Darren:
On this week’s Engaging Marketeer, I’m speaking to Meg Calvin from Kansas in the United States. Meg was a preacher with the church at the age of 13 and a minister at 16.
So I’ll be speaking to Meg about how she got involved with that and what her thoughts are on that now.
She now works as a coach, an author, and a book coach, helping people get what’s inside here out into the actual world.
Let’s see what she’s got to say.
There’s no prep. You’ve not been prepped for this, so you have no idea what’s coming.
Meg:
I have no idea.
It’s a good thing I’m on an improv team.
Darren:
Are you on an improv team?
Meg:
I’m on an improv team. Yep.
Darren:
Well, let’s start with that then. What got you wanting to do improv?
Meg:
Yeah. It was my only regret in life that I didn’t study it in college.
Darren:
Yeah. And so, can you study it in college?
Meg:
Oh yeah. 100 percent. Yep.
Darren:
Wow.
Meg:
Yeah. I regret that I did not do that.
So, in my late thirties, I was really looking back over my life and thinking, what haven’t I done that I want? You know, all the things you do in your late thirties.
And I thought, I’m going to start an improv troupe.
So I started by taking a class and I loved it so much and loved the freedom in it, the playful nature of it.
And I’m an author, so obviously words are like seconds on cake for me.
So anyway, I asked the teacher, would I pay you every week to teach me improv?
And she said, okay. And she said, you don’t have to pay me.
I said, no, no.
She said, could you get a troupe together?
And so I got the talent and I found six other people in our community that always wanted to do it or have done it.
And we’ve been together now two years.
We’re called Snark Side of the Moon.
And it’s the best. It’s the best. It’s just so much fun.
We probably do about five gigs a year, but we practice, which isn’t called practising, it’s called playing. We play every Tuesday night.
And it’s such a creative exercise because if you’re in your head, if you’re trying to organise and rationalise, you will suck at improv.
It really is about being in flow with your stage partner and what character is coming through you.
Yeah, it’s the best. So I love it.
Darren:
See, I love the idea of it.
I’ve never done improv, but I love the idea of it because I used to watch, there’s a show on the UK here that I know you guys have got in America as well called Whose Line Is It Anyway, which is improv.
It used to be in the eighties here. It’s very old.
Meg:
Oh, okay. I want to look up those old episodes.
Darren:
Oh yeah.
Because we’ve got a guy in the UK that’s on the American show as well, Ryan Stiles.
Meg:
Okay.
Darren:
Yeah, he’s on both.
I don’t know why, he’s been doing improv for about 40 years. Who knows?
But I’ve always loved the idea of it.
And I’ve had an improv guy on my podcast before because he was a comedian and he’s done improv at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, which is a huge thing.
Meg:
I’ve heard of that festival.
Darren:
Yeah. Massive. Massive.
But I’d be terrified, the idea of going onto a stage with other people and just not knowing what you’re going to do.
Because you get suggestions from the audience, don’t you? And you just go with it.
How do you do that?
Meg:
There are.
I like to compare it to MMA fighting…
Which I don’t enjoy watching. I like boxing. I can’t watch MMA. There’s too much blood for me.
However, how they’re similar is, from the outside perspective watching MMA, I’m like, there’s no rules. There must be no rules.
And then my friends informed me, oh no, no, there are rules to MMA.
So, the same is true for improv.
There are, I would say, about 10 rules, but I’ll only share the three basics that I’m thinking of all the time.
And that is never deny your partner’s reality.
So always, yes and.
And so if my partner on stage gives me a name that’s Larry, that usually is a male name, so my body is going to change, my posture, my voice, I’m going to become Larry.
So never deny your partner’s reality.
Within the first three seconds, establish a relationship with your stage partner so the audience knows, are they watching a date? Are they watching a teacher tutor a student?
So never deny reality. Always define the relationship, three to five seconds in.
Get started in the middle. Never start at the beginning of a scene.
So if you’re going to mow the lawn, don’t start the scene with going to the garage to get the lawn mower. That kind of thing.
So there are these rules. There’s about 10 I would say. I won’t bore you with all of them.
Great improvers, those rules are flowing through their veins.
And to get to the really fun part of improv, I believe if you’re trying to be funny, you will fail.
But if you’re trying to fully embody the character that’s coming through you, and if you are in tune with your partner, and if you’re just letting a story happen, conflict’s going to happen, what kind of conflict would make sense in this situation on the rollercoaster.
If you’re just focusing on embodying your character and telling a story, and being totally present in the moment, you will be funny all the time.
But the goal, if ever I go on stage trying to be funny, I suck.
So that was a long answer to how do I do it.
But the best part I love to share is it’s very different than when I write fiction, and when I write non-fiction, and when I sing, and that’s a different place.
The muse, to me, in those places comes from a different place.
And I feel there’s lots of creatives that listen to your show, so I think they’ll get it physically.
Where do they feel the muse?
In improv, this is going to sound so crazy, but I’m totally going to own it.
In improv, the character comes to me through my feet.
And if I’m totally empty backstage and the MC is introducing the next performance game, if I’m totally empty, totally present, and just focusing on how much fun this is, the character will come through my feet.
And they will tell me their accent, they will tell me their gender, they will tell me how they hold their body.
We had a gig last weekend and there was one character, she told me to lead with my shoulder.
So when I walked on stage my right shoulder was a little more forward, and she had like a southern drawl, and she talked a little slower than the other boys on stage.
So I have to let it come through my feet, which is so bizarre, but I think creatives will get that.
Darren:
Wow. There’s so much in there. There’s so much good advice.
The previous guest I had talked about yes and as well. Never say no. Never say but. It’s yes and.
And he’s done a TEDx talk as well. We were talking about doing a TEDx talk and he did that about improv.
But you’re not allowed to improvise a TEDx talk because it has to be word for word because they have to approve what you’re going to say.
So we did a TEDx talk about improv where he wasn’t allowed to do any improv, which was really funny.
But I really appreciate the way that comedy, improv, and sales are intrinsically linked because yes, yes and is something you would say in sales.
If you start saying but to somebody that you’re selling something to, you’re putting up barriers.
You’re telling them they’ve done something wrong or they’ve said something wrong or they’ve misunderstood something.
And if you do that, you’re not going to make a sale.
Whereas if you’re saying yes and, you’re telling them that’s correct and then there’s more.
So I love the way it’s all linked.
I was talking to a sales trainer the other day about how sales and dating are very similar.
And he said that’s probably why I’m so crap at dating.
But they’re all very similar because it’s about listening to the other person, understanding what it is they want, what it is they need to hear from you, and then giving them the right answers.
They’re all very similar. I love that.
Meg:
Yes, I do too.
As I’ve grown my business over the past five and a half years, and I have an amazing business coach who’s helped me scale and know when it’s time to delegate things off my plate, I’ve never delegated sales.
I love the game of sales and I have a script.
And at the same time, 90 percent of the time I will go off the script if the energy calls for it.
If there’s a question that just keeps dropping on my head that I feel is a real block, a real obstacle for this person to write their book and build their brand, I will go off script and say, I’m open to being wrong, can I ask you a direct question?
And the person will say yes.
Most of the time they say yes.
And then what comes out is, I just have to trust it and say, how long have you been hiding in your husband’s shadow, and then just wait.
So total connection, improv and sales calls.
My best, I mean every sales call I believe can be good even if that doesn’t lead to a partnership, if I’ve served the person toward more clarity and confidence and resources and direction, I’ve done a great job.
And I’ve also noticed when I’m more open to trusting and going off script and tapping into the part of me that is an improver, my conversion rate does go up.
Darren:
It is interesting, isn’t it?
Do you ever feel that other salespeople really should go off and do comedy and do improv because it’ll make them better salespeople?
Meg:
Yes, 100 percent.
Yes, but kind of hope they don’t because that’s more competition for us.
Well, I did have a dream last night of Tina Fey and we were co-writing a joke together on Saturday Night Live.
And she told me in the dream, and I know not all dreams are messages, but this one was definitely my subconscious working stuff out, she said, be comfortable with the competition.
So that’s interesting you brought that up.
And based on something I’m working on right now, I did need to hear that message from Tina Fey.
Darren:
If Tina Fey says it, it’s got to be true, even if it was in your dream last night.
But you obviously didn’t start doing sales. You didn’t start doing improv.
You started preaching when you were 13, I believe.
What made you want to do that?
Meg:
I always loved the stage, as most performers say.
And also, as most performers say, there was a season in my early childhood where there wasn’t love and affirmation and validation coming at home.
And so the church, to no surprise as it does for many performers, the applause from the audience met that need.
And so I had been on stage singing since I was six.
And then when my missionary grandparents knew they were looking for a teenager to preach on youth Sunday, my grandmother, who saw gifts in me, really pushed me.
And I of course, yes, pick me, pick me.
So that’s why.
And I was so thankful.
I was raised in United Methodist, so I’m thankful because as a woman that meant that we’d been ordaining women for over 75 years now, I believe.
So at that point, in the early 2000s, I had men and women mentors all gathering around me supporting me.
And then my missionary grandparents would take me around and I was this ecclesial show pony.
I would perform at their church, other churches and conferences and mission trips.
And I would sing and I would preach.
And lots of good came from it and I’m thankful that season is behind me, but thankful for the good that came from it.
And my favourite part of ministry I now get to use in my coaching business.
Darren:
I have to ask, why are you pleased it’s behind you?
Meg:
Oh yes. Nice job picking up on the energy of that.
Yeah. I’m pleased it’s behind me because, I think a lot of entrepreneurs will relate to this, when I was working in that field, which was really from the age of 13 to 32, which sounds weird to say.
What do you mean you were working at 13? But I really was.
I was writing sermons. I was speaking at things, speaking in the church.
But from 13 to 32, I was creating from a place of appeasing and impressing others and hustling and grinding.
And just hoping, dear God, I hope no one finds out that I’m not as smart as they think I am.
Or I hope no one looks at me and isn’t impressed.
So there was that unhealthy subconscious driver.
You, I listened to one of your episodes, one I listened to was about limiting beliefs.
Limiting beliefs from age 13 to 32 were running my life and making every choice for me.
And then when around 32, when I had this insane moment happen that led to me starting my coaching business and helping people write, market, and sell their books, I shifted from creating from a place of appeasing and impressing to creating from a place of joy and pleasure.
And still serving others, but for the first time serving others was just as important as my own joy.
And that had never been the case as a Christian minister.
It was always, your faith is only as strong as your ability to deny yourself.
And don’t trust yourself, and your desires are not trustworthy, was that limiting belief.
So I will just give, give, give, give, give and wear burnout like a badge.
And so that’s why I’m pleased it’s behind me even though I’m so thankful for all the relationships and all the skill sets and mindsets and body sets I got from it.
I’ll pause. Does that make sense?
Darren:
It definitely made sense.
It makes me think, do you think it’s healthy being a minister in general, or serving from that place of appeasing or impressing?
I’d say serving from that place, and doing it so young as well.
Meg:
Oh, no. No.
That was the basis of my second book.
It was a very satirical self-help book and it’s called I Am My Own Sanctuary.
I say it’s if Seth Meyers was to conceive a book baby with a nun, that would be this book.
So no, not healthy. Not healthy at all.
And I’m so thankful for all the resources I’ve had to help me move through that, therapy and coaches and sweaty palm conversations with parents and grandparents.
And loving them right where they are, knowing their own childhoods that led to them making the choices they made.
Offering forgiveness.
And in a sense committing to moving differently in our relationships.
I feel called to stay in relationship with you, parents and grandparents.
I forgive you.
And also moving forward I know that even if I disappoint you I’m still worthy of love.
That got really deep, but that is the basis of that.
No, not healthy. Really funny to look back at now, now that I’ve healed it, but no, I would not recommend it.
And I think that’s why improv was so attractive to me even as a college student.
I wanted to study it, but I studied everything related to religion and worked at a church all throughout college.
But my real desire was, oh man, I want to study improv.
And I didn’t do it.
But I think I was always attracted to it because it’s play.
And I think, from what I picked up on from other entrepreneurs, we come out of the womb wired to be entrepreneurs.
We are a different breed of people.
And many studies have proved that.
Not better. We’re not better than other people. We’re just neurologically wired differently.
But I think, talking to other entrepreneurs, I know a lot that are like me that, due to the relational system of their childhood, they basically developed workaholic habits at a very young age.
Whether it was, I have to care for my family, or I have to impress my family.
And if they’re not happy with me, I’m not emotionally safe.
So I would say workaholic tendencies came up in me at a very early age.
So when I saw improv, when I first tried it in high school, and it was just play, it was someone literally teaching me how to play, oh man, give me more of this.
I don’t know how to feel safe enough to play.
What is this world?
So, long story. No, it’s not healthy, but thankful for it because it made me who I am now and how I can serve now.
Darren:
You got me thinking when you said some of us come out as entrepreneurs and we’re wired differently, and it’s that need for our family to be impressed, or yes.
I’ve never thought of it before, but it’s almost like entrepreneurs and performers are very similar.
As you mentioned, you wanted that stage. You wanted that audience. You wanted that applause.
And as an entrepreneur, you want people to be impressed with what you’ve done.
You want people to say, oh look, she’s done this. She started this business. She’s the breadwinner for the family.
It’s a very similar mindset.
And I’ve realised that in myself now listening to you.
That’s kind of what I go for as well.
I want the applause. I want the adulation.
But I also want that from an entrepreneurial perspective.
And I know I am completely unemployable now.
If I ever had to go and get a job, it’s not happening.
There’s no way I could take orders or instruction from anybody right now.
I don’t know about you, but it’s never going to work for me anymore.
Meg:
Nope. That’s a very good point. Yes. I agree. Totally.
Yes. Entrepreneurs and performers, yes.
And that taps into shadow work, which I would imagine you and your listeners know what that is.
Darren:
I have never heard the term shadow work before, but I am intrigued. Do go on.
Meg:
Oh my goodness. Well, forgive me for assuming. You know what they say about assuming.
Darren:
Is that the one that it makes an ass out of you and me?
Meg:
Yes.
So, shadow work is taking time to be with the parts of yourself that you are ashamed of.
Personal example, I’ll keep it short.
When I first started my business, 2019 on the on-ramp, launching in 2020, I was so afraid that people would think that I wanted attention.
And I was ashamed of that, especially coming from the ministerial background.
And so that was my shadow work to do.
To sit in that and, what would it mean if they thought that about me? What would happen?
And the great analogy I was given was, imagine you’re a kid playing hide and go seek with your friends outside.
There’s a porch light in the backyard that’s covering most of the backyard.
But to your right there’s a garage, and on the side behind that garage, it’s not well lit.
There’s no light. There’s no light.
And so you’re all playing hide and go seek and your friends are like, oh, we should go hide over there.
But you say, we can’t because my dad told us we can only play in the light.
But imagine if you were to explore that part, the dark side of the garage, turn the light on after exploring it, realising, oh, this is safe. I can play in this space now.
You and your friends have so much more acreage to play on.
So for me, the work I had to do was, I was terrified someone would see my marketing and think, oh look at Meg, she just wants attention.
My heart sinks.
But shadow work, work with it, play with it, I realised I do want attention because my motive is helping people who are writing helpful, healing books.
That’s the only client I want to work with.
Do they want to help other people with their book? Yes, they’re my client.
And so I do want attention because when attention’s on me, it’s on helping people.
And I am a performer.
I can embrace liking the camera on me because it’s a good thing.
And if ever my shadow work went deeper to, but what if someday I’m not a person of integrity and I just want attention to be egotistical and selfish, what if that happens?
Then okay, that’s now I just found a little dark place behind the bush behind the garage.
Let’s play in that a little bit.
Is that a limiting belief?
Am I capable of being an egotistical narcissistic person who’s not coming from integrity?
Yeah, I am capable of that.
But do I have the habits and routines and support systems in place to make sure that I do stay in line with my integrity and that serving people is always my highest priority right next to my own joy?
Yes, I do have those supports and habits in place to make sure I’m not going to become a narcissistic, ego-maniac, camera hog.
And so that is shadow work.
The word sounds scary and the definition of exploring those parts of you you want to repress sounds dark.
But it doesn’t have to be.
It was the most healing work for me to do because now I can honestly say to my teammate who found your show and said, Meg, check out Darren’s show, I listened to three episodes and I was like, this guy could be a comedian. I want to be on his show.
I can now be confident and say, I love podcasting. I love being on camera.
Instead of, oh no, I hope they don’t judge me and think, that Meg, she wants too much attention.
Yes, they’re exactly right. I do.
Darren:
I’ve been accused of that myself many, many times.
Meg:
I bet. You’re so entertaining. It makes perfect sense.
Darren:
Please. No, no, no. More, more, more. It’s fine.
So, let’s talk about the business that you have now then.
The fact that you help people write books.
What got you wanting to do that for other people?
Because writing a book for yourself is hard enough.
Getting other people to do it must be extremely hard, even three or four times harder.
Meg:
Yes. I would say it’s harder to write when, oh, is that true? Okay, no, it doesn’t matter.
Writing is, like I said earlier, it is like seconds on wedding cake for me.
It is very pleasurable and I can never get enough of it.
So I wrote my first book in 2016 and it got picked up from a traditional publishing company.
And as books do, if we want them to, I got invited to speak at conferences and began coaching ministers from preventing burnout, which is quite ironic.
As I was at these conferences, other ministerial, we’ll call them servant leaders, other servant leaders, people in nonprofit spaces would come up and with shame they would whisper to me about their book idea.
But they would never publish it because they had so many limiting beliefs around monetising being sinful, around marketing being greedy, and around simply trusting.
They weren’t using these words, but what they were feeling was, I can’t trust my own desire to write a book.
This must not be of God because I thought of it myself.
So that broke my heart. That was my why. That pissed me off.
That was my pillow talk at 2 am, as we talk about in the business world.
I’m heartbroken at all of these helpful, healing books that are stuck inside overly religious people.
So that was 2017.
And then 2019 my second book got picked up.
And at that point, one of my best friends from childhood reached out.
He is a business coach and marketing expert.
And he said, I want to write a book. I don’t know where to start.
Could you teach me how to write a book and in return I will make you a master of organic social media marketing and I will help you launch your business for coaching.
And of course I said, yeah, please, let’s do it.
So he was my first client and that was in 2020.
And when I first started my business, my model was, I’ll help you write it, non-fiction, memoir.
I’ll help you build your brand, market it, and then I’ll help you submit queries to publishing companies.
And I did that for two and a half years.
And then at that point I was starting to notice, oh gosh, authors have no rights really in traditional publishing.
Censorship is insane.
When it comes to things as simple as, I want to use British English because I’m in Canada, but the publishing company says no, we’re going to use American English.
That happened twice, with two authors.
That was frustrating.
And even censorship around bigger, darker things, traumatic things that certain writers were describing in their memoir.
And the publishing company came back and said, you have to remove this whole vignette. We don’t write about this kind of stuff.
So the censorship, the lack of rights, the lack of royalties, the lack of a partnership, started to break my heart.
And I thought, Meg, like an entrepreneur, I can solve this. I’m pretty sure I can solve this.
I know what I don’t know.
So I brought on a team of six people beside me that had all the abilities a publishing company had.
And then I was able to stay in my zone of genius, which is the marketing, the brand building, the actual writing of the book, the client care, getting them over their blocks spiritually and creatively.
And we now, since 2023, my team offers everything that people need to write, market, sell an Amazon bestseller on Audible, Kindle, and paperback.
Darren:
I find it curious.
You mentioned that overly religious people have a block on writing a book because of the monetisation being sinful.
Yet the church is probably the most monetised institution that’s ever existed.
The two don’t seem to marry up for me there.
Why are religious people concerned about monetising a book being a sin when the church is so wealthy and makes so much money?
Meg:
There are different church cultures for sure.
The one I was raised in, and most importantly, the missionary grandparents of mine, their voice in my head and their limiting beliefs that became my limiting beliefs, epigenetics, whatnot, was all based around poverty is Christian piety.
And so because I was in that place when I started my business, and my coach was helping me get over those limiting beliefs, because that was who I was at my core, I was attracting people to talk to me about their books where that was also their identity around money.
Darren:
Is that a valid answer, that there are different church cultures?
Even in different church cultures, the head of every church, money goes up and follows up.
The church itself is still an extremely wealthy money-making institution.
The money goes somewhere.
If it’s Catholic, it goes to the Vatican.
The money goes up somewhere.
That’s why Henry VIII in the UK created the offshoot from Catholicism, because he wanted the money, he didn’t want it going off to the Vatican, and he wanted to get divorced.
So it’s weird.
And I’ve found this problem with religion over the years.
So many people who are religious on a ground level are very poor.
It’s almost like they’re encouraged to be poor.
They’re encouraged to give their money to the church and the church takes the money.
The church makes the money.
So the idea that people who are religious say, oh it’s sinful to make money, that’s what you’re being told.
But your whole religion is about giving money across to the church anyway.
They’re the ones making the money.
It seems a little wrong to me that people who are following a religion are told to be poor or encouraged to be poor, yet they’re giving everything they’ve got to religion.
For example, I went to Thailand earlier this year, and in Thailand they’ve got pretty much no money.
They’re paid peanuts.
They can’t afford to go on holiday anywhere because they can’t leave the country.
The economies around them are so much more wealthy than them.
They can’t go anywhere.
Yet every time they go past a Buddhist temple, they’re giving money.
They’re handing over what little they’ve got.
And these Buddhist temples are everywhere.
Every few hundred feet in Bangkok, they’re all over the place.
They’re going in and handing over what little they’ve got.
And it just seemed wrong to me that people who have so little are giving over everything and it’s all going somewhere.
So I’m not sure that made sense either, to be honest with you.
Meg:
It did. Yes. Yes. I love this question.
It reminds me of that time in church history in Europe where there was penance.
You were asked to make sure your loved one has a cushy place to land on the other side.
This reminds me of the question that I’m sitting in now.
I don’t have an answer to.
Which is, obviously, yeah, it is.
I’ve already answered it but I’m going to say anyway.
Is that a form of spiritual abuse?
A misuse of spiritual authority?
A little bit of brainwashing?
Shame, guilt involved?
That you, church member, instead of enjoying your materialistic pleasures, you need to be giving it to the church.
Like there’s this, just like we established about my upbringing and preaching from 13 to being in ministry 13 to 32, that wasn’t healthy.
This obviously isn’t healthy either.
So long answer to your question.
Why do religious people feel guilty about making money if they weren’t raised by missionary grandparents like I was?
Why do they feel guilty?
I’m being like an introvert right now. I’m thinking before I speak.
It has to be.
Yes.
Brainwashing sounds so strong, but that’s the only thing I could think of.
Which doesn’t make any sense from the outside looking in.
But when you’re inside that church culture and groupthink and there’s verses being thrown at you from the Bible about, I think it’s Matthew, it’s one of the gospels.
The man asked Jesus, I want, how do I inherit the kingdom?
And Jesus told him, he was a very wealthy man.
And Jesus told him sell everything you own.
So often that scripture, in my opinion, is wrongfully thrown about and wrongfully interpreted to mean for every single person that wealth is obviously evil, wealth is bad.
When my experience of that scripture is that Jesus would have answered that question differently for each person.
I’ll pause because I’m rambling at this point.
Darren:
No, but I know what you mean.
There are parts of religion that get taken to basically say whatever it is you want to say.
It’s like statistics are the same. You can use statistics to say whatever message you want to convey.
It happens in politics. It’s happening in politics right now in America.
People are using certain things that the church will have said, or the Bible will have said, or that psalms will have said, to basically back up their own opinion.
And then the other side will do the same thing because you can interpret it however way that you want.
It just bothers me when people that clearly have so little are then giving it away for someone else.
Eventually, somebody who’s going to have quite a lot is telling them to do that.
That’s the bit that doesn’t sit comfortable with me.
Meg:
I agree 100 percent. It doesn’t sit comfortably with me either.
Darren:
Do you hold any ill will towards what happened with your childhood with the church?
Meg:
Oh, I think I did. I did.
And I’ve moved through that. I’ve cleaned that energy up. I’ve healed that.
And part of that was my grandmother, who lovingly groomed me to be a pastor.
And what I mean by that is I only felt love from her if I was a pastor.
And she crossed over, she died, whatever word we want to use, in October of 23.
And I had already been doing deep healing work to forgive and cleanse and get rid of all the energy from childhood that needed to be cleansed and forgiven.
But when she, I can’t make this up, our last day together, I’m in Kansas now, which is north of Texas, and all my roots are in Texas.
Although I have to say, since you’re in Europe, I wonderfully spent, my early childhood was in Germany.
My dad was in the army and from age four to age ten I was in Germany and got to backpack Europe and all the wonderful things.
But that doesn’t matter.
So I went back to Texas and my grandmother invited me to sing at her church.
I went back, I took my guitar, and I sang.
And my body had a trauma response. I know that’s a big buzzword right now but it actually happened.
I started shaking when I entered the sanctuary again.
And I felt like that little girl.
Even though I was almost 40, I felt like that little girl who was performing and just hoping someone would love me.
And I found a pantry, I sat down next to the jars of peanut butter and I just cried for a second.
I released that sadness and loneliness of that little girl and then went on stage, did my bit.
And then my grandmother was parading me around afterwards and she kept introducing, cannot make this up, this is better than anything any comedic writer could ever write.
She kept introducing me as, this is my granddaughter who used to be a minister and almost did doctoral work.
She never mentioned this amazing business that is much more successful than my ministry ever was.
She never mentioned my two books.
I’ve helped, I just signed my 73rd one-on-one client in five and a half years of business.
She never, that never came up.
She kept introducing, person after person, this is my granddaughter, she used to be a minister.
She almost did doctoral work.
And this anger, this rage bubbled up in my belly.
Fiery red fire in my belly.
I could have punched through a door and I’m not a strong person.
And then there was communion and she served me communion.
And I had to take communion being pissed off at her.
And when she dropped me off back at home at my parents’ house, I went in the guest bedroom and I laid on the bed and I cried.
And it was this beautiful moment.
Never mind, that doesn’t need to be said.
I’ll pause.
But that was our last day together.
And I’m like, that is divine at its best, that that was our last day together.
Darren:
Wow. So you had a complicated relationship then.
Meg:
Yes. Yes.
And it’s been so healing since she’s crossed over to connect with her through meditation, through dreams, through journaling, and healing our relationship.
And looking back, I have stories. I will not share them now because we’ve been on for a while and I don’t want to bore your listeners.
Although they are not boring. They’re insanely mystical experiences that were very healing, but I won’t share them.
But it’s been neat to heal that relationship.
And my third book is coming out this summer, and there is a character that is based on her.
It’s my first work of fiction, and she was the most fun case study and character to develop.
My goal in that book, and beta readers have told me that I succeeded, my goal is to position her as the antagonist at the start of the book, but by the end of the book, you’ve seen all of her own traumas and layers and she’s complex and her own backstory.
And by the time the book ends, you realise she was never the antagonist.
So, yeah.
Your question was, do I have any, 30 minutes later, your question was, do I, what was your question?
Darren:
Do you harbour any ill will.
Meg:
Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.
I mean, no. Not now.
I had to do the healing work.
I had to do the healing work to separate that my grandmother wasn’t the church.
That there is lots of good that does happen in churches.
And like you pointed out, there are, and like the show Righteous Gemstones about this mega church points out, there are also times in any religious community, or I would say any community, philanthropic community, it doesn’t have to be religious, just any community, where you get to trust yourself.
And if you think, oh gosh, this feels kind of icky that you’re asking this much tithes from poor, like that doesn’t feel, you get to trust yourself and either leave the culture, leave that system, or be part of the change that happens in that culture, in that system.
And I think that goes for any organisation, not just religion.
Darren:
Okay. So let’s go back to books, the slightly less contentious topic of books.
Meg:
Yeah. Yes.
Darren:
So there’s a lot of people out there that think they’ve got a book in them and they don’t really know where to start.
I’ve co-written a book.
I’ll be honest right now, I wrote some of it.
We had people within the office write other parts of it.
So in terms of the percentage, I probably wrote about 15 percent, maybe slightly more, maybe slightly less, because it was co-authored between a lot of different people.
But for those people that think, I’ve got a book, whether it’s fiction or non-fiction or whether it’s memoir, where’s the best place for them to start?
Meg:
Yes.
The best place for them to start is a simple but hard step, and that is making a decision.
And speaking aloud.
Because if they’re indecisive right now, that energy is not clean, obviously.
That’s going to be an energy suck in every part of their life.
So they need to make a decision whether that decision is, 2026, the book is coming out.
Or, I’ve checked in with myself, I’m not putting this off from a place of procrastination that’s led by stress or trauma.
I’m intentionally listening to this book and it’s telling me it wants to hibernate for two years.
Just like my third book, it’s taken me three years to write it.
When I coach people through writing their books, we do it in six months or 12 months and that’s everything, write, market, sell it, get it to bestseller.
But my book idea, like it does for lots of people, it told me it wants to hibernate till summer 2026.
So I listened.
So they need to decide, am I procrastinating from stress or fear, or is this an intentional timing that I’m making at a conscious level, whether it’s for my family’s needs or the market’s needs or where my business priorities are.
Just make a decision.
And then speak that decision out loud.
I commit today that my book will be released in 2026.
Or I commit today that by 2028 my book will be out, it’ll be a bestseller on Amazon, it’ll be a lead magnet for my business.
By doing that, we all know the neuroscientific research that points to the power of how we talk to ourselves and how that rewires us.
But I also have the belief that the book idea inside of you is different than you, and it needs to hear you say, I see you, I believe you, I love you, I want to help other people with your book.
It’s going to happen 2026 or by 2028.
So just that first step, it seems simple, but it’s really hard because it feels more real to make a decision.
But that is the first step.
Darren:
So it’s basically setting yourself a deadline and a goal, a deadline, how to get there, and it’s going to be more realistic.
Would you suggest, because a lot of people say when they talk about goals that if you tell other people that it makes it more real?
Meg:
This is a tricky one.
There are different opinions about this.
I don’t care about their opinions though. I’ll say my opinion.
I think you should be picky with who you tell your creative ideas to because you want to protect that creative, if I could use that word, you want to protect yourself and the creative idea.
So only telling people that are, I think on one of your episodes you talked about people being at a pub and talking about your business ideas and people who aren’t business owners telling you it’s going to fail.
So same thing applies here.
Be picky with who you tell it to.
Make sure they’re going to be people that support you and cheer you on.
And you know, all the studies about speaking things into being, yes.
But be picky with who you tell it to, to make it more real.
Darren:
Okay.
And in terms of your clients who you help, what sort of businesses do you help?
Or is there a particular kind of business you really like to work with that you’ve not yet?
Meg:
I usually help coaches and business owners who want their book to establish them as an authority on their subject matter.
They want to take the book with them to retreats and conferences and sell it.
They want it to be a lead magnet that passively builds their email list.
All the things that books do.
They want that.
And some of the clients I serve, I would say the majority are like me in that writing is like cake to them.
They feel pleasure when they write.
So for that reason, they’re not hiring a ghostwriter.
They’re coming to me to help pull the book out of them and their unique style.
However, there are a few that are not writers, but they do feel the need that their business would be served to have a book.
So I get to help them figure out their writing routine if they don’t enjoy writing.
And so what that usually turns out being is more dictating the book and then I’m dancing with it and fine-tuning it for them.
A business I haven’t worked with that I would like to work with.
There’s lots of research happening right now about nutritional science with how women’s, this is going to sound very simple but it’s mind-blowing to me.
A company that comes to mind, and she already has books so she doesn’t need me, but I’m a huge fan.
Companies like Alisa Vitti who does the FLO Living work.
And what she’s arguing against in her books is that a lot of our nutritional science stats, like the life hack we need to wake up at the same time every day, little life hacks like that, are based on tons of scientific research that was done on male soldiers during the Second World War.
So what Alisa Vitti is now doing and other women like her, they’re coming forward and they’re offering tons of evidence to support that women’s bodies have different needs than men’s bodies.
And freeing women up to live differently than men and think differently.
Because every week, if you have ovaries in your body, every week your brain has different superpowers basically.
And I have been a fan of hers, receiving her lessons since 2019, so six years.
So I would love to work with a company that is all about building up women to lead and live differently than men.
And that in no way makes us any less than men, just owning our biological and anatomical differences.
So that’s really interesting to me right now.
And that’s woven into my third book a bit, too.
Darren:
If there’s anybody out there in that sort of field listening to this right now, you want to speak to them?
Meg:
Yes. Yes. 100 percent. 100 percent.
Darren:
Which brings me on to a question I ask everybody at the end of every podcast.
What’s the best way to get in touch with you if they would like to work with you on this?
Meg:
Yes. Yes.
So I would love to give your listeners a gift.
Darren:
Oh, I know. It’s exciting. So exciting. This is very exciting.
Meg:
I have these five questions that if you ask yourself these five questions, you will know exactly your book topic.
Because so many entrepreneurs, as we know, we have more thoughts a day than people that are not wired to be entrepreneurs.
Again, not pretentious, it doesn’t make us better, we’re just different.
What that means is sometimes we have too many ideas and we’re like, I do feel called to write a book for my business, but I have this idea and this idea, and I’m an expert in this and this and this.
So these five questions, every time someone asks themselves these questions, they have crystal clarity on the book idea and the topic.
So I’d love to give that to your listeners and I’ll give you the link for that.
It’s at my website, megcalvin.com.
And then I’m also, where I found you, I’m on Instagram, heymegcalvin.
I’m on TikTok, megcalvin.
Facebook, Meg Calvin.
So yeah, find me on there.
Darren:
So there’s a specific link we’ll pop below the description for this podcast.
To go through to ask yourself those five questions and that will lead you to absolute clarity on what your book should be about.
Meg:
100 percent. Yep. Always.
Darren:
That sounds like a cracking deal to me.
Meg, thank you very much for being on the podcast. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed speaking to you. It’s been an absolute blast.
Meg:
Thank you, Darren. It was so great to be with you today.
More about Meg:
Meg Calvin is a Kansas based author, coach, and book coach who helps entrepreneurs and leaders turn the ideas in their head into published books that build authority and grow their brand. After years in ministry, including preaching from the age of 13, Meg now supports clients through the full journey of writing, marketing, and selling their books, with a focus on clarity, confidence, and creative integrity. She is also an improv performer with the troupe Snark Side of the Moon, and brings that same presence, play, and sharp communication into her coaching and speaking.
You can connect with Meg here:
Website: https://www.megcalvin.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/meggie.calvin
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/heymegcalvin/?hl=en
Audible: https://www.audible.in/author/Meggie-Lee-Calvin/B074L9XZ4B
Amazon: https://www.amazon.co.uk/stores/Meggie-Lee-Calvin/author/B074L9XZ4B
About your host:
Darren has worked within digital marketing since the last century, and was the first in-house web designer for video games retailer GAME in the UK, known as Electronics Boutique in the States. After co-founding his own agency, Engage Web, in 2009, Darren has worked with clients around the world, including Australia, Canada and the USA.
iTunes: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/engaging-marketeer/id1612454837
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/darrenjamieson/
Engaging Marketeer: https://engagingmarketeer.com
Engage Web: https://www.engageweb.co.uk
