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(velvety music) - Welcome to Business Forward.

I'm your host, Matt George.

Joining me tonight, Anna David, a friend of mine, founder of Legacy Launchpad, she's a New York Times best selling author and podcaster.

Welcome Anna.

- Thank you so much for having me here.

- Well, I've got like 100 questions for you.

But I just wanted to just tee it up here and just brag on you for a minute.

You're New York Times bestselling author of eight books, this is one I think that's really cool, three time TEDx speaker, who has appeared on Good Morning America, Today's Show, The Talk, and dozens of other programs.

What does it feel like to sit here and say New York Times bestselling author?

That's pretty darn cool.

- You know, what's interesting, it always, it doesn't always, but as I pause, it makes me think that I have to make a little bit of an excuse and go, "Oh, well, it wasn't on the list very long.

And it was the e-book, it wasn't the paper rack."

So that's how it makes me feel, like let me explain.

- Gotcha.

Well, you don't need to explain because when you've written eight books, it's a little different, right?

That's a pretty neat thing.

And you started your own company.

But we're gonna get into that into a second, but I wanted to tell just a quick story.

So you and Kevin Harrington really changed my life, and I want to give you credit for it.

It's funny because last week I was listening, I was driving somewhere and I was listening to your podcast, and you always have a great podcast, and I was listening to it.

And you were talking to another lady that's in the same business as you, of publishing and authors and everything it has to do with it, so launching a book.

And you said you were like best friends and you still haven't even met each other because of COVID and whatever reasons there are.

And I looked, I was thinking to myself, "This is unbelievable, how someone can change your life," which you did mine, "how someone can change your life and you still haven't met in-person."

- It is weird.

And if there is any silver lining to COVID, I know that's what it did.

Obviously in our social media world, that started to happen.

I remember even pre-Facebook, there were social media sites where I was like, "Oh, I feel like I know this person."

COVID made it that I actually can't remember.

If you told me, if I was just a tiny bit more, if you told me we've hung out in person, I would believe you, do you know what I mean?

- [Matt] Yeah.

- It actually makes you forget who you've met in person and who you just know virtually.

- I know.

What what's crazy though is I was thinking about you and what your job is, and you're in a fun business, but you're in a tough business.

And I was thinking about the impact that you have on an individual in a different way.

Because like in my business, taking care of community and the kids in the community and all that, you know what you do but you sometimes don't know the feelings.

Like for my feelings inside, unless I just flat out tell you everything, you really don't know the impact that you've had on somebody.

And that's a cool thing.

- That is the most generous way to compare what we do, where your life has been about service.

And it's not that my life has been all about profit.

But the fact that it is a service to people is secondary, that's just the reality, and yet it is true.

And oftentimes, we live in such a busy world, I'm sure there are clients who don't tell me that.

But I look at what they have done as a result of their books, and I see what an impact it must have, and that is incredible.

That being said, there are clients where it hasn't had any impact at all.

Because it's really about what do you do once you get the ball?

Do you run with it or do you go, "Well, wait a minute, I have this book and I thought all these things were gonna happen and my life was gonna change."

It really is up to the individual.

- Yeah, I guess that's true.

Because at the same time I launched with you and your team's help, you had a hand in every facet of my book.

And what had happened was I launched the book and six weeks later, COVID hit.

And so it derailed it.

I never thought it would derail it, but it did.

And things are meant to be, I've always believed that, that it's just one of those things.

But it is crazy because if you look at the list of authors that you have in your stable, so to speak, there's some pretty good names there and some awesome books.

- I know.

That's really a testament to Ryan, who you worked with, and the team.

Sometimes I sit back, I think he does too, and we just go, "Oh my God, there have been so many books."

He's written a large part of them.

But it is in the day in, day out helping people, talking to different people, paying the mortgage, you sometimes forget.

And then you take a step back and go, "Oh my God."

And actually I'm horrible with numbers to the point that even right before we were shooting this, I had to Google, I was like 1:00 PM to 3:00 PM, calculating times and all that stuff.

So I don't know how many books we've released, but it really is amazing, I think it's around 25.

- Yeah, it's pretty cool.

So if you go back into the early days of your life, let's even say a kid, did you always have a passion for writing or did you just find a lane, so to speak, at a certain age and say, you know what, I'm gonna run with this, and here we go?

- Completely the former, I always wanted to do it.

My mom was an English professor and I remember typewriter I remember she could look at me while typing and I thought, I wanna do that, I want to write so much that I know where the keys are without having to look, which of course I can do.

And there was nothing else.

I was good at it from a super early age.

I remember eighth grade taking a writing workshop and going, "Okay, this is it, this is cool."

And it comes super easily to me, I don't find writing a book hard, I don't relate when people say that.

Which is unfortunate, cuz I'm like, "What's so hard about writing book?

Come on, go do it."

And I find calculating the time difference really hard.

So we all have our skills.

I majored in creative writing and I loved to discover that it was very hard to make a living.

Everyone in my family had told me that when they told me to go to law school instead of liberal arts education.

But I'm a very practical person, so I just was like, "Well, I'm gonna do this and I gotta find a way to make it work."

And frankly my definition of making it work has changed.

I think that I thought, well, paying rent is making it work, getting book deals is making it work.

And it didn't occur to me that there was a way to make... And it's not about making money so much as declaring my value and going, "You know what, I can actually get paid for all this talent and all this hard work and I can get compensated appropriately."

And that was the real shift that happened about five years ago.

Cuz I know so many writers and they're just like, "Yeah, we don't really get paid."

Yes we do.

And it's like deciding that people are gonna treat us well.

I was in friendships and relationships and employment where I wasn't treated very well.

And once I really did the internal work and was like, "no, no, no, I deserve to be treated like a queen and compensated like a queen" that it started to happen.

- Yeah, that's great.

So your story's really amazing.

If you look at the timeline of everything that you've done, it's a movie, it really is.

And what's neat about it now is when you look at everything in the past, you beat odds, you beat addiction, you did all that, you wrote "Party Girl" right off the bat.

And then all of a sudden in the past four or five years, it's like Anna David and your company has just skyrocketed.

If you look, and I think that there's an easy answer to this and maybe the easy answer is age or experience or whatever.

But if you look in the last four or five years, what has really gotten you to the level where you're at right now?

- There's actually a super basic answer, which is I did trauma therapy because everything changed.

It wasn't just, oh, I started a business, it was like, I started a business that got really successful, I met my partner, I bought a house, I basically had, I've worked on my issues for a very long time.

But I did a very specific form of trauma therapy called EMDR and really things shifted for me overnight.

Things shifted for me overnight in the year 2000 when I went to rehab and got sober, but there was a second shift then.

So it wasn't just age, it wasn't just wisdom, it was some internal shift that I needed to make that I didn't know was possible.

- I think one of the things that I love about you is that you actually talk about mental health issues and you talk about these issues that are really coming to the forefront in the past few years.

But you've been talking about 'em for a long time.

And you just just lay it out there and said, "This is who I am, this the makeup of Anna David, and here here's where we're gonna roll."

- I am in California, I am like a Jew who's been in therapy since I was 16, and I've always just been what I call a chronic confessionalist.

It truly never occurred to me that there was anything that brave or weird about talking about addiction publicly because that is the world that I'm in.

Talking about mental illness stuff is more complicated because there's nothing cool about it, I have my own shame around it.

However, I've been aware of the mental illness struggles in my family and my own issues for a long time.

So I think the more I talk about it, the more comfortable I am.

- So four years, I think in 2018, you did what I think are four life changing things in your life and business, and I'm gonna go through 'em.

So you spoke at three different TEDx events, and that's one of my goals by the way, so I think that's pretty cool.

Was that experience as fun as it sounds or nerve wrecking?

- Oh, absolutely both, and that's so I can also help you.

It's so gonna happen for you, I can see it like next year.

And I think it is anybody who wants to do a TEDx talk absolutely Should.

The hardest part about TEDx is there's no system, so it's real detective work to try to figure out like, where are these talks?

How do I apply?

They do not make it easy.

- I got you.

- And I had been doing public speaking for a while, but there was something very different about that.

And it's like being an author, it's you have it for the rest of your life.

Oh, I just had someone on my podcast, I haven't released this yet, she was public speaking professor for 25 years and she goes, "Nobody cares.

What they care about is I have a book and a TEDx talk, that's the only thing."

- That's true.

- They don't care about those 25 years.

- It's very true, I can attest to it.

So you start your company, Legacy Launchpad Publishing, and then out of that, you released your first book.

So you've gotta be proud when you come up with the idea of the business and then take that next step and helping someone get that book.

- Like all great things in my life, it wasn't so much a decision as an organic saying yes.

People were coming to me and saying, "Will you write my book?

Will you publish my book?"

So it's almost like...

I do remember I have this friend where I was trying to sell courses and do coaching and all of these things.

And I remember sitting with him and going, "Oh my God, and these people complain and they say it's too much money."

And then like, "All these people come to me and ask me to write books and they're really nice."

And he's like, "Wait a minute, you are telling me that you are seeking out people who underpay you and are difficult while saying no to people who wanna pay you good money, who are easy?"

And it really took this person to go, "Oh my God, let me put my energy over there."

So I never said, I'm gonna start this business, I'm gonna go see clients, we've never sought out clients.

It has been a steady stream of referrals or people who find me online and come to us.

It doesn't mean all the clients are as delightful as you.

And there are struggles, my biggest business struggle is team, is finding the right people.

And we've had some terrible experiences and betrayals and people working for us and stealing our IP and awful stuff.

But happens to everyone.

- Yeah, it happens to everybody.

You also created and have your courses, you're writing and how to launch the book, the online courses.

I actually took every one of those by the way.

- Oh my God, that's so touching, I don't think- - I sat through every one of them.

- Oh, God bless you.

I will say, honestly, people don't buy those classes, they're so good, they're literally everything we do for our clients.

We now charge up to $100,000 for certain packages and people don't buy them, why?

I don't know.

Viewers, go buy those courses.

- Yes, it really helped.

When you run into people and you're talking about your business, do people say a lot to you, "I've always wanted to write a book?"

- They do.

And in the New York Times did a story five or six years ago that every 81% of people believe they have a book in them and 3% act on it.

So I would say I have a lot of those conversations and the majority of them don't result in anything.

It's actually hard to tell who's gonna move forward and who isn't.

And plus, I talk to a lot of people, so many.

Every day, I'm talking to somebody who's been referred to me who thinks they wanna do a book.

But I think that it brings up a lot of fear that people aren't conscious of.

And so they wanna do it and then it's either time or financial commitment or both.

And they're like, "Oh, I'll do it next year."

And next year never comes.

But yes.

- Well, procrastination, that's an entrepreneur's worst word, right?

- Yeah.

I have a lot of defects, but that's not one of 'em.

- I got you.

So I think one thing, and we touched on it earlier, but one thing that sets your company apart that I noticed is the strength of your team.

How do you assess the talents of your team as you're trying to hire new people on board?

How do you do that?

- It is so challenging.

I've been given a couple blessings, like Ryan who you worked with, landed in my lap years ago at another company.

He literally applied as an intern over Craigslist.

And he is just amazing.

And the universe has tested me on a lot of other people.

It is so hard to find a good team and it is so important to treat them really well when you do find them.

Just like everything entrepreneurial, has been learning on the job.

How do I make it in an environment where they wanna stay?

And I would say I'm certainly not the first to say this, that it's gotten harder and harder.

People wanna work for themselves, they don't wanna work that hard.

So like I said, we...

I had somebody I knew for 10 years who worked for us, who wend and tried to sue me and tried to start a competing business.

And we had someone who worked for us for three months, who then went and tried to start a competing business and tried to sabotage our business.

So it's just been really hard.

- How many days a week do you actually write?

- Oh, it depends on if I'm on a project.

Right now, I am writing a book.

And to me, my writing is my treat to myself, my time off.

- That's fun.

- So I go probably six months a year without writing at all.

If you don't count Instagram captions and newsletters and all of that, which is of course writing.

But writing a book, which I'm actively doing now, basically once my work for the day is done, I get to work on it.

which sometimes means once every two weeks and sometimes it's every day, it really depends.

- So I was just wondering somebody how they talk about my outlets, my journaling, or whatever it may be.

I just was curious if that was your outlet, was your writing.

- It is, it is.

However, I am an entrepreneur too.

So at this point, all my books are going to, for right now at least, the books that will serve my business.

So right now I'm doing a book based on my podcast interviews, which is all an Entrepreneur's Guide to, what is my working title?

To Preparing and Promoting a Book that will Help Build your Business.

But I'm also a big journaler, I should point out I have it right in front of me.

I just created a journal called "The Right Method."

It's just the nine questions I answer every night.

And so now I have people testing it out, and I'm developing it as a program.

- I love it.

So you've written for a lot of magazines, newspapers all over, I mean, Esquire, People Magazine.

When they hire someone like you to write something, do they have the topic already picked out and they say you write on this or do they come to you and say, "You're great in these five areas, just come up with something for us and write it."

How do they do that?

- It really depends, cuz it's been a long time, that was my main career for many years.

And now magazines, most of 'em are gone.

And the ones that aren't, they've got four freelance assignments a year.

But back in the early 2000s, that was my main gig.

And thinking back, it would be for the most part, you get into the publication by coming up with pitches and that's how they go, "Oh, that's a good idea.

I'm gonna try out this writer I've never tried."

And then you're in their stable and then you get assignments.

I did a lot of celebrity reporting and you don't pitch, you don't go.

"I wanna do a story on Jennifer Lawrence."

They get to choose who's gonna do it.

- All right.

And just a couple years ago, you wrote another book that I was lucky enough to read before you published it, "Make Your Mess Your Memoir."

What gave you the idea to write that?

Cause I love the title that, I thought it was funny, I thought it was great.

- Make your mess your message was something that I had heard and really feel like I've gone with my recovery, in which I've seen a lot of other people do.

I remember I was driving to the dentist one day, it's a very long drive LA, and I was in traffic and I was making notes sometimes I'm just brainstorming and I go, "Wait a minute, that would be a good idea.

What if I take my own story but also am showing people how to write a book at the same time?"

And so that was really my idea.

And I coined the genre (speaking in foreign language) business memoir, and I do think it's cool, but it hasn't really taken off as the genre that like to.

- How many more books do you think you have in you?

- I do not know, I don't know.

Every year, I definitely like to immerse myself in some creatively fulfilling projects.

So I don't think that means if I live another 30 years, that's another 30 books, that's a lot.

But I don't know.

I do think that this is a lot about doing a book, and you get this, but if you're gonna, you gotta brand yourself, you gotta go, "I'm the person who writes about this and talks about this and I share content about this."

And my boyfriend and I were talking, this was a couple years ago, what's gonna be your next thing?

Cuz I'm not someone who sits with the same thing.

I was sex and dating, then I was recovering, now I'm writing.

And I think my final thing will be reinvention, how do you reinvent yourself?

So I know there's a book in me about that, but I don't know when that's coming.

- I love it.

Can the average person, if they're one of that, I guess 81%, and they say, you know what, I am gonna write a book and be part of that 3%.

Is the goal, I guess it depends on the person, but can you make money off of a book?

- 99% Of the time, you will not make any money, real significant money off your book sales.

Can you make money from a book?

- [Matt] Yes.

- Absolutely, but you gotta figure that out.

And now with our clients, we're way more intentional.

We won't take clients if we don't think they can earn back, three to 10 times what they pay us.

But of course it's over a lifetime, so you can't be like, oh, okay, I'm gonna make a couple hundred grand next year.

But it is in terms of what it can do in terms of setting you apart from your competitors, setting you apart, making you a thought leader, it's invaluable.

But it's not gonna come from book sales.

- Yeah, I like that.

I look at mine as my business card.

I don't carry business cards, I just carry my book.

- I love it.

Do you still carry it around everywhere?

- I have three in my bag at all times.

- I gotta take lessons from you and do that because I will be places I'll go, "Why did I bring any?"

- It's crazy because like on airplanes and things like that, I always have 'em and I talk to everybody.

If there's a delay, I'm walking around talking to people.

I'm out of my books every time I go to an airport.

- That is so awesome, I love it.

- Are less people reading books today the old fashioned way?

I still love picking up a book and holding an actual book, including a magazine in a newspaper.

My kids, everything's technology now.

That piece drives me nuts from the books standpoint.

What's your take on it?

- I did read a book about it, it's called "Book wars" it's a very intellectual heady book.

But it was basically about how e-books have not taken off the way that they were meant to.

When they first came out, the thought was, oh, business, entrepreneurs are gonna be reading e-books on their commute and that kind of thing.

Really in the romance field, e-books are huge.

And obviously they're huge but I don't know any percentages.

I will say I was very Kindle focused and I have totally gone back to just reading actual books.

- I don't think I'll ever go to a Kindle.

- You've never had one.

- Well, that's true.

Well, I wanted to thank you, you're awesome, I wanted to thank you for coming on the show, it was...

I think there's gonna be another Matt George book, so I'm gonna call you, I've got an idea.

But I appreciate you coming on.

Anna David, it's been great.

This wraps another show.

I'm Matt George and this is Business Forward.

(velvety music) - Thank you for tuning into Business Forward, brought to you by PNC.

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