0:00:06 - Betsy Jordyn
Hey there and welcome to this week's episode of the Enough Ready Podcast. I'm your host, bessie Jordyn, and this is the place where we empower consultants and coaches to forge their own paths to success in their careers and their lives. I am so excited for today's guest. Today's guest is Dorie Clark, and Dorie Clark is a speaker, author, writer, a Broadway producer, a lyricist and an author of these amazing books. She's got so many things going on, so excited. Originally I wanted to have Dorie on the show because she wrote an article and has a lot of material on networking for introverts. There's consultants and coaches out there who need to network and are also introverts. That's a great topic. but after getting into all kinds of stuff that Dorie has written and talks about in her career, she is a true Renaissance woman. I've never seen anybody who really embodies that Renaissance archetype in this world and she's got that. So there's going to be a lot of things I'm going to want to talk about, go so far beyond networking for introverts. So, without further ado, welcome to the show, Dorie.
0:01:15 - Dorie Clark
Bessie, thank you so much, glad to be talking with you.
0:01:18 - Betsy Jordyn
So I have so many things I want to ask you about your books, your career, but I want to go back to the origins, before you started your consulting business and your coaching practice and became a speaker. You had a lot of different types of experiences, so can we talk a little bit about your background and how you came to where you are right now?
0:01:36 - Dorie Clark
Yeah, absolutely So. I started my consulting business in 2006, so it's been a while, but before that I did a lot of things very rapidly for short periods of time, mostly because they weren't working out for me. So, in no particular order, i was a nonprofit executive director of a bicycling advocacy organization. I was a spokesperson on a presidential campaign and a governor's race. I was a newspaper reporter. Those were the big ones. I also attempted to get a doctorate in English literature, but I was not accepted into any of the programs that I applied to. So that's the quick pressy prior to starting my business 17 years ago.
0:02:26 - Betsy Jordyn
Did I read something, though, that you were also looking at a theology degree as well, or you have a theology degree from Harvard. Is that accurate?
0:02:32 - Dorie Clark
I did. Yes, that is a thing that I did. So I got my undergraduate degree in philosophy and then I immediately went straight in and got a master's of theological studies at Harvard Divinity School.
0:02:46 - Betsy Jordyn
That is so interesting. So what made you get that degree? By the way, i also spent a couple of years in seminary and I love that whole perspective, that philosophy, and it really shapes a lot of thinking. What made you choose all of these different types of paths? So you went from philosophy divinity spokesperson for our campaign. Have you always been this type of person who had all of these varied interests and you just kept following them? Or was there an original goal that you had at the beginning that the philosophy and the theology degree were in congruence with that?
0:03:20 - Dorie Clark
Well, i thought I would probably have a career in academia, so I was just marching along that path. I wanted to have a job where I could read and write and think deep thoughts, and that was the logical place for it. But as it happened, i was sort of swirling around the humanities and I ultimately decided English literature would be a good place for me because I could bring in philosophy, i could bring in religion to it. But it was a place where I was not wanted. So I had to recalibrate and I ended up getting a job as a journalist instead. After I had gotten turned down by the doctoral programs, i was sort of scrambling and did some internships and ultimately was able to get hired as a political reporter at a alternative news weekly in Boston, and I did that for about a year. But unfortunately it was right around the time the newspaper industry started to collapse and so I ended up getting laid off about a year into the start of my career.
0:04:21 - Betsy Jordyn
So you're saying that academia was a place that didn't want you, but aren't you a professor right now at Duke and other places in academia?
0:04:30 - Dorie Clark
Yeah, to.
0:04:31 - Betsy Jordyn
Shay, yeah, so like something was missing. It's kind of like Jennifer Hudson being overlooked at an American Idol and becoming that Oscar winner.
0:04:42 - Dorie Clark
It seems like that sort of happened for you, yes, well, one of the things that I find sort of inspiring in life is finding a way to, you know, sock it to the people who rejected you, and so something that I did take great pleasure in was, within about three years, of getting turned down for the doctoral programs. I mean, admittedly, these are, you know, slightly different fields, but within academia I was actually teaching at the college level. I managed to find another way in which didn't involve having to spend seven or eight years getting a doctorate, so I think in many ways, it worked out better.
0:05:24 - Betsy Jordyn
Yeah.
0:05:24 - Dorie Clark
I really wasn't aware that there were a lot of other paths to teaching at the university level besides just getting a doctorate. But it turns out for a lot of things in life, we often imagine that there's one way to do it, but there's usually 10 ways to reach a destination, and so in my case, i was able even still while I was a journalist, to get access to an opportunity where somebody, at the last minute, backed out of teaching a class at Tufts University, and I raised my hand. You know it was a journalism class, and so they're like Hey, is there anybody here who's interested in teaching this? And I'm like I am. And so I got in touch with them and ended up creating my own curriculum. And so, for you know, close to a decade, i was teaching around Boston in various undergraduate programs, and then, a few years after that, i made a concerted effort to shift my focus so that I was teaching in executive education and business school programs, which I now do for Duke and for Columbia University.
0:06:33 - Betsy Jordyn
So would you say thematically, it sounds like there's a couple of things that kind of run across your career. So, even though you have a lot of different interests and a lot of different express expressions of those interests, is that there's a couple of things, is that being a deep thinker and being somebody who deeply thinks about ideas and shares those ideas is one part, and then the other belief is that there's 10 different ways to achieve the same outcome And I don't have to be limited to anyone. I do say, like those are running themes throughout your different career aspect, career expressions, if I, if that's another way to say it- Yeah, yeah, i would say that those are definitely cornerstones, for sure.
0:07:11 - Dorie Clark
Now, Betsy, we're just getting to know each other, but I'd love to hear more about your journey to starting your consulting practice, like what were kind of the foundational elements leading up to that.
0:07:21 - Betsy Jordyn
Oh, i love this. You're turning the tables on me. So my journey into entrepreneurship I think I've always been an entrepreneur, so you and I are very similar in that way, like I've always been like some one of those kind of people where I've always thought more deeply than the average person. And I got into organization development consulting when I was I don't know like 27 or something like that. It's like I was walking around my nonprofit organization and it's like, hey, they're saying this and but they're doing this. This doesn't make sense, you know. And I discovered the whole organization development field. So I got into that builds a good career.
But then my dad died. I was working at Disney and it was a great job, perfect career, especially for an internal OD consultant. So I've always been like this creating things from scratch kind of person. But then when my dad died, i'm like I don't want to work those hours. You know I had a couple of kids. They were really little And you know it was like that existential kind of thing. So I left and I started my own business.
But the thing that I had with my business journey is I didn't feel like I started the right business. So that was an easier transition. It was pivoting from doing that into more brand brand mentoring, which is what I do now, which is where there's a lot of similarities with what you talk about in your books, like around the reinventing you, the entrepreneurial you like. That's the stuff that I'm really in the standout. You know the whole idea of like coming up with ideas. That's what I'm passionate about. But it took a lot to get rid of the other stuff. But it seems like you're different, is that? I feel like I had to get rid of things, but it feels like you just sort of integrate it and move on.
0:08:55 - Dorie Clark
Well, you know, i maybe, maybe I just have trouble letting go, but no, it's. It's true I do try to keep keep a foot in different things. But you know, a key part of strategy, which is the focus of my latest book, the Long Game, is really about what to emphasize in a given moment. You know, it's not necessarily that you have to divest yourself entirely of something, although sometimes that is the right answer But certainly you have to make choices about where you're deploying your energy, and I think that's important for all of us.
0:09:30 - Betsy Jordyn
Yeah, i think that that is an interesting thing about like the energy is not just like what you do with your time, but it is about the energy where you're putting your heart towards something. So maybe it's like I don't really get rid of the stuff from behind, but it's like being more conscious about like redirecting the energy in a different direction. Yeah, totally.
So it sounds like that, if I read in some of your materials correctly, your last job was, as before you started your business, was as a non-profit executive. And what is that? Was that that previous job before you left and started your business?
0:10:05 - Dorie Clark
Yeah, that was the. That was the direct one beforehand, and in many ways it contributed to my wanting to start my business as a consultant because I realized, without knowing it, you know, i never really thought of, i never really thought about starting my own business. But about a year into working as a nonprofit executive director, i had this sudden insight that really what I was doing was running a small business, and I mean it was reinvesting all the profits, but it was basically a small business, and I thought, oh, wait a minute, i'm learning all this stuff. I could apply this to myself. I'm, you know, there's basically training wheels here for me And so I decided at that point that I would, i would take another year. So I ended up running nonprofit for two years, but I would use that time to really be deliberate about thinking through how I could launch my own practice, which I did the following year.
0:11:00 - Betsy Jordyn
So it sounds like then you started off as a philosophy and then a theology student, and then you were looking at academia. That didn't work. You got into journalism and you were doing that job for a while running and then being a spokesperson for a campaign, which seems like that's what led to the nonprofit. And then the nonprofit is where you realize like, hey, i'm actually running, you know, a small business might by leading this, and that's what got you to make the leap into starting your business. Is that accurate?
0:11:29 - Dorie Clark
Yeah, that's a pretty good, pretty good recitation right there, absolutely.
0:11:34 - Betsy Jordyn
So then, what was your first business? So, when you so you took those couple of years, what did you decide was your initial first business?
0:11:42 - Dorie Clark
So I've I've really since starting working for myself. I mean, i've technically only had one business. It's called Clark strategic communications, but on the bright side that's a very vague name, so it can mean a lot of things. So my original conception was that actually that I would do political consulting. Because you know, that was a world that I knew as, a world I came out of, but almost by chance I was not getting a lot of political clients initially, but I was getting a lot of nonprofit clients and government clients And I thought, oh well, that's, that's interesting.
I you know, i guess I'll go where the I'll go where the interest is. And so I began shifting into doing that kind of communications consulting Again. Originally I was just starting with things I knew how to do, so I was doing a lot of PR. But over time I began to shift into various other aspects of marketing. Social media was kind of just beginning to be a thing, so I would consult a little bit on social media and then more upstream marketing activities. So my focus area of the consulting did change over time.
0:12:52 - Betsy Jordyn
So were you doing mostly like individual clients, like working with organizations, nonprofit organizations, or you were mentoring people Like what was the structure of your business at?
0:13:02 - Dorie Clark
that time, Yeah, I was. I mean, I ultimately started later doing individual executive coaching and things like that, But in the earliest days of my business it was all enterprise level consulting for organizations.
0:13:18 - Betsy Jordyn
So you've made a significant leap from doing, you know, just having a consulting business to becoming the thought leader that you are Like. what was it that gave you that shift to become that speaker, that author? You know, how did you, how did you make that shift?
0:13:33 - Dorie Clark
Well, thank you, Betsy, i appreciate it. You know, ultimately the the kind of thought leadership work that I've worked to create came out of the impetus that just about every consultant has, which is, oh, i need to get more business. So ultimately I was trying to think of ways to market myself, and I had a little bit of a you know what I considered to be a disadvantage, which is that a lot of folks who were starting businesses were starting them later than I was. You know, maybe they had had this whole career. They knew lots of people in corporate. I didn't know anybody in corporate. I knew no one, because I had worked at a newspaper and I'd worked on political campaigns, so I didn't have very good connections. And so I realized that I needed to do something to get better connections, and networking could get you part of the way there.
But you know, i wasn't that interesting yet. So what I really needed to do was find a way to become interesting, and I realized that content creation and writing for high profile publications was the way to do that. So I doubled down, because people are willing to talk to you if you're interviewing them for a brand name publication And you're also more interesting for people to meet in general If you write for a brand name publication. So I thought, okay, this is great. So I worked really aggressively to cultivate that piece of my business And so initially for Huffington Post you know back in the day when that was a big thing And then for Forbes and then for Harvard Business Review. I was writing articles and really kind of went nuclear on that for a few years to build up a head of steam in terms of my online presence.
0:15:13 - Betsy Jordyn
So somebody might be listening and saying, okay, well, you're, you're interesting because you've done all of this interesting kind of things the allergy degree, you know the political stuff. you're interesting itself. Somebody else might be saying, well, what about me? Like I don't, what am I? I'm not interesting. I'm not interesting like you, or I don't have the journalism background, so I can't write like you. Would you say that that was unique things that you had as your advantage, or that you felt like you were interesting, or that others experienced that and you had writing skills? Or is that just something like as just a mindset that you cultivated or a skill set that you could develop?
0:15:46 - Dorie Clark
Well, i think that you know, everybody has their their own unique set of advantages, right? I mean, you know we were talking earlier about the fact that you know I was bummed out that I didn't have all of these great corporate connections because, you know, in my mind's eye, like the archetypal consultant is like some 55 year old guy.
0:16:06 - Betsy Jordyn
That's like I'll just call up my friends from the past 30 years at BCG and you know, oh, okay, Well, that was easy.
0:16:14 - Dorie Clark
So I did not have that, but you know I did have other things, which you know. I mean some people might look at it, yeah, but you were a journalist, you know how to write. I mean that's like, oh okay, yeah, that and 10 bucks will get you a pack of gum, like all right, you know, I figured out something to do with it, but it was not ready made that that would lead to clients. But we all have some kind of structural advantage in terms of who we know or what we can do, or what our skills are, what our perspective is or what have you, and it's just a question of harnessing that and being thoughtful about, all right, what is it that you can do? What is it that you can bring? that is, that is the asset that you can leverage. So, yeah, i was, i was leveraging writing because I didn't have connections to leverage.
0:17:00 - Betsy Jordyn
So that seems to be a lot about what you talked about in the reinventing you book is all around like, how do you figure out, like, what is your competitive advantage? that could be you might be perceiving it as a disadvantage, but is an advantage And that's something that you could repackage and turn it into your next career Is that, is that accurate of what I heard in that book, or is there other things that you share in that book that I'm missing? that relates to this point.
0:17:25 - Dorie Clark
Yeah, no, i mean, i think I think that's right on. And in fact, in my latest book, the long game, i have a section where I talk about essentially the sort of the fungibility of assets, and what I mean by that is that you can you know you can trade what you have for what you want. And so I created an online course and community called recognized expert, and one of the pillars that we teach people is that, fundamentally, when it comes to becoming a recognized expert, there's three key points that you have to have. There's content creation, so that you can share your ideas and other people know what they are. There's social proof, so that other people know that you're credible. And then there's your network, so that more people know about you.
Basically, and you have to have all those pieces fit together, but most people coming into it don't have all of them, and so the question is well, how do you make trades? And so, for instance, if you have a really good network but you don't have good social proof, you know meaning like sort of public credit, you know evidence of your credibility, all right, how can you use your network to get social proof? So let's say, oh, you know everybody. Well, great. Do you know a professor at a business school where you could, you know, get him to invite you to guest lecture. And then, all of a sudden, good, well, she's been a guest lecturer at, you know, bup Bup Prominent University. That's helpful.
But maybe it's different. Maybe you have social proof but you don't have any content. You know something like that Well, okay, if you have social proof, you have some kind of affiliation or you're an award winner or something like that. You can often leverage that to be able to get to create content because you know, having enough social proof, people will look good introducing you. It's like, oh well, you know, gosh, my friend, the MacArthur award winner, would like to write a blog. Can I introduce you to the editor? You know the answer is like, yes, you're going to look good that you know a MacArthur award winner. So, yes, you know that introduction will work. Now I'm deliberately using extreme examples. Most of us are not homies with too many MacArthur award winners, but in our company, in our field, in our industry, there's, you know, there's sort of local variations of these things And we just need to think how do I trade what I have for what I need?
0:19:48 - Betsy Jordyn
So it sounds like then, when you were at a certain point where, okay, my business is going, i'm going to start it, i think I'm going to do political consulting, because that's your background. But nonprofits came to you, that's good, but in order for you to take your business to the next level, to get some additional clients, it's like, wow, i have to kind of like move into this recognized expert status, like you kind of had that vision. So I got to be interesting, i got to start writing content. I need to get the social proof, and then that sort of became the pillars of that long-term strategy that you had. Is I can make that step change?
0:20:21 - Dorie Clark
Yeah, that's exactly right. Now I'm curious for you, Betsy how did, how did you sort of establish credibility early on when you went solo?
0:20:30 - Betsy Jordyn
Well, I had it easy because I had Disney as a background, you know. So when I left Disney, it like that part was the easier part, was just like, okay, I can get clients right away because I had the Disney cache.
But I would say that really, what made the difference for my business was. I think you and I both know Chad Barr, who was my first web guy. I remember when I was working on my first real website. And he's like you're going to write content. I'm like, okay, I could write articles because content comes easy to me. I love content, It's super fun. But then he's kept pushing me for more and more because I could do one. He's like, well, then I want a whole bunch more. I'm like, okay, I didn't think it was anything special that I would do all of this content. Then he's like oh, and then you're going to do videos.
I'm like I'm going to do videos. He's like, yes, you're going to do videos. I'm like, okay, fine, I went to Cleveland to do videos. He's like, okay, you need to write your scripts ahead of time. I'm like, no, I'm not going to do scripts ahead of time. That's not me. He's like, yes, you are. He made me write scripts and then I did my scripts and I recorded them with him. He's like this is terrible, You're going to go back and fix them. Then I fixed them.
0:21:38 - Dorie Clark
What a taskmaster this Chad Bar.
0:21:40 - Betsy Jordyn
I know, But then I recorded it. I had seven videos for my first website. I had 20 articles. All of a sudden I started to get it, Some of them on my website launch.
I didn't realize that it was the power of SEO and other things that were drawing clients. I just thought I put good juju out there. It's like, oh, the magical client fairy is just bringing clients to me. This is great, But it took me years to realize that content is such a great way to attract clients and warm clients up.
It was really weird because I remember going to some of these clients that I was working with AAA. I never met them before I got there and they treated me like I'm treating you, like I'm a fan girl. I'm so excited They treated me like I'm something special. Apparently, a couple of the junior members of this HR team found my articles and they quoted me in their grad school papers and stuff like that. I'm like, wow, content man. Now the thing that I need to do next, like my step change, is I need to work on the publications and getting in those larger publications, really trying to take the stage like I haven't done that. I'm that introvert and I get intimidated from that standpoint. So apparently you've overcome that introversion challenge to get in front of those audiences. Any tips on that one, Because I would love to hear them for myself.
0:23:08 - Dorie Clark
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I mean, in terms of writing for high profile publications, there's really just like two prongs, two battles they have to face. The first one, of course, is writing the kind of piece that they would want, and the second piece is well OK. Once you have that, how do you get it in front of them and how do you get noticed? So I can tell you very methodically.
With regard to the second piece about how do you break in, i was doing this at a time when I did not have a lot of contacts or colleagues. I had some, and so I was able to break into the Huffington Post because I knew some people who blog for them and I just there were about a half a dozen, and so I had to keep asking different people, because you know some people. they're like, oh, i don't know my editor well enough, or oh, it's a bad time, or whatever. But eventually, through six people, i managed to find one that was able, willing and able to introduce me to the editor and I was able to get in. So that was great. But I realized that I needed to write for more places. You know, the Huffington Post was good, but what it was really known for was politics. It wasn't really like a business site exactly, so I wanted to get into something more businessy. So I actually devoted several days to this, several full business days. This is like a decade ago And you know the specifics will be different for people now, but I think the principles are fairly useful.
I mean, obviously, if you have a friend who writes for a publication, great, ask that. But I'm talking to people who may not right If you're coming in cold. What I did was I made a list, i made a spreadsheet of like two dozen different publications that I thought could potentially be good to write for, and of course, you know you have your A and B and C list, but it's everything from, you know, sort of prominent business publications to daily newspapers to, you know, the blogs of television networks or foreign papers that are read in the US. You know, like all these kind of different variations. I thought as broadly as I could And then I just went through them systematically and I was looking through and I said, all right, well, do they have a blog that has articles on it? OK, yes, do they have outside contributors? Is everything written by a staff member of theirs, in which case that's not helpful? or do they actually publish things by outside voices sometimes? OK, great. If they do, then who's the editor?
And that's not always easy to find out. You have to kind of search around. So I would go on LinkedIn, you know I'd search on the site map of the website to start to see if it could direct me to like a massed head. You know that's sort of an archaic term from the old days, but you know it's basically saying you know it's like a listing of the staff and who does what. You kind of have to guess, right, sometimes it's like it's like you know articles editor or online editor or digital editor or blog editor I mean, they all have different names, but you just kind of take a guess And then you have to figure out the person's web. You know email address, which sometimes they list and sometimes they don't, and if they don't list it you have to hunt more on the Internet to try to see if you can figure out what the pattern is for their particular publication. So all this, i ended up creating this big spreadsheet And then I just said cold pitches, you know, and in the cold pitch that I said I basically gave all my credentials, like a little paragraph about.
Here's me, here's my bio. Here's, you know, my, why I'm credible. Here's what I'd like to do for you. And you know, would you be interested in this?
And I wrote to about two dozen publications and you know it's a little disheartening, right, i was. I was a former professional journalist willing to write for free, And out of about 24 give or take publications, i had three get back to me, wow, or with any kind of a response. But you know, I mean three sort of expressing an interest. And so two of them were like, well, send us some ideas. And so, anyway, i like killed myself to get pitches together, and then two of them immediately dropped off the face of the earth and never responded to me or any of my follow ups. So I'm like, oh, great, ok, but but one of them, which turned out to be Forbes, was in a mode And like you just have to recognize, so much of this is like luck, right, Forbes was in a mode where they had just decided to do an expansion of their contributor network And they're like great, can you have something by next week?
Like everybody else is dissing me, and they were like maniacal and wanted something immediately, like that's the polarity. So I'm like OK, so I started writing for them and I wrote for them for about two and a half years.
0:27:37 - Betsy Jordyn
OK. So I think I'm going to add a third pillar to what might be thematic throughout your career. So thing one is being a deep thinker and relating to ideas. Two is that there could be more than 10. There's 10 different ways to a goal And it seems like the best way to a goal and the best way to overcome any mindset, issues or challenges is to break that goal down into very, very strategic steps.
You know to be like playing it. You know like just instead of like, oh my gosh, i don't know how to work for. You know write for a publication. It's like all right, well, let's take a step back, look at the publications, analyze them, go to the next step and then just look at what. You know what the opportunities are. But it seems like there's a huge strategic component to what you do, where it's like I have a vision and maybe like strategies, you're coping strategy. Where it's like anything that makes you anxious. It's like, well, put a strategy against it. Now I'm not going to be anxious about it because I could accomplish it if I could break it down. Is that? am I hearing anything accurate in that? you could correct me if I'm wrong.
0:28:35 - Dorie Clark
I love it, Betsy. No, I think I think that's great, I think that's right on, It's true. I mean, a lot of times people do get kind of paralyzed. Oh, I don't know how to do that. But I mean, like whatever, there's so few things in life, except for like super boring things that everybody has figured out and that everybody already knows how to do. I mean, most of the interesting things are things that people don't quite know how to do, So you just have to kind of man up and figure it out. You know, like, try something whatever. I mean it may, it may not work, but people, I think, really dramatically overstate the effects of failure. You know, I mean it's whatever. Like if a high profile publication rejected me, I'm not like going to, like going to lose my house, You know it's not like.
0:29:21 - Betsy Jordyn
It's not like it's a little first day Go. He is not like. The world is going to end.
0:29:27 - Dorie Clark
Yeah, i mean like OK, i wasted a couple of days of my life trying to do pitches and you know they dissed me, ok, well, you know it's really not the end of the world, i think. You know, we just always have to contextualize the stakes And in most cases the stakes are fairly low. So you know why not OK.
0:29:46 - Betsy Jordyn
And I feel like that. that's a lot that you know. this goes to this book. you know, like playing that long game of saying, well, if I really want this, if I really want to write for these publications, that I just need to stick with it and not expect like, ok, well, i'm going to make a decision, send out a pitch, i was going to be like yay, and then you get it right away. And I think that there's that expectation a lot of us have is like we're going to be this overnight success rather than I got to do consistent action over time And then also diamond overnight success, overnight success with all of this consistent action.
0:30:18 - Dorie Clark
Yeah, absolutely. I mean one one, something that certainly is very explicitly one of my mantras is everything takes longer than we want it to. I mean, it would be so nice if you know there was just this sort of steady march toward, toward what we want. But you know, there's, there's gyrations that we have to deal with And and sometimes it might be a straight line, but it's just this super delayed one, you know, and other other people's timeline is not necessarily your timeline, so it's frustrating, but if we want to get the result, then we need to, then we need to understand that.
0:30:58 - Betsy Jordyn
It seems like you're very patient, like you're very clear, and then it's like you put unique strategies in place for you. Like I love what you talk about with your networking parties. I thought that was just brilliant, you know, and I think was it in this book, i can't remember because I read somebody of your books, like which book is. it is also in this book where you talk about, like, the dinner parties and how you use that. Like can you talk about, like, your methodical approach towards, towards networking, you know, as an introvert, and leveraging your strengths as an introvert.
0:31:26 - Dorie Clark
Yeah, absolutely.
0:31:27 - Betsy Jordyn
So, this is it in this book, or where did I read it?
0:31:31 - Dorie Clark
Yeah, i'm pretty sure that it is. I had I have a chapter In the long game called the right people, the right room and it's it's a sort of deep dive into networking. But it really came to the fore for me Back, you know, seven or eight years ago, when I moved to New York. I'm now I'm now facing it again because I've moved to Miami. But when I moved to New York I I Recognized, you know, and it kind of hit me once I was there like I hadn't sort of planned for this. I knew a lot of people and kind of an objective sense, but I wasn't really Friends with them exactly. It was more just like okay, i have a bunch of acquaintances, and so the way that I felt was like, okay, if I needed somebody to have like a networking coffee with, then I could do that, but I didn't have friends that I could like go see a movie with on Saturday night And yeah, i'm like all right, well, that, you know, i gotta have some of that too, otherwise this is gonna be pretty lonely. So I embarked on a strategy of basically just trying to meet people and make friends and the good news is that, you know, if you're doing it right. I'm a believer that they can and should be the same thing. So I Began.
I realized that it would not go well if I just sort of sat back and waited for other people to invite me to things. You know, the truth is, when you, when you're first in a city, people, people just don't remember. Like it takes a lot of exposure for them to think of you as being in a place, and so I was never gonna. Even for people I knew relatively well, i was never gonna be top of mind, like oh, let's call Dorie, because they still thought of me as living in a different state. So I Needed to do something to disrupt that. So I Just started having these gatherings. I started having my own because I'm like, alright, i've got to make it happen. So Often you know, twice a month I would say probably on average, sometimes even more than that I would host dinners, and sometimes I'd co-host them with friends so I could meet new people and cross pollinate. But I was hosting these dinners of about eight or ten people and It was actually really great because it was.
You know, the thing that I hate is the kind of mass, undifferentiated, like let's go to a networking event and like, yeah, half the time people aren't even wearing name tags. You don't know who they are. You're coming up to them, you have literally no contextual clues, you're trying to come up with a conversation from scratch. It's like so painful, whereas if you have a curated dinner gathering, i Was able to set it up the way that I wanted, which made it, you know, as an introvert, which I think hopefully made it nice for other people that were introverts. So it was a smaller group.
It was a managed conversation. I sent bios in advance so that people knew who was there and they could be like Oh yeah, i want to ask him about such and such and it could kind of plan it out. And it would be. It was orderly, like, as you know, people streamed in. Like once everyone had arrived, i went around. I made everybody do introductions so that you know you. I mean, even if you look it up the night before, you can't quite remember which one is which. So you need to have it Reinforced, you need to have a structure so that people can have a good time, often hosts. I mean. There's multiple problems here, right? One is that many people don't feel empowered to be a host because they feel like, oh, that's somebody else, that's not me, and it's like, oh, really well, why, you know, why can't you do that, like I think? I think anyone can be a host and, secondly, a lot of hosts even doesn't mean you have to cook either, right?
0:34:59 - Betsy Jordyn
Oh, yeah, for sure You could order out. Okay, go on. Sorry, that's where some people like I could host, but I'm not gonna cook. I'm not a good cook. Go ahead, i'm sorry, oh.
0:35:08 - Dorie Clark
I'm such a big fan like I'll have people over for dinner and I'll be like great, and we're ordering tie, tell me what you want. You know I put, but often I do it at dinners. I mean, these days everybody has so many dietary restrictions and I mean, you know I'm including myself in this, i'm vegetarian, but you know, whatever dietary restriction somebody has, that's not yours. You're like god, they're so annoying, you know. So like, yeah, i once it is six person dinner party And there were three different menus that I had to have because, oh, this one can't have this and that that was. You know I had it. There was one guy I invited the party and last minute She's like, oh, i'm bringing a friend. I'm like, oh, great, you're like bring, you're bringing a friend to it.
An intimate dinner party at my house. And you're telling me an hour before great. And he's like, oh, no, i'm free, i do it. It was a spaghetti party. I'm like, are you insane? So anyway, but yeah, you could do it at a restaurant, but the hosts aren't don't feel empowered enough to really take control of it. But if you don't, no one else is going to, like a guest isn't gonna interrupt the person who's going on way, way, way, way too long. The host needs to do it because the host's responsibility is to make sure that everybody Collectively has a good time, and that means you kind of need to enforce things sometimes, but it makes for a great event when you do that. I.
0:36:28 - Betsy Jordyn
I love that idea too, because it's like, if you're doing like outside of the last minute gluten-free thing Because that is very stressful, you know, as a vegetarian I always I'm a vegetarian too It's like everybody should have, like, some sort of meat-free. You know, options of some kind, but the, but the idea of being able to have a curated group and then like, have other people, like, introduce you to other people. I think that that's such a great opportunity rather than, you know, going to a networking event where you have to like, have your you know, your business card and what I do.
Like I went to a networking event the other day And it's like I don't remember anybody, like it was like that was fun for a minute, but there everything was so different, like all the businesses were so different. You have to like stretch to find the synergies and if a curated group, you can create the synergies Or you could figure out what it is on the front end and I'm sure you got all the invitations that you needed to go Do the fun things in New York afterwards.
0:37:22 - Dorie Clark
Yeah, you know once, once, Once people remember that you're there and also, you know, frankly, once, once they see you in a context where it's like, oh, Dorie's fun, she organizes fun things like I want to be a part of it Then it kind of motivates them to want to want to include you just in this sort of reciprocal you know the reciprocal cycle. So so, yeah, i actually pre-pandemic I mean the you know, the pandemic kind of Disrupted everything but pre-pandemic. I had built this killer social life in New York. It was really great.
0:37:55 - Betsy Jordyn
So I'm gonna want to go into the selfish part of this interview because I'm gonna have to ask you about your Broadway experience. So before I go into the selfish part because I know that I'm not sure all my listeners are gonna want to hear that, but I do, so I'm gonna inch my podcast. I could talk about that. I just want to get a summary of your books because it seems to me that there's an order to your books that seems to be a logical order of somebody sort of like having a job and then reinventing themselves and then standing out, you know, and then you know, leading to this last, last book around. You know, the long game? Um, am I re? am I reading into that or is it on purpose that you have like reinventing? you To the standout, to the entrepreneurial, you to the long game.
0:38:43 - Dorie Clark
Yeah, no, you're exactly right, Betsy. I I have thought of it as Sort of sequential in many ways, in terms of the arc of a person's career or certainly the arc of things that that I was personally Interested in.
0:38:56 - Betsy Jordyn
So, yeah, that's exactly right so can you give like a quick synopsis of the books and Share a little bit about like where this latest book fits in and what's the next book? I'm sure you got an X book right. I can't, i can't imagine you not having another book.
0:39:11 - Dorie Clark
But Well, so the first book that I wrote was Reinventing You, which, as the name implies, is about how to reinvent yourself professionally if you want to change jobs or change careers or in a sort of narrower application. It could even just be changing how other people view you, but some kind of transformation and how to manage that successfully. And then to your point once you've accomplished that, once you've kind of reinvented yourself into the place you want to go, it's like all right, well, great, how do I actually get some traction here? How do I get known? And so Stand Out is a book about basically about how to become a thought leader or how to become a recognized expert inside your company or in your field and the strategies that you need to know around building a following around your ideas. Then I shifted to the question that was you know, it was of keen interest to me, which is okay, great. If you're known for your ideas, that is wonderful. How do you actually monetize that? So Entrepreneurial U is basically a book about how to make money in lots of different ways. So if you are an employee at a regular company, regular day job, it's about a variety of different side hustles that you can incorporate to grow your brand and earn revenue. If you're an entrepreneur, like I am, it's about ways that you can kind of strategically expand your business to create multiple revenue streams. And you know, i mean, i'm proud of it.
I, in the first year, you write books because you want to learn things. And in the first year after writing and publishing Entrepreneurial U, i applied, you know, i took my own medicine right And I applied the strategies that I had learned from basically getting this carte blanche to interview a bunch of people about, hey, how do you make money? You know what's your, what does that process look like? And I added nearly $200,000 to my top line revenue as a result of employing those strategies, which was, you know, very helpful. So you know, especially because I don't have employees besides myself. So so that you know, for me was very empowering that the strategies worked in that way. And then, finally, the long game is a book about how to really think about your career, your professional life, in the kind of overall arc of how it fits into who you are and want to be. It's about how do you take a strategic and holistic view of your career.
0:41:45 - Betsy Jordyn
And I like the whole idea too, like strategic thinking really begins with like giving yourself the time, Like you can't be strategic thinking if you don't have time for strategic thinking, And it seems like that's the number one is that we're in this mode where it's like, okay, I gotta be busy, busy, busy, rather than it's like, all right, let's take a beat and like, let me think, Like matching the reflection with action seems to be a lot of what the long game is about Is reflect, act, reflect, act. You know taking that, you know have that rhythm is going on.
0:42:13 - Dorie Clark
Yeah, absolutely, it's so true. I mean, so many of us are almost pathologically busy And so you know it's not, it's not that strategic thinking takes so much time. You know it's not like, oh yeah, you know you need another 20 hours a week for strategic thinking. I mean, if that was the case, nobody would ever do it, because nobody ever could. It's really more of a mindset than anything. But it is equally true that you can't do strategic thinking if you literally have no time, if you have not a moment to breathe and not a moment to eat or use the bathroom. You're never gonna be strategic under those conditions. So you have to find a way to create your, create just a little bit of margin for yourself.
0:42:53 - Betsy Jordyn
And creating those like rhythms at the same time, like, if you're like, for me it's like some of the rhythms that I recognize I do better at is if I take like an at least 30 minutes a day at the beginning of my day to read, to journal, to think, and then I can get in my day, rather than like, okay, i gotta rush to my, get in my day, you know, and it's like if I'm trying to create, launch something bigger, then I need that much more time. It seems like you have to. Like, what I try to work on is like, based on what the outcome is, i have to have that much of the processing time based on it. Like, if you're gonna create a signature course, you need time, the same amount of time or doubled, or whatever the time of how big the course is. You're gonna have to do that.
I wanna hit on one thing that you said, and then I wanna ask you about the Broadway stuff. I love what you said about the writing. You said it really fast about writing is because I wanna learn something, cause that's like that for me as a like, as a content creator. I know that I'm in a zone when I'm like writing something and it's like oh, that was interesting, i never thought about that before. Like that's really interesting, like that's where it's. Like I feel like I'm in the zone because I don't feel like I'm writing. I feel like I'm scribing Like is that what you mean by that? Or is it like I just am being intentional in my development, so I'm gonna write this and then research it Like what, what did you mean by that?
0:44:08 - Dorie Clark
Well, what I meant really was that I had a bit of a professional development curriculum for myself. You know, there were, there were problems that I wanted to solve in my business And, in particular, stand out in entrepreneurial you were written because I wanted to solve those problems. So stand out was written because I wanted to get recognized for my ideas. You know, how do I become a recognized expert? And I didn't know, and so I used the book as a forcing function for me to interview people that I wanted to talk to and really think deeply and be able to create a methodology that I could follow And then, hopefully, in the book, show other people how they could follow it.
And it was very similar for entrepreneurial you about all right, you know, i mean I was making decent money but I wanted to make really great money And I saw some people out there were doing it And I'm like gosh, i'd really like to ask them about that. I'd really like to see what they're doing. But you know you don't want to be the annoying person that's always like can I pick your brain?
And I'm not sure why. I just want to smack them. So you need to come in with something a little better than that and add some value And saying hey, i'm writing, i'm writing a book. Can I interview you for my book about? this Is a much better ask, and it enabled me to have access to a lot of people who are doing interesting, successful things And I was able to learn from them And again use the book as the fulcrum to transmit that to other people.
0:45:33 - Betsy Jordyn
So that's why you have so many specific examples of people in your books, because all of you but that's one of the common ways that you write is you have tons of very practical personal case studies, examples of everything. So it's the interviews that got you there.
0:45:48 - Dorie Clark
Yeah, absolutely.
0:45:50 - Betsy Jordyn
And so now you do have multiple income streams. So you've got the books, you've got your speaking, you've got your mastermind groups, you've got your consulting and a bunch of other things. And then the latest project that I want to talk to you about is how in the world did you get into Broadway And what are you doing with Broadway? And can I see your stuff and tell me more?
0:46:12 - Dorie Clark
Yeah, thank you, i love that. So, yeah, one of the things that I actually mentioned a little bit in the long game is that 2015,. That was the year that my book Stand Out came out. I was traveling so much, i was really working myself to the bone, giving a million talks to try to promote the book. And, sure enough, as we roll into the new year of 2016, i have just finished traveling.
I have this terrible cold.
I'm just sort of sitting there over Christmas being sad and miserable and like why am I working myself this hard?
So I embarked upon a campaign of what I called one uniquely New York activity per week, and so what I meant by that was that, hey, if I'm living in New York from paying all the money to live in New York, i might as well take advantage of it.
And so I decided that every week I would make a point, i would have a requirement for myself where I would do one uniquely New York activity, and it was all kinds of things, but it had to be something that you really could only do in New York, so like a really special restaurant or a neighborhood tour or a tourist attraction or something, and one example would be going to see Broadway shows, and so I went with a friend January of 2016, to see Fun Home, which that year was the Tony winner on Broadway, and it was really great. It was very impactful for me, and I woke up the next morning with grip, with a certainty that what I really needed to do was to learn to write musical theater, and so the short version is Of course that's the logical place from a theology philosophy student and a professor Like that makes perfect sense.
0:47:52 - Betsy Jordyn
Go on.
0:47:53 - Dorie Clark
I mean 100%. So anyway, that's what I've been working on since then. So I've worked hard, i've written a complete musical. I have two other musicals that I'm writing that are in process. I have been accepted to and completed the kind of prestigious musical theater training program. You know all the all the different things. And so we're working to, my collaborator and I are just working to get the show which is called Absolute Zero Advanced. And so just a couple of weeks ago, as we're having this conversation, we had two nights of a staged reading in New York City, sponsored by the York Theatre, which is an off-Broadway theater company with professional actors, which was great, and we're just working, working to move it forward.
0:48:39 - Betsy Jordyn
So are you the lyricist Or do you write the? are you everything, like everything in the written part, and then your partner is the musical side? Or like, what is it that you're writing?
0:48:51 - Dorie Clark
Yeah, So I do all the words. So I'm the lyricist and the book writer or the script writer and she is the composer.
0:49:02 - Betsy Jordyn
Wow. So what's the vibe of your show? Is it like a Hamilton-esque kind of thing, or like what would we compare it to?
0:49:10 - Dorie Clark
So the sort of quick tagline or short description for it is. I like to call it a sexy lesbian spy thriller musical.
0:49:21 - Betsy Jordyn
Oh, of course That's, great.
0:49:22 - Dorie Clark
Oh my god, yeah, so it's kind of a you know a little bit catch me if you can. It's a little bit chess, you know, sort of you know it's lighthearted. I mean, we really try to pay homage to James Bond movies And it's not a parody. It is intended as a sort of modern, modern updating with interesting three-dimensional female characters. But we do have the kind of you know, brassy overtones of 60s Bond And we do have some jokes and some Easter eggs in it that will appeal to Bond aficionados.
0:49:58 - Betsy Jordyn
Oh my gosh, that sounds amazing. What was it like for you to see all of the ideas that you had in your head and the words that you were trying to express, seeing actors bring them to life? Like what was it like the first time you saw it?
0:50:12 - Dorie Clark
Yeah, i mean it's just, it's just the best. It's really terrific to be able to see something and, you know, make it manifest, and especially having it in the hands of people who are really legitimately good and make it, make it sound good you know, frankly, make it sound better than you know me in the shower. So so it's, it's really magical.
0:50:30 - Betsy Jordyn
So do you see yourself writing another book after all your other books from the business side, or do you see that the Broadway thing is moving you into the next iteration of Dorie Clark Sure Communications?
0:50:43 - Dorie Clark
Yes, yes, i mean I'm sure I will write another, another book. but part of my decision making process, part of my strategy around the long game is that I decided that, you know, i think that in my past books I actually moved on too quickly from them and I didn't give them enough time to kind of percolate in the marketplace. And so, for the long game, i decided that in order to give it the best shot possible of getting the continued sustained exposure that it needs, that I would work on promoting it for five years. So I'm really making it my, my primary focus, you know. so I'm I'm intending to go very meta and play the long game for the long game.
0:51:21 - Betsy Jordyn
And I think that that makes sense because, especially after the pandemic and where people are at right now, you know, really taking that time to think about the long game again and reinvent yourself, it just seems like extremely timely. So that makes sense, and giving yourself that time. And in the meantime, is there so how many? you have this musical once, this one, so is it in the test? and then is it going to go out on the road somewhere and then come back to Broadway Like what's the plan for your musical?
0:51:46 - Dorie Clark
Oh, my goodness. Well, you know the thing. The thing about musicals and going to Broadway. I mean, you know, this is not an easy path, right? On average, it takes about seven years from a show initially being started to reaching Broadway. If it reaches Broadway, we're very committed and we want to do that, but there's there's a lot of hurdles in terms of getting the interest of a you know, regional theaters, let's say, producers ultimately even getting it to a Broadway theater.
There's 41 Broadway theaters, That's it. It's a very fixed marketplace And so you have to have a show that the owners of the three primary theater companies or you know there's a handful of nonprofits that have that have Broadway theaters, but you know, you've got to have something that is funded, ready to go, and that the theater owners says, yeah, that could work. So there's a lot of pieces that need to fit together, but for where we are in the process, we feel very good. We feel like it's it's been making excellent pro progress up to this point. So we're just, you know, continuing to move the ball forward.
0:52:55 - Betsy Jordyn
I'm so excited. I mean, as soon as it comes out, I definitely want to participate. This is amazing. Um, okay, just a sidebar question What's your number one favorite Broadway show? just for my own curiosity.
0:53:06 - Dorie Clark
Oh well, you know the classic all time would be rent What's yours, Betsy?
0:53:12 - Betsy Jordyn
Um, that's a good question, because I go back and forth. I've probably seen lame is one too many times, So I've always loved lame is, but it's like you know there's only so many times that you see it. But right now I'm obsessed with Hamilton. I love the creativity of. Hamilton. I like the. I like the. I was a history major, so the idea of like reinventing history through the music hall I thought was really cool.
0:53:33 - Dorie Clark
Yeah, it is brilliant.
0:53:36 - Betsy Jordyn
So we talked about so many different things today, and I would. I know that, um, i could talk to you forever, but we got to be sensitive to the time, you know. Is there anything else that you want to tell me about forging your own path to your own career, taking charge of your career, playing that long game? And I'm just not asking you the right question.
0:53:56 - Dorie Clark
I think you're asking all the right questions, Betsy. This is fantastic, but I will just mention, for anyone who wants to go deeper, that I do have a free resource, which is the long game strategic thinking, self assessment, uh, to help you think you know, sort of walk you through the process of thinking more strategically about your own life and career, and folks who are interested in getting at it for free at Dorieclark.com slash the long game.
0:54:19 - Betsy Jordyn
And do you have like a YouTube channel, or do you have other places that people can find out more about you, or all of it is linked through your website.
0:54:27 - Dorie Clark
I mean there's, there's, there's all all the channels, uh, except TikTok I haven't really, i haven't really gotten on that but just about all the other channels besides that, uh. But yes, the main hub is my website, Dorieclark.com.
0:54:41 - Betsy Jordyn
Cool, um, and then, okay, i had one other question for you and I just lost it. Oh, i didn't ask you about your TED talks, um, and I know that that's a big part of what you do as well, so would people be able to find your TED talks also on YouTube? That's where I was going with the YouTube thing.
0:54:58 - Dorie Clark
Ah, yeah, yeah, Absolutely. Um, probably the the easiest um thing I I have done a number of TEDx talks. I've done four of them. Um, my most recent one, which is called uh, the real reason you're so busy and what to do about it, i feel fortunate. It's kind of caught on. It's been seeing more than 2 million times and folks can check that out if they're interested at Dorieclark.com slash TED Um, but to see any or all of them you can go to the website Dorieclark.com.
0:55:27 - Betsy Jordyn
Amazing. I cannot thank you enough for bringing on the show. I am just I'm humbled. I'm so grateful for the conversation And for those of you who are listening. Thank you so much for participating. Definitely check out Dorie's information and all the amazing things that she's doing, and until next time, thanks for listening. Thank you for tuning in. If today's episode lit a fire on you, please rate and review an offer ready on Apple podcasts or subscribe wherever you listen. And if you're looking for your next step, visit me on my website at BetsyJordyn.com and it's Betsy Jordyn with a Y and you'll learn all about our end to end services that are custom designed to accelerate your success. Don't wait Start today.
