Empathy Most Important Tool To Persuade Readers, Says Ghostwriter
Being fired from his job is one of the best things that ever happened to Paul Edwards.
It may not have felt like it at the time. However, being unemployed gave Paul the time he needed to think deeply about what he really wanted to do professionally.
The answer, in part, was writing. So Paul sat down and pretty quickly completed his first book—Ten Secrets To Networking Success—most recently published as the bestselling Influencer Networking Secrets.
Paul is a strategic connector, ghostwriter, and host of the Influence Networking Secrets podcast. He’s lived in five countries, speaks two languages, has combat experience in the Middle East, and he’s a voice mimic. But mostly, he’s interested in words and people. When he isn’t writing content, he’s building relationships.
In this episode with host Josh Steimle, Paul explains how to be a good ghostwriter, and how to build a following - an important focus for any aspiring entrepreneur-author.
TOP TAKEAWAY: GIVE PUBLICITY TO OTHERS TO LIFT YOUR PROFILE
Paul is a huge believer in giving, simply for the sake of it. Part of this business philosophy is influenced by his strong faith, and part of it by the fact that it simply works! His advice to authors: Be someone who gives with no expectation of something in return.
“So much of this business is relational, right? You can write a great book, but doing the publicity tour and all of that, you're going to need stories. You're going to need something that's authentic, that you really believe in,” he says. “I've rarely met someone who's successful who doesn't have some way that they call giving back, that they benefit other people around them without charging anything for it.”
In fact, the path to successful ghostwriting began when Paul was on the receiving end of some giving. Aaron Walker of Iron Sharpens Iron told Paul of his writing: “You've tapped into what is a high-income skill that you can make a fair amount of money doing. The marketplace is hungry for somebody who is not only skilled and talented with words, but also can capture that person's voice, and can actually become you on paper, like a chameleon.”
Says Paul: “I had that!”
With renewed purpose, Paul pursued ghostwriting and growing his network. As he began to market, he realized that he was drawn to people who were, like him, oriented towards servanthood.
Once the parameters were in place, Paul was able to distill his target client so that it's preferably faith-based, although that doesn’t have to be the case. He carries this approach into his guidance he offers others: “One of the things that I tell people to do is if you want publicity as a business owner, especially starting from scratch, the best way to do it is to give it away to other people.”
CULTIVATE EMPATHY WITH THE READER
Paul’s advice to entrepreneur-authors and ghostwriters: “You have to be able to cultivate this very strong empathy with the reader.”
A big part of this is understanding what will persuade the reader: “Not in a purely emotional form, but in a form that engages both the emotions and the intellect,” Paul explains. “It moves them in a positive direction. You have to know what to write and what not to write and when to write it. You have to understand that there are things that you understand very well, you have a huge comprehension of and your reader probably doesn't.”
Paul and Josh discuss a lot more about writing and networking. In addition, there’s a bonus section at the end of this episode. Josh and Paul explore their interest in religion and how they are self-described “extremists” when it comes to pursuing their deeper interests.
LINKS
EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
Josh Steimle
Welcome to the Published Author Podcast where we help entrepreneurs learn how to write a book and leverage it to grow their business and make an impact. I'm your host, Josh Steimle. Today our guest is Paul Edwards. Paul is a strategic connector ghostwriter and the best selling author of Influencer Networking Secrets, as well as the host of the Influence Networking Secrets podcast. Paul has lived in five countries, speaks two languages, has combat experience in the Middle East. And he's a voice mimic. I want to dive into that. But mostly he's interested in words and people. When he isn't writing content. He's building relationships. Paul, welcome to the show.
Paul Edwards
Hey, Josh, thanks so much for having me. Great to be here.
Josh Steimle
All right, so before we learn more about what sounds like a very interesting background here, tell us a bit more about yourself. Where did you grow up? What was your upbringing? Like? How did you become interested in writing in full disclosure for the audience? Paul and I are both from the same hometown, which is Arcadia, California. We went to the same high school. And we just learned this about it each other a few days ago. So it's fun to be talking to a fellow Apache that's our mascot there at Arcadia High School.
Paul Edwards
That's right. That's right. The Apaches of Arcadia. I actually we just missed each other. You were you graduated just as I think just a year before I started my freshman year.
Josh Steimle
Yeah, I graduated in 94. And then you started.
Paul Edwards
I came in the fall of 94. So I 95 would have been my first full year
Josh Steimle
We literally barely missed each other go into high school together. That's kind of weird, isn't it? It is but we are. I imagine we came across several of the same faculty and teachers you know, during that time, so we could we could wax poetic about that. But you asked about my about my history and it actually stretches back into this Midwestern Canadian city of Edmonton, Alberta. That's where I was born. And my father is British. My mom was South African. And I was first generation North American, so to speak, and grew up, you know, the first eight years in Edmonton, Alberta during the Wayne Gretzky years then followed him when he came to Southern California in 1988. And lived the next 13 years various places in LA but the most but you know, ended out my all four years of my schooling High School, was in Arcadia, and lived a couple of other places in the San Gabriel Valley as well. spent a year living on Santa Monica Beach spent some time in the San Fernando Valley. So all those wonderful parts of LA, all the lovely weather. I missed that terribly now that I live in the Pacific Northwest where it rains nine months a year. Me too. I'm here in Boston, it's getting cold and I love the fall and the colors, but man there days, I'd like to head over to the beach and have some of that California weather to enjoy.
Paul Edwards
I know it's Yeah, it's you never miss it until it's gone. You never you when you're there, you just think it's a pain. It's always you're always sweating and hot, you know, but now I'll take the sweat and the heat. Because it's getting pretty chilly out here. But anyway, um, you asked about writing. It's a curious thing. I was about eight years old, maybe a little bit younger, walked past my dad one day and I saw him typing furiously on the keyboard. And you know, back in those days, he had the early PCs, the DOS and earliest versions, not even earliest versions of Windows, it was all dos. And he I said, Dad, what are you doing? And he said, I'm writing my autobiography. And I said, I've never heard that term before. So I said, What's an autobiography? And he said, Oh, it's my life story. And I thought that was kind of cool. I was like, Oh, I didn't think about it. But my life has a story too. And so I decided at eight years old, I was going to write my own autobiography. It didn't get very far predictably. But, you know, I put some meat on the bones. And it was the first time I tried it. And for whatever reason, it just stuck with me. It just stuck no matter where I've been what I've done or what occupation I've held what position I've been in single married. I've always been writing I've been writing song lyrics and poetry. I've been writing school plays I've written you know, stories. I mean, just just I've kept I've kept voluminous journals. I mean, I was looking at my on I keep a journal on Evernote the other day, I've got over 1500 entries in that journal. Well, no, but I don't know many people who have an Evernote account that big, you know, but I do because I just write in it every day. So so that's that's how it happened and and then you get all these formative experiences and we can we can get into that some more. But you know, the formative experiences of living overseas, living in different cultures, going to combat, being a soldier, being a father, being a husband, being in masterminds, you know, becoming very, very good at networking and creating strategic connections and all that all of that contributes to having this wonderful set skill set, and background that makes for such good professional writing, particularly for the influence or thought leader, executive crowd.
Josh Steimle
Now, you got some of this experience writing when you were younger, but did you think of yourself as a writer? Is that how you identified yourself? Or it? Or do you remember that point when you suddenly realized, you know what, I'm a writer, that's what I do.
Paul Edwards
Funny, you should ask that. I guess you know that. Because when we were like, when we were kids, like when around the time you and I were in Arcadia High. If you would have said I want to be a writer, everybody would have said, Good luck, dude. And maybe about two or three people on the planet successful with that, you know,
Josh Steimle
Yeah, that's like being an artist or something, you know, you're gonna starve to death if you're an artist.
Exactly. Tom Clancy. That's about it. Right. And so I, I guess I sort of, I didn't despise it, but I sort of put it away is one of these skill sets that you have, but there's nothing that you can really do with it. Right? Unless you're extremely lucky. And I didn't consider myself extremely lucky. I'm not saying that that's how it even was in those days. I'm just saying that's what the extent of what we understood about it. So I just sort of put it to the side and said, Well, I have this ability, but I gotta pay the bills. And this, this doesn't pay the bills. So I went out and did a bunch of other stuff. And it wasn't even until about this time last year. I got, I interviewed Aaron Walker, who is my mentor with the Iron Sharpens Iron Mastermind. And he invited me to write content for his team. And I was I had, I had failed so badly in business, 17 months with no income. That I was at the point where I was like, You know what, I'll try just about anything. That might give me a chance in the little time I have left before I've got to go find a job. And just go back to, you know, doing something I really don't care to do.
Josh Steimle
Which none of us wants to do. The last thing any of us wants is to have a job.
Paul Edwards
Certainly not me, I've been fired enough times I get I just, you know, it's pretty obvious. It's not a a long term strategy for me.
Josh Steimle
Yeah, having a job is a nightmare for an entrepreneur. It's like the worst case scenario.
Paul Edwards
It just is. I mean, you know, I talked to my wife about becoming a freelancer with what she does. And she's she recoils at it, she functions really well, in that paradigm. I don't I just, I'm too loud and obnoxious and have too many opinions about things, I guess. But. But anyway, Aaron invited me to write content for his team. So I started doing it. And then all of a sudden, people started saying, Hey, we need help with that, too. And we and we're willing to pay for it. And, and, and it was at that point, Aaron said to me, You know, I don't know what exactly you want to do for your business. But I see you've tapped into what is a high income skill that you can make a fair amount of money doing. People want it, the marketplace, is hungry for somebody who is not only skilled and talented with words, but also can capture that person's voice. Right? And can actually become you on paper, like a chameleon. And I had that. You know, you talked about the mimic. That's, that's the, that's one of the linchpins of it is the fact that I can write something. And, and I can read it back to myself, in the voice of the person who I'm writing it for the mimic, it just gives me the ability to write something and then read it back to myself aloud in the voice of the person I'm writing it for. And then there's this part of it, you know, I don't I don't really like to walk around and say this about myself. But people do business with me because I have to believe one of the reasons they do it is because I've learned to be more than just a writer to them. To me, it's it's about being a scout and a counselor in a PR agent for people, right? And that's where the whole strategic connections thing comes in. There's a highly relational character-oriented side of my business. Because let's face it, I mean you could go on Fiverr or Upwork and find people to write stuff for you for pennies on the dollar, right? You just can't guarantee or you can't guarantee anything but there are things about the kind of relational style that I do business in the skill sets that I've been given that, frankly, aren't available. It's true that, you know, well, they might be available, but they're very hard to find going that route. So, right.
Josh Steimle
So what are some of those things?
Paul Edwards
Well, you know, the mimic the ability to capture someone else's voice, but also the I, you know, I had to learn through years and years of personal growth and development, about what business really is, right? Because we think it's all sorts of different things. But when it boils down to it, we're talking about the privilege of serving God by serving one of his other children. That's what that's what makes that's what puts dollars in my pocket and butters my biscuit. It's not, it's not the it's not the talent, right? Because I had the talent my whole life, what what I lacked was the attitude of being a servant, of my fellow man. And that's, can I put that on paper and listed as a as a as an attribute? I don't think so. But I can, I can definitely feel it within me. Whenever I'm serving someone that whenever I'm having a conversation about doing business with someone.
Josh Steimle
You know, I love that you just jump straight to that, because a lot of people would beat around the bush and say, I like to help people or I like to serve other people, but you jump straight to making it: This is your connection with God. This is fundamentally who you are, as, I guess we could say a human being but as a child of God, or however you would phrase that, but this is really your core identity. And the service that you're rendering to other people supports that core identity, I just love that you're willing to just throw it out there rather than hide behind it a little bit like a lot of people would.
Paul Edwards
Well, I appreciate that I am a miraculous conversion at age 22 of a former sworn enemy of God. Became a radical lover of him and pursuer, and wherever and whenever I've enjoyed success in my life, I've seen his hand move in ways, particularly when it comes to masterminds and coaching. I really believe he intended for that to be a model that everybody has some degree of in their lives. And I also believe that the reason for the lot, a lot of the disintegration and destruction that we see in people's lives is because of the lack of it.
Josh Steimle
So it certainly wasn't the way I was expecting this interview to go. But this is awesome. How do you see your identity, your relationship with God filtering into the work that you're doing? I mean, you've hinted at it, that you're when you're serving your fellow man, you're also serving God. But on a day to day basis, when you take on a project, when you think about who you're going to work with, and the type of work that you want to do for other people. How does your viewpoint your belief in God influence those decisions? Well, I
Paul Edwards
I would say Josh that a big part of understanding who you are, and who you serve, is, first by knowing who you're not, and who you don't serve. And in my book, I talk about this, I call it being the curator. And, you know, I find a lot of people like to say, I'm here to serve, I serve, you know, I want to I want to serve other people. But I think that also involves, especially in this day and age, I think it involves also saying I do not serve myself, I am not here to be served or to be waited on I'm here to serve. I'm here. In other words, well, kind of like Jesus says, right, the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve. That's a very explicit definition of who you are, but by extension that's going to govern who you hang around. Right. And so as I begin to market, I began to say, okay, in here is a room full of self-serving people. So I'm not going in that room, right? Over here is a mastermind group or a podcast hosted by somebody who very, who is very oriented the same way that I am, towards true servanthood. And it just begins to narrow, you know, severely narrow the amount of time that I spend on anything other than pursuing my target market, pursuing my target connection or client or associate, right, somebody that I spend time with. From that I've been able to distill this target client and it's really, you know, preferably faith-based but it doesn't always necessarily have to be faith-based. Somebody who's in leadership and authority they're an executive, entrepreneur, influencer, they've got a lot to say and their words carry weight, but not a lot of time in which to say it or print it or write it themselves. And so that's where I come in and fill in that gap for them.
Josh Steimle
Cool. I love that. So, you talk about being a servant serving others focusing on others. And then your book Influencer Networking, Secrets. A lot of people these days equate the word influencer with crazy kids on tik tok and YouTube and Instagram and stuff and people pointing at themselves and saying, Look at me, look at me, look what I'm doing. I have a feeling that's not what your books about. So what was the inspiration for writing Influencer Networking Secrets? What was the why behind why you wrote this book?
Paul Edwards
Yeah, you know, the, I know what you know what you mean, there. I am not out there promoting the laptop lifestyle with the Mimosa, the Lamborghini on the beachfront of Hawaii not doing anything and getting paid millions of dollars. In the meantime, I live in I live in a nice four bedroom house in Olympia, Washington, I drive a Dodge, you know, average guy, I guess in that regard. For me, here's, here's the thing. I was always captivated by good delivery of something. And you know, when you see that, right, you know, when you see a movie where the acting is incredible, versus a moving movie where the acting is pathetic, right? What's the difference? Because anybody can stand up and read lines off of a piece of paper, but not everybody can become that character that delivers them so well. You know, when you hear, you know, a good radio or podcast program, because there's forethought, and there's, and there's concentration, and there's consistency. And there's confidence in the voices of the people you hear. And you know, when you and you also know when people are just getting on the mic and hitting record, and they don't really know what they're doing. Right? You can tell it's the same thing in print. In fact, it's, I would argue, it's even more so because as you lose all of the intonation and body language that's visible in a video or audio format. Very often what you what you put on paper can easily be misinterpreted, taken out of context, you can read the wrong tonality out of it, because you don't know the person that well or you're not very sure, or your internal anxieties and, and internal issues takeover.
Josh Steimle
I think almost all of us have had that experience of sending an email to somebody and then getting a response back and they're angry or offended. And you're like, No, I didn't mean it that way. But yeah, you lose that tone.
Paul Edwards
Correct. Now, you think about that, Josh, think just for a minute, what do most people do when they sit down at the keyboard they write as they speak? They don't even think about it. Right? And I'm not blaming them or calling them stupid, I'm just saying this is why not everybody can do it. Because you have to be able to cultivate this very strong empathy with the reader and say, What could I say? Or in many cases, what should I not say? Right? That would persuade the reader, not in a purely emotional form, but in a in a form that engages both the emotions and the intellect. It that moves them in a positive direction, right? You have to know the checklists of what to write and what not to write and when to write it. And when not to write it. You have to understand that there are things that you understand very well, you have a huge comprehension of and your reader probably doesn't. You have to understand that you can talk all day you can write you know, voluminous books about a subject, and people will have no clue what you're talking about. But you're the object of the game is to get them interested in what you're talking about. So what do you put in your communique? That's what I specialize in.
Josh Steimle
So tell us about your writing process with Influencer Networking Secrets. How long did this book take to write by the way, when did you start writing working on it?
Paul Edwards
I got started. Actually, I was invited by David Hancock to submit it for Morgan James right around I think January February of this year. So it took me a couple of months to write it and in full disclosure, although it is a very honest and, in my opinion, the most thorough version of its previous two editions, both of which went under different names. It's it's not . . . I think I have another version of it still to come. And I'll tell you why I say that. Since I started writing for clients, I understand I understand now how much I was not fully ensconced in the research side of a book. And I feel like I should have spent more time really seeking to know what my target audience wanted to talk about. But you asked me, How long did it take? It took me a couple months, you know, I was self. I'm because I'm a writer, I do several self edits before I send it to an actual editor, or anything like that. And I just, I wouldn't have taken me much more time to in hindsight now to have I have a researcher on my team who digs into those topics for me, and finds out what people's pain points are. And I think I could have done a better job in hindsight of being more incisive, straight to the point of what the audience actually wants to talk about. I don't know if I'm kind of getting off on a tangent here. I feel like in answering that question, you can tell me if I'm rambling too much.
Josh Steimle
Well, tell me about you said that this is a new version of a book you had already written before. Do you mean, you had that published once or twice before? Do you mean you had the manuscript and you rewrote it and rewrote it? Or tell me more about that?
Paul Edwards
Yeah. So when I first left, I've got fired from the insurance business in 2018. I was I wasn't really sure what I wanted to do. And I felt compelled, I've got to do something. And so I wrote his first version of the book, which is called Ten Secrets to Networking Success. It's what and it's, you know, like any entrepreneur, right? It's the first version that that several years later, you look back, and you do one of those full body shivers, like, Oh, I can't believe I wrote that. But I self published it, I found a local outfit that would publish it, it wasn't, you know, I bartered with an editor to get a, you know, some basic editing done, but it didn't, it was not a professional book, like you would expect to see in in bookstores. Last year, 2019, I decided to do a second version of it, called Business Beyond Business. I wanted to create a higher, you know, a high performance mastermind group of, you know, those super entrepreneurs, like my friend Kevin Thompson does. Only he's really good at it. And I didn't know what I was doing. And so I published a second version of it. This time, I went through Bestseller Publishing, and they did a great job of making it a best seller on Amazon. But I didn't, I still was like, so so much in the fog of what I wanted to do, or how I wanted to do it, or understanding what business was all about. And so, this time, I got much more clarity, I had proof of concept, I'd actually, you know, got, I'd actually succeeded in starting a writing business and all of that. And all along my podcast had been growing, that was about the only part of my business that was continuing to grow. And my podcast is called Influence or Networking Secrets. And so I decided, this time, I'm going to, I'm going to try and match the two together, instead of having this over here, and that over here, and nobody sees the connection between them. So I did that version of it. It's, you know, it is it is very helpful. It will outline, you know, everything that I've used to reach the success that I have. But in full disclosure, like I said, I just I feel like I could have done a little bit more on the research side.
Josh Steimle
So when's the next version coming out?
Paul Edwards
A little while I'm busy. Now I've got I'm busy writing other people's books instead of my own.
Josh Steimle
Now, go into your podcast, one of the things that we talk a lot about it on the Publish Author Podcast, and in the groups that we run is the importance of setting up a platform. And your podcast, at least under this name, came about before your book, and so as you're marketing your book, how is the podcast enabled you to help get that book out, get the word out?
Paul Edwards
Well, for one thing, you know, whenever you host a podcast, you get to erm, You are actively engaged in what I refer to in chapter two or three of my book, which is called pro bono publicity. And so one of the things that I tell people to do is look if you want publicity as a business owner starting especially starting from scratch, the best way to do it is to give it away to other people, right? To make a big deal out of the people in your network, rather than make a big deal out of yourself. So I started, I started doing the podcast, I didn't really know what I was doing. A business coach of mine at the time, Vince Delmonte, told me you need to start interviewing people. You need to start making a big, big deal out of influential people that you know, and several other people in his mastermind, made great first guests. So, so that was a good start. And then it sort of snowballed from there. And over time, what I discovered was that my show is the guests are as much the audience as the listeners are themselves. When you do this, and you provide a service to toward the people who also happen to be guests on your show. You know, I it's again, it's not a sales, it's not a virtual closing room where I bring people in and try to strong arm them into hiring me as a ghostwriter. But it is a wonderful opportunity to have a 60-minute conversation with somebody who otherwise probably couldn't get on their calendar. Right? But because it's publicity, because it's helping them gain exposure and all that. Because you're taking time out of your day to be curious about them. I've found that I that I've been able to monetize it, I found that, you know, some of the people who come on the show end up becoming clients.
Josh Steimle
That's great. Are there other parts of your platform that have been valuable for you? Do you have an email newsletter? Do you are you active on social media? Is there anything else? That's been a key part of getting the word out about the book and attracting the clients you want to attract?
Paul Edwards
No, I certainly tried. I gotta say, I certainly tried. But But I found that to do social media, right? To do email, right, frankly, had a higher price tag and a higher time commitment than I had available. And I'm not saying I would never use them. I'm saying that when I'm in front of people, when I have conversations with them, when they get to know me, and they feel comfortable. And they see how I speak and how I handle myself and all that. I call that the low hanging fruit. Whereas I can send them an email a week for a whole year and not get a single reply. And not because my email is not well phrased or, you know, written as persuasively as I write anything else, but just because I don't know, it seems like maybe it's my personality or something, just people do way better. They'd like to meet me in person. And
Josh Steimle
Well, it's like the saying goes, people do business with people they know, like, and trust. And if I can see you and talk to you, or at least listen to you talking. So it's more personal experience through video or through podcast, then that is a step closer than reading what somebody has written.
Paul Edwards
Yes, exactly.
Josh Steimle
So with your plans for the future, what do you see in terms of the book helping you to build your business? How will you measure success? How will you know that the book was worth writing, worth putting the effort into getting it published?
Paul Edwards
I've had occasion to think about that some more. And I've said to myself, I think what's going to happen is I've written a book that is reaching today, people who will be influential and successful tomorrow, right? In other words, the people who reach out to me right now and ask for copies of my book, and not because they are necessarily they liked me, but not that's not the main reason they're doing it. They're doing it because they're interested in what I have to say they're in, they know me, they know what it's like to be around me. They know, they see how I do things and how I make things happen and all that. So it'll be a it'll be a while it'll be a long game to play with this. But that's what I think is going to happen. I think that the objective for me is to get this book into the hands of people who are not yet who they're going to become in the next five to 10 years. But if it gets into their hands, and they implement it, and they follow it, and they, you know, it sinks in and they remember it, they're going to get to where they want to go faster than they otherwise would. And at that point, you know, when they I hear it now and then you know they rethey reach out and they say you know I was reading what you wrote about and I went and tried it and it worked and I didn't I didn't think it was gonna work. I didn't understand that. going out and doing pro bono publicity for someone else was gonna get me so much I didn't understand that, you know, actually thinking about what I write before I write it and hit send was gonna be so effective. But thank you for sharing that with me because now I know.
Josh Steimle
So you've shared some of the secrets, the Influencer Networking Secrets here with us. Are there any other secrets that would be particularly applicable to our audience, which is authors and aspiring authors, people who are getting ready to publish a book? Are there any of the secrets that stand out to you from the book that you think might be of great benefit to them?
Paul Edwards
Yeah. So in chapter four, I want to say, I talked about not-for-profit as for profit. And this is a saying I developed many years ago, and that is, whenever I'm active in benefiting the lives of other people who can't pay me, right. For whatever reason, doesn't it doesn't have to be a charitable institution. It's just, it's just an expression. But I find it now like, in the in the church that we go to, I go and mentor, the younger men in the young adults service, you know, these guys who are all in their early 20s, and just trying to figure out life. Before it used to be as a matter of fact, I found my way into being an emcee of the local Miss America pageants. And so I would go and volunteer my voice and my time and get dressed up in a tuxedo and do the announcements for the, for the Miss America Pageant. I was active in the local association of the US Army supporting the military. But whatever you choose to be involved in, so often, those volunteers and you know, boards of directors, and all that are chock full of other entrepreneurs, or people who have something of an entrepreneurial spirit to them. And you just show up at these things. And again, it's not with a sales agenda, but you show up and you and you, you invest, I call it, doing good things and sending God the bill. And so I just, I just know, it's not the reason I do it, but I go, and I and I know that if I, you know, if I remain selfless, and just go there and serve and donate and give and whether it's time, talent or treasure. I know my Father and heavens keeping a record of that. And, and he intends to renumerate it. And how he does and when he does, that's his business, but I just, you know, it's just got to become one of those habits. And you might ask, Well, how does this How does this help, you know, an aspiring author or an author, again, so much of this business is relational, right? You can write a great book. But getting it getting it publicized, appearing, you know, doing the publicity tour and all of that, you're going to need stories, you're going to need something that's that's authentic, that comes across, you're going to need something that you really believe in, you're going to need something that stirs up your passion and excites you. And I've rarely met someone who's successful who doesn't have have some way that they they call it giving back, you know, that they benefit other people around them without charging anything for it. So you know, have that in your in your arsenal. Another one. We've sort of touched on this a little bit, I call it persuasive and print. Right? And persuasive in print is talking all about what we've what we've already discussed is you know, if you if you sit down to write and you don't think about what you're writing, you don't get extra eyes on it. You don't do the research, like I failed to do you don't you don't ask yourself the question. What What do these people want to want to hear? What what? What can I talk about that would be compelling for them to stop and pay attention? Okay, you figure out what they want to talk about. Now you tell them why they should? why they should know about it, right? But why is why is this important? And then you get to the end of that. And then you say well, okay, how do how do they implement and how do they take what you've just given them and take it away and apply it to their lives. This governs everything we do in my agency, the content that we write for clients, the books that we write, we're always trying to we're always asking ourselves those questions. What do people need to know want to know should know? And then why and then how, what? What's the practical for them? So those two along with everything else we've discussed. And there's more besides that, but those two I really think are strongly apply if you're if you're trying to get into business trying to do the author thing.
Josh Steimle
Great. Thank you so much. Today, Paul, for the time that you've given us Paul's book once again is Influencer Networking Secrets. And his podcast is the same name Influencer Networking Secrets podcast. Paul, any last words? Anything? I didn't ask you that you've been dying to get out?
Paul Edwards
Josh, you've been most kind of having me on. I really appreciate it. If anyone wants to reach out to me. I have a website, thepaulsedwards.com. Or you can reach out to me on social media, the Paul s Edwards, it's on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, all of them. It's all the same.
Josh Steimle
Great, thank you so much today, Paul, for the time that you've given us.
Paul Edwards
Thank you, Josh.
Josh Steimle
All right. I'm leaving it recording, just in case the next part we want to leave in there. But I'm just curious to ask you a little bit more about the religious side of things. And so if we decide to include this, then people are listening to this. And they're just getting the extra stuff here. This is the after show. So which so it sounds like you're Christian, which denomination or which religion? Do you go tours at a nondenominational church? Or
Paul Edwards
It's becoming an interesting animal to define. I've gone to Evangelical churches for 18 years. But I'm really, I'm really drawn to the Messianic Jewish tradition.
Josh Steimle
Tell me more about that. I don't even know what that means. I mean, I can kind of guess, but I don't know what that is.
Paul Edwards
Well, you know, you might have heard of things like, Jews for Jesus.
Josh Steimle
I've heard of that.
Paul Edwards
I'm not I'm only I'm Jewish. I have like a tiny sliver of Jewish ancestry. From I took that 23andme thing. And my, my parents actually did genealogy, and they found we do have a Jewish ancestor. But so it's not a it's not a bloodline thing. But I, I got to a point where I said, you know, I've always wanted to be a committed disciple, not just a guy who shows up in church on Sundays. And that's, that's meant different things, depending on the phase of life that I'm in. But I found I found that evangelical churches, it just, for whatever reason, that is a really hard thing to come by. Right? It could be many reasons I don't want to, it's very easy to start out the church, the church, determining I'm not gonna blame the church. I'm just gonna say that in my life, in my relationship with God, I want to be a committed disciple. So are all Messianic Jews committed disciple? I don't know. What I do find is that there is a much more holistic, investigative, research based and culturally accurate reading of the Bible, right, I find that there's a, there's an attentiveness to the fact that there was 4000 years, nearly 4000 years, I think, of recorded history among the genealogy of the Hebrews going back to the time of Abraham, and even before that. And it's not that the Evangelical Church ignores that or says it doesn't exist. It's just that they, they use it sparingly for little bits and pieces of inspiration. And then I read the New Testament, and there's so much of it that I'm like, I just I don't understand why this what this has to do with anything and why they mentioned this stuff that seems to be so random. Well, if you understand all of the history and culture that goes behind that, write all of the symbolism. If you understand the Hebrew language, and all that kind of stuff, and I am not claiming to be fluent in Hebrew, but I understand more of it than I ever have. Then all of a sudden, Oh, now I see why they why they point that out. Now I see why that's there. Now I'd see what what do you mean when he says that? So I don't know. I tend to get winded in these answers. Is this does this help you see what I'm talking about?
Josh Steimle
Yeah, this is interesting. So I've heard of Jews for Jesus. My understanding is that I mean, and with Messianic Judaism, I mean, is this like a specific specific organization a specific church or a specific religion or is it more a collection of ideas and a way of thinking about things? Because it sounds like you're part of an organized religion, right?
Paul Edwards
I don't know. I that's that's a good question. I am. I, you know, I the church that we go to is a Foursquare church. You've probably heard of them. They're an evangelical church.
Josh Steimle
Okay, so the church you attend on Sundays is an evangelical church. But you are saying personally, you kind of identify with Messianic Judaism?
Paul Edwards
Yeah In other words, if I could snap my fingers right now. Then I would go on, I would go on Saturdays, to a Shabbat service in a Messianic Jewish congregation or temple where you openly worship Jesus Christ, right? That's He is the Son of God. It's the same. It's the same doctrinally. It's just it's it's a different Yeah, there's a there's a different lens, I guess you look at look at it through and yeah, I would lead like a Torah Club, which is the Bible study, same type of thing. But you know, I think, yeah, I mean, is it is it in? Is it an organized denomination, I don't even know, I've never looked into it. I, I follow certain resources online. It's called First Fruits of Zion is one of the ones that I follow. And one of their leading guys, pastors a church in Wisconsin, which is a Messianic Jewish congregation, I listened to their podcasts. Um, but I honestly haven't looked into it to see are they a denomination? Do they have a? You know, do they follow that? That model? I don't know.
Josh Steimle
Alright. Okay. So is this just interesting, I'm super interested in religion, world religions, all religions. And, obviously, there are the there are these 1000s of years of Jewish history leading up to the birth of Christ. And then Christ comes along, and of course, he's Jewish. But then you have this branching, or this division, where a group of people go off, kind of in a new direction, I guess. It depends who you're talking to. It's all relative. If you're Jewish, you say, well, Christ and his followers went off in a totally different direction. If you're Christian, you would say that Christianity is a continuation of all those years of history. That's what was supposed to happen. In that it was the Jews at the time of Jesus who actually left and went off in their own direction. But one way or another, there was a split. And they moved in different directions from each other. It so do you look back on what Christ established And you say, that's the religion that's the true religion. That's what I wish were around today? Or, like when you say, if I could snap my fingers and have the religion I wanted. Tell me a little bit more about what what that would look like for you.
Paul Edwards
Yeah, well, one thing you mentioned was the split. And I actually read a fascinating book on this recently by the the guy was mentioning there, who's the pastor in Wisconsin, of the Messianic Jewish congregation. name is Thomas Lancaster and the book is called Restoration. And he points out that one of the things that the New Testament alludes to, in particularly in Acts is that wherever Paul the Apostle went and preached the gospel, the first place he would go is the synagogue. And in in in nearly every time he did it, the Bible specifically says some Jews believed and some didn't right? Some were some accepted it and some didn't. The research that he does, concludes that a big reason that nobody really talks about for the split between Christianity and Judaism was the Roman Empire, right? Because there was the destruction of Jerusalem and the destruction of the temple and the terror, the state- sponsored terror, if you want to call it that of Rome, at the time. And one of the things that he argues that they do, or that they did, was that they sought to, to create enmity between the followers of the way as it was called then, Christianity, and the followers of traditional Judaism. And so there was this alienation, this sort of distancing, because we don't want to be involved with them and then the others, yeah, we don't want to be involved with them either. But up until that point, the contention is that the new the Church in its infancy, regularly worshiped in synagogues that were tolerant of them. They would show up and they and if the synagogue welcomed them, then they would come in and if it didn't, then they'd go meet somebody in somebody's house or something like that. So the the argument that they make now is that there is an invitation, not a legalistic requirement, right? Because there is scripture to support the fact that the Jews understood that asking Gentile believers to become ritually and legally Jewish, according to national rites of passage, which included circumcision, they understood that that was a stretch, you know, for Gentile believers who were coming in. But there's nevertheless there's a, there's an invitation to participate in Torah life, right? In all of the all of the benefits that go along with that. And so what I've found is like, I now observe the festivals and the Jewish High Holidays. And I get I get such restoration and renewal out of them. Because that calendar has been laid down for 6000 years, right? We didn't have to invent a new one, like the Gregorian calendar, we just follow the original. And there are days that God has appointed and said, rest on this day, don't work on this day. Right? There are festivals, right, celebrate, during this time, celebrate what and celebrate liberation from slavery, celebrate, you know, my rescue, celebrate the way I've passed over you, right, and, you know, that kind of thing. It doesn't look tremendously different. There's a there's, there's subtle differences. I observe Shabbat on Saturdays now, so I turn off my phone for the entire day. And, you know, good luck reaching me on on Saturday. But, you know, whenever our church finally does open up, and we resume Sunday services will probably go to them. I, you know, Yom Kippur was a few weeks ago, so I, I just didn't work and sat around. And it was a beautiful sunny day. And I went outside and sat out here in the driveway and in a lawn chair and sat there and got soaked up the sun, you know? Yeah, I think I think it would look very, very similar. Except there's certain days and times of the year, I'm either not available or participating in certain activities with with other believers. But that I mean, that's the same as any, pretty much any faith, I think.
Josh Steimle
Interesting. So you're on this journey, and you're in the middle of this journey still? And sounds like you're pushing forward and seeking something that matches your, what you've read in the Bible, essentially, you're looking for that faith that matches what existed back then. Or that is a continuation of those things.
Paul Edwards
Yeah, I, when I look at some of the confusion we've created. Have we created it to the Romans created? You know, I don't I don't even I don't even want to get into the blame game. I just say that there. There's a lot of things that we do in traditional liturgical, or evangelical Christianity, um, that quite frankly, are not hitting me there that I feel I feel vacant and numb with them, right? I don't I mean, my family will celebrate Christmas. Yeah, we'll go over we'll exchange gifts. I don't feel anything at Christmas. I just don't. I've done it enough times, and I see enough what do you want to call it perversions or alterations of it or whatever? You know, I see all these people who don't even believe in God celebrating it. And I'm like, you know? And I was like, This isn't a giving. This isn't answering what I'm really after.
Josh Steimle
You're looking, you're looking for a more fundamental path of discipleship. That sounds
Paul Edwards
I want deep seated change. I have. I have been such an idol worshiper and such a so incredibly arrogant and self righteous that I don't do well. I don't do anything in the shallows. It's the deep end or bust for me. So I'm like, you know, if I'm a brand new beginner at something, yeah, I'll do the shallow end for that, but I don't stay there. I want pedal to the metal give me you know, give me all of it if I choose to get involved in it. Yeah, I'm going until there's there's nothing left.
Josh Steimle
You're an extremist.
Paul Edwards
I'm an extremist. Yeah,
Josh Steimle
That's what I had somebody tell me too. She's like, I was talking to a therapist and talking about some of my thing, challenges I was going through and she's like, you're an extremist. Look at your calendar. It's all planned out and everything you do you do it 100% or you don't do it at all. And it's everything. Anyway. So when you talk okay, I can relate to that.
Paul Edwards
Yeah. What about you? I thought I saw you were LDS.
Josh Steimle
Yeah, someone, a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints and I grew up, that's the faith that I grew up in, I'm still active in it and as active as I can possibly be, or trying to be as active as I can be. And I but I love all religions, I love studying. I feel like all religions are connected. I think it's very interesting that everyone around the world believes in some time, it's like 95% of the world believes in a higher power. And it cuts across every culture in every continent, in every geographic group. And that is fascinating to me, and especially, I love finding similarities between religions. And so I can look at the history of Islam and say, there are things in Islam that match up with my faith. I mean, they fast and we fast, and they wear certain clothing that represents their faith, and I wear certain clothing that represents my faith. And their, they have certain teachings that match. I mean, they have a lot of teachings that match up with the teachings that I believe in. And they believe that Mohammed spoke to the angel Gabriel and that he gave him new information. And well, I believe in prophets from the Bible and the New Testament, and that God and angels visited prophets and gave them information. So I see these similarities. And even I just read not the Bhagavad Gita, but I read a book about the Bhagavad Gita, it was it, I guess, it was a translation of the Bhagavad Gita. But I was reading that and I was thinking, I had no idea. I didn't know anything about Hinduism. And I'm finding so many similarities between Christianity and teachings in the Bhagavad Gita, so that then I'm thinking, where did this come from? I mean, was this just somebody made this up? Or did God speak to somebody and say, Hey, I'm going to give you this information. And that's where the Bhagavad Gita came from. And so I love studying all religions, I believe that all major world religions, at some level, were inspired by God to help those people and to lift them up and help them live a happier life and prepare them for the next life. And so I just love studying all religions and hearing everybody's perspective and why they believe what they believe and what path they're on. It's just, it's fascinating to me. I gotta tell you this, I am my oldest son, we just signed him up for Boy Scouts. And I don't know how it is where you are, but here, it's like 99% of the Boy Scouts are LDS. Yeah, that's
Paul Edwards
like they only were the only non LDS father and son involved in the troop. Yeah, and it doesn't bother me at all. And here's the reason why. When it comes to what they're like to live next door to and how they are deeply involved in their kids lives and raising, you know, solid, intact families, man, you couldn't pick a nicer group of people and more thorough to live next to.
Josh Steimle
Well, I'm glad to hear that.
Paul Edwards
I'm like, shoot, I mean, this, this is gonna be a good influence. I don't care. I mean, what the, you know, maybe there's theological differences. Yeah. But I mean, he's gonna learn exactly the kind of lessons that I I struggled to teach him on my own, because I don't know all of this stuff, especially the outdoorsey stuff. I just I don't know it very well, you know, so, huh?
Josh Steimle
Yeah, I grew up going to scouts. I'm an Eagle Scout. And the church had kind of an official quasi-official relationship with the Boy Scouts for, I don't know, last 70 years, 80 years or something. And they just separated a year or two ago or so. And, in a way, it's kind of sad, but maybe it was time for that. But I think a lot of people from my church are still remaining active in Boy Scouts, even though there's not that official relationship between the church and the Boy Scouts anymore. But yeah, well, thank you so much for talking about this side of things with me too. Are you okay with me leaving in this on the end of the podcast, just this additional casual comment?
Paul Edwards
That's fine. I mean, I'm, like I said, I'm, there's, there's there's not much. I'm not interested in in hiding anything. And I'm not implying that you're saying that, but I'm just like, I want people to feel like they know me. Because that's the way that, you know, that's the way I succeed as people connect with something I say, or how I say it or, and all that. And as long as it's the truth, you know, the right people will come out of the woodwork and everything will be hunky dory. So, yeah.
Josh Steimle
Well, I appreciate that I like sometimes just leave things recording after the quote unquote, end of the podcast, because so often, there's another discussion after the podcast. And I think, oh, we should have been recording this. This is really interesting. People are interested in this. And so I'm glad we had the chance to do this today. Well, Paul, once again, thank you so much. I'm glad that Ryan introduced us and we were able to get together for this. It'll be a few weeks before the podcast is released, because I've got a ton of work to do launching this whole thing from scratch. But I appreciate this. And once it comes out, I'll send you all the info and the emails with all the assets to share it out, and everything and I hope it results in some traffic coming your way. If you enjoyed this episode, and don't forget to subscribe. And if you want to spread the word, please give us a five star rating review and tell your friends to subscribe to. We're available on Apple podcasts, Spotify, and everywhere else you listen to podcasts. And if you're an entrepreneur interested in writing and publishing a nonfiction book to grow your business and make an impact, visit published author.com for show notes for this podcast and other free resources.
