A Book Launch Party: Celebrating Mastering Your Inner Critic and Networking Without the BS

Richard Lowe (The Writing King) co-hosts Bonnie’s Book Party alongside host Bonnie, known as the Web Woman, for a two-book spotlight. The featured guest is Chris Salem, international bestselling author of Master Your Inner Critic, and the featured Richard Lowe title is Network Your Business to Prosperity. The conversation moves from mindset and the root cause of self-sabotage to the mechanics of networking for authors and business owners.

Richard Lowe is The Writing King, a professional ghostwriter and author who has written more than 113 books under his own name and ghostwritten over 54 more for clients. Before writing full time he spent 33 years in enterprise IT, including two decades as Director of Computer Operations at Trader Joe’s.

DISCUSS YOUR BOOK

Full transcript of the conversation follows.

Welcome to the book party

Bonnie: Welcome, welcome, welcome to Bonnie’s Book Party. I am the chief bookaholic here. I’ve loved to read since I was about four years old, so much that my kindergarten teacher told my mom she didn’t know what she was going to teach me because I was already reading and writing. One of my fondest memories with my mom, before I went to live with my grandparents, was that she’d take us to the library. The evocative smell of a library or bookstore, the feeling of all those books. I do ebooks now because of vision issues, but books are so important in our lives, and we’re blessed to live in a time and culture where the majority of us know how to read.

Bonnie: This is about us getting together as people who love books and exploring the cool books out there. Over the coming months we’ll cover all the genres, but today we’re focusing on Richard G. Lowe Jr., my co-host and an author, and Chris Salem, who’s also an author and a public speaker.

Bonnie: The more you know, the better life becomes. The things you learn give you the building blocks you need to be successful, and that may take five years for some people or a lifetime for others, but wherever you are in that process, the books we discuss today can be real keys to opening that up. There’s that old saying, lift me and let me lift you and we ascend together, and a high tide raises all boats. Both of today’s books fall under the category of step-by-step guides, which is one of the things that’s impressive about them.

Meet Richard Lowe, The Writing King

Bonnie: Let’s introduce the players, starting with my co-host, Richard G. Lowe. Richard, tell us a little about who you are and what you do.

Richard: I’m the owner and senior writer at The Writing King, a company I started about three and a half years ago. Before that I was at Trader Joe’s for 20 years as Director of Computer Operations, and for about ten years before that I was VP of consulting at two consulting companies. So I’ve had a fair bit of experience in the business world, digital networking, and things like that, which led to this book.

Richard: I’ve written 113+ books of my own and ghostwritten 54+ more for clients, and I’ve coached others. The book I coached is called Digitize or Die, about the internet of things. It was tough to help with because it’s very technical, and I’m super technical, but this was a little over my head. The author, Nicolas, is a great writer from France and a vice president of a major corporation.

Richard: Most of my books are aimed at helping people. The networking book is for people who need to expand their business, make it grow, earn extra income, get a good return on investment. My book Safe Computing Is Like Safe Sex is aimed at helping people with their computers. Just last night there was a major virus attack across the internet that affected hospitals, and if they’d followed the advice in that book they wouldn’t have had to worry about it. I wrote a survival book that looks like it might be featured on AccuWeather soon, and I have a bestseller called Focus on LinkedIn that Amazon is going to promote next month and send out to 10,000 libraries.

Richard: Networking Your Business to Prosperity is an important book, and I’ve kept it inexpensive because it’s important to know how to network. Networking applies to everything: business, romantic partners, any number of things. It all works the same way, on the same concepts. If you know how to network and do it well, you can prosper.

Meet Chris Salem and Master Your Inner Critic

Bonnie: Now I want to introduce our very special guest. Richard and I are doing these book parties every two weeks, and we have some interesting people lined up. Today our guest is Chris Salem, who has an amazing book dealing with something I think we all struggle with. He’s well known across the country, and he speaks to large groups who pay him well because he’s so good. Chris, introduce yourself.

Chris: Thank you, Bonnie and Richard, a pleasure to be here. As you mentioned, I’m the international bestselling author of Master Your Inner Critic: Resolve the Root Cause, Create Prosperity, so there’s a lot of alignment with Richard’s book today around prosperity, and I think that’s a central theme we can hone in on. In addition, I keynote speak around the country on this topic, and I consult and coach entrepreneurs, business leaders, and sales professionals so they can have sustainable success at the next level in their business and personal life by resolving the root cause of their mindset barriers.

Chris: The whole premise is based on my own experience. Over 20 years ago, through my teens up until I was 30, I struggled with who I was and what my purpose was. I didn’t really have an identity, because I was always searching for one within my father, always looking to get the attention I never had growing up. That led to behaviors, habits, and disciplines that didn’t serve me. While I was in the public eye and had some success in my early 20s because I was a hard worker, I was emotionally, spiritually, and physically bankrupt, and I reached rock bottom.

Chris: When I went through the process to find out the demons inside me, who I truly was and who I wasn’t, I adopted a 12-step program and an Eastern meditation process, merged together, to heal myself and find my true purpose. That’s what prompted me to write Master Your Inner Critic, and now I mentor and coach individuals and businesses on how to operate and live in the solution rather than managing the effect of the cause. The solution resides in all of us, and in any business, but you have to resolve the root cause to sustain and operate at that level.

The Web Woman’s story

Bonnie: Let me give a quick overview of who I am, because we have some of Richard’s and Chris’s friends online who don’t know me. I’m known as the Web Woman. I put up my first website in 1996, when the internet was populated mostly by college-aged men. When I went out to talk to businesses about the internet, they didn’t understand why a woman was talking to them about it, so people started calling me the Web Woman, and I happily adopted it because it stuck. Back in 1996, over 90 percent of the businesses I visited didn’t even have a computer on the premises. So much has changed.

Bonnie: Over the years I taught web development at a computer college, even though I was self-taught, because back then there were no programs for it. I taught internet marketing for the Robert Allen Enlightened Millionaires program, then split off and formed my own group called the Cookie Cutter Group. The premise was that if you have a perfect cookie cutter you can make a perfect cookie, or a million dozen perfect cookies, as long as the cutter holds out. The principles of marketing don’t change; the tools change.

Bonnie: I help people find their tribe, the people most interested in what they have, instead of trying to sell to somebody who doesn’t care. That’s the difference between selling and marketing. Marketing is a kind of matchmaking, and that’s what we’re doing today: matchmaking people who love books with the people who create the books and trainings that improve their lives.

Master, not banish: the two sides of the inner critic

Bonnie: Now it’s grilling time. Chris, as I was contemplating your book, one thing stood out: your title is Master Your Inner Critic, not Banish Your Inner Critic. There’s a difference. Master means you’re in control of it; banish means it goes away. Does your inner critic ever actually go away?

Chris: It never goes away. The inner critic consists of both a positive and a negative side, and it draws from the subconscious mind and our experiences through life. We have a choice whether to march to the negative side or the positive side.

Bonnie: So there’s an inner critic that’s a positive influence. It’s not just the voice saying that’s not going to work, you can’t do it. There are times you should pay attention to it and times you shouldn’t.

Chris: Correct. If you were hanging off a cliff, it’s your inner critic providing the thoughts that help you save yourself. But if you fear something that’s not life-threatening, that could be the negative side. Learning to master your inner critic is learning to resolve the root cause of the negative side, and knowing you can always choose to adapt to the positive side once you’ve mastered it.

Who the book is for, and operating in the solution

Bonnie: You talk about root causes. Who is this book targeted at, and who can get help from it?

Chris: It can help anybody, but primarily entrepreneurs, business leaders, and sales professionals, people who at some point are investing in themselves, in personal development, reading books that improve their business and personal lives. We all have this at some point, and some people live with it their whole lives. The premise is to operate in the solution rather than manage the effect of the cause. Whether you want to take your business, your wellness, or your relationships to another level, they’re all the same: operate in the solution rather than the effect.

Bonnie: Can you explain that a little more?

Chris: Take medication as an example. Pharmaceutical medication offsets symptoms, so it does a great job of managing the effect of the problem, but does it solve the problem? No, and in some cases it creates more. People sometimes look at medication as solving their problem when it’s only managing the effect. The solution always resides in all of us. There’s nothing external that will solve your problem or resolve your root cause. There are components that help, but only you, internally, can resolve your own root cause.

Chris: The root cause always ties back to your childhood, a parent or someone who had influence over you when you were very young. It doesn’t have to be traumatic or all negative, but it shapes things in your business, your personal life, and your wellness, where you’re operating at a level beneath what you’re capable of.

A teacher, a father, and the chain of voices

Richard: When I was younger, in high school, a teacher told me I would never be a writer, and it took me until just a few years ago to overcome that. Is that the kind of thing you’re talking about?

Chris: The teacher could have been one of the causes, one of the major ones in you getting out there as a writer later in life. But the root cause might go deeper, back to a parent, or both parents, with the teacher just reinforcing the same experience you had on some other level. That was the case with me and my father. He was my root cause, so I would choose coaches, associates, bosses, and girlfriends who all ended up just like my father, just to recreate that experience, which for me was anger. There’s always a negative emotion, or group of emotions, tied to the root cause. Many things can trigger it, but until I resolved the root cause, which was my father, I couldn’t move beyond that anger I experienced daily.

Bonnie: So when you have a lot of negative voices, one person started the chain and then over time different people reinforced it. Everybody has these voices, helping you make course corrections on one hand or degrading you on the other, and it’s difficult to figure out where it all came from, because you live a long life and are exposed to a lot of different voices. Once we realize the inner critic is there and discover who started that chain, your book goes into detail on how to figure that out and what to do about it, because those voices are always there. It’s not voluntary.

Reading the book, and making the change stick

Bonnie: This is a book that has to be read carefully. You don’t just read it and set it down. I do that all the time, read a book, agree with it, and never do a thing about it. Am I right that yours is different?

Chris: I took a lot of the fluff out and kept it straight to the point, which is why it’s just under 100 pages. I wanted an easy read people could go over again and again, maybe picking up a new nugget each time, or reading a chapter one way and then having the light bulb go off on a second reading. But the book is designed to be followed verbatim. You don’t want to put the cart before the horse, so do step one before step two, and step two before step three. Specific goal planning and accountability throughout the process are very important.

Richard: So you have to locate the problem, the inner critic or its source, and then work out a program to fix it?

Chris: Number one is awareness. Number two is working through a process of daily meditation and taking your moral inventory daily, recording how you feel, watching whether a negative emotion or group of emotions keeps coming up, and why, because they tie back to the root cause. When you truly resolve the root cause, those emotions last only a fleeting moment instead of carrying on for a day, three days, a week, or months. That’s when you know you’ve released it.

Chris: Once you resolve the root cause, it’s important to embrace change and step out of your comfort zone to learn your true purpose. Too many people go through life not serving their purpose, wondering why life is a continuous struggle. Step out at your own pace, do something different each day, and when you want to fulfill your purpose, get very specific on your goal planning, in business and in your personal life. I see too many vague goals using words like I will try or I want. Those need to be eliminated. Goals have to be action-based and impactful.

Richard: When I worked at Trader Joe’s I had a lot of people working for me, and when they used words like I should, I think, or I might, I called them weasel words.

Chris: That’s a good analogy, because life is your choice. The universe provides what you require to serve your purpose. When you know your purpose and have a specific game plan, you’re on your way. People overwhelm themselves by putting too much out there, and when they’re overwhelmed they’re projecting into the future, which creates anxiety, and anxiety leads to procrastination. The key is to be in the moment through daily meditation, then plan attainable goals each day that roll up weekly, monthly, quarterly, and annually to where you want to go.

Fear is an illusion: the public pool

Bonnie: We have a question from Chuck Livermore: is there a critic related to the fight-or-flight response, or is that apples and oranges?

Chris: If you’re hanging off a cliff, that’s a natural fear. But take fear of public speaking. I thrive in that area because I’m a speaker, yet many people say they’d rather jump off a cliff than get up in front of a group. If you put things in perspective, stay in the moment, and understand that fear is an illusion, it usually ties back to a root cause, something from childhood that created the fear. It’s a limited belief. Resolving the root cause doesn’t make you fearless in every situation, but it gives you the tools, disciplines, and habits to work through fear rather than avoid it or work around it.

Richard: Let me give you an example. I used to be terrified of swimming in a public pool, all the reasons: body modesty, I’m too fat. My chiropractor told me I needed to start swimming to lose weight, so I finally put on the bathing suit and went out there, and nobody cared. Nobody cared except me. I was the only one who cared that I was crinkly and old and fat, and everybody else had the same crinkles and belly fat. I realized how stupid that was, and now I enjoy it.

Chris: The only person that should matter is yourself. It doesn’t matter if others notice or provide recognition; it only matters that you accept it and feel content. When people go through this process, some won’t agree or understand, even the person who’s the root cause. If you’re confronting a parent to forgive them, the forgiveness isn’t only about them; most importantly it’s for you, to move forward. Always detach yourself from outcomes and from others’ expectations.

Why networking builds a business

Bonnie: Now it’s Chris’s and my turn to grill Richard. You’ve written so many books, but you wrote Network Your Business to Prosperity. I’m a networker myself, but the thing I come up against, helping people become their own celebrity in their niche, is that reticence to toot their own horn, to get out there and talk to people. Why is networking so important to building a successful business?

Richard: Because you’re not the only one in the world. To let people know about your products, services, or yourself, you have to get out there and interact. If you don’t, people don’t know you, understand you, or know, like, and trust you. Know, like, and trust is a networking term. Before people do business with you, they have to know you: who are you? They have to like you, because they give money to people they like. And they have to trust you, the way they trust that the TV they’re buying from Walmart will work and has a warranty. When you network, you build up that know, like, and trust.

Richard: It’s harder on the internet because there’s no in-person presence; you’re a disembodied voice. That’s why video and photos work better than text, because people can at least see you moving, talking, waving your hands. Humans like to see that. If you take the humanness out, you have to pump money into the system like McDonald’s and the big corporations, depending on brand recognition by inundating you with the same message until it becomes a circuit in your brain.

Richard: For the smaller businessperson, and for writers especially, it’s extremely important to get out into the world, both virtually and in the real world. Get on podcasts, speak in front of local groups, go to your local networking meetings even if they have nothing to do with writing, go to critique groups. Get on this show. You have to do that, or you’re going to have a very hard time getting ahead.

The giver, the receiver, and the vacuum

Chris: I agree with everything Richard is saying, because networking is so important to your professional career. But when it comes to networking, some people are great givers and some are great receivers, and many aren’t good at doing both simultaneously. I see people develop resentment when they give and give but don’t get anything back, because they don’t know how to ask or receive. What’s your take?

Richard: One of the roots of networking is giving. On LinkedIn, one of the first things I do is give. I ask, what can I do for you? Is there anything I can do for you? Let’s set up a talk to figure out how to help each other. I don’t mention products and services; we’re not at that point yet. Obviously you don’t want to be taken advantage of, so you keep a mental picture, but I don’t bother keeping a ledger. Some networkers keep a book on every person: I’ve given this guy three things, he’s given nothing back, he’s off my list. I don’t do that. I look at it as karma. I’ll give a free half-hour consultation on someone’s website, and they’ll never come back or buy my services, and that’s fine. This show is giving to writers, both the audience and the guests, a way of giving back to the community.

Richard: But there are times I need something back: a review, a beta reader, someone to buy the book. You just ask. You go out and ask, can you do something for me? You keep the resentment out of it. Sometimes you think, nobody did anything for me this week, and you feel bad. So what? Stop that, that’s your inner critic. You keep giving, and it creates a vacuum. You give and give, and a vacuum comes, and somebody starts giving back, often not the same person. I might give to you and you and you, and then someone way out of left field comes in and gives me something totally unsolicited. That’s karma.

Chris: I agree. A lot of times you’ve given to somebody who isn’t in the right place yet to give back or request your service, but down the road it might not even be them. Just last week, someone I’d been giving website tips to came to me and said, I’ve got a friend who needs help with his marketing, can I connect you? That fills your pipeline. When you give and make connections, the pipeline fills up, and until it’s full it might just be dripping, but when it gets full it pours out.

The wrong way to network

Bonnie: Is there a wrong way to go about this networking thing?

Richard: Let me respond to what Chris said first. You can’t be an enabler, helping somebody to the point where it’s harmful, where they’re not getting a job or they’re dependent. Somebody wise said you have to teach people rather than just give things to them. So if someone asks for help, it’s far better to coach them, on doing a book cover or proofreading their own work, than to just do it for them, because then they never learn and keep coming back.

Richard: As for the wrong way: I’m good friends with the president of RGA Networks, a networking group here in Florida, and he says the wrong way to network is to sell. Networking is not sales; that’s a whole different specialty. Networking is getting to know people, making connections, and keeping those connections alive. You can sell later down the road, but you don’t walk up to somebody and say, hi, my name is Richard, will you buy my book? You’ve immediately shut them off. As beginning authors we’ve all done it, posting buy my book, buy my book on Facebook and wondering why nobody buys it. Because they don’t know me, don’t know what the book’s about, and don’t care, because I haven’t taken the time. That pushes people away.

Bonnie: Someone in the chat, Rebecca Livermore, says she loves the swimming pool example. And Chuck Livermore adds: give a man a fish versus teaching him to fish. Our people watching are totally getting it.

Quotable moments

Frequently asked questions

Can you get rid of your inner critic completely?

No. The inner critic has both a positive and a negative side and never goes away. The positive side is the instinct that protects you in genuine danger; the negative side is the fear tied to an unresolved root cause. Mastering it means resolving that root cause so you can choose the positive side rather than being driven by the negative one.

What does it mean to resolve the root cause instead of managing symptoms?

Managing symptoms is like medication that offsets the effect of a problem without solving it, and can even create new problems. Resolving the root cause means tracing a recurring negative emotion back to its origin, usually a childhood relationship, and working through it with awareness, daily reflection, and forgiveness, so the emotion becomes fleeting instead of dominating your life.

Why is networking so important for authors and small businesses?

Because people do business with those they know, like, and trust, and that only develops through real interaction. Big corporations can substitute expensive brand-pounding for relationships; a small business or author cannot. Getting out into the world, on podcasts, at local groups, in critique groups, builds the know-like-trust that marketing money alone can’t buy.

What is the wrong way to network?

Treating it as sales. Walking up to someone and asking them to buy your book shuts them off immediately. Networking is getting to know people, giving first, and keeping connections alive; selling comes much later, once trust exists. The other mistake is enabling rather than teaching: coach people to do things themselves instead of doing it for them.