Welcome to Making It! This weekly show explores the lives and stories of entrepreneurs as they share their unique perspectives on their success and the path to making it.  

     There are many opportunities for “making it” and Mindy Gibbins-Klein, the founder of The Book Midwife®, grabs them with both hands. But it isn’t just about the money, it’s about making a difference, playing bigger, doing more, having a bigger impact, spreading her wings, and really flying. “That's how we encourage and inspire the next generation, which is ever so important to me,” says Mindy.

     In this episode of Making It, she shares her journey to becoming a “thoughtful leader”, and how she considers herself to have “made it” at every stage. 

Guest bio:  Mindy Gibbins-Klein, founder of REAL Thought Leaders, The Book Midwife® and Panoma Press, is a multi-award winning entrepreneur. She is a highly sought-after speaker for executive audiences and has presented to over 50,000 people in 18 countries. She’s a fierce advocate of and role model for entrepreneurs, female leaders, and under-represented groups. 

 
     She has authored or co-authored eight books, including the bestseller 24 Carat BOLD and her latest book, The Thoughtful Leader, which challenges leaders and society in general to go beyond thought leadership and focus on consideration of both ideas and people. Moreover, she has helped over 1,000 other people write their own books and become thought leaders. 

 
     In addition to speaking and writing, Mindy also maintains a small list of private consultancy clients who use her services to develop their writing, publishing, and speaking strategy.

 
     Her TEDx talk,  “Sometimes You Need to Change Yourself to Be Yourself,” has had nearly half a million views and is taking Mindy into schools, colleges, and corporations to speak on identity, self-esteem, confidence, and transgender issues.

 


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     I'm Mindy Gibbins-Klein and you're listening to Making It! I run a business called The Book Midwife, which is a coaching business, helping aspiring authors to plan and write great books fast. I'm also a host of a great podcast called The Thoughtful Leader.

     Making it is definitely not just about the money. I mean the money helps because you want to be able to pay your bills without struggling. Beyond that, people have different goals. Some people want to make a small impact and that's fine. I'm not here to say they need to make a big impact. I'm not saying they need to create the next revolution in their industry, but what I do hope is that people will consider playing bigger, doing more, having a bigger impact, spreading those wings and really flying because when we fly and when we can be seen in the air above all the masses, then we have a chance to inspire more people and that's how we grow and that's how we build our society. That's how we encourage and inspire the next generation, which is ever so important to me. So I think if people will sit down and stop being so busy, turn the phone off, do a bit of self reflection, create that awareness of what they're doing what they want to be doing where the gap is and then make a determined effort to do more, be more, maybe change themselves to be themselves. I do believe we're on the right path. 

     I believe very strongly that if somebody puts a book out there, it should be the best possible book, best possible quality, the right length and content and so many things. Because it does reflect on the author, we know this, but some people forget it. And in my case I can never forget it because I'm running a company that is all about credibility with books. So that is the lesson. If you treat the book well and you treat it with respect and you put it together in that professional way, it will treat you well, it will pay you back, it will go out there and bring you leads, conversations. I get messages every single week. People who've read my books, people have reviewed my books, people who want to have a chat. They don't necessarily want to write a book. But it's opened a door for me to do a speaking engagement and other opportunities. It's really great when you've got a bit of help to build your brand and credibility. 

     While I was still in the States, right before I moved, a friend of mine fell down a flight of stairs at a client site and developed epilepsy. So he didn't know what to do with that. I didn't know what to do with that. He struggled a lot and wanted to put on a brave face, but in the end he lost his battle with depression and he took his own life. And so this was right before I was moving to the UK and so I didn't really manage to cope with that. I didn't process that until I got here and I could sit with that and it began to occur to me that I really should write about this, what happened. My friend wasn't there to tell the tale but people were saying it's a sin to take your life and I felt strongly that he wasn't there to defend himself and I should write the story, changed a lot of things. I say I wrote the story I wrote and rewrote and looked at it and sent it off for comments, incorporated those comments, sent it off again, loads of rejection letters. Round and round and round I went for 10 years. So it was finally finally published. And what I realized is people deserve to write the book that's inside or putting in a different way. The book inside deserves to be written, it's there like without putting too much emphasis on the metaphor, it's like an unborn child, it's there, it wants to be born. 

     I was studying psychology along with linguistics for a while and all of my coaching experience has led me to believe that we can change anything that we want about ourselves. Well not anything, as I said in the Ted Talk, we can't really change your height and things like that, I don't think unless you put on a pair of platform shoes. But you know, it has to come from a desire to change. And this is what fascinates me about people. They complain and moan about things and they don't necessarily want them to change. And the clients that I get to work with, the thoughtful leaders recognize that there's a change to be made. And yes, he may need help with it and I enjoy helping people make changes in their lives and business. But for me personally, it's a constant, constant question, "am I doing my best? Am I really doing my best?" If not, what do I need to be doing? What do I need to change? And I'm not afraid of change. Many people think they're afraid of change, but they're actually afraid of uncertainty, which is what change brings. So they'd rather stick with what they know.

     Some people who have made it, they haven't really prepared for that moment. So they find themselves in the spotlight and they don't want to put a foot wrong. And so what happens then is they behave in a very cautious way, which is really sad in my opinion. So if you're out there thinking, oh, I would like to do X, but.... then you have that going on, we all have that going on to a certain extent. But it's not until you push against the edges of your comfort zone or get promoted above your skill level or some kind of situation where you have to either grow or fall back down to the ground. It's not until that happens that you get to test that. Test your wings as it were. 

     Sometimes you need to change yourself to be yourself. That's the message that I think people need to understand. Because we're either hearing in society were either hearing, don't change, just be yourself and that is hard for some people, but they don't know what it means, what does it mean be yourself? If I say to you, be yourself well, aren't you being yourself? How can you be anybody else? But some people really feel like imposters, some people feel they're not quite themselves, they don't feel comfortable in their own skin. So what needs to change? And that's the thing that's interesting to me, what needs to change? The thoughtful leader goes about it thoughtfully, the thoughtful leader really needs to decide how, if they want to change, how, what needs to change and then make that change thoughtfully. And these things are not easy and what most people do is they just stay where they are in the situation they're in complaining about whatever is going on or feeling helpless and hopeless. But I'm very interested in personal development and that's the other strand to my experience or the coaching. So I really think we can push ourselves and we can we can be better, 

     Making it just first meant being able to stay in the UK and built my life and career and then making it meant moving up in corporate, which I did and then making it became escaping corporate and starting my own gig and publishing that book, finally, after 10 years and then turning my business into a profit making business. That was a big making it moment. And then when I joined another company, publishing company and I was running two businesses and my co-founder resigned... that's when I realized I could make it as managing director of that company as well. And I was really, really excited to be running a company that I didn't even know that I wanted to run. So there are making it moments for me at every stage and they keep happening. And eventually when I sell one or both of my businesses, I will have made it in terms of being somebody who has sold businesses that she built up. So there are a lot of opportunities for making it and I grabbed them all with both hands, 

     I'm Mindy Gibbin-Klein and you've been listening to Making It! You can find me at MindyGK.com, Mindy GK on Twitter. Book Midwife all over social media, basically you'll find me and I look forward to connecting.