Publisher Said Go Niche With Book, But Author Goes For Broad Appeal
Experiencing an intense fear of failure at the tender age of eight defined Dr. Rebecca Heiss’s career path.
That fearful experience prompted her to give up theatre as a career choice, and focus on science instead.
Rebecca had planned to enter a public speaking competition, but at the last minute failed to show up because she was so afraid.
“I started to understand how much fear, fear of failure, fear of rejection, starts to drive all of our decisions. And from that point on, I decided I didn't want to fail for the rest of my life. It was such a terrible, scary endeavor, that I was ‘All right, I am giving up theater. I don't want to do that anymore, because that's way too risky’.”
Theatre’s loss is the world’s gain. Rebecca has just published Instinct: Rewire Your Brain with Science-Backed Solutions to Increase Productivity and Achieve Success. And it’s a book that could transform your future!
Rebecca is a biologist and stress expert, and dedicated to helping others become self-aware and overcome instinctual limitations—those ancient, often subconscious, fears that hold people back from optimal performance and their happiest lives.
A TEDx speaker, Rebecca’s “fear(less)” message inspires hope and actionable insights to train our brains to work for us, rather than against us in times of uncertainty. Her research has been designated “transformative” by the National Science Foundation, and it’s waking up audiences around the world. She also is founder and CEO of the 360-review mobile application, Icueity.
INSTINCT IS FOR ANYONE WHO HAS A BRAIN
Rebecca says Instinct is for anyone who has a brain, even though it applies strongly to entrepreneurs and those wanting to take risks and overcome some of the brain’s feedback loops that stop people taking safe risks.
“In today's environment, my audience includes people looking for self-help, they're looking for stress reduction techniques.”
Some readers may “want to understand why they seek variety, why they're never happy where they are, why they want a new partner, a new job, a new, whatever. I think the book is for anyone who's looking to optimize their brain.”
TOO BROAD AN AUDIENCE, SAYS PUBLISHER
Rebecca’s publisher said her description of her book’s potential audience is “Way too broad.
“This is classic marketing, right? If you can find your niche audience, that's ideal. And I would love to say, ‘I've got a niche audience’. And that may be the case. But I'm so hesitant to nail that down and say, ‘Those people are the ones I'm targeting’, because the reality is I want everyone to read it.”
GOING WITH A TRADITIONAL PUBLISHER
Rebecca says she considered self-publishing but decided to put out a call to literary agents. She contacted more than 50 agents and in a matter of hours one responded.
“I was able to work with her to develop an actual book proposal. I think I sent her five chapters of what I thought was going to be my book, which is not at all my book,” explains Rebecca.
“But, you know, once I started working with her, she really helped me, guided me through the process of what it means to publish a book in a traditional publication format. I'm a newbie, but it was a great experience for me to understand.”
Rebecca describes her writing process as a stop-start experience. She’d struggle, and then something would prompt her creativity, and she was suddenly inspired!
“There was a lot of rewriting, but the original concepts,the core is still pretty solid.”
BOUNCING IDEAS OFF SOMEONE WHEN YOU WRITE IS A GAME-CHANGER
Like almost every writer, there were times when Rebecca got stuck and couldn’t write. However, an “an incredible editor” to whom she could send her work was a game changer for Rebecca.
Next—and her biggest tip for entrepreneur-authors—just walk away from the best ideas, the best things, and the best conclusions will come to you.
“Right in the middle of the night, or when I was first waking up, or I was sitting in the shower, or on vacation, and completely removed . . . it allows my brain to step away. I would take a deep breath, start processing those subconscious thoughts that are coming up. Hilariously, this is some of the stuff that I talked about in the . . . it’s taking that step back and getting out of the weeds; this sometimes produces the result.”
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EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
Josh Steimle
Today, my guest is Dr. Rebecca Heiss. Rebecca is a biologist and stress expert, a TEDx speaker, the founder of Icueity, which is a 360-feedback app. I'll let her tell us a little bit more about that in a moment. And she's the author of Instinct: Rewire Your Brain With Science-Backed Solutions To Increase Productivity And Achieve Success. Rebecca, welcome to the show.
Rebecca Heiss
Thank you so much for having me, Josh. I'm really excited to be here.
Josh Steimle
So thank you for taking this time today. Before we jump into your book, and why you wrote it and how you wrote it, give us a little background on yourself and your history as an entrepreneur being involved in education and entrepreneurship.
Rebecca Heiss
Yeah, wow. Where do I begin? I actually I think I'll begin when I was eight. I know it sounds like a really far thing. But stick with me here. So when I was eight years old, I knew exactly who I was and what I wanted to be right. I wanted to be on stage. I loved the theater. I loved the whole idea. But I didn't have a whole lot of opportunities. I grew up in a small town in upstate New York. So I have a huge theater district, right. So I joined the Four H so I could start public speaking. And long story short, I did pretty well in my city-wide competition. I want it I mean, moved on the county did pretty well there when it moved on to the States. And the day of the state competition, I did not win. I did not lose. I did not show up. It was right. Then when I started to understand how much fear like fear of failure, fear of rejection starts to drive all of our decisions. And from that point on, I decided I didn't want to fail for the rest of my life. Like it was such a terrible, scary endeavor, that I was like, all right, I am giving up theater not don't want to do that anymore, because that's way too risky. And I went into science, because that's what I was good at. So I ended up studying biology, which you know, no regrets. I loved biology; I love my roots. I'm a stress physiologist now. So my PhD is in evolutionary psychology, stress physiology, kind of understanding why we behave the way we do. And spent a number of years in education, as you mentioned, so was, you know, everything from a high school teacher to Professor to a founder of a startup school, one of the founders, many founders of the startup school for impact-based learning, and ultimately, ended up right back on stage. So now I'm a professional speaker. I've incorporated a lot of the biology background into creating keynotes and workshops based around understanding how our psychological evolutionary mechanisms drive us to make really poor decisions. So that's a little background.
Josh Steimle
Cool, awesome. You know, one of the reasons I invited you on here is I was interested in this intersection of entrepreneurship and education, because our audience here is mostly entrepreneurs, entrepreneurs who want to write a book. But this education facet was interesting to me to my mother was a school teacher. And I've always been interested in education. And I have some theories and ideas about that. But tell me a little bit more about this impact learning and how you've merged entrepreneurship and education.
Rebecca Heiss
Yeah, so um, boy, I'm going to throw a lot of colleagues under the bus just right now, because we could have a whole discussion about the educational system and how much I think it fails our future leaders, right, because the whole idea in education is, well, you have to achieve a certain degree, or you have to achieve a certain letter grade in order to be successful. And what that does is it sets up this fear of failure, right? It sets us all up to feel like, oh, gosh, I can't, I can't take risks, I can't try things. Whereas if you want to be an entrepreneur, that's exactly what you need to do. Right? You have to break free of those of those ancient fears that would otherwise hold you back. And so in thinking about education, and thinking about how we can better serve our students, you know, it's not memorization, it's not facts and figures. We can Google for that, right? We have the technology; it's how do we think differently? How can we take mitigated risks? How can we take little steps forward little actions? And then ask ourselves, well, why aren't we doing that now? Right, I was looking at these high school students that were just as capable as I was, I just had a degree saying that I could do something. And so that empowered me somehow. And the reality was, no, they should be able to do what they want to do right then and there. If they have the training, if they have the gumption, go ahead and do it. So the idea behind this startup school was impact based learning, like what do you want to do? What's your why? And what's holding you back? How can you achieve that? How can you learn the things that you need to learn in a stepwise fashion, right? So that you can go do that right now.
Josh Steimle
And if it's not schooling that's holding you back then let's skip the schooling and just get down to the root of it and learn what you need to learn.
Rebecca Heiss
Exactly. And I mean, that's, that's why I said I might throw some colleagues under the bus because I do come from a background of academia, right? And that was like, well, you have to have this degree and then you move on to that. And it's like, why? For what though? Right? So I have a piece of paper that nobody ever asks me about. Okay. What would stop me?
Josh Steimle
Yeah. So how did your own business Icueity begin? How did this come into the mix here? Why did you start that? When did you start that? Yeah,
Rebecca Heiss
So I started that, oh, my gosh, three years ago, now. It just launched in December of this past year, right in the middle of a pandemic, what, what better timing! The idea behind acuity was I started looking at some problems that I was seeing in business. And one of the big things that I write about in my book, right is this idea of self-deception, that we're always really good at pointing out where other people are failing. And we can really easily say, like, I think she's so funny, or, you know, that woman just think she's in. But we're really bad at seeing that in ourselves. And so how can we get more accurate feedback about ourselves, we live in a ratings economy where you write your Uber driver, and you write your food, and you write all of these things. But nobody's doing that for us, especially in leadership, or as entrepreneurs, where many of us find ourselves on our own right? What do we actually good at? And how do we know that? So Icueity serves to fix that problem. It's essentially a 360-review that's ongoing and continuous. It's a democratization as it were of the traditional 360, where, you know, a leader might go in and get one day of feedback for the entire year. Instead, this empowers every individual to say, Okay, here's the traits or the characteristics, or the skill sets that I'm interested in knowing more about for me. And then you rate yourself on a sliding scale one to 10 really simple stuff, right? on how effective I am at listening or empathy or any number of other skills, then you send that out to your friends, family, colleagues, coworkers, and they rate you on the same sliding scale. At the end of the week, completely anonymously, right? You start to get that feedback, and you can see where your gaps are between what you think you're really good at, and what the world says, You're really good at what you think you're really bad at. And everybody says no, no, you have a lot of skill there. So um, you know, for me, when I first beta tested this my one of my favorite stories to tell, I was like, oh, pretty funny, like, oh, a test myself on humor, like seven, eight, I'm gonna make myself an eight out of 10. And I send it to my family. Twos. I got back twos, right? It's like, Ah, oh, that's so painful. Well, no, that's not true. Yeah, it's absolutely the case. Within my family, I'm a two. So accepting that and knowing how I can show up with empathy, which is what they actually valued me for, was an empowering moment for me to recognize, okay, I have other strengths here that I should be using.
Josh Steimle
So did you give up on being funny, or did you try harder? Yeah, I mean, this is this is the important thing, right? Like, what do you want to do with that? I'm not giving up on being funny. A, I know, I'm funny in certain circles. So I'm using that that to my advantage, right? I know, to use humor in this area, but not so much of my family. And the other thing is now that I know now that I see this gap in my family, I'm like, Okay, how can I begin to close that gap? Right, so there's resources on the app to say, all right, if you want to improve your sense of humor, for example, all right, here's where you can go, you can learn about, you know, increasing your sense of humor, increasing your joke telling ability, how people react to various jokes. So it's a way that to grow your potential. So with that introduction, that background, why did you write this book? What was the motivation? What was the inspiration for it? Yeah, so um, I will tell you, I was introduced kind of very circuitously to the world of leadership. You know, my background is in biology and then education. And through the startup school, I started meeting more and more business leaders and understanding Oh, gosh, you know, funding we have to find funding, how does this work and I became an entrepreneur in that moment. And, and I realized that so many of the biological principles that, you know, I've applied to the rest of my life, nobody seemed to know about in business, right? Nobody seemed to recognize that these were the same principles that were operating on their day to day lives. So I wanted to find a way to bring biology into the business world. And I was lucky enough to give a TEDx talk on one aspect of that on the fear of the other, right, those scary people who don't look like us or don't act like us, or have different ideas enough. oh, terrifying, which I know I'm saying that in jest, but for our brains, absolute reality, right? We see the other as a different tribe, and like, Oh, my gosh, they're going to come over and steal all of our resources. No, they're not. Right. Logically, we know this. But biologically, our brains are telling us a different story. So when we explore the biology of various behaviors, what we see is, wow, we're operating a lot from instincts that are no longer serving us. Today in the modern world, so the motivation for the book and yeah, it's been it's been a blast. That's kind of like how I'm drawn to eat lots of Ben and Jerry's and sweets and stuff, because we evolved to find sweet things because they're energy rich. And yet, then I go and sit in a chair for 10 hours a day. And I'm not burning all those calories. And then of course, I suffer the consequences of my biology and my hedonistic relaxed lifestyle.
Rebecca Heiss
Yeah, and yet, your brain is lighting up going, Yeah, you're doing a great job out there. Because you're doing exactly what your brain is telling you to do. It's just that your brain isn't built for the world that we live in today. Right? It's built for the world of our ancestors, that dangerous, sparse place, we had to lay down those fats and sugars in order to survive. But
Josh Steimle
it's interesting to think about how quickly this has all changed. Because if you just look at how people live, 200 years ago, everybody was working out in the field for 10 hours a day. I mean, they didn't need to go to a gym, they were trying not to exercise because they were over exercising, and then all of a sudden, in literally 100 years, maybe, yeah, we've gone from that, to we sit in front of a computer, and we type all day. And now we have to go to gyms, and we have to go on diets and all these things that our ancestors would have thought, why would you restrict your caloric intake? Like, you're gonna die? It's like, Well, no, not today.
Rebecca Heiss
Right! It's completely backward-thinking, right? And when you apply that same logic to other instincts, you're like, Oh, yeah, of course, it's completely backwards, that I should pay somebody to stare at a computer so that they'll encourage me while I'm working out. Like, that's absurd. It's a waste of resources after you've eaten too much. And now you're trying to burn calories, and you're paying on top of that. Why are you doing it's totally logical, but your brain? It's not? Right. So understanding and overcoming some of those, those queries that our brain does doesn't quite understand because it's stuck in a world of our of our ancestors.
Josh Steimle
So as you're thinking about this book, who were you thinking of as the audience is the ideal audience, the person that you really wanted to influence? You know, I
Rebecca Heiss
I get asked that question a lot. And I know that I should have a better answer to that. And my publisher has given me answers. And my literary agent has given me answers. And my marketing people have given me answers. And I still have my own answer. That is not correct. But I'm going to tell you anyway, the people that I want to influence are the people that want to be influenced, right. And that literally includes anybody who has a brain that wants to optimize its performance. That's it. So the book applies to, certainly to business, right, certainly to entrepreneurs, certainly, to those who are wanting to take new risks and overcome some of the feedback loops that would prevent them to doing that in a safe manner. And in today's environment, includes people that are just looking for self-help, they're looking for stress reduction techniques, that are that are understood and want to understand why they seek variety, why they're never happy, where they are, why they want a new partner, a new job, a new, whatever. I think the book is for anyone who's looking to optimize their brain.
Josh Steimle
So Why doesn't your publisher and your agent and your marketing team, why don't they like that answer?
Rebecca Heiss
It's way too broad, right? Like, we I want a specific audience. And and this is this is classic marketing, right? If you can find your niche audience, that's ideal. And I would love to say, I've got a niche audience. And that may be case they may be the case, because I'm, I'm so hesitant to nail that down and say, those people are the ones I'm targeting, because the reality is I want everyone to read it.
Josh Steimle
And how's that going? Trying to get everybody to read it?
Rebecca Heiss
Well, um, I'll tell you April 27, because that's when it actually launches. Um, but I mean, right now, all the marketing is, is targeted, right? It's like, okay, we're going to target entrepreneurs, because, look, you all all entrepreneurs are stressed out, they're operating from their survival brain, they're constantly on the lookout for what might kill them, right? These, these really risk adverse. And so, you know, we've certainly targeted that we've targeted women, because, well, there's an entire chapter on sex and gender and trying to understand how those different roles affect us in today's environment. And I think, you know, we'll see how that how the audience pans out, but I'm hoping it's kind of a self-selecting audience.
Josh Steimle
Now, by the time people are listening to this, the book will be out, so you can go get it. And if you're part of that group of everybody, or you're an entrepreneur, or you're one of the other groups that Rebecca mentioned, then definitely go check it out. I've got it on pre order, I believe. So with your book, you opted to go the traditional publishing route rather than self-publishing. Tell us a little bit about that. Did you consider doing self-publishing? Was there a specific reason you went after a traditional publisher?
Rebecca Heiss
Yeah. So, um, I, I did consider self-publishing, but I, you know, this was this was the entrepreneur spirit in me, the one who said, Okay, I can do it this way. I know how to do it this way. What would it look like? If I did it? Right? How could I make the leap? And if I could make the leap? What would that look like? So, um, I consider myself one of the very lucky ones in that, I pushed out what I will call very graciously a book proposal to 57 to 75 agents, literary agents, and I had one, pick it up and respond to me, within a matter of hours, and just said, Hey, I'm interested in Tell me more about this. Now, this is my current literary agent, she's amazing little shout out to listen to a live literary incredible, incredible team there. And I was able to work with her to develop an actual book proposal. I think I sent her like, five chapters of what I thought was going to be my book, which is not at all my book, right. Um, but, you know, once I started working with her, she really helped me guide me through the process of, of what it means to publish a book in a traditional publication format. And, and, you know, I'm a newbie, but it was, it was a great experience for me to, to understand
Josh Steimle
You had years of research behind you already, because you're writing about thoughts you've had for a long time, things that have ideas that have been developing. How much time did you have to put into research and gathering more ideas and putting more thoughts together as you were going through the writing process?
Rebecca Heiss
You know, the writing process was, I think of it as like disruptive evolution. So evolutionary thought biologists, right, bear with me, most people think of evolution, meaning a slow, gradual process. And that can be the case, but frequently, it's long periods of status. But there's massive, like eruptions of change. And that was sort of how I wrote it was like, oh, gosh, I can't do it. And then an idea would come to me, or I'd see something on the news or something would spark me, I'm like, I would pop out a chapter pretty quickly. And, you know, to your point, these are ideas that I had thought about for a long time, that said, you know, when 2020 happened, I had to rewrite most of my book, I had this game plan for Okay, here's how we here's how we're going to do this. And then our world change like this racial tensions increase, we have a pandemic, you know, all of these things that were sort of natural in the book, like, okay, when you go to work, oh, wait, we're not going into work anymore. Okay, how do I how do I adjust for this new environment that we're in? There was a lot of rewriting? But the original concepts, I say, the core was still pretty, pretty solid.
Josh Steimle
Were their points at which you got stuck with the writing, it sounded like you got off to a pretty good start. But were there points where you got kind of stuck, you didn't know where to go? And if so, how did you get unstuck?
Rebecca Heiss
Yeah, I think, you know, having writer's block is classic for any writer. And so there were plenty of points in the book where I got stuck. I did there's a, there's two things. One, I have an amazing team, right? I had an incredible editor that I could send something to, to think this is the right direction, do you have any thoughts ideas, and she would bounce ideas back to me. So she's hands down having somebody that you can just talk to bounce ideas off of tell you I was like, a little that's, that's terrible. Like, having that honest, open relationship with somebody is, is a game changer. And the other thing for me, actually, I'll give you two more things. The only thing for me was sitting down to write and just forcing myself to write one sentence, I didn't come in with like two-hours-worth of work to do, or I'm going to finish this chapter today, it's, you're going to write one sentence. And usually, if I committed to that I'd write a paragraph, or maybe two paragraphs, or I'd get into it, and I'd start really writing but, but the dread of having to sit down and write a whole chunk. I put it off for just the read a sentence, I can do it and it was usually get me into the flow. And finally, the biggest tip, walk away, just walk away the best ideas, the best things, the best conclusions would come to me, you know, right in the middle of the night, or when I was first waking up, or I was sitting in the shower or on vacation, right? completely removed, because it allows my brain to like, step away. Take a deep breath, start processing those subconscious thoughts that are coming up. Which is honestly hilariously, some of the stuff that I talked about in the in the book is taking that step back and getting out of the weeds sometimes produces the result.
Josh Steimle
There's the same that research is research. How much of this book, as you're writing it, where you're thinking, this is really for me, this is about me?
Rebecca Heiss
100% Yeah, 100%, I would love to tell you that this is not a 100% self-serving book. But I wrote this book for me, because I mean, I think I think all of us are stuck in our instincts to some extent. And I told you . . . how I started this, this whole career was based on fear. And I have just recognized these same patterns again and again and again in my life. I wrote this book specifically for me to overcome each of these instincts. And then if it helps anybody along the way, all the better.
Josh Steimle
So tell us a little bit more about working with a traditional publisher, because it sounds like they're providing you with a lot of support. They're helping you along the way. Have there been any hiccups in that or unexpected things? Where you, you thought, Oh, it's going to be this way, but then you realize after you get in the process, Oh, actually, this is how they do it. Just for those who have never worked with a publisher before? What would you tell somebody looking into that?
Rebecca Heiss
Um, yeah, I mean, first, let me say I've had a, an incredible experience. And again, going into the total newbie, I was very much hands-off. And I think that, overall, that's been a good approach in saying You guys are the experts here. Tell me what it is that I need to do. And I will, I will do it. I think the biggest conflict, or the biggest surprise that I had was the cover. So here I am. And I'm like, Oh, yeah, I've got all these ideas for the cover. And I'm pitching all this stuff. And they're like, No, we have it. It's this. I'm like, No, I don't like it, though. I don't get it. And they're like, no, this is we sat down with our team, we've we've done some research, this is it. And so we went back and forth, back and forth. And I was, I will tell you, I was in, I was in tears. I'm not going to lie. I was absolutely like, devastated. I was like, that's not that's not what I had envisioned. This is, this is all wrong. And at the end of the day, it's their cover. And it's great. And it's absolutely fine. And I and it fits right. It fits in with business book, self-help book like it works. But I was actually surprised at my own reaction, how vested I become, and how, frankly, blinded to come by my own kind of stubbornness of like, No, it can't be it, this, we have to have a different idea. And as they pointed out again, and again, and again, well, that looks like a biology book here. Let's look at let's look at what this would look like in this section. I'm like, okay, or that looks like a, you know, a novel like, Yeah, but it's cool. Oh, I see. Not a marketing expert. All right. So there certainly were some hiccups. You know, I, I have been amazed at the number of the number of times I have read this book and the number of mistakes I still find in it. And the number of other people that have read it and done the same thing. So it's an ongoing, never feeling finished kind of experience.
Josh Steimle
That's a tough one because I read CNN, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and I'll find errors in articles. And I'm like, Come on, guys. I mean, don't you have like three editors going through this before it goes live, before it gets printed? And yet, here's this typo here. And then when I wrote my first book, there's all sorts of errors in it. And I mean, I had 10 people go through that book, and I went through it six times. And then you get to the end, and there's still errors in it. It's just it almost seems like it's impossible to track down every single one.
Rebecca Heiss
I'll tell you, I had the unboxing experience, right when I first got my coffee, and it opened up and I was so excited. I flipped through. And I kid you not? It was literally this I was like, oh, oh my god. Oh my gosh, found my first error. Yeah, like not my first typo. But, um, and Okay, that's all right, we have to be okay with that deep breath. It doesn't invalidate all the other research, it's just a typo.
Josh Steimle
So with the pandemic and COVID . . . we're recording this March 15. It's coming out April 27. We're still kind of in this zone where there's a lot of uncertainty and things kind of seemed to be opening up with the vaccines, but who knows where it's going to be a month from now? What plans have you created with your publisher to market and promote this, you're probably not doing the standard go across the country book tour type of thing. So how did your publisher address this and say, Okay, here's what we're going to do to get the word out about this book.
Rebecca Heiss
Yeah, that's, um, that's a great question. I, you know, when I when I first wrote the book, I was like, Oh, well, look, I'm a professional speaker. Like, I'll just get in front of audiences, like I do, and they'll line up and buy the book afterwards. knew nothing. So you know, there's been a pretty massive shift, as you said, and the publisher has been very responsive in that. And we're doing some book giveaways, they've given me a ton of copies to send out to people to help sort of promote it on social media. What I ended up doing was I created a seven-day instinct challenge to put on Facebook and Instagram, I know seems to be the thing to do right now. And then I created a whole website with chapter summaries, so video chapter summaries of each of my each of my chapters of my book so that, you know, people can start engaging, even when we're not in person, we can engage with each other through the internet, and, you know, sort of share that that book club type experience at a distance.
Josh Steimle
Oh, that's great. Now, do you also have an email list? Are there other ways that you're promoting the book?
Rebecca Heiss
Yeah. So I have a newsletter that I send out, you know, every other week with highlights from the book, highlights from acuity highlights from the speaking stuff are weird things that I dig up, that are relevant, or some way speak to some of the chapters of the book. But you know, even that is it's a hard thing to build. And I would challenge anybody that's thinking about writing a book, that's, that's the first step, the first step is to find your audience. And, you know, coming from somebody who just said, Oh, no, my audience is everyone. I know, that sounds a little ridiculous, but that that truly, I think, is one of the hardest pieces, and one of the most important pieces to writing the successful and marketing a successful book.
Josh Steimle
If you could go back to when you were just starting to work on this book, or just coming up with an idea for it, and then look at everything you've done since then, what are some of the changes that you would make things you would do differently? Wow, that's a great question. I think I would be less restrained in my writing. And every time I wrote, I tried to write it as if it was the final draft, right? Like, this is how it's going to look when it's published. And I think that that held me back from really flowing in my in my writing. And so I think I would save more, you know, I would just save all of the junk that I collected and, and have sort of an ongoing Notes section that I could refer back to, I definitely would catalog better. You know, I would have things and ideas for one chapter and I kind of, I would put them somewhere and then I lose them. So I think organization from the start, you know, having folders having ongoing, this is an idea and tagging it with certain words that you can come back and search for is going to be huge. That's for my next book. That is that is the system I'll use. So are you already thinking ahead to your next book?
Rebecca Heiss
Yeah, I actually this is one of the hardest bits is a I am really excited about an idea that I have right now. And I really want to start writing, but I'm hitting the brakes, because we have to get this book out and successful first before for anybody to look at me again. So yeah.
Josh Steimle
You do sound like a visionary entrepreneur, then always starting multiple things. Starting the new thing before the other thing is even off the ground.
Rebecca Heiss
Yeah, it's a problem. It's a problem that actually, I address in chapter three variety, right? Just constantly seeking the next thing. Oh, but what's next? What's next? It's, um, it's a challenge. And it's one that our brain certainly does not help us with.
Josh Steimle
Exactly. Does your publisher help you keep on track without a bit, as well, to keep you focused on the here and now and this book?
Rebecca Heiss
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think I actually reached out to them. I said, Hey, you know, just so you know, I'm thinking about this. And I said, great. But first, you know, that's, that's wonderful. But first, Rebecca, you know, we've got this book to launch. Stay on it.
Josh Steimle
So tell me a little bit more about your platform. We talked about your email list, you've got the speaking career and . . . but tell us about the other assets you have or building blocks of your platform, your website, other things that you've put together and how you're using those to promote the book.
Rebecca Heiss
A couple . . . I mean, we've got a couple things that kind of tied together. So I definitely have a website that is mostly my speaking, right. It's Rebecca heist, calm and it's all of my speaking topics and keynotes and workshops, but on it, I certainly have the book bolded and highlighted and here's how you can buy video chapter summaries so I built the second page, a second web page that is strictly for the books with instinctbook.com. Alright, and on that page, I have the book club which is essentially prompts challenges. Think about if you were to create a study guide for your book what questions would be asked what would come up in a book discussion so i kind of preemptively asked those questions i created a video chapter summary for each of the each of the chapters of the book put together some live question answer portions there host a challenge there that's going on to social media and then I have a podcast as well called The Fearless Year in which I’m interviewing experts from all of the traits for Icueity which is the mobile app on self-awareness. And self-awareness is chapter four right, self-deception? So all of these things . . . you know, none of them are critically related right? I could remove any component but they all tie together in a nice sort of fashion you know? I'm speaking about fear and I’m speaking about awareness and I'm speaking about stress and each of those are chapters in the book. And each of those align with certain things that we're talking about on the podcast and certain ways that we can overcome those are given in the book.
Josh Steimle
So speaking of fear and awareness . . . so there are parts of your book that exists in parts of other people's books like Tasha Urich has her book Inside about self-awareness. And there's this book leadership and self-deception, and you mentioned self-deception. And this happens to all of us as authors that we start writing and we think wait somebody's already covered this it's already out there. Maybe I should write this book. Did that thought go through your head and how did you push through that?
Rebecca Heiss
Every other day that's in my head. Like, what am I doing? Everybody else has said this before. So I mean it comes back to something that I thought about a lot when I first came into leadership . . . .well sorry let me back up. One of the things that I would say to anybody who is thinking or questioning whether or not they should offer their perspective is this: The answer is yes because when you look at the top . . . . for me at least the top 100 leadership books on Amazon. 91% of them all written by white men; now no problem, right? That's good. For some people that's a really important thing i'm not saying that white men you shouldn't be writing these books you shouldn't be so prolific. That's that's great, these are good books. Every single one of them I would recommend. But it doesn't mean there are some voices that are missing, and I'm not saying that if you're a white male you shouldn't write that book; I'm saying you're going to offer a new perspective, right? And just because race and gender are the ones that i refer to there. There are all kinds of news perspectives, new opportunities. I'm coming at it as a woman from a biological perspective, right? So has leadership been talked about before? Sure. Self-deception . . . sure. All of these things have been talked about before. But have they talked have they been seen through the lens of a female stress physiologist? Probably not. I think everybody has unique perception, a unique lens through which they can look. And if you're considering doing this think about your own stories. Think about what lens you see the world through. And then just because something's been seen one way doesn't mean you can't offer something new to it.
Josh Steimle
They use that word. Story how did you use story, storytelling within your book?
Rebecca Heiss
Yeah, I think narrative is so important. I mean this is this is the biological basis if you want to go back this is how we remember anything. It's the storytelling right? That was how we passed things down for hundreds of 1000s of years. It's how our brain remembers things the most. So I think you know . . . I can throw facts and figures at you all day long you won't remember it. If I can move you through a story, if I can use emotion for you to say Oh I recognize myself there. I remember that experience that I had in that situation. Now you pulled somebody into the story into the book itself and now they're seeing themselves in that same situation and it applies to them more. So I think the more you can use story to pull people into that book, the more applicable because they'll find your solutions.
Josh Steimle
You know, I've interviewed other people who talk about story one guy actually specializes in storytelling within business. But for you with your evolutionary biology background, can you tell me a little bit . . . why do we remember stories so well why do they stick? I mean it's kind of fascinating when you think about it that you throw a string of facts at me and I can't remember it 30 seconds later. And yet there are stories that I heard 30 years ago when I was a kid and I only heard that story once and I can retell that story today in pretty accurate detail. Why is that why do our brains work that way?
Rebecca Heiss
I mean great question and I wish I had a really simple answer for you. And I don't the simplest answer I can tell you is this: facts and figures mean very little to our brains because you . . . .
Josh Steimle
So why is it that we remember stories so well, because if you tell me a bunch of facts, all forget it 30 seconds from now. But if you tell me a story, it really does stick. I mean, there are stories that I heard when I was a little kid when I was five years old. And now I'm turning 46. And I remember these stories in quite a bit of detail. And I can tell that story to somebody else. Why do our brains work that way? How and why do we remember stories so well?
Rebecca Heiss
Yeah, I think, you know, our brains are lousy at remembering numbers and statistics, because they're just not they don't light up the same pathways. When I tell a story. What that does, if I do it properly, is I elicit emotion in the people that are listening. And when you elicit emotion in the brain, the brain says, Oh, wait a second, this is something I need to pay attention to. Because if it's stress, or anger, or fear, or danger, or excitement, I want to be able to return to the things that excite me, I want to be able to seek out that adventure. And I want to avoid the disaster, the catastrophe, the thing that happened to that person. It's a way of sort of vicariously learning. So you know, we tell a lot of stories to kids, and a lot of them are about monsters and the scary things. And if they do wrong, they get eaten, right? But when you think about like the stories, the fairy tale that we tell our kids . . .
Josh Steimle
All those weird fairy tales, babies falling out of trees . . .
Rebecca Heiss
Yeah! But they're really just their evolutionary stories of like, fear the other, right, stay away from strangers, don't climb high things . . . like all the things that you could have died from back in the day. So they elicit this this fear response, but it's a way of vicariously learning what we should stay away from, what we should be excited to move towards. And storytelling is super powerful for the brain.
Josh Steimle
Great. So as we wrap things up here, Rebecca, talk to us a little bit about, again, the advice that you would give to entrepreneurs out there just like you . . . they have a business just like you and they're thinking, I might want to write a book, I think this could help me in my business, I think this could help me to get a message out. Being on this stage where you are, where your book is almost coming out, it's going to be out just in a month from now. What advice would you give to that entrepreneur who's considering this journey considering writing a book? Is writing a book for everybody? And what advice would you give to this entrepreneur who's just kind of on top of the fence?
Rebecca Heiss
Yeah, I mean, two things. One, if it doesn't burn you, right, if it didn't burn from the inside, like, you have to get this out, don't write it. There'll be something else that will. And when you feel that, when you're like I have this is the message, this is the thing that happened. And I'm not saying don't start like it might it might burn for a little bit and you start to get familiar, like, there's plenty of ideas that I've gotten out and I'm like, this is it, this is not . . . and then it kind of fizzles for me. And then you will hit some points along the way in writing that book. But it has to burn from the start. Like it has to be something so powerful. So driving that you want to get up and push it out to the world. But the big thing is, I will say if you are doing this for the money, run the other way. Nobody will make money from publishing a book unless you're like a superstar, right? Unless, unless you're, you know, like, a big name already. Don't count on this bringing in income. It's really a piece of recognition, and a way to expand your audience and move this message out into the world.
Josh Steimle
And so what are you hoping to see in terms of results from your book? Of course, you want a bunch of people to buy it and to be moved by it and change their lives and everything. But in terms of yourself? What are you looking to get from the book once it's out there and making that difference?
Rebecca Heiss
Honestly, so I know this is going to sound really cheesy, but I already feel like I've accomplished it, like having this book be a reality. I feel like I've written the message that I really wanted to get out into the world. And now it's out there. And if it sells two copies, that's two people's lives that will have heard the message that I desperately wanted to get out. If it sells 10,000 copies, awesome. It sells 20 million copies. You know, like I mean, look, I of course one want to achieve as greatest success as I can. But to me success is not . . . is not relative, right? It's not in comparison to other people. Success is I have a book in hand that that conveys the message that I've always wanted to convey, and it's going out into the world. So, to me, I'm just really thrilled that I've had that opportunity.
Josh Steimle
Awesome. Sense of achievement. Well, thanks so much for being with us here today. where's the best place for people to connect with you?
Rebecca Heiss
Yeah, they can find me at Rebecca Heiss That's r-e-b-e-c-c-a-h-e-i-s-s.com. And you can certainly find all about instinct and Icueity and all the other things that are going on our podcast at the Fearless Year Podcast dot com all the things I'd be happy to talk further about. Any questions or concerns you I'll have
Josh Steimle
Spell Icueity for us to make sure we can find that.
Rebecca Heiss
Right! Because this is this is another marketing fail, I'll be honest. It's I-c-u-e i-t-y.com Icueity.
Josh Steimle
Awesome. Thanks again, Rebecca, so much for being with us here today to talk about your book. Looking forward to it coming out.
Rebecca Heiss
Thanks so much, Josh. And thank you to all your listeners.