Making every decade better than the last with Bob Beverley

If you've ever worried that everyone else just seems to get it and you're missing something or messing things up , this show is for you . I'm your host , angie Coley , and let's get to it . Hey , welcome back to Permission to Kick Ass . With me today is my friend , bob Beverly . Say hi , bob .

I've got like my little sound cage right here and doing what I can . But hey , podcasting on the road , this is how we do . Love that you're here , it's all good . So tell us a little bit about your business , bob .

When it's all , we're all crazy , it's just to what degree , and therapy is really about sharpening your life . So it's a shame . That's the deal about therapy . But down and dirty means I've heard it all .

So if you come to my office and I haven't heard something that's exactly like what you're afraid of , only I've heard 10 times worse I'll give you the first session for free , and nobody's ever got a session for free .

If they haven't , and you're already there , stay for the hour , but don't go back Because it's so unfair that I've said you know if the therapist hasn't sat in the patient's chair , you have no idea how scary it is . So , at any rate , I've been doing it for 35 years . Before that I was a minister .

Now , to me , the Christian world right now is so nutty I dare hardly mention I'm a Christian , let alone that I used to be a minister . But it is amazing to be a minister . It's way more interesting than people know . Taught me a lot about . People had amazing stories .

One of them I think I told you the first night you and I talked I had these real troubled couple parishioners and they were fighting over a ramshackle house and the woman got her brothers to come beat the guy up . So she came down and asked me to go rescue him because he was bleeding . Apparently . I go in to meet him .

He comes at me with a baseball bat . Thankfully he recognized me and then I said you know , bert , sit down , let's talk . While I'm on the couch talking to him , I hear a voice that says this is Sergeant McCord . I'm the man of the Duchess County Sheriff . We have our guns drawn . Come out with your hands up . And I said I'm Reverend Bob Beverly .

One day this will make a good story on Angie's podcast . No , I didn't say that . I said I'm Reverend Bob Beverly . They said we don't care who you are . Come out with your hands up , we have our guns drawn . So I go out the back door my hands up and there's a state trooper and a Duchess County Sheriff and Bert had called in .

While the woman came to get me at my office , he had called in and said he was being murdered . So they were responding to a murder scene . So anyway , being a minister is much more wild than people know , and the point here is , I guess , that none of us know who we're really dealing with and we have to stereotype people in order to think .

But if you get to know people , almost everybody's , fascinating Everybody's life is worth a novel . So anyway , along the way , I started writing books . My first book was called how to Be a Christian and Still Be Sane . I've written 10 other books , all self-published , but I have an editor whose IQ was 158 when she was nine .

So my books are really pretty very well edited , they're very well put together . And David Allen of Getting Things Done . He wrote a preface for one of them , called Emotional Elegance . But when I started writing I was so terrified that no one would read it that I started reading the direct marketers . And this is where I'm truly sick .

And if anybody's jealous of my accomplishments , here's my sickness . I'll bet you I have more marketing books and copywriting courses than any copywriter in the world , and I hate writing sales copy . My view is my book's good . Here's my three-word sales text Just buy it . So at any rate , I just have spent thousands on like unopened course material .

I should start a contest . Can anybody beat me Right ? Anyway , what I figured out eventually is I'll stop talking in a second why am I doing all this ? And I realized along the way that buying all these courses was like a drug for me . I've never had enough money who has ? But I have a bone disease that's cost me a fortune .

I've broken like 26 bones , had three open-heart surgeries ruptured . I've ruptured three Achilles tendons . I've never had enough money and I wanted to make money , and what buying a new course meant was there's hope for me . I'm going to get this course and I'm going to make my life better . Now , often I didn't even open the drug , but that's so .

I have learned marketing by reading Dan Kennedy , laura Belgre , ng Coley , jeff Walker , on and on and on . So I know how to market myself , but I really have not become a copywriter . So , at any rate , I got basically three things going on marketing , psychotherapy , and if you want me to perform your wedding in Key West , I will .

The other thing I would say is I've spoken at conferences . I've actually spoken at Kevin Hogan's boot camp in Vegas a few times , so I'm a fairly good speaker . That's why I'm talking fast , because apparently if you talk fast , people think you're more intelligent and a better speaker . Anyway , that's a bit about me .

What got you to transition out of ministry into psychotherapy , or was that more of like a long-term evolution ?

But at the end of the conference everybody said if you want to change your life , really change your life , go to therapy . So when I came back to my area I found I think the best therapist in the world and saw him for seven years and after a year I realized this is what I really wanted to do help people at a very deep level .

Because unfortunately and for good reason , people view ministers as judgmental , though 46% of the time when they're in mental trouble they go to a minister first . I'm sure that's not the same now , but back then it was . But ministers are viewed as judgmental and it's a shame because a lot of them aren't . So I just realized I really wanted to be a therapist .

So I ended up doing a mid-career shift . I didn't lose my faith , nor did I stop preaching , but I ended up with a little a smaller parish for 15 years .

About what point in your life did you go back to school for psychotherapy ?

Look at all of these other people who have something going on that's much better than I could ever build . It's too late for me . Go on , save yourself . And I just I want to give them a fainting couch and I also want to faint on a fainting couch because I'm dramatic like that . But look all around you are people that are changing things .

I wrote about this in my book . My aunt , chris , went back to school in her 60s to get a master's degree and I actually asked her about that at one point , said what made you decide to go back to school and get your degree in your 60s ? That's , I mean , it's incredible accomplishment and I'm curious about it .

And she goes I was going to be 60 whether I had a degree or not , so might as well have the degree . And I was like , yes , yes , we need more energy like that in our lives .

I was scared setting up my sound studio because I'm so inept at that , like you . But I at least knew I would have company . But , like I have never done , I just started doing podcasts because I was terrified to do it .

Secondly , in a couple of weeks I'm doing a webinar at a beautiful spa near me and it's called Shortcuts to Sanity and how to Live a Life of Confidence , peace , Meaning and so on , or Emotional Elegance . But I am scared to do it .

And the reason I'm doing it is I want my clients to know that at 70 , you can still change things and make life better and do scary things .

They offer me for 30 years free space so my fees could be reasonable . They view it as a service to the community . But a bigger room opened up and I decided to go for it because I always had the fantasy of having all my books in one place .

So I started building this with the help of people who know how to pound a nail and I was telling my best friend like I don't know why I want to do it , but I want to do it . But you know , is it pointless ? I'm 65 , five years I'll be 78 . Maybe I knew I was going to talk to you one day and I had to up my act .

And yesterday as part of that , I did the corny 40 lessons that I've learned in 40 years on this planet , type thing , and I posted yesterday a little story about confidence comes first , or confidence doesn't come first , it's courage and commitment , and I told people it's really interesting to me to just kind of observe , especially when somebody says oh my gosh ,

angie , you're so confident . Oh my gosh , I admire your confidence and I'm like if you were in here and you had to hear the chatter going on in my head . Every time I have to try something new . My first podcast was a very similar experience with my friend , kevin Rogers , and everything went wrong .

Like my setup wasn't working , we couldn't figure out the audio , we had to try a couple of different things . You and I had that experience trying to get on the Zoom call , like the tech just wasn't working , and that can be a super frustrating experience . But to like be on with somebody that goes okay , I get this , let's bring this energy down .

Let's figure out what we can do to put on a good show . Got to hold people in this . I posted on LinkedIn , if you wanna find it , and it's a graphic that says confidence doesn't come first , courage and commitment do , and I told people .

It's funny to me that people think that they're attracted to my confidence because I don't feel confident most of the time but I do feel committed to the choices that I've made and I do feel courageous in pursuing those things because I think about the mission every time I get scared .

The mission that I'm on to help entrepreneurs , to help people step out and be brave and do things that they don't think that they can do , and that matters more to me than staying safe and going . Well , this is my comfort zone and I'm going to stay right here in my box .

I remember a long time ago , well say probably 12 years ago , when I started trying to put stuff on the internet , I wrote like three pages of sale copy for a $5,000 seminar . Now I was scared to do it , terrified . Now the moment I hit send , my confidence just went through the roof because I knew I had the view that my seminar was worth 5,000 .

Now , did anybody buy it ? No , with a lead time of three days and a price tag of 5,000 . Kevin Hogan , a very famous persuasion marketer , read my sales copy , said it's not bad , but there's not enough in it for making it more . What's about them ? And I just in a way couldn't be bothered . But oh well . But I got the confidence as soon as I hit send .

But if I could read between the lines and unpack what you said a little bit , it sounds like you got a lot of learning just from putting it out there . It wasn't just the confidence but like , oh , here's what I could have done differently , here's what I'll change for the next time I try this and that stuff .

Exactly like you said that lift off doesn't happen without moving down the runway . Maybe you have to move down the runway a little bit longer sometimes , Maybe you take off right away , but you got to get moving . I love that .

I don't mean that I don't count , but in the world I live in I've had amazingly broken clients who I couldn't walk from here to the door behind me in their shoes , and I want to live a life of courage . I live to show the world that we can do better , and if I do better , you'll do better .

I was thinking I got to let my light shine more , and what happened was I hired a business coach named Austin Church , who I think you've connected with , who's from Knoxville , tennessee , and we talked about how am I going to let my light shine more , and I fantasized about like doing a webinar .

I mean a seminar at a beautiful resort , which I have done before , but never one where I invited people to come and record it . So I have a nevergreen thing that can that all your viewers can buy thousands of copies in the night while I'm sleeping , and I promise I'll sleep more peacefully . Well , anyway , austin was at such integrity .

After a while he said to me you don't need to let your light shine more , you need a break . And so he said I'm going to cancel our coaching agreement . You don't need me anymore . What you need is I'm going to give you back half your money because we're only halfway through the journey and and you are going to spend that on a sabbatical .

Now , I'm only saying that because marketers have the reputation of being sleazy , etc . Well , some are , but there's a whole lot of people like you've met them and I've met them . They have amazing integrity and Austin Church is one of them . Holy cow , can you imagine

One way ? I had a great sabbatical over the summer , got renewed . I had took five week , thought I'm good at marketing , so I got all my clients to pay for my vacation . Now I give them makeup sessions . But you know they've been with me so long and they know my fees are reasonable that there was a win-win for them .

So , anyway , after that I realized I've got the energy to do the webinar . Now I kept putting it off because I'm still scared . But it's fall where I live and I wanted to do something before winter sets in . So I had that looming deadline . I'm going to be 70 in January . I got that looming deadline . That's all I got promised , apparently . So .

But I just felt the life that came from energy and , by the way , it isn't just I mean , it is what you said it's commitment , it's courage , but the biggest factor I believe in life is energy . What's the great quote by Emerson ? Energy is eternal delight .

Oh , I like that one , so like when I've said this in my writing if I'm alone , lord , have mercy on me . If I'm alone and tired , I'm a danger to myself . When I'm with people I'm almost never in trouble . Tiredness is the biggest factor . I believe in mental health , like overwhelmed . You know , overwhelmed and tired , that's what everybody comes into my office .

Now they don't know that underneath it there's like borderline personality disorder , narcissism and all the big words that can make me money . But everybody that comes in , especially parents , is just overwhelmed and tired , and so energy is a really huge factor in being an entrepreneur . And our minds , I mean . I can use fancy words .

I'm the world's number one expert , not only at buying more marketing than Kevin Rogers has , but I have such a grandiose mind not arrogant but I have on the computer where I'm talking now I'm embarrassed to say it 86,000 emails . Now they're not from friends . I respond personally to everything , but these are blogs that about living with sharpness and so on .

And do I have time to read ? You know what I do every morning I open my cell phone , go on AOL on my email . I spend 15 minutes deleting blogs . I know I don't have time to read . And then there's , say , 20 great ones left and like , I often don't get to them . And what's going on there ? Grandiosity , okay , all the gurus are saying now .

They're all saying it . I wish I knew how to turn my phone off . See part of my tech techy stuff . All the gurus are saying distractions , what's killing us ? But the thing is we are so in our grandiosity we don't realize we're a victim right now and if we don't change it today , we're not gonna change it tomorrow .

He probably has 300,000 emails on his computer , but he's a professor , so he's a . He's a world religion expert , james Beverly . I'll put a plug in for him . He's very , very smart . Did I say I was an identical twin ? But at any rate , you know he's . He makes me look like I'm just lying on the couch doing nothing .

I gave myself kind of an impossible deadline and I'm the one that set it with the client and he was mentoring me through this project and when I delivered everything I had to deliver on this really tight deadline he came back to me and he told me okay , so first of all , congratulations , you did it . You delivered on the deadline .

It was a super ambitious , it was a lot of hard work and you did that . Not a lot of people can . Second , the deadlines are arbitrary . We set them , we can move them . So just be aware of that . Moving forward , that like , does it make you look good ? No , but can you move it ?

Yes , will there be a cost to your reputation to resetting the print , the printers when I did print catalog work stuff like that ? Yeah , sometimes there's a cost to moving the deadline , but the deadline is what you set it to be . There are some exceptions . You know I used to laugh . I mentioned catalog writing In one of the companies I worked at .

It seemed like Christmas was a surprise every year . Oh shit , the holiday catalog's coming up . Have we done anything on that ? No , but I'm quite frankly surprised that that is a surprise , that that's coming . It's at the same time every year , but this I don't know .

I find it funny how often these things kind of just come up in conversation and seem to be themes in my life . The reason that I'm in a hotel was I was at an author's mastermind yesterday in downtown Houston . Shout out to Cindy Childress , editor extraordinaire , help me with the first draft of my book .

Very , very smart person if you're ever looking for a ghost writer . And we were talking about the difference between the folks who were still working on a book idea and those of us who were a little bit closer to publication . I actually got my pre-order approval link from Amazon yesterday in the middle of the masterminds .

We're recording in this in October , so it's still pre-release for my book . By the time this airs it'll be spring of 2024 , so the book will already be out . But it's kind of interesting to know that we're time traveling right now , right , yeah , oh , we're also six months in the future .

But people there were a couple of folks that are kind of in early stages of drafting their book that said , oh my gosh , how did you get to this point ? Like they were astonished by the publication process . I totally get it , having gone through it . It's overwhelming .

There's a lot of steps , there's a lot of places to drop off and get discouraged , especially when it comes to editing . And I said

I don't know . Earlier this year I had a personal issue that had me kind of frustrated at life , and the way that I deal with frustration has always been action . And so and I know that if I decide to do something , kind of in between my ears , I will break promises to myself .

But if I make promises out loud in front of other people , because I see myself as a woman of her word , I will not break that promise . I will move heaven and earth to make it happen . And that's what happened . And so I was in a moment of frustration .

I took thee to LinkedIn and I wrote my 40th birthday is coming up and I'm releasing this fucking book . I gave myself six months to get it done , after working on it for four years and now , five years after the fact it's coming out , it's actually a thing .

So all of that to say I know that that was a bit of a ramble , but like give yourself deadlines and give yourself people that will hold you accountable to the deadlines and ask you when is this happening , how are you doing , what's the holdup ? And I support you .

I think that's been the biggest surprise about speaking out loud about the thing that I'm scared of , because I'm terrified to put out a book . Anybody who's ever written a book that tells you that they're not scared to put out a book .

I don't know what the hell has happened in there , but most of us are scared of that because that's a lot of work , that's a lot of heart and soul on that page that you're seeing , even if it's the driest academic book , people are scared of judgment when they lay their work out there for the world to see and judge .

I don't know where I was going with that thought , but yeah , put it out there .

If I say it out loud to myself , it's clear to the roof . If I say it to you , it's clear to the moon . In other words , cognitively , that's how things get through to us . But you also said every now and then we have to change our deadlines . Reminds me of the most boring class I ever had with my best teacher in therapy school .

He spent two two hour classes on what's called assimilation and accommodation , which is it doesn't always have to be ABCD , it can be DCAB and all the variations thereof . Now I found it really boring and this guy was brilliant . But those two classes I wish I had skipped .

But I can tell you this it's the single most classes that I think about in my career Because people like me at times we get so rigid as if you know the same man with a gun is going to shoot us , then we don't realize . You know , I could go to bed now , or I can just get one thing done , I don't have to do 12 . And it's so hard to be flexible .

But what you've discovered is and this is why it worked for you the key is you keep moving .

And I disagree , first of all because I saw the garbage that AI churned out in terms of writing when it was first released and now that it's being fed by everybody , not just super smart scientists , I don't have high hopes for it getting smarter soon . But we'll see . I don't know , time will tell , maybe we'll be proven wrong .

But around this is kind of the conversation of who gets left behind in jobs like that . What traits are most important to entrepreneurship , to employment , to the world at large ? And flexibility you mentioned is one of those things . Adaptability is the other one .

I think adaptability is going to become even more important being able to roll with the punches , being able to pivot we all hate that word since the pandemic , but pivot when things don't go according to plan .

That just happened to me . I have it . I've talked about it once kind of publicly , but this is it just happened . I had been working for the last two months on that book through a platform called Draft to Digital and that came highly recommended by one of my author friends who said it was a great experience .

And it was a great experience when I was working on the e-book when I got my print proof of the first paperback . That was when we ran into our first issue . So I reached out to customer service and said , hey , like half of the pages are blurry and double printed , how do we fix this ?

And I sent them a dozen pictures of me showing them exact instances where it was like clear prints on top , when in the blurriness , clear print , like it was just arbitrary and random . How often it was printing blurry .

And I got the most weirdly condescending explaining that it was like thin paper and bleed through and they had to manage costs and I had to decide what I could live with . Oh , my gosh and I'm not even exaggerating , those were word for word .

You have to decide what you can live with and I was like what I can't live with is , after five years of working on making this book the best it can be and agonizing over which publisher I was going to choose , my publisher going too bad , that's the way it is , we're not going to do anything about it . Decide what you can live with .

No , because if I'm charging people $25 for a print book to have in their hot little hands , I don't want them distracted by blurriness , any more than I was distracted by the blurriness when I went through that proof . And so I told them I really don't find this acceptable . And I said that exact same thing .

I don't want to charge people $25 for a blurry book . That's not what I'm about . I'm willing to pay for a higher paper quality , and they were basically like well , we don't do that , take your business elsewhere . And so that's why I mentioned earlier I have an Amazon pre-order link now , because when invited to take my business elsewhere , I usually do so .

I polled everything at two months of work off of one publisher and moved it all over to Amazon in like 48 hours , because when I'm angry I can move mountains . I was a little bit angry at that one . But all of that to say flexibility , adaptability that's one of those critical points . I was talking about that with the author mastermind yesterday .

That's one of 1,000 points along the book publishing journey where you can quit , because I put two months of effort into this platform and I don't know why . Is this a sign that I'm meant to give up and this book shouldn't be out in the universe . No , it's just somebody not using their .

They didn't put their thinking cap on before entering that customer service email . That's what I'll say .

I met Kevin Rodgers I told you that at Brian Kurtz's mastermind , like five or six years ago . But at any rate , I say to a lot of clients am I the only one that has read marketing books ? Like most businesses just seem atrocious to me in how they deal with customers .

And I have the line if they just walked into Burns and Noble and read the titles of the books , they'd be 40% better , you know . And the other thing that what the story's really about is I don't care what happens , ai , gb , blah , blah , blah . What everybody wants is to be taken seriously and to know they matter .

Like I have a client who has terrible anxiety . She was really let down by a prior therapist who told her after 10 years of therapy I just think you don't wanna get better and said I have no more bag of tricks for you , really wounded her . So she came to see me and now I'm I'm fairly confident as a therapist , but it's a scary job .

But I told her one of the things I do is anytime a day you can call me . If you're gonna have a panic attack , call me at one in the morning . And that just calmed her down because she knew she had someone to call and she has called me and I'm really proud .

Like I've had in the last couple of years , I've had teenagers call me in the middle of the night . You know , can you imagine what it takes to get a teenager to call you in the middle of the night ? No , so I've . You know they've called me when they wanted to end their life . So it's like my personal .

People know I , as they say in maybe the Bronx , they know I give a fuck . So because I do people , you know they wanna talk to me and you're the same Like I was scared . Well , I wasn't that scared , but I can't remember how I heard about you . But I loved your permission to kick ass and I really loved your . You know what I read about you .

And then , when I called you , I was scared because I thought , oh , my God , she worked for Jeff Walker . She must have really nice t-shirts , and isn't he known for wearing t-shirts or something All right .

So , anyway , I thought your t-shirts are better than my t-shirts , and then I thought you would be aggressive , and I didn't think about it , it was just my fear . You're gonna be condescending , aggressive , just like a type one male . You know how they can . And what did I find ?

No , what you mean by permission to kick ass is largely kick your own ass and get your light out there . Meanwhile , people are seeing if they're on the first time with you here . You're funny , you're human . You're not a type , a arrogant bitch or bastard or whatever word we would use . Right ?

So touch is just so beautiful , you know , and like I know you well enough to know it's real . Some people are real for an hour and then you know they don't really care . Yeah , that's unfortunate , that will never be replaced , you know .

That's why I mean , I love doing the Zoom call now , but you know , I love it when I love it more if I do therapy that people are in my office and I can smell their perfume and they can smell my cologne and see my chest hair .

So I was ashamed of my chest hair and then through the years , I realized , you know , shame is really powerful and I have worked so hard to like , let my light shine that I've even got to where I'm with a famous type A uptight person and I got chest hair showing , and I bet you the world won't cave in .

No , by the way , I did want to say , like I know that the biggest thing for entrepreneurs is fear , and I wanted to mention one book that people might not have heard of . I know everybody's heard of Steven Pressfield , the War of Art . Well , don't tell Steven . But I think there's a book even better that he referred to .

It's by Nick Murray and it's called the Game of Numbers . Now Nick Murray is probably the top financial investment coach in the world . He's an older man now . The book sells for 45 bucks . I've probably made him a yacht like recommending it so much . But unlike added to Steven Pressfield , he goes into more . How do you get over fear ?

It's just a magnificent book . I'm not into the stock market . It's all about selling , cold call selling to people . And how do you do it when you're scared ? Okay , yeah , and it's just a magnificent book . And the thing about fear is it's so powerful and I think beneath it is something that's not talked about more Now .

Shame is talked about a lot because of Brene Brown , but I think the deepest thing that happens to us is despair , when we just give up . That is the ultimate fear , and you know there are some things we have to give up . I got a bone disease . My career as a mixed martial artist would probably not go well at 70 years of age .

Okay , but largely , I think despair is what just gets us , stops us , cold , and it speaks with certainty and I think that's there's not a lot about despair , because it won't sell books .

I think we're both talking about owning who we are , accepting our limitations but still continuing to push , staying connected with people instead of staying in your head and finding ways to hold yourself accountable and move into action , versus staying where you are and potentially falling into that despair trap . So that sounds like something .

I'm on the right track there .

I think this is an incredible episode . It was worth the tech troubles it took to get us on this call to have this conversation . So I'm going to say thank you for showing up , bob , and tell us a little bit more about your business . Where can we find you online ? Where can we learn more about maybe this event , maybe your practice ?

In my email you can see how old I am . Here is bbever1008 at aolcom . Awesome , what an , what an Osbridge or dinosaur I am . I guess I know that all your listeners must love you . So , on behalf of you , thank you for having me on . Yes , my pleasure . I want them to know . You know , if I

I went . I lived in Scotland for a year . I went to the University of Edinburgh studying philosophy . I was so lonely you could have taken the wallpaper off my bedroom wall with loneliness dripping down it . At any rate , I have such a soft spot for hurting lonely people . Your people can call me and just they've got my phone number .

They call and say you know I need help and I'll help them . All they got to do is say code word Angie , okay .

I'm your host , angie Coley , and I'm here rooting for you . Thanks for listening and let's go kick some ass .