Digital Social Hour - Mom Life, AI, Masterminds & Launching Books I Cris Cawley DSH #371

Episode Date: March 24, 2024

Cris Cawley comes on the show to talk about being a mom, AI, Masterminds & Launching Books. APPLY TO BE ON THE PODCAST: https://forms.gle/qXvENTeurx7Xn8Ci9 BUSINESS INQUIRIES/SPONSORS: [e-mail] SPONSORS: Opus Pro: https://www.opus.pro/?via=DSH Deposyt Payment Processing: https://www.deposyt.com/seankelly Factor: https://www.factor75.com/dsh50 LISTEN ON: Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast... Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5Jn7LXa... Sean Kelly Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/seanmikekelly/ Digital Social Hour works with participants in sponsored media and stays compliant with Federal Communications Commission (FCC) regulations regarding sponsored media. #ad Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

I've got a book idea in my head and mapping out a table of contents with a book and just chapter by chapter and just letting it. Hey, I've got some ideas and let it letting it expand upon those ideas. It's unbelievable what it can pump out. I mean, I got all your ideas and your information, all this stuff in your head on paper and getting it, you know, and then using AI to just kind of grow it and expand upon it. Yeah, it's pretty incredible what AI can do. Wherever you guys are watching this show, I would truly appreciate it if you follow or subscribe. It helps a lot with the algorithm.

It helps us get bigger and better guests and it helps us grow the team. Truly means a lot. Thank you guys for supporting. And here's the episode. All right, guys. Chris Cowley here today. I can't wait to dive into her world.

We're going to talk about books. We're going to talk about raising a family, being an entrepreneur. How's it going? Awesome. Doing great. How are you? Good. You've helped 150,000 people launch a book, right? Yes. That is a lot. Actually, well, through the whole marketing process, and we've been in it for 25 years now, so we've helped over 150,000 people serving in the marketing and building a brand space, and in the past 10 years or so, more so publishing a book. And how have you seen the book space change in the last 25 years?

I know audiobooks are big now, right? Huge, huge, absolutely. So when it started back in 2000-ish, we were doing books on infomercials, believe it or not, and selling a book on an infomercial and having a back-end, high-ticket offer at the back-end. So much, much different space. That was pre-social media, pre-Amazon. Yeah.

And of course now there's all the things, but audio books now are definitely all the rage and everyone's busy. Everything's buying for our time. Everybody's distracted. You know, it's, it's easily to get distracted these days, right? So audio books are kind of like the number one

thing. I caught the tail end of infomercials when I was a young lad, but now they're pretty much dead. Oh, it's totally dead. Yeah, it's a dead world. It's so different. Back then, it was a way to share your expertise, share your knowledge. We were selling information products, and then on the back end of that had live events and books and all the things, driving to a back end, coaching, consulting, software, things like that.

So, yeah, it's a different world for sure. But you've done great at adapting. Not a lot of companies make it 25 years, right? And during the pandemic, if you were in the event space, you got crushed. And now with audiobooks, if you're not adapting to that, so you've done well at kind of pivoting. Absolutely.

And now with AI, that world, even audiobooks, things are changing. I'm using AI for all sorts of things. And not so much AI to generate content. No one wants to read a book that's generated by AI necessarily, but AI assisted for audiobooks and for physical books as well. So that's kind of cool. It's changing the game even again here in 2024. So it's exciting. I'm excited about AI. I actually use AI to summarize videos on YouTube if they're like an hour or two, just because I don't have time to watch it all.

And now you got me thinking I might even use it on some books. It's pretty incredible. Yeah. I mean, even just mapping out, like if you're thinking, hey, I've got a book idea in my head and mapping out a table of contents with a book and just chapter by chapter and just letting it, hey, I've got some ideas and letting it expand upon those ideas. It's unbelievable what it can pump out.

I mean, it's possible to do a whole book, but it's much more interesting, obviously, if the book isn't just solely written by AI. Right. It's got all your ideas and your information, all of this stuff in your head on paper, and then using AI to just kind of grow it and expand upon it. Yeah.

It's pretty incredible what AI can do. It is. Yeah, it won't replace the human aspect, like you're saying, like the emotional part, the storytelling. But all the logical stuff, the organization, it makes complete sense. Absolutely, and all the tactical. And some of the best books have, it's a blend of tactical and the stories. You know, facts tell, stories sell. People want the story.

They engage. They relate. But then the tactical piece of it makes it more interesting or maybe a few little takeaways or golden nuggets, how to use things like that. Yeah. So. I want to talk about balancing the mom life. So how many kids you got? Three.

Three kids. So a lot of people watching this are having kids or about to. Sure. What's some advice there on balancing the two things? Oh gosh. Um, it's, it's been a wild ride, right? So we've, we've been at this for 25 years. My kids are 23, 20 and 14.

Damn. You had them young. Yeah. Well, I'm 50 50 i just turned 50 so you look good 50 thank you thank you so it's it's it's but it's been it's honestly it's the best thing that's ever happened to me and now my kids two of them are grown up and one of them is an entrepreneur another one's kind of like doing some entrepreneurial stuff nice um so it's kind of cool to watch that to see see that. But I'd say the biggest thing, I mean, I've traveled a lot. I was speaking a lot, seminars, I mean, all sorts of things over the years. But when they were young, I took them with me. They went with me everywhere. So it was kind of a cool thing.

We kind of traveled, did the whole homeschool thing, and we traveled all over the place doing live events and such. And it was great. And now it's more, it's just balance. You know, I think balance is important. I think that's the biggest, probably the biggest challenge I've faced, being a mom, being a business leader, volunteering, doing the stuff I'm passionate about, trying to juggle all of that.

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DSH50 at factormeals.com slash DSH50. For your kids to be able to see like, hey, you can have it all. You can be a kick-button business and also have a family and have all the things and have a good life and travel and do all the things too. That's huge. It's been cool. It's been cool to be able to – my kids to witness that over the years. Yeah, and you were homeschooling before it was normalized because this was 20 years, 15, 20 years ago.

Yeah, well, my oldest was in kindergarten. So, yeah before it was normalized. Cause this was 20 years, 15, 20 years ago. Yeah. When, well, my oldest was in kindergarten. So yeah, it was like maybe 2005. Yeah. Back then you, I remembered you got bullied if you were homeschooled when I was growing up. Absolutely. Absolutely.

Well, and they, we were traveling a lot and doing live events. It was almost impossible to, I mean, we would have missed like every week we'd be missing days of school. So, um, so yeah, it was just kind of cool to be on the road. And honestly, now, even today, I have one daughter who's in high school. I would, in a heartbeat, take her out of school and go travel the world and go do the things. Yeah, but she likes it. Yeah, they get kind of rooting grounded with sports and school and all the things.

So, not so much, not that easy to do the whole homeschool or travel thing just yet. But I'm still young. I still have an opportunity to go out and travel and do things, but it's great. Being a mom, being an entrepreneur, and a high-performance entrepreneur, I work a lot. We work with a lot of cool people, do a lot of cool things, but it's been one of the biggest blessings of my whole 25-year career. Love that mindset because you grew up with a single mother, right? Yeah. So did you see a lot a single mother, right? Yeah. So did you see a lot of work ethic from her?

I did. I did, but not a lot of money. You know, it's, it's different now, you know, in today's age because my parents worked hard, um, but they didn't have anything, you know, they didn't have a lot of money. So it was like, you work really, really hard. It wasn't like a lack of effort, but still to be able to pour in 40 to 60 hours and not still not have enough. Um, I think that's what drove me as a young girl.

I was like, this is great. I mean, I love my parents, but I want a different life for myself. So I think that was where the drive, the internal drive and the determination and all of those things come from. And as you know, being an entrepreneur, it's interesting. People will say, how are you so driven? And it's not you, and it's not something that you create. I don't think you can just turn that on. I think there's experiences and things in our lives that, that shape, you know, who we are and where we've come from. And a lot of people who've made it big and

make seven figures, eight figures, nine figures, they came from nothing. Right. So you've kind of got this like internal, you know, hustle grind culture. Yeah, similar for me. Similar for me. So both my parents were immigrants, worked nine to fives, but that lifestyle was too slow for me, even though they were able to save their way up and become millionaires over like 20, 30 year periods. I want to enjoy wealth at a younger age. Yeah.

You know what I mean? Absolutely. Yeah. Who wants to wait until you're older and have health problems and can't travel and can't do all the things. I felt the same way. I was like, I wanted it. I was determined. And I mean, even before I got out of high school, I was like, I'm going to make a million before I'm 25. Wow. And back then, that's a lot. Because a million today isn't the same as it is. Yeah. Yeah. It's different. I

remember in the infomercial days, we were selling high ticket, $25,000 programs. And now people, I started to say back then, that was like high, high ticket. That know, $25,000 programs. And now I started to say back then that was like high, high ticket. That's like a hundred K now. It was much, much, much different. We were, we were doing some pretty cool stuff, but that whole world of just what was possible, you know, once you get a little taste of it, it's like, wow, I can, you know, it's, it's, once you see it's possible and experience it, it's like, there's no stopping. Oh yeah. When I made the switch to high ticket, which was probably last year, my life became so much easier because I was focusing on volume for a lot of my first five years of entrepreneurship.

Sure. Just like low ticket, but volume. Sure. And there's way more work. Oh, it's way more work. And sometimes it's not as enjoyable. No. Right.

When you're doing high ticket and working with people who are doing some really cool things in the world, it becomes, you know, it's just like, that's your circle. Those are your peers and you're doing some cool things with cool people and making a lot of money at the same time. So it's great. You can't have it all. You know, people say, oh, it's too hard. You can't have it all.

I disagree. I disagree. You absolutely can't have it all, and at a young age. I think it's great that even, like, my daughter is 23, 20. I'm like, they're starting to experience it and get a good taste of it. And it's like, you know, and now, of course, I'm 50, but I started when I was, like, I'm like, they're starting to experience it and get a good taste of it. And it's like, you know, and now of course I'm, I'm 50, but I started when I was like 25 and I'm like, man, if I knew now what I knew, like at 20, what would I know now? I think about that too sometimes.

Rock the world, right? But I think everything happens as is for a reason. Absolutely. And no complaints. I mean, I still have great life ahead of me and lots of life left. And, um, and we've, you know, I feel like we've kind of gotten it figured out, but we're still always leaning into growth and doing new things and developing new things and just kind of rolling with the industry and trying to be at the forefront and cutting edge of

the publishing industry, which has been good. I love that. You never get too comfortable, right? Because that's when people pass you. Never. Are you interested in coming on the Digital Social Hour podcast as a guest? Well, click the application link below in the description of this video. We are always looking for cool stories,

cool entrepreneurs to talk to about business and life. Click the application link below and here's the episode, guys. Never too comfortable. Always innovating, looking at the next thing. What's next? How can we be different? How can we set ourselves apart?

How can we be better? How can we help our clients better? How can we serve them better? Yeah, that's the name of the game. That's cool. And you're also great at putting yourself in the right rooms. I want to talk about the networking side of things. You built up a great mastermind.

You've probably been part of other masterminds. How did you build that base? Well, in the beginning, it was speaking, believe it or not. So speaking on stages. That's where I got a lot of my people would come up to me at the back of a room and ask about, do you have a mastermind or do you consult? I remember the first time I got invited to speak, I was like, wow, that's kind of wild. They're asking me if I have like, back then it was like books and tapes. You know what I mean?

It's kind of like, what are they talking about? I had no idea, like this whole world, this whole digital side of things. But the stages really got me. That's where I got, I think I got known and got to know other people. And then I joined other masterminds, some higher ticket masterminds, and then starting my own mastermind. And it's been great. It's been great. I feel like in the everyday world, we're serving really high level, high performance entrepreneurs. The books we're publishing and the people we're helping build brands are very, I mean, they're all experienced,

very successful entrepreneurs. But I feel like with the Mastermind, it's more like, kind of like those are my people. They become kind of like peers, right? They come to learn, they come to grow, they come to network. But it's good for me too because being in the digital space or the way things are here in 2024, it's good for me too, because, you know, being in the digital space or, you know, the way things are here in 2024, it's just different. Like you could never see a human

and be really successful working on a computer and never like see anyone face to face. So that's kind of like what feeds my soul. It makes me, you know, you get out and you meet people and you have people come in and you invite really cool people in that you want to meet. And, you know, it's kind of like this, you know, you get to see cool people, interview cool people, you learn cool things every day. That's kind of what keeps it exciting. Otherwise, I think it'd be kind of boring just sitting in a cubicle all day or sitting at home.

I could work from anywhere in the world, but it would get boring if there were no face to face interaction with people. So. Absolutely. That's why people went crazy during the pandemic, including myself, because I couldn't handle those Zoom calls after a certain point, man. I needed to see you face-to-face like this. I'm with you on that. Yeah. I don't do podcasts virtually, and I'm really strict on that. I've had some huge guests try to come on the show and want to do it virtually. I said, no. Because it's not the

same feeling. It's not. No. You can't replace this, right? And that's what a mastermind brings. I feel like that's what brings. It's just the people, the interaction, the energy, the vibe, all of it. You know, it's all of those things. And because everything else can be, you can do business deals on the phone or whatever virtually, but it's just, you know, magic happens in a room. Absolutely. With people and the right people and getting in the right rooms is important. So important. Changed my life. My first mastermind I joined changed my life. I was the brokest kid in the room, found a couple of great mentors that took me under their wing and they

brought me up to their level a few years later. Incredible, right? Yeah. It's the name of the game. Getting in the rooms and getting in the right rooms and investing that money. You know, people are always afraid to spend high amounts of money and they're like, what am I going to get from this? And what kind of value am I going to get? But it's the best money spent because getting in the right rooms with the right people, it will change your life. It does change your life. And you're one of many.

You hear that a lot. People say that. But yeah, that's kind of my people side of the business, right? Right. And we hear people's stories and interview people all the time and record books all the time. But again, it's all done. It's not done in person. So that's like the people side of the business

that I absolutely love, even more so than speaking and traveling and all of that. Going to a great mastermind three or four times a year, that's like, can't wait. Yeah, you're paying for access. That's what people need to shift their mindset. They're expecting like an immediate ROI on the money. And I think that's the wrong mindset.

The ROI is going to be over time. Agreed. And just for everything, everything that you do in your life, everything that you're going to get, you're going to either pay with your time or you're going to pay with your money, right? It's going to cost you time or money. So sure, you can waste, you know, take yourself 10 years to figure something out that someone else did in one year. And you could just join a mastermind and pay the same, probably half the money and get in with the right people and learn and get there faster. Absolutely. So yeah, it's interesting. It's in with the right people and learn and get there faster. Absolutely.

So yeah, it's interesting. It's cool that you're so young and you get it. I get it. A lot of people don't get it. Takes them a while to figure that out. Yeah, shouldn't be a tough sell. If you're paying for the right access, the right mastermind, it's a no brainer in my opinion.

Agreed. I try to go to at least a few a year. Same, same. But the thing is you need to provide value, right? So one of the things you provide is the book publishing. I know you can't disclose all the celebrities you work with, but who are some notable people you've helped publish a book with? Sure, sure.

So some of the people that we've worked with most recently, and we've worked with a lot of people over the years, but we've worked with Rudy Maurer, Taylor Welch, Krista Mayshore, Ben Newman, Tarikul Musa from Flip or Flop, Tom Reber from HGTV. Taylor Welch, Krista Mayshore, Ben Newman, Tarikul Musa from Flip or Flop, Tom Reber from HGTV. So we've done a lot of different, it's all entrepreneurs, so we only publish nonfiction.

And it's really, for most of these people, it's about building their brand, really. It's about building their brand, and the book is a piece of the puzzle. They're using the book as a tool to leverage, to get on the right stages, to get in the right rooms. I can't tell you the number of people that have said, oh, I want to get on this podcast or I want to speak on this stage. And they have a hard time. They write a bestselling book.

They write a little personal signed note inside the book, send it to the person. And it's funny how the magic happens. It's kind of grassroots old school. No, it works. And it's so cheap, too. Books are like five bucks. You can just send out 100 and, you know, you never know what will happen. Absolutely. Yeah, it's great. It's fun. It's fun school, but a lot of our- No, it works, and it's so cheap, too. Books are like five bucks. You can just send out 100, and you never know what'll happen. Absolutely. Yeah, it's great.

It's fun. It's fun to see. It's a small piece of the puzzle, and people with them building their brand and building their back end and getting clients and getting exposure and visibility and authority and all of that, but it's really cool because you meet some really great people who are very heart-centered and impact-driven and doing cool things in the world. And a book is just a vehicle. I look at Alex Ramosi and how many doors got opened up from his first book,

$100 Million Offers, and it's just insane. I know Alex. Alex is a great guy and it is insane. I mean, that book, this last book launched, did you see the last book? 100 Million Leads, even crazier. Unbelievable. The number of people that came together for a book and rallied behind him just for a book a book yeah in 2023 where like you think no one even reads books anymore right yeah yeah i'd say those books that that book i i i would love to know the number of books that he sold he actually disclosed it recently on a podcast i think he's selling might have been 80 000 a month copies wow think he's selling, might've been 80,000 a month copies.

Wow. Incredible. He said it goes up every month. Right, right. Well, now it's so viral and everyone talks about it and in the new book now, you know what I mean? And I remember talking to him early on years ago about how he was going to do different sets, you know, it's like a series of books. Oh, he told you? Yeah. Wow.

Yeah, yeah. We were talking and doing some stuff way back when, and I've known Alex for quite a few years. But yeah, he talked about kind of the game plan and what he wanted to do. Nice. He's a man of action, man. A lot of people speak words, but they don't act on them. That's right.

That's right. Yeah, he's great. Incredible human, for sure. Love that. Impacted a lot of lives. Oh, yeah. Changed mine. I mean, 100 million offers.

I instantly implemented some of the things from that book and made direct money off that book. Yep, ROI. Yeah, that's why I like nonfiction. Yes, yeah, nonfiction's great. I mean, honestly, that's what I love about it too. It's people that are changing people's lives with information. It's knowledge, expertise that they're sharing with the world. So it's like they're sharing their story, and every entrepreneur has some really cool story. You kind of dig in. If you dig deep enough, it's like, wow, never knew that about that person.

But then the tactical information they're sharing and their expertise and their knowledge and all the things, I mean, they're out there. Like, we can only impact so many lives. We're publishing about 100 to 120 books a month. Dang. But think of all the people that those people impact. You know, each of those people have their own following.

They have thousands of followers, sometimes millions of followers. So the people, the number of lives they're impacting, it's like, wow, when you think about it, it's like, holy cow, that's a lot of lives changed. Yeah, because one person has direct contact with maybe up to 100 people. So, like, you're impacting millions. Absolutely. It's fun. So cool. It's a fun business.

I saw you speak at Harvard and MIT. I did, and Stanford. That is crazy. So with an audience's a fun business. I saw you speak at Harvard and MIT. I did. And Stanford. That is crazy. So with an audience that young, what is the messaging centered around? Building a brand, you know, building a brand. And because a lot of these kids, you know, I also spoke at Cornell and it was interesting. These kids are, I mean, it's, it's, I feel like when I was in college, it wasn't as like

entrepreneurship. I don't even think that was an option. You know what I mean? Like I. It was looked down on back then. it was kind of like oh that's cute you know but it wasn't like a real thing right you're not going to go off and be an entrepreneur what are you going to do with that that type of thing they sort of like talked you out of that kind of thing um but now it's more about i mean these kids are brilliant there's so many tools

and i feel like the digital thing like back then it wasn't cool but this last year I've spoken I've spoken at many universities um high level entrepreneur um high level uh universities but most of the schools that we're speaking to we're speaking to entrepreneurs too like at Cornell they were all the dean of entrepreneurship brought me in so it was all entrepreneur type people that's cool so there's like 300 kids who were just interested in building a brand right and um fascinating I mean they're brilliant kids and especially growing up now with AI and all the So there's like 300 kids who were just interested in building a brand. Right. And fascinating. I mean, they're brilliant kids. And especially growing up now with AI and all the things that are coming out in the digital age.

And I think people are starting to recognize more now so than ever that you can make a ton of money and do big things in the world digitally. Yeah. You know what I mean? Or just online or something that's related to online. You don't have to like, you know, it doesn't have to be like a brick and mortar store or whatever. It can be, you know, online. But I think that a lot of them, they just had a

lot of ideas. They were asking a lot of questions. Even now they follow up with me a lot on LinkedIn. That's cool. Asking questions and yeah, it's just kind of cool to kind of light a little spark in their minds about what's possible out there. Yeah.

I think when you're that age, you have so much energy. It's just a matter of directing it in the right ways. For sure. Because I look back at when I was working in college, I mean, I would work 18 hour days, but it wasn't on like things that would get me farther. It was more like short term. Like, let me make some money.

Just let me get by. Let me make some money this week or this month. Exactly. So I think, yeah, having a mentor earlier on would have been game changer. Absolutely. Do you ever, have you ever heard of Peter Lowe? Do you remember the Peter Lowe success tour, like the seminars and such? No. So yeah, super old school. I mean, I'm really dating myself now. But when I was like, maybe 23, 22, 23, I went to one of those events. And, like, I mean, there were a ton of, like, big-name people there. Trump was there.

Oh, really? Suze Orman was there. Dad. George Foreman was there. Speaking? Peter Lowe, yes. So these big stages and these tons of people. But it was that one event, like, that first event like that where there were probably 50,000 people in this arena, I was like, wow, this is interesting.

Like, all these people are making money and doing all these things. And, and I always thought, okay, they could do it. I could do it. And that's kind of what sparked my, huh. I wonder if I could do something on my own or be my own boss and do my own, you know, because I was like, I was staying at home. I was a stay home mom with a new baby. And I was like, what could I do? I don't want to drive to work two hours each way every day. What can I do different? How can I make money? What can I do? And just, I think having exposure to that. My parents didn't show me that stuff.

I found that. I don't even know how I found that, but I found it. But I'm so grateful to this day because I know I'm exposing my kids. Like I take my kids to these cool events. Yeah. You know, a lot of people have said, oh, it's cool. I see you with your kids everywhere. Love it.

Well, they're adults. I mean, they're adults now. But even their eyes, you know, the first time I took them to see Tony Robbins, they're kind of like, oh my gosh, like what's pot. It's just, it's just, you know, it sets off something else in your brain that a little bit not so traditional. Yeah. Cause you don't know what's out there. So I think you get so used to just your world in the moment that you need to get exposed to people like Tony Robbins and other big influencers. Absolutely. And school and college, you know, I never heard anything about this kind of stuff when I was in college or in high school. I mean, nobody ever, it wasn't a thing, right? And even

now, I mean, my kids are in school and it's like, they don't teach you about entrepreneurship or this online world or what's possible. I remember my oldest daughter, when she was in college, she was in a marketing class and they didn't even mention social media the whole semester. What? And I'm like, how is that possible? That's jokes. In 2020 that no one's talking about

in my college course. So I went to Rutgers in Jersey and I actually couldn't get in the business school because my GPA was too low and I couldn't pass pre-calc. Wow. Second most failed class at Rutgers. But I could take this one marketing class and I still remember the professor, you know, he had

40 failed businesses or something. Wow. Something absurd. And he was teaching and I'm just like, why am I here? Like I'm learning from this 70 year old guy that has failed businesses. 40 failed businesses. Yeah. He's just teaching a class and I'm like, this isn't it, man. Yeah. It's not it. Well, I, and I remember she came home one day and she said, is $40,000 a lot of money? And I was like, no, it's not. It's definitely not. But she's like, well, that's what they're telling me. I can make, when I get out of college, I can make $40,000.

Oh my God. And that's right when COVID hit. And she came home and, long story short, but started a business. And her first month made $11,000 at 19. And she was like, I'm not going back. Yeah, 40K these days living off that, if you have a family. No way.

It'd be really tough. No way, yeah. Living anywhere, right? We live in Texas even, but it's just not in, in California, definitely not. That's where we used to live. And now I'm in Texas, but even that, that's not, I mean, considering, I mean,

when she made 11,000 in one month, her brain was like, okay, what's possible? Now that's the new normal, right? But now that's her baseline. It's all about leveling up your baseline. Well, that's just it. So you get exposed to that and then you're like, oh gosh, what, you know, if that, wow,

if this 19-year-old kid could do it, maybe I could do it. Or she's like seeing me do it every day and she's like, well, if you can make this much in one day or this much in one week, you know, because there's so many, the traditional job world, you know, it's like, it's not that exciting for, and a lot of, you know, there's not that many industries, unless it's something you just really want to do. Like you grow up and you say, I really want to do this for a living, but, um, economically. I mean, 20% of people enjoy it. I'd say 80%. Most people do not enjoy the nine to five lifestyle. No. And even if they think they do, they get into it.

And it's like, okay, it's not as exciting as I want. I feel underpaid, overwhelmed. So it's cool to expose, be exposed, expose people to things that could change their lives. Absolutely. Cali to Texas. Wow. That's a big change.

So walk me through what was going on during that time. Yeah. Just to be with family. You know, I was having my third child and I wanted to be in your family. So California with family. You know, I was having my third child, and I wanted to be in your family. So California's great. I mean, it was great at the time.

You know, this was, gosh, we moved 15 years ago. I spent most of my adult life there, though. So that was peak Cali. Now it's not the same. Right. It's so much different. And, you know, and it wasn't conducive to business. You know, I had a business, a very successful

business, and the taxes, just everything. I mean, just everything was just brutal. And so Texas, we're like, oh, no state income tax and all the things. And it's just a little bit different, a little more conducive to owning your own business. I had family. I had support. You know, I was traveling a lot still yet. I still travel, but now it's more, like you said, like the masterminds or for travel things I want to do.

I don't travel just to, I wasn't, I'm not on the road every week like I used to be. So back then I needed more support. I needed family. I didn't want my kiddos to be raised by nannies. So, you know, I wanted them around family and people, you know, that loved them. So it was a good move. It was a really good move. Was the husband also entrepreneur?

No, he was a sportscaster. Oh, cool. Yeah, he was Fox Sports, ABC, did all these different, had his own football show. Had a lot of cool stuff that he was doing. And he retired to spend more time with our kids. Nice. Yeah, to spend more time. It was really fun.

We had a lot of cool, you know, somebody on the plane today was talking to me about Super Bowl and going to the World Series, all these things. I was like, yeah, we did some really cool stuff like that for many, many years with this job. That's a cool way to raise kids because one has the nine to five corporate lifestyle and you have the entrepreneurship. So you provide both perspectives. Absolutely. And you know what?

I'm not going to lie. Him having a job that was making a great amount of money when I started was like a cushion. So I could go out there and fail and it would be okay. We can still pay our mortgage, pay our bills, but it was like a safety net. Yeah. You know what I mean? And that's important to establish. Very much so.

So I feel like a lot of people are risk adverse because of that. They feel like, well, what happens if I fail? Well, what if you fail, you get back up, you do, you do something else or you do it again or whatever. But I still had the, the income wasn't like, oh gosh, what's going to happen if I, if I fail. Yeah. And then we started to do really well.

And eventually he was like, I'm going to retire, which was great. And now we travel and raise our kids and do cool things and have cool experiences. And. It's awesome. Wow. So he retired pretty young, huh?

Yeah. Yeah. It's been, gosh, it's been 16 years maybe. So, yeah. Damn. And he didn't have an itch to work at all? Well, yeah, he does now. I mean, we have our companies.

We have a couple of companies, a software company, a publishing company. And so he does a lot of the operations type stuff. Oh, nice. But coming from being a sportscaster to that, it's totally different. Yeah. You know, and for someone that's used to getting paid every Friday, every two weeks or whatever, coming to that world was a little scary for him. But it's just continued to grow and flourish. And we built our brand and our business.

And it's been really good. I've been really blessed, really grateful. But I also work really hard. I worked really hard to get here. Yeah. Incorporating family into business. Let's talk about that because that could go either way. Sounds like you guys are killing it. I'm killing it with mine as well. Yeah. But a lot of people I talk to, let's talk about that because that could go either way. Sounds like you guys are killing it.

I'm killing it with mine as well. But a lot of people I talk to, there's some issues. For sure. Yeah. I have both of my older girls involved in our business, my sister. So I've hired some different people, some friends and friends and their kiddos. It's interesting. It is a little bit tricky because I'm high performance.

I demand a lot. I have to have more go. Publishing is a very deadline-driven business. Right. So we're always like got to go, got to go. We have a deadline, a launch date, all these things. So it's kind of tough because I'm like high energy and always kind of like going 200 miles an hour.

And what I've realized as I've gotten older, not everybody's like that, right? I'm very like driven and got to go and we have to do this, this, this, this, this. And I go and I multitask. I do a hundred things at a time and not everybody's like that. So sometimes my expectations,

I feel like I need to kind of rein myself in. And like, this is not the norm necessarily, but we set really high standards for ourselves. And me, I have very high standards. So I'm like. Similar problem with me. So when I work with friends, it usually doesn't work out. And now I'm very picky if I want to work with a friend, cause I know it might impact that friendship. Yes. So I try to have it the other way around where we become friends after some business success. Yeah. I feel like it's easier that way. Yeah, for sure. It is tough

because it's like, you're not always, um, it's not that you. Yeah, for sure. It is tough because it's like you're not always – it's not that you're not always on your best, but like you're not showing your best, but it is tough because if someone doesn't have a lot of energy or they're being lazy or they're being whatever, they just don't care as much as you care, it's tough. It's hard. It's your business.

It's like your baby. Absolutely. So, yeah, it's one of those things. I mean, I kind of handle it with you know kid gloves white gloves i'm just very like okay just it's a delicate it's a very delicate uh line to kind of you know to juggle and to balance for sure what are you focusing on this year anything exciting that you're working on yeah we're doing a publish something called publish.ai software new software to develop develop content so we started off as publishing saying, hey, it'd be cool to be able to leverage AI to

help publish books. Again, not AI-generated content, but AI-assisted content. And then it kind of grew into a lot of our authors are doing their press releases, and they're doing articles, and they're doing books, and they're doing social media content. So we actually are in the process of building out our own language model. But at the time when we launch, it'll be powered by, of course, using ChatGBT. But we've built out, we've got some great prompt engineers from Google that helped us with this. They've been in the prompt engineering world for 10 years now.

Wow. And a lot of people think, oh, ChatGBT just came out or AI. But AI has been around for quite some time, I've heard that for 20, 25 years. Well, think about all the Alexa and all the things, you know, in your house, all the things that's all, that's all AI driven stuff. So, you know, it's been around for a bit, but yeah, we're just building the software, um,

more for a continuity base. You know, we don't have a continuity. Uh, we've got the high ticket, uh, we have the masterminds, but this is, it's kind of cool to build something. Um, I've built a couple of softwaress. But it's kind of cool to build something. I've built a couple of softwares before. So it's fun. It's a fun project.

And AI is kind of at the forefront of everything now, right? Even for videos. And you see people creating courses with AI, and it's not even there. It looks like them, sounds like them, but it's not them. I'm like, gosh. I've seen that. Yeah, the virtual avatars. It's scary.

It is kind of scary. Scary, but exciting. Yeah. And I'm glad to hear someone your age say that, because me being 50, I'm like gosh i've seen that yeah the virtual avatars it's scary it's it is kind of scary but exciting yeah and i and i i'm glad to hear someone your age say that because me being 50 i'm like it scares me but i'm like that it is a little different it's different because anybody can make a video with somebody with you saying anything and it's like that's not me exactly that's why i'm personally scared because people with a following it could be easily manipulated fake videos great, and absolutely. I saw some things, I've seen some images and some videos online where I'm like, wow, that looks very real.

I get ads for Joe Rogan promoting products, but it's not even him. But it looks very much so, or sounds, and even your voice. Sounds just like him. Yeah, like with audiobooks, we had a gal the other day that submitted an audiobook, and she had recorded three minutes of her voice with this software yeah and that this software recorded the whole audio book no way

with like voice inflection i mean it was that's crazy it was really hard to detect wow so it's really it's kind of crazy what's it's coming guys stay tuned chris go anywhere it's been fun where can people find you uh gamechangerpublishing.com or Instagram OfficialChrisCauley Facebook OfficialChrisCauley LinkedIn we're all over the social channels

not as much on TikTok yet we're there but don't have as much of a presence we gotta get you on that most of our following comes from Instagram and LinkedIn

but yeah GameChangerPublishing.com as well love it we'll link it in the video thanks so much for coming on awesome thanks for having me

appreciate it yeah thanks for watching guys as always see you tomorrow as well. Love it. We'll link it in the video. Thanks so much for coming on. Awesome. Thanks for having me. Appreciate it. Yeah, thanks for watching, guys, as always. See you tomorrow.