right, so you create these things that account for these situations that can come up and you plan ahead for what you're going to do. You also plan for how you're going to get back on track. So if someone falls off track with their goals like you know I was telling myself that I was going to write for at least thirty minutes a day but the last three days I haven't written at all well then go back to the can I just. Well can I just write for five minutes today, can I just write for two minutes today and then you can build from there. Or marketing you know, can I just reach out to one person? To ask them for would they be willing to leave a review. Talk to one influencer, fellow author. Whatever it is, you make it so simple and easy that you are guaranteed to say yes and then you build from there. 

H: Brilliant. I had actually seen the video you made of the power system and that was what led me to contacting you originally but I just love the way, two hours it was pretty intense but, it was so informative and so mind blowing really it was awesome.

D: Thank you.

H: You're welcome. How often do you actually sit down and POWER up yourself?

D: This has become a. The great thing is that it has almost becomes habitual. So I actually, it's a great question because one of the challenges of habits is that they can become unconcious which isn't always the best thing but creating IF WHEN THEN for instance for the recalibration I noticed that's something that I have just read about in the last couple of weeks and I'm like oh wait a second that's kind of something that I naturally do. Or at least in the areas that I am more successful at. So what happens is a lot of times if I find myself, this is great way of handling, let's say, failure. If I do something like, aah I'm gonna regret or oh man I should have said something different. Or I could have said this or done that in these different situations like it just saw someone and I think I should have reached out to them and said hi to them or whatever you know like I missed my opportunity. So in those moments where I'm kind of feeling like oh I lost that opportunity then I, Like I was just sitting down like mentally rehearsing myself If I see someone then I will say this or if I am given this opportunity then I will do this. And then an example is, if some one asks me how can I support you like a lot of times in networking then I will tell them I am looking for more speaking engagements. alright, do they know anyone? that runs events. So I came up with that, made that maybe a year or two ago and I've been able to consistently able to remember to ask for that. The point of that is the power goal system kind of becomes one of these pieces becomes integrated like environment I think about, I haven't been shooting videos as much, this was year or two ago and I was like what's going on. It's hard to set up this you know my whole back drop type of thing. you know it's time consuming to set up the camera so therefore how can I make it easier to record videos I get a different back drop that's really easy I use my computer set up for the camera instead of this digital camera on a tripod and so on. So I just made my environment easier. And the point is I didn't have to sit down and run through the POWER It's just as things came, come up I sort of go, is this a matter of environment, is this a matter of needing to find a different approach is this something like a contingency plan. That just gets integrated into your every day life and practice maybe the whole time through. Eventually you just, you know the more that you do it, The more you can do it on the fly, Incorporate these different strategies to reach your goals. 

H: Fantastic. Going forward what your current goals and aspirations.

D: The big thing right now is to enroll, maybe not immediately, but I am looking for about 3 to 5 more coaching clients so that's been on my agenda for you know know doing things to get. Get set up for finding and enrolling ideal coaching clients because I love coaching people. Bigger picture as I said you know speaking more. So getting to at least five over the next year at least 5 big events to speak at that are live events and you know ways of doing that then it's like, what are the ways. Well networking with people and reaching out to connections and getting marketing in place and so on and so forth there is a number of moving pieces but those are the things that are the big goals and the really big goals are eventually, you know somewhere in the next 5 years to, I'd love to have a traditionally published book that's a new york times best seller and that would definitely be a dream come true for me.

H: you were a new york times best seller with the Write Grow rich book?

D: Umm, we were a wall street journal best seller. wall street journal and USA today. So I don't think that we actually hit the new york times.

H: oh.

D: That would have been nice.

H: That would have been nice. There was a lot of people in that, it was a good collaboration.

D: Yeah, and that's just, that's the power of collaboration. You know one of the  biggest things as an author, especially, well it doesn't matter if you are starting out or not you know if you are starting out it's like, how do I build an audience? Or how do I get in front of people who I'm just starting out. the answer is or the line of thinking is, whose already in front of my audience, who can I collaborate with who can I connect with and it just goes to show you that you know what any one of us could have done isn't ever as much as what we could do together when we combine forces. 

H: Very true, do you have any books coming out in the near future?

D: So I'm working on an updates version of why authors fail. Right now it's a pretty succinct book which I like. about a hundred pages. It just gets right to the point. There's a lot more that I realise that I collaborate on and I go deeper and get more strategy with it. It's about like more than doubled in length so that's just still in the editing phase right now. So that will probably be early 2019 by the time that that comes out and then I have another book that I haven't actually figured out the, what I'm going to call it. Or exactly how I am going to position it, it's essentially a series of daily reflections. Motivational, inspirational messages stories and parables and different things like that. So that will be, probably mid 2019 by the time that comes out.

H: Brilliant. Do you have any advice to give to the audience.

D: Sure. as i said I love how powerful Can I just be for so many things that you are working on. So if there's something that you've been procrastinating on find the smallest step that you can take and if there's something that you find really scary just break it down to the easiest thing that you can do. So if some one's lets say, fear of public speaking is a big one right? It's all like, I'm a little worried about public speaking. Well could you get in front of, could you stand in front of one friend and talk to them. Could you shoot a video and you don't even have to share it with any one. Just to get comfortable with the presentation then can you speak in front of just a few people. So can I just do this can I just do that? and you find the smallest thing that you can do and move from there. Second thing that I would say isand I know that I am not probably the right fit for most authors. there is a very select group of people that I select for coaching. It's not just specific with me, it's just in general. I would highly recommend finding some coach, some mentor who can guide you because first of all if you look at the most successful people they pretty much all have coaches. The one thing that you can't get with a course or can't get going on forums or can't get by reading blog posts or even books as great as books are. You can't get with any of those things in terms of your growth and development as an author is one of the most important pieces for success and it goes back to that whole thing of as a matter of how you're rowing your boat. if you're rowing in the wrong direction how do you know if you're rowing in the wrong direction. The answer is you need feedback. There are so many authors that are struggling because they don't have feedback. They don't even know what they are missing. They don't know what they don't know. They're trying all these things and they're like doing every, This is what I was like, I think I'm doing everything like these courses and these books say but my sales aren't there. What is going on? and sometimes it's the smallest little tweak but there's no way to see it within yourself because it's within a blind spot. So we all need someone outside of us to see our blind spots. I'm just applied for a mentorship program with a guy who I still need to follow up with him but it's $6000 and i was like pshh that's a no brainer. $6000 because he is going to give me feedback that's going to help improove my marketing skills and my advertising copy and the things that I do for clients and so on and so forth. So even when I was broke and sleeping on an air mattress selling my music keyboard that I had one month to pay the rent. and barely had any money to get by.  I still recognised the importance of investing in my educating and going to a seminar that I made payments for over a couple of years to be even able to attend it. Ant it's because I was in a live environment and I was getting feedback and i was going through the processes I don't know if I would have had the breakthrough that I had unless I would have invested at that level, so, books, podcasts, all those things that I absorbed were helpful part of the puzzle. A big thing was getting some kind of feedback and in depth training so I would, for anyone that was serious I recommend seeking that help.

H: Again, thank you so much for coming on the show Derek. It's been a real pleasure so many powerful insights there and I will make sure that all of your information is on the show notes and I'll make sure that I have dot points about the Power system on there. SO thank you so much for being here.

D: Yeah, Thanks Dianna.

I really enjoyed my interview with Derek and you can find some value in what he had to say. I am definitely going to have a good sit down and try and integrate some of these systems into my work.

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BUFFY NIGHT

The night where I have unlimited access to the TV in the lounge. In this section I talk about things that have inspired me lately and why. This week Aribela has provided another review and i wanted to talk about the Santa Clause movie starring Tim Allen.

Santa Clause is one of my favourite movies. I watch it every year with the kids because I enjoy the story. I like that there are the so many pulls to the traditional themes of Christmas and yet, in the modern setting, well a modern setting 20 plus years ago. Some of the parts of the story are a little cliche and they have been repeated in other Christmas films you've seen around since this one came out but I just love how inspiring it is an how passionate the actual Santa Clause is in the story so if you haven't seen that give it a look. it's a lot of fun. 

Now the review from Ari. Shadow Magic by Joshua Khan

Aribels says Shadow magic by Joshua Khan is a great fantasy book with magic both good and bad. Shadow Magic is book 1 out of 3 so far.

The Book is both a tragic and heroic tale of Lilith Shadow, the new queen and ruler of Gehenna, land of the undead and thorn, an outlaws son and slave. They learn that certain rules are made to be broken. Lilith comes to be targeted by a ruthless assassin and they find themselves sucked in to a realm of monsters and dark magic.

I highly recommend this book. I cried, I laughed I was proud and most of all I was scared for the characters. I got sucked into the book straight away and I am glad that I got it. 5 out of 5 stars.

5 out of 5 is pretty good for Aribela so if you're in to young adult fantasy you might want to give that one a look.

and as always at the end of every buffy night, grrr arrgh.

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Close

That’s all I have for you today, the music is by bensound.com

If you have any question about the show then you can contact me via email dianna@dlnix.com that is Dianna with 2 n’s. Or look for me on facebook as DL Nix and twitter @ finding elara. The show notes  are at dlnix.com/012.

If you want to check out more information about derek the best place to find him would be his websites derekdoepker.com or best selling secrets.

Now i mentioned at the start of the show that there was a competition the competition is actually for one of dereks books. The book is break through your bs and unleash your inner greatness. I thought it would be appropriate considering we were talking about goal setting today and moving forward in that aspect so if you would like to have a copy of break through you BS we've got a raffle going on and all you have to do to enter is have a look at the finding elara community group or tweet about episode 13. I am pretty excited about the competition I have already had quite a few people enter already and i am going to draw it in the next show on boxing day on the 26th of December.

Next week I am going to talk to you a little bit about family integration into stories so that should be quite exciting the different relationships that members of the family have within different societies and I hope that you have a wonderful week and keep up the search.