Mom Life, AI, Masterminds & Launching Books I Cris Cawley DSH #371

Hey, I've got a book idea in my head and mapping out a table of contents with a book and just chapter by chapter and just letting it, hey, I've got some ideas and let it letting it expand upon those ideas.

It's unbelievable what it can pump out.

I mean, I've got all your ideas and your information, all of this stuff in your head on paper and getting it, you know, and then using AI to just kind of grow it and expand upon it.

It's pretty incredible what AI can do.

Wherever you guys are watching this show, I would truly appreciate it if you follow or subscribe.

It helps a lot with the algorithm.

It helps us get bigger and better guests, and it helps us grow the team.

Truly means a lot.

Thank you guys for supporting.

And here's the episode.

All right, guys, Chris Cowley here today.

I can't wait to dive into her world.

We're going to talk about books.

We're going to talk about raising a family, being an entrepreneur.

How's it going?

Awesome.

Doing great.

How are you?

Good.

You've helped 150,000 people launch a book, right?

Yes.

Thousands of people.

We've actually, well, through the whole marketing process, and we've been in it for 25 years now.

So we've helped over 150,000 people serving them in in the marketing and building a brand space.

And in the past 10 years or so, more so publishing a book.

And how have you seen the book space change in the last 25 years?

I know audiobooks are big now, right?

Huge, huge, absolutely.

So when it started, you know, back in.

2000-ish, you know, we were doing books on infomercials, believe it or not, selling a book on an infomercial and having a back-end high-ticket offer at the back end.

So much, much different space.

Now, that was pre-social media, pre-Amazon.

And of course, now there's all the things, but audiobooks now are definitely all the rage.

You know, everyone's busy, everything's buying for our time, everybody's distracted.

You know, it's easy to get distracted these days, right?

So audiobooks are kind of like the number one thing.

I caught the tail end of infomercials when I was a young lad, but now they're pretty much dead.

Oh, it's totally dead.

Yeah, it's a dead world.

It's so different.

Back then, it was a way to share your expertise, share your knowledge.

We were selling information products, and then on the back end of that had like live events and books and all the things, driving to a back end, coaching, consulting, software, things like that.

So, yeah, it's a different world for sure.

But you've done great at adapting.

Not a lot of companies make it 25 years, right?

And during the pandemic, if you were in the event space, you got crushed.

And now with audio books, if you're not adapting to that, so you've done well at kind of pivoting.

Absolutely.

And now with AI, you know, that world, even audio books, things are changing

using AI for all sorts of things.

And not so much AI to generate content.

You know, no one wants to read a book that's generated by AI necessarily.

But AI assisted for audio books and for physical books as well.

So that's kind of cool.

It's changing the game even again here in 2024.

So it's exciting.

I'm excited about AI.

I actually use AI to summarize videos on YouTube if they're like an hour or two, just because I don't have time to watch it all.

Sure.

And now you got me thinking, I might even use it on some books.

It's pretty incredible.

I mean, just even just mapping out, like if you're thinking, hey, I've got a book idea in my head and mapping out a table of contents with a book and just chapter by chapter and just letting it, hey, I've got some ideas and letting it expand upon those ideas.

It's unbelievable what it can pump out.

I mean, it's possible to present, to do a whole book, but it's much more interesting, obviously, if the book isn't just solely written by AI.

It's got all your ideas and your information, all of this stuff in your head on paper, and getting it, you know, and then using AI to just kind of grow it and expand upon it.

It's pretty incredible what AI can do.

It is.

Yeah, it won't replace the human aspect, like you're saying, like the emotional

part, the storytelling, but all the logical stuff, the organization, it makes complete sense.

Absolutely, and all the tactical.

And some of the best books have, it's a blend of tactical and the stories.

You know, facts tell, stories sell.

People want the story.

They engage, they relate.

But then the tactical piece of it, you know, makes it more interesting or maybe a few little takeaways or golden nuggets, how-tos, things like that.

Yeah.

So.

I want to talk about balancing the mom life.

So how many kids you got?

Three.

Three kids.

So a lot of people watching this are having kids are about to.

Sure.

What's some advice there on balancing the two things?

Oh, gosh.

It's been a wild ride, ride, right?

So we've been at this for 25 years.

My kids are 23, 20, and 14.

Damn, you ought to be young.

Yeah, well, I'm 50.

I just turned 50.

You look good 50.

Thank you.

Thank you.

So

it's been, it's...

Honestly, it's the best thing that's ever happened to me.

And now my kids, two of them are grown up and one of them is an entrepreneur.

Another one's kind of like doing some entrepreneurial stuff.

Nice.

So it's kind of cool to watch that and to see that.

But I'd say the biggest thing, I mean, I've traveled a lot.

I was speaking a lot,

seminars, I mean, all sorts of things over the years.

But when they were young, I took them with me.

They went with me everywhere.

So it was kind of a cool thing.

We kind of traveled, did the whole homeschool thing, and we, you know, traveled all over the place doing live events and such.

And it was great.

And now it's more, it's just balance.

You know, I think balance is important.

I think that's the biggest, probably the biggest challenge I faced being a mom, being a business leader,

volunteering, doing the stuff I'm passionate about, you know, trying to try to juggle all of that.

But it's really cool.

I think it's cool for you.

do you guys spend a lot of time or money or both on food especially cooking and ordering delivery well look no further than factor guys factor's got delicious ready-to-eat meals that you could cook in just two minutes they got over 35 different options to choose from every week they got calorie smart protein plus and keto they got what you need for your diet they got over 60 add-ons to help you stay fueled feeling good all day what are you waiting for guys get started and get after your goals restaurant quality food guys i've had quite a few meals i've tried other meal prep companies factor is actually my favorite by far.

The taste, the flavoring, the spices, all top quality.

They got breakfast, they got midday bites, whatever you need.

No prepping, cooking, or cleanup needed.

This is huge, guys, but you just throw it in the microwave for two minutes and you can eat right there.

You can pause or reschedule your deliveries anytime.

So it's the perfect solution if you're looking for something fast, something premium with no cooking required.

They've also done the math, it's cheaper than takeout, and it's dietitian-approved to be nutritious and delicious.

Head to factormeals.com/slash DSH50 for 50% off.

DSH50 at factormeals.com slash DSH 50.

For your kids to be able to see like, hey, you can have it all.

You know, you can be a, you know, what, kick button business and also, you know, have a family and have all the things and have a good life and travel and do all the things too.

So that's huge.

It's been cool.

It's been cool to be able to, my kids to witness that.

Yeah.

And you were homeschooling before it was normalized because this was 20 years ago.

Oh, man, way.

Yeah.

Well, my oldest was in kindergarten.

So yeah, it was like maybe 2005.

Yeah, back then you, I remembered you got bullied if you were homeschooled when I was growing up.

Absolutely, absolutely.

Well, and they we were traveling a lot and doing live events.

It was almost impossible to, I mean, we would have missed like every week we'd be missing days of school.

So, um, so yeah, it was just kind of cool to be on the road.

And honestly, now, even today, I still I have one daughter who's in high school.

I would in a heartbeat take her out of school and go travel the world and go do the things, you know.

Yeah, but she likes it.

Yeah, they get kind of rooted in grounded with sports and school and all the things.

So not so much, much, not that easy to do,

you know, the whole homeschool or travel thing just yet.

But, but I'm still young.

I have a long,

I still have an opportunity to go out and, you know, travel and do things.

And but it's great being a mom, being an entrepreneur, um, and a high-performance entrepreneur.

You know, just I work a lot.

Right.

We work with a lot of cool people, do a lot of cool things.

But it's been one of the biggest blessings of my whole 25-year career.

I love that mindset because you grew up with a single mother, right?

Yep.

So did you see a lot of work ethic from her?

I did, I did, but not a lot of money.

You know, it's different now,

you know, in today's age, because my parents worked hard, but they didn't have anything.

You know, they didn't have a lot of money.

So it was like you work really, really hard.

It wasn't like a lack of effort, but still to be able to pour in 40 to 60 hours and not still not have enough.

I think that's what drove me

as a young girl.

I was like, this is not, this is great.

I mean, I love my parents, but.

I want a different life for myself.

So I think that was where the drive, the internal drive and the determination and all of those things come from.

And as you know, being an entrepreneur, it's interesting.

People will say, how are you so driven?

Like, how do you, and it's not something that you create.

I don't think you can just turn that on.

I think there's experiences and things in our lives that shape who we are and where we've come from.

And a lot of people who've made it big and make seven figures, eight figures, nine figures, they came from nothing, right?

So you've kind of got this like internal.

you know, hustle, grind culture.

Yeah, no, similar for me.

Similar for me.

So both my parents were immigrants, worked nine to fives,

but that lifestyle lifestyle was too slow for me.

Even though they were able to save their way up and become millionaires over like 20, 30 year periods, I want to enjoy wealth at a younger age.

You know what I mean?

Absolutely.

Yeah.

And who wants to wait until you're older and have health problems and can't travel and can't do all the things?

I felt the same way.

I was like, I wanted it.

I was determined.

I mean, even before I got out of high school, I was like, I'm going to make a million before I'm 25.

Wow.

And that's back then, that's a lot.

Because a million today

isn't the same as that.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's different.

We were, I remember in the infomercial days, we were were selling high-ticket, you know, $25,000 programs.

And now people, I know, sorry to say back then, that was like high, high-ticket.

That's like 100K now.

It was much, much, much different.

We were doing some pretty cool stuff, but that whole world of just what was possible, you know, once you get a little taste of it, it's like, wow.

I can, you know,

once you see it's possible and experience it, it's like, there's no stopping.

When I made the switch to high ticket, which was probably last year, my life became so much easier because I was focusing on volume for a lot of my first five years of entrepreneurship.

Sure.

Just like low ticket, but volume.

Sure.

And there's way more work.

Oh, it's way more work.

And sometimes it's not as enjoyable.

No.

Right.

When you're doing high-ticket and working with people who are doing some really cool things in the world, it becomes, you know, it's just like that's your circle.

Those are your peers and you're doing some cool things with cool people

and making a lot of money at the same time.

So it's great.

You can't have it all.

You know, people say, oh, it's too hard.

You can't have it all.

I disagree.

I disagree.

You absolutely can't have it all.

And at a young age, I think it's great that even like my daughter's 23, 20, I'm like, they're starting to experience it and get a good taste of it.

And it's like, you know, and now, of course, I'm 50, but I started when I was like 25.

And I'm like, man, if I knew now what I knew, like at 20, what would I know now?

I think about that too.

Rock the world, right?

But I think everything happens as is for a reason.

Absolutely.

And no complaints.

I mean, I still have.

great life ahead of me and lots of life left.

And

I feel like we've kind of gotten it figured out, but we're still always leaning into growth and doing new things and developing new things and just kind of rolling with the industry and trying to be at the forefront and cutting edge of the publishing industry, which has been good.

I love that.

You never get too comfortable, right?

Because that's when people pass you.

Never.

Are you interested in coming on the Digital Social Hour podcast as a guest?

Well, click the application link below in the description of this video.

We are always looking for cool stories, cool entrepreneurs to talk to about business and life.

Click the application link below and here's the episode, guys.

Never too comfortable.

Always, always innovating, looking at the next thing.

What's next?

How can we be different?

How can we set ourselves apart?

How can we be better?

How can we help our clients better?

How can we serve them better?

Yeah,

that's the name of the game.

That's cool.

And you're also great at putting yourself in the right rooms.

I want to talk about the networking side of things.

You built up a great mastermind.

You've probably been part of other masterminds.

How did you build that base?

Well, in the beginning, it was speaking, believe it or not.

So speaking on stages.

That's where I got a lot of my people would come up to me at the back of a room and ask about, do you have a mastermind?

Or do you consult?

I remember the first time I got invited to speak, I was like wow that's kind of wild they're asking me if I have like book back then it was like books and tapes you know what I mean I was kind of like what are they talking about I had no idea like this whole world this whole digital side of things and um but the stages really got me you know that that's where I got I think I got got known and got to know other people and then I joined other masterminds some higher ticket masterminds and then starting my own mastermind and it's been great it's been great I mean just I feel like I feel like in the everyday world I mean we're serving really high-level, high-performance entrepreneurs.

The books we're publishing and the people we're helping build brands are very, I mean, they're all experienced, you know, very successful entrepreneurs.

But I feel like with the mastermind, it's more like

kind of like those are my people.

Like my, they become kind of like peers, right?

They come to learn, they come to grow, they come to network.

But it's good for me too, because, you know, being in the digital space or, you know, the way things are here in 2024, it's just different.

Like you could, you could never see a human and be really successful working on a computer and never

like see anyone face-to-face so that's kind of like what feeds my my soul it makes me you know you get out and you meet people and you have people come in and you invite really cool people in that you want to meet and yep you know it's kind of like this you know you get to see cool people interview cool people you learn cool things every day that's kind of what keeps it exciting otherwise i think it'd be kind of boring just agreed sitting in a cubicle all day or sitting at home i could work from anywhere in the world but it would get boring if there were no face-to-face interaction with people so absolutely that's why people went crazy during the pandemic, including myself, because I couldn't handle those Zoom calls after a certain point, man.

I needed to see you face-to-face like, like this.

I'm with you on that.

Yeah, I don't do podcasts virtually, and I'm really strict on that.

I've had some huge guests try to come on the show and want to do it virtually, and I've said no.

Yeah.

Because it's not the same feeling.

It's not.

No, this is, there's, you can't replace this, right?

And that's what a mastermind brings.

I feel like that's what brings.

It's just the people, the interaction, the energy, the vibe, all of it.

You know, it's all of those things.

And because everything else can be, you can do business deals on the phone or whatever virtually, but it's just, you know, magic happens in a room

with people and the right people.

And getting in the right rooms is important.

So important.

Changed my life.

My first mastermind I joined changed my life.

I was the brokest kid in the room.

Found a couple great mentors that took me under their wing and they brought me up to their level a few years later.

Incredible, right?

Yeah, it's the name of the game.

Getting in the rooms and getting in the right rooms and investing that money.

You know, people are always afraid to spend high amounts of money and they're like, what am I going to get from this?

And what kind of value am I going to get?

But it's the best money spent because getting in the right rooms with the right people,

it will change your life.

It does change your life.

And you're one of many.

You know, you hear that a lot.

People say that, but it's, yeah, it's, that's kind of my people side of the business, right?

And we hear people's stories and interview people all the time and record books all the time.

But again, it's all done.

It's not done in person.

So that's like the people side of the business that I absolutely love.

Even more so than speaking and traveling and all of that.

Going to a great mastermind three or four times a year, that's like

can't wait.

Yeah, you're paying for access.

That's what people need to shift their mindset.

They're expecting like an immediate ROI on the money.

And I think that's the wrong mindset.

The ROI is going to be over time.

Agreed.

And just for everything, everything that you do in your life, everything that you're going to get, you're going to either pay with your time or you're going to pay with your money, right?

It's going to cost you time or money.

So sure, you can waste, you know, take yourself 10 years to figure something out that someone else did in one year and you could just join a mastermind and pay the same, probably half the money and get in with the right people and learn and get there faster.

Absolutely.

So yeah,

it's interesting.

It's cool that you're so young and you get it.

A lot of people don't get it.

It takes them a while to figure that out.

Yeah, it shouldn't be a tough sell.

If you're paying for the right access, the right mastermind, it's a no-brainer in my opinion.

Agreed.

I try to go to at least a few years.

Same, same.

But the thing is, you need to provide value, right?

So one of the things you provide is the book publishing.

I know you can't disclose all the celebrities you worked with, but who are some notable people you've helped publish a book with?

Sure, sure.

So some of the people that we've worked with most recently, and we've worked with a lot of people over the years, but we've worked with Rudy Maurer,

Taylor Welch, Kristen Mayshore, Ben Newman.

Nice.

Tarik O'Musa from Flipper Flop.

Nice.

Tom Reber from HGTV.

So we've done a lot of different, it's all entrepreneurs, so we only publish nonfiction.

And it's really, for most of these people, it's about building their brand, really.

It's about building their brand, and the book is a piece of the puzzle.

They're using the book as a tool to leverage to get on the right stages, to get in the right rooms.

I can't tell you the number of people that have said, oh, I want to get on this podcast or I want to speak on this stage.

And they have a hard time.

They write a best-selling book.

They write a little personal signed note inside the book, send it to the person.

It's funny how the magic happens.

It's kind of grassroots old school, but

it's so cheap, too.

The books are like five bucks.

You can just send out 100 and you never know what will happen.

Absolutely.

Yeah, it's great.

It's fun.

It's fun to see.

It's a small piece of the puzzle and people with them building their brand and building their back end and getting clients and getting exposure and visibility and authority and all of that.

But it's really cool because you meet some really great people who are very heart-centered and impact-driven and doing cool things in the world.

And a book is just a vehicle.

I look at Alex Hormosi and how many doors got opened up from his first book, $100 Million Dollar Offers, and it's just insane.

I know, Alex.

Alex is a great guy.

And it is insane.

I mean, that book, this last book launched, did you see the last book?

20 million leaves even crazier.

Unbelievable the number of people that came together for a book and rallied behind him just for a book.

A book in 2023 where like you think no one even reads books anymore.

Right?

Yeah.

Yeah.

I'd say those books, that book,

I would love to know the number of books that he sold.

He actually disclosed it recently on a podcast.

I think he's selling...

might have been 80,000 a month copies.

Wow.

Incredible.

He said it goes up every month.

Right, right.

Well, now it's so viral and everyone talks about it and in the new book now, you know what I mean?

And I remember talking to him early on years ago about how he was going to do different sets.

You know, it's like a series of books.

So he told you?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

We, we were talking and doing some stuff way back when, and I've known Alex for quite a few years.

But yeah, he talked about kind of the game plan and what he wanted to do.

Nice.

And he's a man of action, man.

A lot of people speak words, but they don't act on them.

That's right.

That's right.

Yeah, he's great.

Incredible human for sure.

Impacted a lot of lives.

Oh, yeah.

It changed mine.

I mean, 100 million offers.

I instantly implemented some of the things from that book and made direct money off that book.

Yep.

ROA.

Yeah, that's why I like nonfiction.

Yes.

Yeah.

Nonfiction is great.

I mean, you're honestly, that's what I love about it, too.

It's people that are changing people's lives with information.

It's knowledge, expertise that they're sharing with the world.

So it's like they're sharing their story.

And every entrepreneur has some really cool story.

You know, you kind of dig in.

If you dig deep enough, it's like, wow, never knew that about that person.

But then the tactical information they're sharing and their expertise and their knowledge and all the things i mean they're out there like we can only impact so many lives we're publishing about a hundred to 120 books a month dang um but think of all the people that those people impact you know each of those people have their own following they have thousands of followers sometimes millions of followers so the people the number of lives they're impacting it's like wow when you think about it it's like holy cow that's millions right a lot of lives change yeah because one person has direct contact with maybe up to a hundred people so like you're impacting millions Absolutely.

It's fun.

So cool.

It's a fun business.

I saw you speak at Harvard and MIT.

I did in Stanford.

That is crazy.

So with an audience that young, what is the messaging centered around?

Building a brand, you know, building a brand.

And because a lot of these kids, you know, I also spoke at Cornell and it was interesting.

These kids are, I mean, it's, it's, I feel like when I was in college, it wasn't as like entrepreneurship.

I don't even think that was an option.

You know what I mean?

Like I

said, right?

It was kind of like, oh, that's cute.

You know, it wasn't like a real thing, right?

You're not going to go off and be an entrepreneur.

What are you going to do with that?

That type of thing.

They sort of like talked you out of that kind of thing.

But now it's more about, I mean, these kids are brilliant.

There's so many tools.

And I feel like the digital thing, like back then, it wasn't cool.

But this last year I've spoken, I've spoken at many universities, high-level entrepreneur,

high-level universities.

But most of the schools that we're speaking to, we're speaking to entrepreneurs too.

Like at Cornell, they were all, the dean of entrepreneurship brought me in.

So it was all entrepreneur types that are people.

That's cool.

So there's like 300 kids who were just interested in building a brand.

Right.

And

fascinating.

I mean, they're brilliant kids.

And especially growing up now with AI and all the things that are coming out in the digital age.

And I think people are starting to recognize more so, more now so than ever that

you can make.

a ton of money and do big things in the world digitally.

Yeah.

You know what I mean?

Or just online or something that's related to online.

You don't have to like, you know, it doesn't have to be like a brick and mortar store or whatever.

It can be, you know, online.

But I think that a lot of them, they just had a lot of ideas.

They were asking a lot of questions.

Even now, they follow up with me a lot on LinkedIn,

asking questions.

And yeah, it's just kind of cool to kind of light a little spark in their minds about what's possible out there.

Yeah.

I think when you're that age, you have so much energy.

It's just a matter of directing it in the right ways.

For sure.

Because I look back at when I was working in college.

I mean, I would work 18-hour days, but it wasn't on like things that would get me farther.

It was more like short-term.

Like, let me make some money.

Just let me get by.

Let me make some money this week or this month.

Exactly.

So I think, yeah, having a mentor earlier on would have been game changer.

Absolutely.

Do you ever, have you ever heard of Peter Lowe?

Do you remember the Peter Lowe success tour, like the seminars and such?

No.

So, yeah, super old school.

I mean, I'm really dating myself now.

But when I was like maybe 23, 22, 23, I went to one of those events.

And like, I mean, there were a ton of like big name people there.

Trump was there.

Susie Orman was there.

George Foreman was there.

Peter Lowe, yes.

So these big stages and these tons of people.

But it was that one event, like that first event like that, where there were probably 50,000 people in this arena.

I was like, wow, this is interesting.

Like all these people are making money, doing all these things.

And I always thought, okay, if they could do it, I could do it.

That's kind of what sparked my, huh?

I wonder if I could do something on my own or be my own boss and do my own, you know, because I was like a, I was staying at home.

I was a stay-home mom with a new baby.

and i was like what could i do i don't want to drive to work two hours each way every day what can i do different how can i make money what can i do um and just i think having exposure to that my parents didn't show me that stuff i found that i don't even know how i found that but i found it but i'm so grateful to this day because i know i'm exposing my kids like i take my kids to these cool events yeah you know a lot of people have said oh it's cool i see you with your kids everywhere i'm like

well they're adults i mean they're adults now and um but even their eyes you know the first time i took them to see tony robins they're kind of like oh my gosh like what's possible?

It just, you know, it sets off something else in your brain that is a little bit not so traditional.

Yeah, because you don't know what's out there.

So I think you get so used to just your world in the moment that you need to get exposed to people like Tony Robbins and other big industries.

Absolutely.

And school and college, you know,

I never heard anything about this kind of stuff when I was in college or in high school.

I mean, nobody ever, it wasn't a thing, right?

And even now, I mean, my kids are in school and it's like they don't teach you about entrepreneurship.

Definitely not.

This online world or what's possible i remember my oldest daughter when she was in college she was in a marketing class and they didn't even mention social media the whole semester and i'm like how is that possible

in 2020 that no one's talking about in my college a college course i went to so i went to rutgers in jersey yeah and i i actually couldn't get into business school because my gpa was too low and i couldn't pass pre-calc second most failed class at rutgers so but i could take this one marketing class and i still remember the professor you know he had 40 failed businesses or something.

Wow, something absurd, and he was teaching.

And I'm just like, why am I here?

Like, I'm learning from this 70-year-old guy that has failed businesses.

40 failed businesses.

Yeah, he's just teaching a class.

And I'm like, this isn't it, man.

Yeah, it's not it.

Well, I, and I remember she came home one day and she said, is $40,000 a lot of money?

And I was like, no, it's not.

It's definitely not.

But she's like, well, that's what they're telling me.

I could make when I get out of college, I can make $40,000.

Oh, my God.

And that's right when hit.

And she came home and

long story short, but started a business and her first month made $11,000

at 19.

And she was like, I'm not going back.

Yeah, 40K these days, living off that, if you have a family.

No way.

It'd be really tough.

No way.

Yeah.

Living anywhere.

Yeah.

Right.

We live in Texas even, but it's just not in California, definitely not.

That's where we used to live.

And now I'm in Texas.

But even that, that's not.

I mean, considering, I mean, when she made $11,000 in one month, her brain was like, okay.

Yeah.

Now that's the new normal, right?

But now now that's her baseline.

It's all about leveling up your baseline.

Well, that's just it.

So you get exposed to that, and then you're like, oh, gosh, what, you know, if, if that, wow, if this 19-year-old kid could do it, maybe I could do it.

Or she's like seeing me do it every day.

And she's like, well, if you can make this much in one day or this much in one week, but, you know, because there's so many, the traditional job world, you know, it's like, it's not that exciting for in a lot of, you know, there's not that many industries, unless it's something you just really want to do.

Like you grow up and you say, I really want to do this for a living.

But 80-20 economically.

I mean, 20% of people enjoy it.

I'd say 80%.

Most people do not enjoy the nine-to-five lifestyle.

No.

And even if they think they do, they get into it.

And it's like, okay, it's not as exciting as I want.

I feel underpaid, overwhelmed.

So it's cool to expose, be exposed, or expose people to things that are good.

change their lives.

Absolutely.

Cali to Texas.

Wow, that's a big change.

So walk me through what was going on during that time.

Yeah, just to be with family.

You know, I was having my third child and I wanted to be near a family.

So

California is great.

I mean, it was great at the time.

You know, this was, gosh, we moved 15 years ago.

I spent most of my adult life there, though.

So that was Pete Cali.

Now it's not the same.

Right.

It's not, it's so much different.

And, you know, and it wasn't conducive to business.

You know, I had a business, a very successful business, and the tax is just everything.

I mean, just everything was just brutal.

And so Texas, we're like, oh, no state income tax and all the things.

And there's just, it's just, it's a little bit different, a little more conducive to owning your own business.

I had family.

I had support.

You know, I was traveling a lot still yet.

I still travel, but now it's more,

like you said, like the masterminds or for travel things I want to do.

I don't travel just to, I wasn't, I'm not on the road every week like I used to be.

So back then I needed more support.

I needed family.

I didn't want my kiddos to be raised by nanny.

So, you know, I wanted them around family and people, you know, that loved them.

So it was a good move.

It was a really good move.

Was the husband also an entrepreneur?

No, he was a sportscaster.

Oh, okay.

Yeah, he was Fox Sports, ABC, did all these different

football show,

had a lot of cool stuff that he was doing.

And he retired to spend more time with our kids.

Nice.

Yeah, to spend more time was really fun.

We had a lot of cool, you know, somebody on the plane today was talking to me about Super Bowl and going to the World Series, all these things.

I was like, yeah, we did some really cool stuff like that, you know, for many, many years with this job.

That's a cool way to raise kids because one has the nine-to-five corporate lifestyle and you have the entrepreneurship.

So you provide both perspectives.

Absolutely.

And you know, and I'm not going to lie, him having a job that was like very making a great amount of money when i started was like a cushion right so i could i could go out there and fail and it would be okay we could still pay our mortgage pay our bills but it was like a safety net yeah you know what i mean so that's important to establish very much so so i feel like a lot of people are risk adverse because of that they feel like well what happens if i fail well what if you fail you get back up you do you do something else or you do it again or whatever but i still had the the income wasn't like oh gosh what's going to happen if i if i fail yeah and then we started to do really well and eventually he was like, I'm going to retire,

which was great.

And now we travel and raise our kids and do cool things and have cool experiences.

That's awesome.

Wow.

So he retired pretty young, huh?

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's been, gosh, it's been

16 years maybe.

So, yeah.

Damn.

And he didn't have an itch to work at all?

Well, yeah, he does now.

I mean, we have our companies.

You know, we have a couple of companies, a software company, a publishing company.

And so he does a lot of the operations type stuff.

But coming from being a sportscaster to that, it's totally different.

Yeah.

You know, and for someone that's used to getting paid every Friday, every two weeks or whatever, coming to that world was a little scary for him.

But it's just continued to grow and it's flourished.

We've built our brand and our business and it's been really good.

I've been really, really blessed, really grateful.

But I also work really hard.

I worked really hard to get here.

Yeah, incorporating family into business.

Let's talk about that because that could go either way.

Sounds like you guys are killing it.

I'm killing it with mine as well.

But a lot of people I talk to, there's some issues.

For sure.

Yeah.

I have both of my older girls involved in our business, my sister.

So I've hired, yeah, I've hired some different people, some friends and friends and their kiddos.

It's interesting.

It is a little bit tricky because I'm high performance.

I demand a lot.

I have to have a more go.

Publishing is a very deadline-driven business.

So we're always like, got to go, got to go.

We have a deadline, a launch date, all these things.

So it's kind of tough because I'm like high energy and, you know, always kind of like going 200 miles an hour.

And what I've realized as I've gotten older, not everybody's like that, right?

I'm very like driven and got to go and we have to do this, this, this, this, this.

And I go and I multitask, I do 100 things at a time.

And not everybody's like that.

So sometimes my expectations, I feel like I need to kind of rein myself in.

Yeah.

And like, this is not the norm necessarily, but we set really high standards for ourselves.

And me, I have very high standards.

So I'm like,

similar problem with me.

So when I work with friends, it usually doesn't work out.

And now I'm very picky if I want to work with a friend because I know it might impact that friendship.

Yes.

So I try to have it the other way around where we become friends after some business success.

Yeah.

I feel like it's easier that way.

Yeah, for sure.

It is tough because it's like you're not always,

it's not that you're not always on your best, but you're like you're not showing your best, but it is tough because if someone doesn't have a lot of energy or they're being lazy or they're being whatever, they just don't care as much as you care.

It's tough.

It's hard.

It's your business.

It's like your baby.

So, yeah,

it's one of those things.

I mean, I kind of handle it with kid gloves, white gloves.

I'm just very like, okay, just

a very delicate line to kind of juggle and to balance for sure.

What are you focusing on this year?

Anything exciting that you're working on?

Yeah, we're doing a published, something called publish.ai software, new software to develop content.

So we started off as publishing, saying, hey, it'd be cool to be able to leverage AI to help publish books.

Again, not AI-generated content, but AI-assisted content.

And then it kind of grew into, you know, a lot of our authors are doing their press releases and they're doing articles and they're doing books and they're doing social media content.

So we actually are in the process of building out our own language model.

But at the time when we launched, it'll be...

you know, powered by, of course, using ChatGPT.

But we've built out, we've got some great prompt engineers from Google that helped us with this.

They've been in the prompt engineering world for 10 years now.

Wow.

And a lot of of people think, oh, Chat GBT just came out or AI, but AI has been around for quite some time.

I've heard that.

I've heard it 20, 25 years.

Well, think about all the Alexa and all the things, you know, in your house, all the things.

That's all AI-driven stuff.

So, you know, it's been around for a bit.

But yeah, we're just building the software

more for a continuity base.

You know, we don't have a continuity.

We've got the high ticket.

We have the masterminds, but this is, it's kind of cool to build something.

I've built a couple of softwares before, so it's fun.

It's a fun project.

And

AI is kind of at the forefront of everything now, right?

Even for videos.

And, you know, you see people creating courses with AI and it's not even there.

It looks like them, sounds like them, but it's not them.

I'm like, gosh.

I've seen that.

Yeah, the virtual avatars.

It's scary.

It is kind of scary.

It's scary, but exciting.

Yeah.

And I'm glad to hear someone your age say that because me being 50, I'm like, it scares me, but I'm like, it is a little different.

It's different.

Because anybody can make a video with somebody with you saying anything.

And it's like, that's not me.

Exactly.

That's why I'm personally scared because people with a following could be easily manipulated.

Fake videos,

great influencers.

And absolutely.

I saw some things.

I've seen some images and some videos online where I'm like, wow, that looks very real.

I get ads for Joe Rogan, like promoting products, but it's not even him.

But it looks very much so.

It sounds in even your voice.

It sounds just like him.

Yeah, like with audiobooks, we had a gal the other day that submitted an audiobook, and she had recorded three minutes of her voice with this software.

Yeah.

And this software recorded the whole audiobook.

No way.

With like voice inflection I mean it was that's crazy it was really hard to detect wow so it's really it's kind of crazy what's it's coming guys coming to

go anywhere it's been fun where can people find you game changerpublishing calm or Instagram official Chris Cauley Facebook official Chris Cauley LinkedIn we're all over the social channels not as much on TikTok yet we're there but don't have as much of a presence we gotta get you on most of our following comes from Instagram and LinkedIn and but yeah gamechangerpublishing as well.

We'll link it in the video.

Thanks so much for coming.

Awesome.

Thanks for having me.

Yeah, thanks for watching, guys.

As always, see you tomorrow.