Mindy: Yeah, baby, yes.

John: Our guest today is an international best seller, best-selling author and multi-award winning entrepreneur. She's helped over 1,000 people write and publish great books fast and become thought leaders. Her book 24 Carat Bold is a manifesto for aspiring thought leaders. It has been praised by Seth Godin. Mindy, take a minute to share what's going on in your world right now.

Mindy: Cool. What's going on in my world? Things are hopping. I just got out of four meetings today, and it seems like people are finally starting to get the message, John. They want to be thought leaders, but they wanna be what I call real thought leaders, and they wanna find out what's required. I think more than ever, people are willing to do the work and go beyond and do the things other people aren't willing to do, so they can have those things other people won't have. A lot of that comes from building a profile, and it doesn't just happen on its own, so we're quite busy here. The publishing company, the book coaching company, and the executive coaching, it's all on fire, to be honest.

John: Well, I love it. You've helped over 1,000 people. Fire Nation, I want you think about that Zig Zigler quote, "Help enough people with what they want to accomplish in life, and you'll be able to accomplish anything you want." That essence and what you're doing, Mindy, and what you, Fire Nation, can take and absorb from this is that giving, that helping others accomplish their goals, their dreams, their visions, by getting that voice out into the world, that's an incredibly powerful way to attack being an entrepreneur.

Mindy, we're gonna dive into your journey as an entrepreneur, and that's really a focal point of this interview, but before we do that, I wanna take a second and have Fire Nation get to know you a little bit better with what I call the one-minute mindset questions where I'm gonna ask you five questions. They're gonna be five insights into your mind, Mindy, like way down inside of there, and take about a minute-ish to answer each question. The first one being: ideally, what do the first 80 minutes of your day look like?

Mindy: Ideally, I have an ideal day about two, three times a week.

John: Better than – I thought you were gonna say a year, so that's not bad.

Mindy: I jump out of bed, and I get myself over to the gym, and I have a really, really powerful and successful session on some of the machines, and I just feel really fired up, come back and make a great juice. I have lots of vegetables and fruits in the fridge, and just get myself going. I take a look on social media, and I've had tons of responses and re-tweets and posts and interaction and lots of good Twitter love, and then I'm ready for my first client call. So – oh, I forgot to shower. Yeah, I shower, and then I'm ready. It's a call, so it's all good.

John: Oh, I love it. Well, one thing that I'd love to maybe ask you a little bit about, first and foremost, it's something that I just got into because my mentor was like, "You gotta do this." I was really against it even though I live in San Diego, and it doesn't get that cold, although the mornings are chilly. I've started doing contrast showers where the shower starts hot. I'm hanging out, and my body warms up, but then I end with a cold blast for like 20 to 30 seconds. It's painful, but the key with these contrast showers is they end cold. Have you ever done that?

Mindy: Well, I've done that when the hot water's run out.

John: Have you ever purposely done that?

Mindy: Once or twice because see, we ladies are vain, and I've heard that the cold water makes your hair shiny.

John: Oh.

Mindy: I don't know, I've just –

John: Well, I'm gonna put the challenge out there to you, Mindy, and to you, Fire Nation, because I've gotta say after doing this now for three consecutive weeks, it just gives a jolt to the nervous system. It just gives a jolt to you. It kind of puts you into this fight or flight mode, and for me, it's just great, especially when I get up as early as I normally do, which is around 5:00 a.m. Mindy, I wanna move forward into what you consider your biggest weakness as an entrepreneur.

Mindy: My biggest weakness as an entrepreneur is probably overconfidence and just overexcitement, over – well, underestimating how long things take, overestimating how many things I can juggle at the same time. I just love exciting new things and new people. I just shoved about 36 new business cards into my handbag today because I was at all these meetings, and I'm like, "Uh, I need to connect with each and every one on social media now."

I just feel I need to do more and more and more and connect with everybody, not because I should but because I want to, and I guess there just aren't enough hours in the day. I've started getting a little bit better at saying, "Right, that's not gonna happen this week," or pushing people back, and I really miss or cancel things or are late for anything, but yeah, a little bit overambitious about what I can do.

John: Yeah. I'm glad you brought up, actually, that word overconfidence. Actually, I'm almost positive I'm butchering the quote, but it's something along the lines of, "The biggest rise before the fall." It's that when we think we're on top of the world, that's when we're really setting ourselves up for a massive failure, for a massive flop because overconfidence is such – well, can be such a negative for an entrepreneur.

I've heard so many of my past guests, and I mean when they talk about their worst moment, they kind preface it by saying, "I thought I had the golden touch. I thought everything I touched turned to gold, and because of that, I didn't listen to outside influences that were really trying to help me, and I just kinda blocked everything out." So that's definitely something to think about. I'm glad you brought that up, but let's flip that, Mindy. What's your biggest strength as an entrepreneur?

Mindy: I think it's that unending positivity and enthusiasm and energy. Everybody that meets me, at some point they end up using the word energy about me. I don't know, I'm just blessed. I honestly am blessed with an abundant amount of energy, so I use that. I don't really count the hours I work. People say, "Oh, you're burning out working nights, weekends." Yes, I'm working nights and weekends, but burnout? Not possible. I've had a few setbacks. I recently got a bit of a cough, so I just put the podcast on mute, big deal.

John: Right.

Mindy: But I do have boundless energy and enthusiasm for what I do and for people around me and for other positive entrepreneurs, and I just like sharing that abundant energy.

John: If you have that abundant energy, Fire Nation, use it. Be just open and honest and unleash it upon your life. I can tell you so many people – and I'm sure you've seen this, Mindy – they give up right before they were going to achieve that big success. I'll tell you if they had just let their energy just take over and push them over that goal line where they might've run out of steam, they might've been getting tired, and they just needed that little extra oomph of energy, then they would've achieved that.

I see it so often with so many different people. They start with all this energy and they kinda let it peter out. Keep feeding that energy, Fire Nation, keep using that within you. Mindy, you have a lot of good habits, but we're gonna be talking about one specifically a little bit later on in lightning rounds. What's a habit that you wish you had?

Mindy: It's that follow-up thing. I mean, I keep thinking of those business cards burning a hole in my bag now. I wish I had that habit of just going online and dealing with them all and filing things away, and just really getting back to people very quickly. I have the best intentions, and that's something that I see other people do rarely. Most entrepreneurs are a bit chaotic like myself, so I guess that. A little bit more organized, but then I go, "Oh, but then I wouldn't be me."

John: I love the quote, "The road to success is paved with good intentions." So, Fire Nation, listen to what Mindy wished she had as a habit, and take those good intentions and put them into action. Actually, now that I'm actually saying that out loud, it's actually, I think it's, "The road to failure is paved with good intentions" because people have good intentions, yet they're never utilizing them. So however you choose to interpret that, Fire Nation, I'm gonna leave it up to you. Mindy, I wanna talk about the one thing that you’re most fired up about right now.

Mindy: Yeah. You may not remember, but even though I have mostly an American accent, not completely, I do live in London in the U.K.

John: Yay.

Mindy: I just recently became a dual citizen, so I got my British nationality, and one of the things that's just so funny and ironic, one of the things we've been working on is getting our business base set up in the U.S., which is where I was born. I left the U.S. 24 years ago, and now we're going back, and we're building the brand over there. It is so exciting to be coming home with the business. I'm not moving home, but I can kinda have a second home, so that's what gets me going at the moment is finding all the different ways in which we can connect with our existing clients there and build the brand and build the business back in the U.S.S.A., U.S.A., back in the U.S.A.

John: Not the U.S.S.R., this isn't the Beatles song.

Mindy: That's what I was gonna –

John: This is not a Beatles song.

Mindy: Springsteen, “Born in the U.S.A.”

John: Okay, Springsteen. There we go, love it, good twist. So, Mindy, Entrepreneur on Fire, we love the journey. We love the stories that make up the journey, and you're our featured guest today. We're talking about your journey, and you left the U.S. 24 years ago. I mean, you've had your ups; you've had your downs. Take us to your worst entrepreneurial moment. I want you to tell us that story, Mindy. Take us to that moment in time. Take it away.

Mindy: Right, well, it was about two years ago, and we had been acquiring lots of authors in the publishing company. Yeah, I thought, "This is great. Everything's happening." I got a little bit trigger-happy with the books because a publishing company prints books. You decide how many you do, and you get the printer saying, "Oh, but if you just print another thousand, it's only X amount." I just printed and printed and printed, and then the bills started coming in. I'm laughing about it now, but it wasn't funny. I really nearly lost the business because of printing too many books. A lot of publishing companies, apparently, go to the wall this way.

I know there's print-on-demand and small print runs, but they're expensive per unit, and I was just struggling and pulling my hair out. I couldn't sleep, and I remember speaking to my advisors, and I just said, "I don't know if we're gonna be able to pull through." I felt so horrible about everybody working in the company, working so hard, and then we decided that we would really go all out and get an investor and get somebody else involved, and I ended up doing that. But before all that, before we found the investor, I was just so nervous and worried, and I couldn't look anywhere except in the mirror. John, I was just like, "I did that, I printed all those books."

John: So, Mindy, for Fire Nation, who's listening, they are entrepreneurs. We're entrepreneurs, small business owners, we're listening to this. We're thinking about creating our own companies in different industries and different niches. So take that story, take those lessons that you learned and just share one takeaway that you want the entrepreneurs listening right now to really take away from that point in your life.

Mindy: Yeah, absolutely. Firstly, know your numbers. Make sure you understand how to read a balance sheet and your P&L. Make sure you really know what's happening in the business on a monthly basis. Get those management reports. I know it's not the most exciting thing compared to going out there and getting new business, but be on top of all your numbers and your cash.

Know what's happening and just watch how much money is flowing out the door because its' fun to bring money in, but if more is going out than is coming in, eventually it's gonna come to an end. That's my best advice. It doesn't sound that exciting or sexy, but what will really save your business and help it to thrive is being on top of the numbers and knowing what's happening with your numbers and your cash.

John: But you know what is exciting and sexy?

Mindy: What?

John: Having a successful business.

Mindy: Yeah.

John: And to have a successful business, these are the type of things you need to do, Fire Nation. You need to know your numbers. One of the best decisions that I ever made as an entrepreneur was to bring on – who's now a really close friend of mine, I mean he's part of the business – Josh Bauerle, cpaonfire.com. Check him out. He rebranded himself once he got so involved with our business, but this guy, Mindy, he just goes over all of our accounting and our taxes and set us up with bookkeeping. We know our numbers every single month, and that makes a massive difference.

So, Fire Nation, get ahead of that curve. Don't wait until it's too late because then it is too late. Start Day 1. It's very affordable, shockingly affordable, to really stay ahead of this curve. Mindy, I want you to tell another story now. The story's gonna be an aha moment, an epiphany, a light bulb that went on at some point in your journey. You've had a lot of these moments, but what one do you think is going to resonate most with our listeners, Fire Nation? Really take us to that moment and share the experience you had.

Mindy: I was sitting in the room at a conference. There were about 2,000 people around me, and I was looking up to the stage where the speaker was just coming on. Everybody was looking, and this person was announced and introduced as one of America's top thought leaders, and I thought, "Who the heck is it?" I just started pondering that phrase, and I didn't really listen to much that he was saying because I kept thinking, "Well, why is he a thought leader, and how could he be one when I've never heard of him?" I didn't let go of that, like a dog with a bone, I just stayed with it and stayed with it.

John: Grrr.

Mindy: Grrr. And I realized that a lot of the work that I was doing with my authors, even at that time, was thought leadership stuff. These guys were thought leaders in many cases, just not recognized as widely as they should be. So I just – I don't know how I did it because I was already running two businesses, but I decided I had to start a third brand under one of the businesses. I knew that I just had to rectify what I saw going on like people using terms like "thought leadership" willy-nilly, throwing them around. I had a conference of my own coming up. I was speaking at this major event, and I thought, "Right, I'm just gonna craft this material and test it out there."

It really changed the shape of all of my work because you just think, "Ugh, can I handle another thing?" Being an entrepreneur, the answer is always yes. Then, you just kinda take a deep breath and get going with it, which is what I did. It was that moment where I could feel it with all my senses like something pulling me to do something about it. That's the core of our work is when something happens and you have a visceral reaction to, doesn't have to be someone on stage, it could be you read an article and it makes you so mad or whatever, when you have that reaction, you have to do something about it.

You have to stop and say, "Okay, what is it that I'm meant to do? What am I willing to do?" Get some paper out. Get your voice recorder out and brainstorm while you're in the moment because it's gonna fade, and then a little voice is gonna say, "Ah, well, it's gonna be too much work anyway." While you're excited about it, take action. Yeah, I'm so glad I did. It started a whole brand and 24 Carat Bold and everything.

John: That's what I love about your story, Mindy, is that your mind was open to receiving that message. Once you received that message that came not specifically from even the speaker, it came from the person announcing the speaker, you were like that dog, and you just would not let go of that bone. You immediately took action, and you didn't wait, and you didn't let that idea – no better word than expire – you just didn't let it expire.

You said, "You know what? I'm gonna take action now." A whole new brand was born. That's just powerful stuff. Mindy, I'm not letting you go anywhere quite yet because we have a lot of great stuff coming up, but we are gonna take a second here. We're gonna thank our sponsors, but then we're gonna hit the lightning round. Mindy, welcome to the lightning round where you get to share incredible resources and mind-blowing answers. Sound like a plan?

Mindy: Yep, great plan.

John: What was holding you back from becoming an entrepreneur?

Mindy: Well, I had two little kids. We had a mortgage; we had all the other bills, just fear of the unknown, fear of what would happen or what wouldn't happen and never having done it before. No, that's not true. I tried and failed once before, so it's just like, "Uch, could I?" At some point, I had to get over that fear.

John: What's the best advice you've ever received?

Mindy: The best advice I've ever received: it wasn't advice to me specifically, but it was someone speaking to a group that I was attending. This lady said, "Only do what only you can do." Obviously, that means do what you can do, but don't do things other people could and should be doing. I always go back to that if I find myself doing things that I really should delegate. Only do what only I can do.

John: What's a personal habit that you do have, Mindy, that you believe contributes to your success?

Mindy: This is in my new book, so I can't get into too much detail, but I touch people if I'm there in person. I'm very touchy feely. I know you're supposed to think about –

John: Where on the body are we talking about? Like a little booty touch? I mean, what –?

Mindy: No, usually, no, no, on the arm, the shoulder, the hand, I don't know, I just – “reach out and touch someone” leaps to mind. I just think if you feel it, then the other person should know that you feel it. Feel the love. I think love, in business and entrepreneurship, is severely underrated.

John: I agree. I love just being in person. That's why I love going to conferences and looking people in the eye, shaking their hands. When the time is right, maybe giving them a little hug, saying, "Hey, it's great to see you." If you have a connection virtually, make that connection in person and reach out and just tap them on the shoulder and say, "Hey, thanks for being here. Thanks for being present." Mindy, do you have an Internet resource like an Evernote that you can share with our listeners?

Mindy: Ooh. Not Evernote. I use RecordPad, which is a very simple app that most people probably have, maybe not. I like RecordPad. It has a big red button. It's just like audio recording, and it's saved my life more than once. Do I use anything else? We use the cloud stuff. We could not live without Dropbox. We could not live without Highrise and 37Signals. We run our business in the cloud. Is that enough?

John: I only asked for one, so I'm just taking all these bonuses and writing them down. So, Mindy, if you could recommend one book to our listeners to join 24 Carat Bold on our Show Notes Page, what would that book be and why?

Mindy: It's a book written by one of my clients, and it's in the same general area of building your profile. I really, really respect this guy, and he's done such an amazing job. It's called How to Build Your Reputation, and it complements what I talk about. It's absolutely full of tips. Mine is theory, basis, got a methodology and a model and all this kind of thing. His is 1,001 practical tips about how to build your reputation in a crowded market. He's called Rob Brown, and he's absolutely amazing. I love that book; I'm always recommending it.

John: Well, Fire Nation, I know you love audio, so I teamed up with Audible. If you haven't already, you can get an amazing audio book for free at eofirebook.com. Mindy, is 24 Carat Bold in the audio store?

Mindy: Yes, well, it's on Audible.

John: Ooh, that's what I'm talking about. Hey, Fire Nation, if you haven't gotten a book from Audible yet, go through eofirebook.com. Get that book for free. Don't worry, Mindy still gets paid, yo. Mindy, the next question is the last of the lightning round, but it's a doozy. Imagine you woke up tomorrow morning in a brand new world identical to Earth, but you knew no one. You still have all the experience and knowledge you currently have. Your food and shelter: taken care of. All you have is a laptop and $500.00. What would you do in the next seven days?

Mindy: Wow.

John: Right?

Mindy: That actually happened to me. When I moved up to the north of England, seriously, and I didn't know anybody, not one person.

John: Wow.

Mindy: I had my food and everything taken care of, and what did I do? I literally made friends with people right, left and center. I just reached out and touched them, and I said yes to everything. Not everything, but I mean it was a brand new experience. It was very scary, but I think they key thing to do nowadays is to make sure that you're well connected. You've got the laptop. You didn't mention whether I had any SIM cards or anything, but you've got to make sure that you're connected with the outside world. So all these friends that you start making, the network can start building, and you're gonna have to accelerate things.

I would also try to figure out who are the best-connected people because this is something that happens in real life and in the alternate universe as well as the one we're in. You really wanna tap into the influencers of this world. I'm speaking to our listeners. This is some accelerating relationships, accelerating success. I'm not saying that people without a lot of connections or a good platform aren't worth talking to or knowing, but the influencers and the really well connected people can really do things for you, and they can catapult you to the top. I spend my time with other key influencers as well as anybody else.

John: Relay Shawn Shep's Fire Nation. Build them, nurture them, grow them. Mindy, let's end today how we started, on fire with you sharing one parting piece of guidance, the best way that we can connect with you, and then we'll say goodbye.

Mindy: Okay. So a piece of guidance: go inside. Go inside instead of always going outside. When you've got a big dilemma, instead of posting on Facebook, reflect. Put some music on. Do something different. Take a walk in nature. Trust yourself a bit more. That's probably my best advice for today.

My speaker website is mindygk.com, and my other websites can be found from there. Heh, I'm on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, Pinterest, you name it, so usually you can find me as mindygk, sometimes @bookmidwife or just bookmidwife, or bookmidwifecompanies. So yeah, you'll find me.

John: Give her some Twitter love, Fire Nation. You know this, Fire Nation: you're the average of the five people you spend the most time with, and you've been hanging out with Mindy GK and JLD today, so keep up the heat. Head over to eofire.com. Just type Mindy in our search bar. Her Show Notes Page will pop right up with her book 24 Carat Bold, the resources she recommended, her website, Twitter, everything. eofire.com search bar Mindy. Mindy, thank you for sharing your journey with Fire Nation today. For that, we salute you, and we'll –