[00:00:00] Matt Ragland: Hey creator. In today’s episode, I interviewed my friend, Amanda Goetz. I wanted to talk about her creator journey, the startups that she worked with, and her decision to also take on a fractional CMO role at a startup. After this episode, you are going to realize that there are many more paths to being a creator than you previously thought.
So let’s go ahead and talk about that. You just announced that you are taking on a fractional CMO. It’s a really cool role. Did I say it right? Did I say it in the right way? Fractional CMO. With The Post. And I thought that was really cool. Uh, but tell me, tell me about a little bit about what it is and why you decided to take it on.
[00:00:33] Amanda Goetz: Yeah, it’s funny because, uh, I’ve been a creator now since I stepped away from the nine to five and I announced that and I did that in September of last year.
[00:00:44] Matt Ragland: And
[00:00:44] Amanda Goetz: so I’ve been, uh, So you’re about
[00:00:46] Matt Ragland: seven months in.
[00:00:46] Amanda Goetz: Right. I, you know, newsletter last summer, then launched the community, then launched the course.
And now I’ve got some other things, but it’s funny when I announced it this week, there was like this troll. I mean, it was completely anonymous account and I won’t say the name of the account because it was not PG 13. But this person said. Oh, you, you couldn’t cut it as a creator. Call it what it is. And like, you and I worked together, right.
Like I am gonna do, you know, know the numbers. Yeah. more than I’ve ever, ever made def definitely cutting as a cmo. Definitely. Yeah. And I had this like realization that I’m like, there’s such, this like buying bifurcation of being a creator or being in the industry. And so to answer your question, why did I take this one?
I’ve created all of these income streams that now have, have like economies of scale. They have systems in place, automations in place that I’m only spending five to eight hours a week on them. Right. And now I have the opportunity when a cool company comes to me and they are right in my sweet spot of like pre series a need to kind of level up their growth, their systems, their team, and they want to bring me on on a six month contract.
I’m like, yes, let’s go.
[00:02:10] Matt Ragland: Like you said, it gives you the opportunity. You have the optionality to do something like that because of not even just in the past seven months, but the many months and years before that of building the expertise and then building your, building your profile on social, building the email newsletter, all these things you were able to, like, there’s a.
Do you know Jack Butcher? Yeah. Yeah. So Jack, Jack is here in Nashville. Oh, okay. And I love his. He’s killed it. Yeah. He’s, he’s awesome. But I love his, you know, just really simple build one, sell twice. And you’ve been able to do that over and over again. And I think one of the things that I found interesting about this, and we were talking about this a little beforehand is like, you’re here in town for the conference, for a conference.
And it’s interesting because you were saying. When you left the marketing world initially to go into a creator role, there was some of that same kind of like, maybe comments of like, Oh, why would you leave this career that you’ve built for 20 years? Why would you leave it? Quote unquote, to go be a creator.
And now you’re going back in a little bit and people are like, well, obviously you couldn’t hack. And it’s interesting to just see. And I hope people like realize that there are going to be some haters and there’s going to be some doubters, like no matter which direction you go with this, you might as well go in a direction that feels right to you.
[00:03:25] Amanda Goetz: And you can get on and off the ride whenever you want.
[00:03:28] Matt Ragland: And
[00:03:29] Amanda Goetz: that’s the coolest part. I gave myself, because I didn’t know, I had never monetized my audience. Like, I have been tweeting for years. Across my three main channels at 150, 000 followers, never made a dollar. I didn’t know if people were going to buy something from me.
So I said, cause I just, I mean, I had not been tweeting with any intentionality. It was like my dating life. It was like, you know, ran moving for the pandemic. Like I had never really been focused on a singular thing, but But I was like, let me try. What would happen if I removed a safety net and I put all of my focus on this thing?
And I, I, I talk about this a lot. Like there’s this focus formula, but What would happen if you put all of your resources on a singular goal? It’s amazing what happens. For six months, I built four income streams. That’s the part, and now I get to get back on the ride for a little bit, learn, and it’s this beautiful flywheel because, like I was just saying to you, in the first week of being a fractional CMO again, I have so much content I want to write about.
Um, just like it
[00:04:43] Matt Ragland: gives you so many ideas.
[00:04:44] Amanda Goetz: Yeah. I’m back in building a brand. And also it’s symbiotic when you take your mind off of one problem and solve a different problem. This is why people say, go, go do a puzzle. If you’re stuck on something, right. Once you take your, yeah. Once you take your mind, the neural connections that happen over here.
Help reinforce like new ideas over here. And I’m like, Oh, I’m seeing things already with this new role that I’m like, Oh, I should be doing that in my creator side. It’s all connected.
[00:05:15] Matt Ragland: Yeah. I think something, and I’ve talked with, uh, Jordan mix about this and some other, some other people, Greg Isenberg is really big on this, like with community.
And you have. Not just the community now that you’re like building through the brand, but you have your office hours community. I have the hey creator community and I was telling you when we were getting coffee earlier today, like during, during one of our calls, uh, Darrell, my co founder partner, he did this 15 minute like marketing launch plan and I’m looking at this as like, This is something that now I’m going to take and I’m going to turn it into a YouTube video.
This is going to be a template. This is going to be a script for people to follow. This is something that is a benefit to other people in the community. And it all is because we are just like, we’re getting on calls. We’re interacting with people like face to face. And I think that’s something that is going to become even more powerful.
And you’re seeing it with office hours. You’re getting it when you’re working with your new team. Instead of like, we both, we both love an email newsletter, but like the face to face or like the, the chat to chat communication.
[00:06:18] Amanda Goetz: I think that email news, the days of being an email only without true connection to the humans reading it, because there’s a ton of email newsletters.
I saw Brian Sugar today created an AI so it can summarize all the topics of his newsletters, which I thought was amazing. But, um, it really does this, this flywheel of you get a. Appetizer of what I’m serving on social, you get kind of like this first course, uh, in my email newsletter, but the main course happens when we sit down and I hear about your problems specifically.
And that’s why I think communities like the ones we’re creating are so powerful because not only does it, like you said, When I’m in a one on one coaching someone or creating their marketing plan, I am now seeing 10 different tweets and 10 different posts and 10 different short videos that I need to create.
I was teaching somebody, this, this person was like, I’m so overwhelmed. I sit down and think about one for too long and I’m like, okay, let me show you something. And I, I like pulled up an old tweet and I, I showed her like, I have this like, 20 hooks document that I, I created and it’s like, let me show you how to turn that into 20 posts.
Right. And When she just like this light bulb went off where she was like, I don’t have to think every day and recreate the wheel. Right. But it’s all like such a beautiful flywheel that when you have those aha moments, you’re like, Oh no, this is going to be a great piece of content too.
[00:07:55] Matt Ragland: Yeah. It’s, it’s good things to like talk about.
It really is. It feels, it feels like you’re cheating.
[00:08:00] Amanda Goetz: Yeah.
[00:08:01] Matt Ragland: Like when I’m on a call, I like, I’m getting so much out of this. I know I’m providing value, but. When they’re saying things like it’s, it’s giving me, like, we’re both having light bulb moments at the same time. I know, like, during this conversation, I should talk about some more, even just through this.
[00:08:16] Amanda Goetz: Another thing that we could talk about, because, like, look, we work together, and we both are creating communities in a very similar space. I think that there’s something that is so beautiful about becoming a creator that when you actually connect on a human level, it’s like truly rising tide lifts all ships.
And I think that with my community, at first, like people are like, well, what if somebody else is also a brand marketer or somebody else is? Oh, you
[00:08:45] Matt Ragland: hear that all the time. Yeah.
[00:08:46] Amanda Goetz: And I’m like, you’re, I always say content is chicken. And you are adding your own flavors and spices, right?
[00:08:54] Matt Ragland: I like that.
[00:08:55] Amanda Goetz: And so you may be serving chicken marsala, and the people who love chicken marsala are coming to you.
Coming right on over. And I might be serving jerk chicken and the people who love that come to me. And that doesn’t mean that we’re competitive. We are just attracting people who want that flavors and, you know, those flavors and spices.
[00:09:15] Matt Ragland: And it’s, it also like when you see things like this exist in the topic, the niche, the market you want to create, it should be.
And she’s like, okay, there is like, there is a part of this that people want. Now I can provide my own flavor to it. Exactly. And, you know, we’re thinking about this in terms of like, also we have, we have like very similar communities, but they’re at different price points. There are different numbers. Um, they’re at like different, different levels of where, where the type of member is at.
I have a lot of, I have a lot of beginners. It’s not, not all beginners, but let’s say the majority. Uh, I think we did a, we did a member poll and I think, now this was a smaller sample size. This was just on a live call, but I think 60 percent of the audience had less than a hundred email subscribers. So like pretty, pretty new with all this.
And so like, I know that now I can market based on that and I can create content based on that. Those are the type of people and yeah, it’s, it is kind of, it is kind of tricky sometimes thinking about like. Like, how did you, I know we talked about this, but when you think about a community or you think about anything related to digital products, particular that question of like what type of price is right and what kind of access we’ll get, I think it’s especially important.
[00:10:36] Amanda Goetz: It is. And I mean, this is there’s it’s art and science. There’s no one way to do this. I wish there was a formula to follow. And you test and you iterate and you figure out what we we launched the community at one price point. And those were like the founding members. And then I raised it. And then I, I raised it and then realized maybe the first price point was the right price point and that’s okay too.
You figure out how to recalibrate and, and also number of members. Like, I’m not going for scale. I’m, I’m keeping it small. Like I kind of more have like a Jake Clouse approach to it. Um, but he’s like the MBA of creators and I’m like the, um, Well, I don’t
[00:11:22] Matt Ragland: know, I don’t know about, I don’t know about that. I don’t think you’re giving yourself enough credit, but I see what you’re saying.
Like, and to describe Jay’s model a little bit with creator science, with the lab, I do find it really interesting. And we talked about this a lot when we were, when we were launching. He’s so definitive, 200, 200, like that’s it. And I think this is like, this is so interesting. Cause it’s not only. It’s not that it’s at 200 is like, Oh, well, you know, I’m going to do another launch and we’re going to add another 20 people.
And it’s just like, it’s just 200. He’ll only launch or he’ll only open it up
[00:11:54] Amanda Goetz: when,
[00:11:55] Matt Ragland: when enough people cancel. Right. And so it’s an, I think he has like incredibly low churn for a membership community, because if you cancel, you can’t get back in.
[00:12:07] Amanda Goetz: It’s a really interesting concept, but I mean, look, it works.
I think a lot about with communities. And, and even doing this in my fractional CMO role, people who are coming up on their, their churn. It’s like really thinking about what value you’re bringing to them and how do you get ahead of those churn moments to make sure that they understand, Oh no, I have, because whenever that, that subscription renewal comes around, our human psychology is to come up with all the reasons why it’s not.
And so I always think about, okay. Now’s a good time to send a survey before they even know their subscriptions coming up like survey or launch a new feature or Offer one on one or something. Yeah, they don’t realize that I’m thinking that it’s 20 days before their thing But right it’s the same. Yeah
[00:13:00] Matt Ragland: new course new challenges starting
[00:13:03] Amanda Goetz: something of value But I think Jay has probably nailed that.
[00:13:08] Matt Ragland: Yeah, and I think with The way that I think about it also, uh, in comparison to J and cause I am going like for, HeyCreator, I’m going for more scale. I want more members, but, uh, it’s a lower price point. But I also think of it like. I’m attentive to churn, but I want it to be like, I don’t mind people churning just because they’re not interested for a little bit.
Now I would. They can
[00:13:30] Amanda Goetz: hop on and off the bus. Yeah. Yeah. I think
[00:13:32] Matt Ragland: of it like, yeah, a bus is a good example. I was thinking of it like a library, like you come in and out of the library, you learn what you need to learn and it’s, it’s a, I love that analogy. It’s kind of like it’s a low enough price point that you don’t mind leaving, but it’s also a low enough price point that you don’t mind coming back.
Yeah, for a little bit. That’s
[00:13:48] Amanda Goetz: a great analogy. Mine’s a little bit like a teacher’s office hours because I spend an hour a day literally looking at people’s, they’ll send me their welcome emails. I’ll copy edit it like I am pretty hands on. That’s why I’m keeping it. smaller, but it just shows you, because I think anyone from the outside would see our two communities and be like, aren’t they super competitive?
But then you lift under the hood and you’re like, no, they’re actually very different in how we’re approaching them. And it’s just a reminder that it’s all about finding your flavor and spice. Yeah.
[00:14:26] Matt Ragland: Yeah. I really like that office, I mean, it’s called office hours, but like the, the, the TA time where you’re coming in and like, Hey, I’ll, I’ll, I’ll look at this with you.
Cause I, I don’t have enough time with a number of members who like I go live for office hours, but it’s a lot more in a, like a larger, a larger group setting. Um, if people, you know, if it, if it makes sense for time and people send, send me something then like, I’ll go for it. But like, that’s another thing.
Like. Um, with a higher volume and with a lower price point, we’re pretty good about like setting an expectation upon coming in or like, I actually have a, like, it’s not a no DM policy, but it’s a probably don’t DM me this unless it’s something like that you don’t want the other rest of the group to hear about, but like, don’t, don’t DM me a general question, like ask it in the group so that everyone can take care, can help.
And also, yeah. And also it helps. There’s a lot of, there’s a lot of experts in the group as well. So the
[00:15:24] Amanda Goetz: questions too. Yeah. So someone
[00:15:26] Matt Ragland: was asking about like, Hey, how do I better track conversions to my sales page and to my website to understand where my customers are coming from? That’s not, that’s not my sweet spot.
I was like, what was the answer? Uh, I mean, as far as I use, like set up Google analytics and they’re like, well then what? I was like, I don’t know either. That’s what I, but then like, uh, yeah. Linda and Karen hopped in and was like, oh, all you need to do is this and make sure that you have these attribution settings on.
And I’m like, great. Glad you’re here. I don’t know. But that’s
[00:15:58] Amanda Goetz: the power of community. I always. Say that there’s like capital C community that brands are like, I’m going to, you know, talk to a group of people. Then there’s lowercase community, which is actually what you’re striving for, which is people talking to other people.
And I had this kind of, it’s like a maternal pride moment, I think, cause you build something and then you see it. But, um, I saw, I was watching the slack one day and. Somebody created a Google Doc, all the people who are trying to sell consulting services, so they could refer each other
[00:16:34] Matt Ragland: when
[00:16:35] Amanda Goetz: they get inbound.
If they’re not the right person, they can refer somebody else from office hours. And I was like,
[00:16:40] Matt Ragland: That’s awesome.
[00:16:41] Amanda Goetz: This, that’s when I know community is actually happening when I can be removed and there’s still value happening.
[00:16:49] Matt Ragland: Yeah. And that, that is, I mean, that’s the gold standard for any of us. We, I know for people who are often leading communities, especially in the more like.
Modern creator sense. You kind of set yourself up, I think necessarily at the beginning as the star of the show. And that’s you’re there watching your YouTube video. They’re listening to your podcast. They’re reading your newsletter. They’re following you on social. They’re like, they want to be around you, but it is like, it’ll only be sustainable.
Long term for everyone including including you including me if people are talking to each other It can’t always rely on just like, you know, hey, how’s it going? How’s it going today? I’m I’m ready ready to go back to
[00:17:31] Amanda Goetz: the like I only have so many Tools in my toolbox that I can share. Once my toolbox is empty, I need somebody else to kind of also share what they’ve got cooking.
And then I got to go get some new tools.
[00:17:44] Matt Ragland: And that’s where like to connect to like, when you are working like in the fractional CMO role, when I’m, you know, helping run the agency, when I’m working with clients, that’s where. I start to pick up new tools. Those are things that you’re like, Oh, Hey, Hey y’all. I was, I was working on this.
I, I got co I got coaching from this person. Here’s, here’s something new that I learned and I wanted to share it with you.
[00:18:07] Amanda Goetz: Yeah. I just had that happen because one of the questions I have with consulting for a group of consultants is, well, how do you make sure you’re out of meetings? Because. You have all this work to do as a consultant, but then you’re also not full time.
And so they’re like, how do you balance that? And I was like, well, let me show you what I did. Um, I was like, I don’t want to be in one on ones every week. Cause I hate one on ones. Cause I do think that unless I need something from you, And we can’t accomplish it on Slack. If I’m your consultant, you want me doing the work, not talking about it.
And so I said, okay, here’s the email I sent on Monday, sharing all the things I’m going to kick off working. Then on Thursday evening, I send this email. And then I show them how I show the blockers or what I need. And then on Friday they can respond so I can hit the ground running on Monday. And I shared that framework and people are like, Oh my gosh.
But like I wouldn’t have had, I wouldn’t have articulated it that clearly. And with such a clear example, had I not been doing it,
[00:19:10] Matt Ragland: just been done it. Yeah.
[00:19:12] Amanda Goetz: So I totally agree.
[00:19:13] Matt Ragland: One of the things that I also wanted to ask you, because like you’re, you have your three, two, one strategy and you have your to do strategy, but one of the things that I like find compelling and that I find interesting is it’s easy to get kind of caught in some of the busy work and get caught in short term tasks, short term thinking that like.
Oh, I have to like do this to ship the product that’s out that’s going out right now. I have to do this to like finish the marketing, the piece of marketing that has to go out, or I need to do this like meeting. And at the cost of that, you sacrifice more long term thing. You’re like, what’s the product that needs to be made in six months?
Or what’s the thing that should be building on top of the course or the feature set? If you’re at a company that needs to be done right now, how do you, how do you help separate? The short term things that do need to be done, but you can easily get lost in versus like putting together the consulting offer, putting together a new feature, putting together the course that, especially like if you’re in client work often, then like, and you want to get like out of that and create another revenue source, like making the time and focusing to do that.
[00:20:24] Amanda Goetz: There’s a couple of things there. I mean, one. I know my roadmap for like the next 18 months because
[00:20:33] Matt Ragland: you have a vision for where you’re going
[00:20:35] Amanda Goetz: that. And also I only launch one thing a quarter. I don’t try to do more, but one big thing a quarter is, and you do that four times a year is more than most people get done in a year.
Why? Because like, it’s, It’s, it’s that normal, everybody’s seen the visual where it’s like you can move four things forward 25 percent or one thing 100 percent and the next thing 100 percent and the dopamine hit you get when you launch something is huge. And now I’m ready to take on the next thing. And yes, you have to learn and iterate and grow that thing just because you ship it doesn’t mean it’s done.
Like even with the course, it’s like that was,
[00:21:11] Matt Ragland: but it’s done enough for a little while. It’s
[00:21:13] Amanda Goetz: done enough for a little while. And it’s, I am a. B plus, like, like I am good being not perfect
[00:21:21] Matt Ragland: and most people aren’t. So I like, I think that’s a super, that’s a superpower.
[00:21:25] Amanda Goetz: Yeah. I just. I have found like any deck that you’ve ever seen me present, unless MacK Seale has designed it for me, who’s amazing, it’s ugly and I don’t care because if the content’s good, don’t, don’t worry about the design.
I think I know
[00:21:41] Matt Ragland: MacK. She is awesome. She’s awesome. She did all of my incredible
[00:21:45] Amanda Goetz: masterclass design. But, um, so there’s that, like, I know once a quarter. But how do you create that thinking time? So Warren Buffett’s infamous for 80 percent of his time is thinking time, right?
[00:21:58] Matt Ragland: There’s another like little, have you heard the Warren Buffett story where someone, he tells somebody like one of his junior associates, he’s like, Hey, make a list of the top 20 things that are important to you.
And he makes a list. He’s like, okay, now write down the five most important things. And it’s like, okay, these are the five most important. He’s like, okay, these other 15 things you can’t do a single thing. Yeah. Don’t touch them. Yes. He’s like, well, they’re, they’re important. He’s like, they’re not as important as these and you will never get prioritization
[00:22:24] Amanda Goetz: is everything.
And that’s why I pick one thing a quarter, but then you have to create the space to actually think. Right. And so I have this two, one framework that is a little different than the ones you just said, which is like, I’m two weeks on one week off, two weeks on one week off, meaning two weeks. I’m in it. I call it like defense mode where it’s like, okay, I’m taking more meetings or I’m like doing the work of the thing.
And then I take a week where I come up and I’m on offense and I think, and those are the weeks that like, I’ve now got the newsletter down to like three days a month. I will crank on the next month’s worth of newsletters. And there’s something to, This okay, so the small tasks let’s get into like the weeds of it in the morning I don’t touch small tasks again offense defense my morning time.
I’m an offense So I’m creating that is something that is aligned with my goals and then day The afternoon is defense, so that’s when if somebody needs me from Slack, from email, etc. I will respond. I don’t, email is like, I’ve approached to email because I think email is the biggest waste of time. And I believe that we spend so much time in email and Slack.
That is not work, but people confuse it. They they’re waiting. They’re on the reactive. They’re waiting for someone to tell them what to do. And that’s a sign that you need to come up and say, Do you know what you’re doing? Do you know what the bigger things are with email? Once a week, I will clean it out, like, meaning I will go through anything that needs to be responded to that’s non urgent.
I will do it. But every day, I’m only skimming for fire drills. And guess what? People don’t need a reply to every email. Like, Hannah will send me an email being like, here are the three things I need from you. I will see it and I will program that into some part of my day, but I don’t need a reply.
[00:24:23] Matt Ragland: Yeah.
It’s not an immediate thing. No. So I
[00:24:25] Amanda Goetz: think that that offense defense mindset has helped me a ton. Two weeks defense, one week offense at the macro level. And I even think about it in months too. It’s like when I was writing the book, I had two months where I was like grinding. I was writing a chapter or two a week to get it done.
I was grinding and. Um, then I was like, all right, I’ve been on, now I’m off. And I just allowed myself to not for a few weeks. And it was so wonderful. And then when I jumped back in, I was like ready to go.
[00:24:58] Matt Ragland: And it goes back to also that subconscious we were talking about. Like, like, okay, I’ve, I’ve had some more experiences.
I have some more ideas.
[00:25:06] Amanda Goetz: Yeah.
[00:25:06] Matt Ragland: What made you want to write a book?
[00:25:08] Amanda Goetz: Oh, ego.
[00:25:10] Matt Ragland: I, I mean, that’s one of the reasons I want to write a book.
[00:25:13] Amanda Goetz: It’s truly. I mean, if anybody sits here and tells you otherwise. Like, yeah, I want
[00:25:18] Matt Ragland: it. I want it up there. Yeah. I want it on Clark’s bookshelf right there. That’s what, that’s what we’re going for.
Honestly.
[00:25:22] Amanda Goetz: I have two daughters. I started House of Wise with this mission of helping empower women make more space in their day. Mm-Hmm. and sold that company way before I wanted to. And I’m like, there’s still so much more I want to do and say and so I do have this like dream of walking into Barnes and Noble with my daughters and seeing it.
They, they know I’m doing it because there’s a like a thousand post it notes on my bedroom wall of the whole book laid out. I want, I want that moment, one, and then two, legacy. It’s like, we all are going to leave, and no one’s going to remember my tweets, and no one’s going to remember. But like, a book might live beyond, and my daughters will get to read it.
Share that with their daughters and so that that I think is really the motivator.
[00:26:14] Matt Ragland: Yeah, I mean, that’s that’s a great one I I know I’ve seen you tweet a few times about your habits having a blast radius Did you get up so early
[00:26:23] Amanda Goetz: to
[00:26:23] Matt Ragland: write and then sometimes one of your your daughters will get up and they’ll start writing with you Yeah, they’ll be doing something creative because they’re saying they’re seeing their mom.
They’re cool. No, I want to do
[00:26:34] Amanda Goetz: They’re like little sponges. Yeah, that, that morning was really cool. And she’s done it a few times now where I get up every morning 5 to 7 a. m. I write. It’s like clockwork. Um, and she got up one day and it was like 6 like, what are you doing? She’s like, I’m gonna write. And she had her little notebook and she is, was making a book and we’re gonna turn the, you know, we’re gonna, Design it and do it.
But, uh, and then recently, I don’t know if you saw, but she, her spring break project was she created this little rubber band bracelets and she’d been creating them for several weeks and she was like, mom, I want to sell them. And so I was like, entrepreneur opportunity here. So I was like, well, do you have the inventory?
Inventory means like, do you have enough to sell? Cause if you have a lot of demand, so that was like supply and demand. And I’ve had this. moment that like traditional education is not touching this stuff at all. And so it was this cool thing where I told her she had to create 50 bracelets and then, um, she had to keep track of how much it costs to make them because we were going to subtract the cogs.
Yeah. Talk about exactly. Um, and then I was like, There’s, there’s revenue, but then there’s profit and then taxes. I took some taxes, but, um, had to teach them the hard way. Exactly. Um, but it was so cool because she got it because she was doing it. And we went out, she made 52, which I was like, what? Um, and I just wish our schools.
more. And so being a parent and entrepreneur is like truly a superpower of passing that on.
[00:28:17] Matt Ragland: Yeah. It’s like, I’m looking forward to more of those opportunities with, oh, you’ll be great at it. It’ll be, it’ll be really, it’ll be really fun. The other thing, like you just talk about with kids, like my, my son, my oldest, he’s almost nine and he.
He does all of his math based on like sports scores. Oh, it’s like, Hey, if 24 minus 18, he’s like, well, that would be. Eight field goals to six field goals. So it’s like, so if I ask him to multiply anything by three, he’s like, okay, well, that’s just, that’s just 10 field goals, dad. And I’ll be like, okay, you know, whatever, whatever way it works for you to like, figure this out.
Um, it is, it is cool. Like being a parent, being an entrepreneur and just thinking about, or being a sports fan and thinking about how can like, I apply something that. Really resonates and makes sense to my kid.
[00:29:10] Amanda Goetz: Yeah
[00:29:10] Matt Ragland: to help them learn. I mean,
[00:29:11] Amanda Goetz: that’s I mean, this is how I got the bug My dad, I mean my parents didn’t go to college, but my dad started his own plumbing business.
Okay, he’s a you know plumbing electrician and I saw How hard it can be it’s like oh if people don’t pay you have a month where? You’re trying to get collect, you know, collect bills and stuff, but also I saw the freedom he coached all of my sporting. He was a high school golf coach for a bit. He was so hands on and I’m like, he worked hard like If he got called out on Christmas Day because somebody didn’t have heat, he would go.
And so I had this like very in touch with reality view of entrepreneurship, right? It is really hard, but also really rewarding, right? And so I was in it for
[00:30:01] Matt Ragland: extremities, the extremities there,
[00:30:03] Amanda Goetz: I’ve, you know, spoken on podcasts and panels are totally my jam. I feel very comfortable. I just recently did my first.
Keynote speaker training is another world. And that’s a whole other industry in mindset, right? Right. Like you can be a thought leader and go talk to people for 30, 45 minutes. But if you want to make like 30, 40 K as a keynote speaker, you’re no longer a thought leader. You’re a performer, you are up there with a craft.
You are stepping outside of yourself and becoming a character. And I didn’t fully understand that.
[00:30:46] Matt Ragland: I think it’s, it’s tough to wrap your mind around. It’s even, even for a creator, the way that we do it is like when you’re now on the main stage, it is, there is a whole nother level of performance to it that.
It’s not a rude awakening, maybe sometimes, but it can be something that you’re, I didn’t feel entirely prepared for, like when I, the first couple of times that I did it, I had to get like a speaking coach.
[00:31:14] Amanda Goetz: Yeah. I mean, that’s what I’m doing. I like, this is just to like, put it in a frame of reference. I have been media trained.
I have been on. Access Hollywood. Like I have done the circuits getting up on a stage in front of a thousand people and having to hold the room’s attention terrifies me and I hired, I’m doing a six month long coaching with this crew and their former actors and You feel so silly. It’s like, I’m a CMO.
Like I have built companies and now I’m like learning how to like do voice inflections and like dramatic pauses, but it’s fun. Like I did the initial training with them and The thing I had this, like, really cool moment with is, like, little Amanda would be pumped.
[00:32:09] Matt Ragland: Yeah.
[00:32:10] Amanda Goetz: Because I think I put adult Amanda in, like, this box of, like, you can’t be silly.
You can’t be too dramatic. You’re, like, a professional. And now I’ve stepped into this whole other world where they are perfect. pushing me to go further and further. And so it’s really fun. I
[00:32:28] Matt Ragland: read something, I can’t remember, I apologize where I can’t remember the source for this, but I was reading something that said like, what does your inner child like want to do today?
What would your inner child, what would a younger version of yourself be really stoked about? Because they don’t have the insecurities that we might have right now. I mean, like, you know, definitely. I said, they don’t have the insecurities that like, We might have. We picked up along the way. Yeah, we picked up along the way.
They’re just like, look at it. I’d be like, wow, you, like, I would even think about, like, there was a version of me in high school that was like really enjoying TV production class and I was learning about like transitions and jump cuts and all this stuff and I’d be like, oh my gosh, you get to do, get to do that.
[00:33:12] Amanda Goetz: Yeah.
[00:33:12] Matt Ragland: And so I, I think about these early versions of myself and like there was another, like Part of this where like when I was 30, so this was 10 years ago now, and we were just moved to Nashville Basically, I just met Clark But I had just moved to Nashville and I was like trying to do all these things and I look at like where I’m at at 40 and even at times when I think like I you know I wish that I was a little further along here.
I wish like the numbers were a little different here I wish the income was a little higher over there The 30 year old Matt looking at 40 year old me, I’d be like, fuck yeah, man. Exactly. Way to go. Way to go. You’re doing it. You’re doing the thing.
[00:33:51] Amanda Goetz: Those are such strong visualization exercises. The one I do on the flip side that I, I, I know, like, Sahil Bloom has talked about this, but But, like, I, I used to struggle, like, at night, I always read my kids books before they go to bed.
When they were little, specifically. Now they all read, and they have, they want to do it themselves. But
[00:34:10] Matt Ragland: Maybe you could use some of that voice inflection. I know. There you
[00:34:13] Amanda Goetz: go. It’d be like, the little blue truck. Um. And, but I remember like trying to read like goodnight goodnight construction site to my son one night and I was just going through the motions in my brain was like writing an email and I use this visualization exercise that was like 90 year old Amanda.
If she could zoom in on this moment, what would she say right now? Ninety year old Amanda doesn’t care about that email. She is looking at Grayson with his little hands and his little fingernails, and he’s, like, attentively looking at the book. And all of a sudden, I was so brought back into that moment of all the things I’m going to want to like, remember.
And that is now I use 90 year old Amanda almost every day. Wow. She is watching my life kind of like, as like an other body experience, but watching it to say like, no, podcast right now in Nashville. How cool is that? Like, you’re going to wish one day that you’re. Still this like energetic and ready to go.
So, yeah, she’s along for the ride now every day.
[00:35:24] Matt Ragland: Amanda, this has been fantastic. Thank you so much for being on the HeyCreator podcast. Where can people find or learn more about you on the internets?
[00:35:31] Amanda Goetz: Yeah, AmandaGoetz.Com has all of my links to, you know, if you want to read the newsletter Life’s a Game.
If you want to join our online community, our social media channels, our podcasting My office hours community. Um, or if you want to take my life’s a game masterclass to help with kind of the, both the inner and the outer work of growth.
[00:35:50] Matt Ragland: Yeah, I love it. Thanks so much for being here.
