Start With A Win - Conquering Anxiety: Expert Leadership Lessons from a NY Times Bestselling Author | Laura Morton

Episode Date: October 4, 2023

Today on Start With a Win, Adam talks to Laura Morton, one of the top NY Times Bestselling authors in the world.  He discusses Laura’s career, collaborations with celebrities and business leaders, and her shift towards writing more meaningful books. She emphasizes three criteria for taking on a book project: liking the person, genuinely believing in their message, and ensuring the project contributes positively to the world.Laura shares insights from her documentary "Anxious Nation," which focuses on youth mental health and anxiety. She highlights the importance of understanding and supporting anxious children, recognizing the role parents play in their anxiety, and providing tools to manage anxiety rather than trying to cure it. She also mentions a special initiative to screen the documentary for free in October, coinciding with Mental Health Screening Month and Breast Cancer Awareness Month.Laura Morton is the author of over 60 books and a staggering 21 New York Times bestsellers,with a wide range of celebrities and business leaders, including Justin Beiber, the Jonas Brothers, Joan Lunden, John Maxwell, Dave Liniger, Tom Ferry and Glenn Sterns, just to name a few. Laura has been involved in the entertainment industry for more than 25 years as a writer, producer, and entrepreneur. She is the co-director, producer and writer of the award-winning documentary film, Anxious Nation, now available for streaming on Amazon, Apple Tv and Anxiousnation.comAbout Anxious Nation:Together, we can break the chains of anxiety and build a stronger, more compassionate nation. Join us as we embark on this transformative journey, shaping a future where anxiety is met with empathy, understanding, and unwavering support.04:03 The book that had the greatest impact…04:55 Need to check three boxes to write a book, do you have a checklist?09:37 How do you start a relationship/process…it’s this!11:57 Did I fail as a parent?15:14 Why Anxious Nation?18:52 My role as a parent, am I helping or hurting?www.Anxiousnation.com Connect with Adamhttp://www.startwithawin.comhttps://www.facebook.com/AdamContosCEO https://www.linkedin.com/in/adamcontos/ https://www.instagram.com/adamcontosceo/ https://www.youtube.com/@LeadershipFactoryhttp://twitter.com/AdamContosCEO Listen, rate, and subscribe!Apple PodcastsSpotifyGoogle Podcasts

What does one of the top authors on this planet have to say about leadership and anxiety? Today we find out on Start With A Win. Welcome to Start With A Win, where we unpack franchising, leadership, and business growth. Let's go. And coming to you from Start With A Win headquarters at Area 15 Ventures, it's Adam Kantos with Start With A Win. Today on the podcast, we have Laura Morton. Laura is the author of over 60 books and a staggering 21 New York Times bestsellers, with a wide range of celebrities and business leaders, including Justin Bieber, the Jonas Brothers, Joan Lunden, John Maxwell, our very own Dave Linegar, Tom Ferry, and Glenn Stearns, just to name a few. Laura has

been involved in the entertainment industry for more than 25 years as a writer, producer, and entrepreneur. She's the co-director, producer, and writer for the award-winning documentary film Anxious Nation, now available for streaming on Amazon, Apple TV, and anxiousnation.com. Anxious Nation is about talking about anxiety and really how we grow up and how our kids have been growing up. It's a great way of taking a look at the anxiety that so many people face. Let's get into this and talk to Laura. Laura, welcome to Start With A Win. Thank you so much for having me, Adam.

It is such a privilege to be here. Awesome. You know, I look forward to digging into this because there are two things that I want to really get close to here on this podcast. The first one is the incredible knowledge base that you have been able to tap into over the years, writing so many amazing books with incredible people. And the other one is your current labor of love project that has actually been kind of a lifetime process for you and your family called Anxious Nation, the documentary that you just pushed out. And there are premieres going on right now. I watched it and I was brought to tears based upon what happens with these kids and these families

and the anxiety and mental health and things like that we're all facing. But before we get into Anxious Nation, you've written, is it 21 New York Times bestselling books? Yes. So it's 21 New York Times bestsellers. And then I've had multiple other bestsellers that did not make the New York Times bestseller list, but 21 is the New York Times number. And hopefully 22 is coming, my friend. Okay. Well, sneak peek. All right. So I want to make sure we touch on number 22 here coming up pretty soon. It's by a great friend of both of ours. But before we get into that and kind of pull the curtain back on that, you've had the opportunity

to collaborate with an impressive array of celebrities and business leaders in your career. Can you share a memorable story or lesson that really comes to mind that you took during these interviews in the writing process? It's such a great question because I have memorable lessons from everybody that I work with and it doesn't really matter what walk of life they come from. Right. And, you know, so whether I've worked with Elizabeth Smart, who, you know, we, you might remember was kidnapped many years ago and thankfully was, was found safe and alive to John Maxwell. You know, I wrote a book with John called Intentional Living.

And it was an incredible experience because it was John's 75th book. And, you know, John has had the same writer for many, many years. He's an incredibly talented guy. And John and I met. And there was something when we met that really connected and that he wanted he wanted help shaping this legacy book of his, the legacy book, you know, that was going to be, I think, a little more personal than any of the other books that he'd ever written. And for some reason, John just connected and trusted me. And, you know, what started off as helping him shape the content, you know, ended with me writing the book. And it was probably the book that had the greatest impact

on me. And the reason why it had the greatest impact on me is because the book, first and foremost, was called Intentional Living. And what it taught me was to get hyper intentional in my life. And it was such an important understanding. I was moving through the world with good intentions, Adam, and I woke up every day wanting to do good. But the rubber hits the road with wanting to do good and actually doing good. Right. And so what I realized was and that was really the pivot where I stopped writing celebrity books, you know, or at least really reduced the celebrity books that I was writing and got into writing books that became more meaningful and more meaningful to me. And I think what I came out of that experience with working with John was that for me to say yes to a book, it has to check three

boxes. I have to like the person. I have to really genuinely believe in their message and it has to put good into the world. It has to do good. And if it doesn't, it's such an easy no. I get asked to write books every single week and I turn a lot more down than I say yes to, especially these days. But that gave me that sort of checklist that I could say, it doesn't check these boxes. So it's a no. And it didn't matter. It just didn't matter who it was. It didn't matter how much money was on the table. None of it. Because you have to feel good about the work that you're doing no matter what you do. And that gave me that lane to stay in. So that was really an incredible experience. Wow. So is that now the definition of hyperintentional for book writing for you?

For book writing, for sure. And really for any project that I say yes to. Okay. And give our audience those three things again. I have to like the person. Like, you know, I can sit with people and go, yeah, I don't think I want to really spend a lot of time with this person. Because it's such an intimate relationship. When you help somebody write their book, when you co-author somebody's book, you're spending a lot of time with that person and you get to know them and you get to look behind the curtain and it's a backstage pass to their lives and their lives are not always what they appear to be. So you take on, especially when

you write in first person as that person, you take on a lot of their emotional baggage, you take on their feelings. And so, you know, I've learned that over the years. And there have been a lot of people that I've worked with where it was, I was very happy to just wipe it off at the end, right? Because they're difficult stories. They're painful stories. I have to relive, you know, being sexually abused as a child, being, you know, hungry, you know, having dyslexia and whatever, you know, the pain is that created

these massive personalities that comes with the territory of writing these books. And it's my job to take people through that pain and take them through the pain in a very different way than they talk to their therapist, right? Because this is their legacy. This is their life story. So anyway, it's the three things are this, I have to genuinely like the person, I have to truly believe in their message, and it has to put good in the world. Wow, I love that. And you know, it's, I love the putting the bow on it with it has to put good in the world. Because I mean, nobody wants a book that teaches you how to go out and do the wrong thing or, you know, be nefarious and how you live your life. But how do you, when you look at those three, you know, hyper intentionalities and that, and you have to check those boxes. Okay. Let's say you get past that and you go, I can connect with this person.

Is it, and you're a, you're a co-author. You're not a ghost writer. Very rarely do I ghost. I've ghosted books with people like Justin Bieber and the Jonas Brothers because their brand is their fan wants to believe that they wrote these books, right? And so it actually costs more to have me ghost. But to me, at this stage in my career, I've written over 60 books. If I if I if I want to ghost, I'll ghost. If I don't want to ghost, I don't ghost. You know, but there is a difference. Right. A ghostwriter is is doesn't exist. So your work is out there for everybody to see.

But in essence, you've been bought and paid for and you go away. And that's completely fine when it comes to writing books. I always like to have a little skin in the game. So for me, I like to have a reason to want to continue helping my clients once they've written the book. The question is like, okay, so here's these 300 pages. Now, what are you going to do with it? And most of them don't know anything about publishing. So they lean on me for my many, many years of knowledge and experience.

And having my name on the cover and having a little piece of the backend always gives me incentive to want to see that book perform. When I ghost, I also want to see the book perform. But when you have Justin Bieber on the cover of a book, chances are it's going to do well. Chances are we're hitting the bestseller list. And so, you know, I know it's going to do well. It's, you know, there are just people who just don't care. They, you know, but for me, I always liked having my hand and my heart into the project in that way.

Awesome. With respect to that, how do you get into somebody's head when you have such a variety of people you've worked with? Is there a special way that you just get to know them? How does that process build up? Another great question. I always start the experience of working together with the conversation about this relationship. What is this relationship?

And it's a relationship that's built on truth and trust, those two things. Sitting down with somebody and saying, just tell me all of your dark secrets is hard. It's hard to get them to go, oh, okay, well, let me tell you about this. But for some reason, I have the ability to be able to sit with someone and get their trust first. And then in this world that we live in, this digital world where somebody is out there that can debunk whatever story it is that you want to tell. That used to not be the case when I first started writing books. But today it's definitely the case where somebody can, you know, come out and go, that's not the way it happened. So I always try as a way of protecting my clients to say, well, look, let's tell the story in your words, from your point of view, the way that you want to tell the story so that you can own that version of it. Right.

And so it really is about getting somebody to trust you first. And isn't that true in everything we do in business? It is. It really is how we deal with every, I mean, business is about trust and it's about relationships and your business is about trust and about the relationships. And that truly comes out in the writing that you do and how you deliver really that message and that cause for good of your subject. So I really appreciate that in you and I love your books. I've read so many of them and they're fantastic. I encourage people to take a look at those. But I want to get into the question of you.

And this is interesting because your latest documentary, Anxious Nation, it features you and your daughter, Seve. And you're the writer here, but part of this is about the pain and difficulties that you and your loved ones have gone through. How did you, first of all, tell us what is Anxious Nation about? And how did you make that transition from writing about somebody being kind of disconnected from that to being the person being written about? And your amazing daughter, I've met her and she's fantastic, such a strong human being, but she went through so much pain and still continues to suffer a little bit here and deals with it. But how did you go through that? Well, first of all, thank you for saying such beautiful things about my daughter. I'm a big

fan as well. So she, listen, when you're the parent of an anxious child, you feel for some reason you've failed as a parent. Somehow you're letting these kids down, right? And at least that's how I felt. And for years, I've made my living telling other people's stories. And when I've been offered the chance to write my own books, I've turned it down because I don't know what my voice is on the page. I know how to take other people's stories, other people's voices, and distinctively make them sound like those people on the page. So when the idea to make

Anxious Nation came to me, it was a vulnerable decision. And it was a vulnerable decision to not only make the film, but to ask my then 11 year old if she wanted to be vulnerable on camera and gave her the choice. It was up to her. I really never intended to be in the film because I always think it's a slippery slope when you're the filmmaker to also be in the film because somehow it comes off as superfluous or ego driven, which is not, and you've seen the movie, it is not, you know, how we presented this. And so it, but, but truly I, I also knew I couldn't ask another family to do what we weren't willing to do ourselves. How could I ask any other family to put themselves out there in such a vulnerable and courageous way if we weren't willing to do it?

Like you tell your story, but we're't willing to do it. Like you tell your story, but we're not going to tell ours. That just didn't seem like a fair shake. Right. So we made the decision together as a mother and daughter to share her story and to share our story together. And, you know, the idea came to me in 2018, Adam, so well before COVID. And I was sitting at my desk one day feeling incredibly defeated as a mom and like slumped over in my chair, just thinking, I don't know what else to do. I had been dealing with this for seven or eight years. And I just thought like, there has to be an answer. So, you know, as one does, I put a post on Facebook, kids and anxiety, who's dealing with it. And it was just one line, but it was one line that changed the trajectory of everything I did

going forward. And I got a lot of responses on Facebook, but private messages started coming in, coming in from people that I knew, coming in from people that I socialized with, people that I had just been to dinner with. And not once did we talk about what was happening in our homes because in 2018, there was a lot of shame and a lot of stigma. And it didn't matter where you lived or what your community was. People just weren't talking about it. And if there was a silver lining to COVID at all, it's that it's brought this youth mental health crisis to the forefront. And we are talking about it. And there is some movement in trying to improve the world in which these kids are living in. I think the shame and stigma has reduced. It certainly hasn't

gone away. So I wanted to make a film on why our kids were suffering. I wanted to understand if our family was struggling, I could not imagine how other families were getting through this and families in lower socioeconomic neighborhoods and brown and black communities and rural communities. Does anxiety show up differently in the north and the south, the east and the west? What did it look like in the plans? I wanted to understand what makes us the most anxious nation in the world. And in doing that, I also wanted to understand how it shows up, why it shows up, and most importantly, what we can do to harness anxious energy for good. Because that's what anxiety is, right? It's just energy. So what can we do? How can we understand it better?

And that's what we do with Anxious Nation. Awesome. So what I took away from watching the film, and I encourage everybody, I watched it on Amazon Prime Video or whatever it is. And I almost cried several times during this because I'll be the first one to say, I mean, we in our household have dealt with anxiety and other, you know, diagnosis, things like that with our kids and the stresses. And it's, it comes across the board in many forms of different pressures like social media and, and trying to, you know, meet the standards or needs or whatever of a friend group or society. You know, when you watch the news, the scary things that are presented. I mean, it's all across the board. How do you tell a kid, hey, we're locked down for COVID and you could die. And here's people that we know that have

died. I mean, tell me that's not going to stress kids out. And I look back at, you know, I'm a, I'm a Gen Xer. Um, I look back at, we grew up during the cold war and you know, it was, Hey, the Russians could nuke America or whatever it might be. And you're like, Oh my gosh. I remember the anxiety that created for me and my friend group. So there's, there's always something going on, but I think I, I really love how you've said, let's recognize and harness this energy and just, and kind of be okay with the fact that we get it, but have tools to deal with it. How did you, I mean, this is, this is a big undertaking. And I know some other people involved in the film, some friends of ours. And the reality is this is like getting hit upside the head with a baseball bat and going, oh, my gosh, I deal with this. Also, what do I do?

It is. Yeah, you're right. Well, first of all, we do have a lot of mutual friends who have supported the film as executive producers, a lot of people from the real estate world, because I've done so much work in the real estate world. But it wasn't a heavy lift to ask. And here's the thing. It's so personal to everyone. Anxiety doesn't discriminate. Anxiety doesn't care where you live, who you are, if you're black, if you're white, if you're Republican, if you're Democrat, if you have Jesus in your life, if you don't, right?

Anxiety doesn't care. Anxiety, you know, wants like you, I love the way that you described as, you know, getting hit upside the head with a baseball bat, because that's how it feels when you're parenting an anxious child. And because anxiety is a shapeshifter. So what made your kid anxious last year, yesterday, today might not be what makes them anxious tomorrow. And so you just never know what you're walking into. And so as a parent, you feel helpless in so many ways. And what we don't recognize as parents is our role in that anxiety. And many of us think we and we're coming from this

incredible, beautiful place of love. And we think what we're saying and what we're doing is the right thing. When in fact, we're catastrophic thinking, right? Don't ride your bike without a helmet. You're going to fall. You're going to crack your head open. You're going to spill your brains all over the sidewalk. You're going to be in a wheelchair, like the worst case scenario. When you say that to an anxious kid, you're ratcheting up those feelings of, of like, what do I do with this? So what happens is most of those kids end up falling on their bike, right? So it, we, we manifest the worst case reality. And as as a mom i think the greatest gift that i got out of making this film was understanding what role i was playing in my daughter's anxiety because i really had no idea that some of the things i was doing that i thought were like i'm being a great parent

i'm doing exactly the right thing i was actually doing the opposite i was was making her, her anxiety worse. I was adding to the problem. And I truly, Adam did not understand what it feels like for Seve. And that was my greatest aha in making this film is to recognize and acknowledge that Seve, what she feels when she's anxious is legit. It's real. It is so genuine to her. And I cannot be in a position where I say otherwise, because I don't know what it's like to walk in her shoes. I think as parents, we so often put onto our kids who we want them to be. And not often enough do we allow them to just be who they are, right? So we start telling our kids, you need to go to an Ivy League school. You need to join soccer. You need to, you know, be on the debate club, whatever it is.

You need to learn the piano. We start putting on them who we want them to be. And some kids, listen, aren't cut out for that. They just aren't cut out for it. And it's okay. So we have to know when to step back as parents. And I'm not saying like not to let our kids feel their feelings and struggle. Like a hundred percent we should, because it's how they learn resilience, right? It's how any of us have

learned the hardest lessons in our life as we've gone through challenges. We have to be there and help put the tools in the toolbox and show them how to use those tools, right? And then it's up to them. They can reach back and go, this is what I do when I feel anxiety coming on or not. And those are decisions that they make as they go off into the world, but anxiety never goes away, right? It's always lingering. It's always there. It's the fight or flight response. So you can't cure anxiety. You can learn to manage anxiety. You can learn to understand when it shows up what to do with anxiety. But anxiety is always there and you want it to be there in the right circumstances. Wow. And so parents listening to this, actually, anybody, if you're not a parent,

you know a kid someplace, a child or somebody who's dealing with anxiety, I 100% guarantee it. I encourage you to take a look at Anxious Nation. Laura, where can we find out more about Anxious Nation? So you can find out about Anxious Nation by visiting anxiousnation.com. And we're really excited to announce a partnership with the 74 million and SurvivorNet. We've created an initiative in October. We're showing the film for free October 24th, 25th, and 26th. You go to anxiousnation.com, sign up for it. You'll get all the information on how to watch the film for free. And we're doing it in honor of Mental Health Screening Month and Breast Cancer Awareness Month.

Screen your mind, screen your body. I love that. Yeah, we're super excited about offering this to people. And we hope that when you do watch the film, we hope that you'll tell people about it because that's why we made the movie. Laura, this is fantastic. It's been so nice to spend the time with you

on Start With A Win. And hear about the great things that you're doing to make society, make this world a better place and help the people that we all love. So I do have one question for you that I ask all the great guests on Start With A Win and that's how do you start your day with a win? Thank you for asking. I start my day with a win by hugging my daughter and being so grateful that we are able to wake up that morning and both of us can swing our legs over the side of the bed and we can get up and move. And then I make my bed.

And it's one of the lessons that I have instilled in my daughter that when you make your bed, and I'm sure you've probably been given this answer before, but you're already so far ahead of so many people with accomplishing just one thing in the morning. So I do, I make my bed every morning. I love it. Laura Morton, New York Times bestselling author, 21 times over people. What an amazing human being,

and also the writer, producer, co-director of the award-winning documentary film Anxious Nation. Make sure to check it out at anxiousnation.com. Laura, thanks for being on Start With A Win. Thanks, Adam. Thanks for having me. What a pleasure. you