Ruth Poundwhite [00:00:00]:
Hi and welcome back to the Soulful Sales Show. So I am excited today to be chatting with Monica Herald, whose presentation on designing a sustainable business that flexes with your energy and capacity was actually the number one most viewed presentation of my Mess of Success Summit earlier this year. Monica is a nature-loving strategist who helps creative entrepreneurs build sustainable businesses brick by brick. With roots in copywriting, boundary coaching, education, and nearly 5 years with Apple, Monica brings a grounded, tech-savvy approach to her work. A lifelong tech tinkerer, she has been experimenting with tools like ChatGPT since the early days and offers a thoughtful way in for folks who want support using AI without losing their values. And we do talk about that a little bit towards the end of this episode. Monica’s work gently supports solopreneurs, especially those with limited capacity in finding ease, clarity, and systems that work with them, not against them. All delivered with a clear, calm perspective grounded in experimentation, values, and deep curiosity.

Ruth Poundwhite [00:01:07]:
So in this episode, we talk about redefining productivity, building wiggle room into your plans, honoring your limits in a way that is not holding you back but actually helps you to build something sustainable in the long run, plus a really important conversation about when launches don’t go to plan, And how to use AI to support your capacity as well. So welcome to the podcast, Monica. And I just want to say, you were part of my Mess of Success Summit and you had a presentation. To sum it up, it’s like about running a business in alignment with your energy when your energy is fluctuating. And it was such a hit. And I know the reason why it’s because so many of us are dealing with this, right?

Monica Herald [00:01:51]:
Yeah.

Ruth Poundwhite [00:01:51]:
So I want to start. with a big broad question about that, and you can take it in whatever direction you want, which is, how do you show up and sell with unpredictable and fluctuating energy and capacity?

Monica Herald [00:02:04]:
Yeah. So I think that for me, it really starts with rooting myself in what my values are, right? Randy Buckley, who does boundary work, uh, is really where I get this from. And she teaches about how boundaries are values in action. And so everything that I do, I kind of see through that lens in the sense that, um, when I have low capacity, the values that I want to honor in my life, um, might be different at the moment, right? So I might want to honor being restful and like taking that space to recharge. Or if I have family obligations, I might want to honor like tending to my family and being present to that. My brother’s partner just was diagnosed with lymphoma. And he’s a Twitch streamer. So he has like a huge online community, which has been really cool to see, like as they’ve come up to support.

Monica Herald [00:03:15]:
But I know that with my family, we’re already thinking about kind of how that shifts how we show up for the holidays and things like that this year. And so that, I think, is a really good example of where that value of like family connection and support influences then what I’m going to be doing in my business. So thinking now ahead of time, which isn’t always the case, But thinking now about how I can structure things looking forward as much as possible. It also looks like taking and creating— and I talked about this at the summit— like little bricks, right, or Legos that you can kind of piece together to match what your energy or capacity is in the moment. So sometimes that looks like batching because I have energy to batch. But most of the time it doesn’t. I do like to batch ahead of time photo prompts that I do that are for like grounding and calm, and those are on my Patreon. But I like to batch those because then I know it’s done.

Monica Herald [00:04:24]:
Those come out every week. And it’s a good practice for me to find the photo and think about the question from the photos that I’ve taken. And that’s one thing that I know is like taken care of 2 to 3 months in advance. And so even if I’m not able to show up anywhere else with like consistency— I hate that word, but we’re gonna use it— I know that that is going out regularly, even if my Things I’m Loving newsletter skips a week, because those are every other Friday, or I’m not showing up on Facebook or Instagram or in my own newsletter as much as I want, I know that at least that one thing is out there, right? And so really looking at how I can break those in. And then I think something that I’ve learned from your Soulful Sales Society was really to broaden how I think about selling. And so I did that with, um, my Mindful Moments book, which just came out, which is that I really didn’t have bandwidth when it first came out to do tons. There were a lot of reasons for that. But the very short thing is I didn’t have energy, right? Didn’t have energy, didn’t have tons of time, didn’t have tons of capacity for it either.

Monica Herald [00:05:45]:
And so I celebrated the small things that were selling that were like easy that I could do, updating my email signature and putting a link to my book in there. Adding the announcement bar. I think that’s one of the things on one of your challenges that you have, right? Putting the announcement bar on the website up so that that was changed. And really being gentle and honoring my values of sustainability, I think, is probably the highest one in that case. Of saying like, okay, how am I doing this in a sustainable way? In, in like what that means for me right now. And that right now meant that I didn’t have tons for it. Um, you know, that meant that even though I would have loved to have had it go out on all the platforms at exactly the same time, it still isn’t on all the platforms. And I still haven’t sent an email to my email list.

Monica Herald [00:06:48]:
Hopefully by the time this comes out, that email will have gone out. But like, I haven’t sent an email to my email list. I sent one to my newsletter list. I sent one like my things I’m loving, which is separate. I sent one to my patrons because they saw the photos along the way and got an ebook version of it for free. I sent it like it was on my personal page first. Then the VA who I work with for like a very short amount of time per month, she got the stuff up on Facebook that we talked about. And then a week later, it finally went up on Instagram.

Monica Herald [00:07:25]:
And it just like, is it perfect? No. But is it sustainable? Yeah. Like it is sustainable with the demands on my time, with the things that I want to honor around being with family or friends locally. with needing to travel places for like family stuff, with heat and like hot summer. I don’t do well with heat. Like, so just really taking all of those pieces into consideration and then again anchoring into what’s that value that I want to honor the most. I know that’s a very spidery answer.

Ruth Poundwhite [00:08:06]:
It’s perfect. And that’s— I was gonna— there was a few things that I just really wanted to emphasize from what you said. Firstly, that lens of the, what’s the current value that you’re, or values that you’re working towards or in honor of. And I think one really helpful thing that you shared was just like knowing that it’s almost like your kind of bare minimum thing that’s always going out, that one thing that you do plan in advance.

Monica Herald [00:08:32]:
Yes.

Ruth Poundwhite [00:08:32]:
Because You mentioned like, yeah, batching is a great tool, but most of the time I don’t do it. And like, that’s me too. Like, there are some things I batch or sometimes I batch, but generally it’s really hard for my brain to work that way. And I wish I could do it more and it would be helpful, but my brain doesn’t love it. But there is, I, I resonate with what you said about having that thing that, you know, is going out there. So if all else is left or gone to chaos or whatever, you, you have that kind of foundation.

Monica Herald [00:09:02]:
I really like that.

Ruth Poundwhite [00:09:03]:
Yes.

Monica Herald [00:09:03]:
Yes. It took us a lot of experimenting to get there because I was all in on this idea of batching and I was like, yes, let’s do it. Like, this is why I need somebody to help me so I can get ahead and blah, blah, blah. And she only works with me for 10 hours a month, which is not much when you’re meeting every week to like stay on track. It’s just not a lot of time. But the only thing that I can consistently manage to batch Is these photo prompts, right? Like, we’ve, we tried to do it with my Things I’m Loving newsletter. We’ve tried to do it with other things, and it’s just not— it doesn’t really work for me.

Ruth Poundwhite [00:09:43]:
And the other thing I wanted to, to ask you about is like, because I know from our conversations in the past, like, you’ve been working on this book, like, it’s meant a lot to you, and you’ve been working on it for a while. And I know that feeling of something that really matters And that’s important. And it comes to launch time and it’s like, oh man, I’m not— I can’t do all the things that I thought I was going to do. And let’s talk about that feeling.

Monica Herald [00:10:06]:
Yeah, I was so disappointed, Ruth. The book was finished in April and I had issues with Amazon and Canva and like file stuff. And so it would kick it back to me and I had like planned out how I was going to do the launch then. Before, I had like all these ideas. I’d use ChatGPT to help me kind of like run some scenarios, um, and like do it in a way that honored the book and my approach and blah blah blah. But I kept having this issue, this like tech issue with Amazon and Canva, and it would happen. And this is not like— this was not my first book, Ruth. Like, I’ve, I’ve done multiple books on Amazon.

Monica Herald [00:10:48]:
Like, I know how it works. So I couldn’t figure out what wasn’t working. And I would try to fix it, and then I would set it aside for 3 weeks because I would get so frustrated. I was like, I can’t— like, I’ve tried, I’ve spent hours on this, you’re kicking it back, it’s not ready. So that happened a bunch, which I think also impacted my energy and like excitement. I had reached the point where the friend who helped me with it, if we hadn’t been able to figure it out— and we almost didn’t— I’d have just been like, forget it, this book is not meant to be. I like— I love this book. I think it’s incredibly powerful and like what’s needed in the world right now.

Monica Herald [00:11:26]:
But this is not a mindful process at this point. This is like so stressful. And so when it came out, I had a choice, right? Like my choice was, do I try to like get back to the energy that I had in April and March when I was like, had finished the ebook and had gotten it already all laid out and fix the color correction and all of those things? Or do I like say, okay, this part of the process has not been what I wanted it to be and it has really sucked. Um, and how can I make this new next part that I’m starting up again not suck? Mm-hmm. How can I bring back the mindfulness to it? So that’s really what has informed how I came back to it. Because there was— there wasn’t gonna be a going back to this, like, beautiful launch idea that I’d had for this thing that I’d been working on. Like, it just— we’d missed that window, and that was gonna be okay. But how could I make the way that it looked now honor that? And, like, trust that it’s a long game, right? Like, the book isn’t a one-off.

Monica Herald [00:12:39]:
It’s not a book that I’m gonna ever stop talking about. I’m really proud of it. Um, and so like trusting that too, right? Mm-hmm.

Ruth Poundwhite [00:12:51]:
You know, just such a powerful question. And I know so many people resonate with this idea of being ready to throw in the towel and not even do the thing before it’s even out. And then I gotta fit it into this idea I had back before I had these feelings or Right. Literal things come up that got in the way. Such a powerful question. And I think especially knowing that it’s a thing that you’re going to be talking about for a long time to come, like, it doesn’t all ride on now. You, you were disappointed, right? And you tuned back in and, you know, reminded yourself of what’s really true.

Monica Herald [00:13:31]:
Zoomed out bigger. Yeah. Yes. What’s really true. And And then readjusting my goals, right? So like, how many copies of the book would I like to sell? Hundreds? Like 1,000? 1,000 would be great. Most books don’t sell more than 500 copies. Like, by the time you hit 300 to 500, if you’re self-publishing, like, you’ve tapped out your network usually. And many published by publishers, like Big 5 publishers, most of those books don’t sell more than 1,000 copies.

Monica Herald [00:14:00]:
So if I could sell 1,000, like, that would be amazing. But what I readjusted my, like, first month’s goal to was 20, right? Because I, like, launched it earlier this month, and it wasn’t the beginning of the month, it was like a little bit into the month. And so what would feel doable and not like a small, small number, but But doable, right? With that slow approach. And again, like knowing that it’s just that foundation, not, you know, I want the line to go gradually up. Because if it just like zooms up like a tall mountain, then it’s gotta come down because it like, it can’t keep going up.

Ruth Poundwhite [00:14:49]:
What does it do to you?

Monica Herald [00:14:50]:
Like unbridled growth.

Ruth Poundwhite [00:14:52]:
Yeah, sorry, sorry. What does it do for you when you make that decision? Like, I am allowed to pull back the goal, I’m allowed to pull back the marketing plans.

Monica Herald [00:15:01]:
It let me listen to what the book was and what it wanted, because I think that that, like, that honors the spirit of it and, and honors, like, the purpose of it too, right? Like, what I want the book to do in the world, it’s not gonna do any good for me to flail around trying to sell something that is about being calm?

Ruth Poundwhite [00:15:32]:
And it’s okay if you do. And like, because there’s a lot of talk about like embodying our work and being, you know, in integrity, but we all have those moments, all of us, no matter how good we are at what we do. But I do think that’s a very powerful question, like honoring The what?

Monica Herald [00:15:49]:
Yeah, right. And, and to, to be fair, I think that it is possible to have like a high-energy, high-activity way of doing it that would have still honored the work, right? But that’s not what I had bandwidth for when we got to the actual launch point. Right. Um, and that’s fine.

Ruth Poundwhite [00:16:18]:
Absolutely. So let’s talk about the work. I would love to hear, because have you even shared the book name? I can’t remember if it’s come up.

Monica Herald [00:16:26]:
No, I don’t think I have. It’s, uh, Mindful Moments: 52 Prompts, um, on the Sacred and Mundane. And I think I have a proof copy here. So this is, this is the actual, like, cover of the book. And then the inside is just, like, a photo and a prompt. And there’s pages that’s blank for either people to journal on or just to have blank and write on their own paper.

Ruth Poundwhite [00:16:52]:
And I’m going to share the link in the show notes, but I just want to ask you, like, how, how do you use this process yourself to support you as a, obviously, a human all around and especially in your business?

Monica Herald [00:17:05]:
Yeah. Yeah. So this morning my niece is visiting and this morning we or the past few mornings, really, we’ve been doing like a 3-minute body scan video on YouTube that helps us check in with like what’s going on in your head and your ears and your like neck. And so starting with that, and then for me, I, I, for me, the power of this specifically isn’t in the The answering of the questions. Like, I, I don’t actually journal the questions, but in what, what the questions like open up to marinate and like boil in a pot, right? Kind of like making stock, like chicken stock. You know, you can make chicken stock and have the bones in, and you take the bones out and you’re left with the nutrition. And if, like me, you live in a house that doesn’t have tons of storage space, you might take and boil the stock down until it’s like this big in the pan instead of 10 quarts so that you can store it super, super concentrated, right, for like nutrition later. And I find that Sitting with the question, even if I’m not writing about it, is more useful.

Monica Herald [00:18:42]:
And looking at the photos and thinking, like, as I’m looking through my pictures that I’ve taken, or on a walk, looking for pictures and thinking like, oh, what’s an interesting photo that I can take? And sometimes it’s when I’m cooking, you know, like, Here’s a picture of a double yoke. But it helps me be more present as I’m preparing the material for the prompts because I’m always watching and looking to see and then to think, like, what does this make me— like, what does this image evoke for me that I can ask about? Like, for myself, like, what do I need to ask right now? And I think that’s one of the other things that I really like about the book is that it has the questions. But a friend pointed out that even though I call it like 52 prompts, that really the photos kind of stand alone, right? Like, so people can look at the photos and see where the photo draws them in. And that’s what I love about like being out walking and taking pictures, right? Or like looking through my window. Right now I have a tree, like there’s a tree in front of my house. Um, or seeing the kids playing outside. Like, what’s around me that’s going to spark a pause?

Ruth Poundwhite [00:20:06]:
I feel like this is a prompt for anyone listening. Just like, look around you right now.

Monica Herald [00:20:13]:
Yeah, yeah. What’s, what’s around you? What’s— you know, if I like look around my space, I have a fan. I can see like a green light that’s hanging, that’s kind of moving. My cat with her like weird shadows behind me. But, but once you find something that like catches your eye, sit with it and notice, like, why did it catch your eye? What’s, what’s the invitation? What’s the question? What’s the, the being with that’s happening?

Ruth Poundwhite [00:20:49]:
And I know for me, it makes such a difference if I, no matter what the practice is, whether it’s a prompt or whether it’s like, like literally a brain dump journal, or, you know, lit— just looking out the window, gazing out the window. I’m like, right now I’m noticing the trees that are always there, but I don’t always notice, right?

Monica Herald [00:21:09]:
Yeah.

Ruth Poundwhite [00:21:10]:
It makes such a difference, but it seems so simple that—

Monica Herald [00:21:13]:
Yes.

Ruth Poundwhite [00:21:13]:
We don’t prioritize it. Well, I definitely don’t.

Monica Herald [00:21:16]:
It’s so easy to forget to prioritize it. And I think that for me, what I’ve tried to do, and I do this, I talked about the bricks, like I referenced from the summit. But I think that for me, finding ways to remember all of the things in my life, whether they’re business or personal, and think about them in brick terms, and sometimes even having a physical reminder. So I have index cards, like 3 by 5 index cards that I wrote out, and they’re color-coded, not the writing, but the actual physical cards, so that I can leave the cards next to me and pick them up and like grab one from a different color. And these cards specifically are for like movement or mindfulness or like physical therapy, physio stuff that I have to do. And so just seeing them there helps me remember while I’m sitting at my laptop doing work, like, oh, I need to do something. And then seeing what comes out, right? Like, it might not be the same type of thing every time. Or if I feel like I really need to move, I can take one from the color that is movement.

Monica Herald [00:22:33]:
But like, I made these for myself. Right? They weren’t like purchased. Purchased ones are fine, but what I like about making your own is that you can customize it to exactly what you need. And for some people, task software might be the right thing, right? Or like Todoist or keeping a notes app. But for me, I really have learned over the past few years that now, maybe not in the past, but now, like, I have to have that physical reminder. If I don’t have a physical reminder, it’s not gonna happen. It’s just not. And does that make my space look a little bit messier than I would like it to? Yeah.

Monica Herald [00:23:11]:
Like right now on the floor is a resistance band. But I’m like, I’m not gonna remember to go and pull it out of the cabinet.

Ruth Poundwhite [00:23:23]:
It—

Monica Herald [00:23:24]:
And, and so having it here so that when I’m sitting typing at my laptop and can like put it under my foot. and lift, like pause and do like 10, like lifts is really helpful, right? Even if it’s just for those 10 and not for more. You know, it’s not about building like big muscles or about like going for a run or going for a walk. This specifically is to like help me pause in the moment and do something that’s a little bit strenuous, because this is like a pretty heavy resistance band, um, that, that kind of helps reset my brain and my body.

Ruth Poundwhite [00:24:10]:
I feel you on needing it to be out and not like seriously, and it’s frustrating, but I need that reminder as well, right? Yeah. Okay, so I also wanted to ask you in terms of, I mean, Firstly, I love that you shared, like, it’s really low pressure. It’s really low pressure. And I’ve seen your book, and I know that the invite— they really are invitations, and it’s really however you want to interpret it. And that’s my favorite way of journaling, because as soon as something becomes too specific or demanding, I, I don’t want to do it, you know? Or—

Monica Herald [00:24:44]:
Yeah.

Ruth Poundwhite [00:24:45]:
I go through phases where I don’t want to do it, and I really appreciate it being as much or as little as I want and wherever my brain wants to take me.

Monica Herald [00:24:54]:
Yeah.

Ruth Poundwhite [00:24:54]:
Definitely the most helpful thing for me. Um, I also wanted to talk about those times when— so we talked about like fluctuating energy and supporting yourself. What about when it’s— I don’t know how to describe it— like an elongated period where you just feel like— because this has definitely been my truth, like especially like last year When you’re like, okay, I’m just gonna wait this out, and then you’re waiting and waiting and—

Monica Herald [00:25:21]:
You’re waiting, you’re like, what? Yeah, yeah, we’re still in the same spot. Um, yeah, I’ve definitely had those extended sorts of periods, and I think there’s a couple, um, factors that can really make a difference. Um, being plugged into a community, I think that’s like the number one thing. Personal community, business community, people who are physically able to show up, like if that’s what you need support with, people who are able to check in and say like, hey, how’s it going? People who have been there before so that you don’t feel as alone. And then as far as like keeping the business going, I think that there’s a couple different components, right? Um, if you, like me, are somebody who has like regular depression, then it’s something to plan for, right? Like, just like if I lived in a hurricane area, I would make sure that I was hurricane ready, right? Like, I would have a go bag, I would have sandbags or like boards for my window or whatever else you need in a hurricane thing. I don’t actually know what that is. But like, whatever those are, that’s what you would have, right? So I know for myself what the tools are that are helpful. And, and also like understanding that you might miss it, right? So like, I only— gosh.

Monica Herald [00:27:04]:
In April or May, I was doing some cooking and I was making like a big batch on the stove of soup or beans, or it was something. I don’t remember what it was. Maybe it was a curry. And it was a curry. It was like a lamb or goat curry. And there are a bunch of steps and you had to like do the spices. And it wasn’t until after I’d finished making that, that I was like, oh, I’ve been like in a pretty bad depression place since October. Because if I’m not cooking, like something’s wrong.

Monica Herald [00:27:46]:
Because for me, cooking is like a mindful thing. And it’s something that I enjoy. Like I love it. And, and I had had lots of things that had moved me through, you know, like I had like quick meals that I’ve come to know are like ways to make sure that I’m getting nutrition. I’d had, um, like I have different things that are kind of passive income. I say kind of because like they’re not really making enough to make much, but they’re like there. Um, I kept my minimal commitments with clients that I had happening. Um, I signed up to be a sponsor for the Massive Success Summit because I knew that having those hard deadlines for money that I had spent was going to make me get my ass moving.

Monica Herald [00:28:33]:
That was it. That was why I did that, right? Like that and like the fact that I liked the topic, like those were the 2 factors. And if it weren’t for knowing that about myself, like I wouldn’t have signed up to sponsor a summit, but I knew that I would have to get things together in order to like adequately get any ROI or, or really like justify spending that, that much money on that. And, and I mentioned these things because I thought that I was still like doing pretty good, right? Like I, but it, and so, you know, I’ve, I’m 42 as of last month and this is something that I’ve been living with for 30 years now. So like, I know my system, like I have systems, I have things that help, I have practices like the taking photos, I have, you know, movement things. And we still miss stuff, right? Like, our brains and our bodies are really smart and know how to fool us and keep us surviving, right? In whatever that means for us. And so, so I probably had like a pretty significant, like low-key throughout that whole time, even though there were like bigger dips that I would’ve said I had identified. Like there was still a pretty significant drop in lower.

Monica Herald [00:30:00]:
And, and I think it helps, you know, I was in a position where for me, I had worked at Apple before. And while I was working at Apple, I had purchased like stock units at a discounted price. And so I had known this past year that I would sell those if I needed to. And so I had those to sell, right? Lots of people don’t have those things. Sometimes people have inordinate amounts of money. I don’t. Sometimes people have spouses and they’re not the sole like supporter, or their spouse is the sole supporter or the main income driver, right? So there’s like 1,000 mitigating factors that we never know when we see somebody else about what’s going on to support their business moving forward. And I think that’s really important to also name because I think that it gets not named so often.

Monica Herald [00:30:57]:
And then there’s also situations where people run a business. I think you’re the sole provider for the most part, Ruth, right?

Ruth Poundwhite [00:31:04]:
Mm-hmm.

Monica Herald [00:31:04]:
That’s more pressure for your business because you have children and a husband. And, and so like there’s, there’s just so much that is unique to us but is still universal, right?

Ruth Poundwhite [00:31:20]:
Absolutely. And thanks for just being so open about that. And I relate so much. And sometimes the toolkit, I can put it in place and sometimes I didn’t realize and I can’t.

Monica Herald [00:31:31]:
Right.

Ruth Poundwhite [00:31:32]:
And sometimes I push through because, like you said, uh, I need to show up for the money and the family. And yep, I’ve got to answer for that at some point down the line, but sometimes it’s a short time through. Yeah. So I think that that’s so helpful.

Monica Herald [00:31:46]:
I—

Ruth Poundwhite [00:31:47]:
it’s so helpful to talk about it. And you’re right, everyone is different. Um, but let’s keep the convers— let’s keep talking about it because it’s not smooth sailing.

Monica Herald [00:31:55]:
Yeah.

Ruth Poundwhite [00:31:55]:
Especially when you are an individual running a business, like, and it’s all on you.

Monica Herald [00:32:00]:
Yeah.

Ruth Poundwhite [00:32:01]:
It’s good to know that you’re not alone.

Monica Herald [00:32:04]:
Right. And, you know, I’ve had some family stuff happening and I had to drive. I drove to Tennessee last week, uh, and that was like a 12-hour drive and I was there for a day and then I did another 12-hour drive back and we’re driving back to Tennessee tomorrow and then back again on Sunday. And over the course of like 3 weeks, I’ll have 9 days that that I can’t be at a computer or working or in my home space, right? 9 days minimum, maybe a little bit more. And that’s a situation where I’m choosing a different value, right, to circle back to where we were at the beginning, that I want to honor. But I also still, in this particular instance— this isn’t a perfect situation for us to have this podcast interview, but I had committed to it. And so like, what are the pieces that I can put in place to support that as much as possible? And sometimes that means like listening to a pump-up song 3 minutes before, right? Or like having an extra espresso shot. And I’m not saying that those are things that like cure depression or anxiety or chronic fatigue syndrome or anything else like that.

Monica Herald [00:33:18]:
But, but in those instances where we we do have to, for whatever reason, like, push through, you know, I have no more stock left to sell. I have to earn money, like, it has to come in, right? At a level that is sustainable for me and for my, like, life and business and everything. What are the things that in those instances can help you push through, right? And so there’s also a lot of not pre-planning, but like pre-thinking that I think is helpful in that sort of situation, which is why I like the bricks, right? Because like, when you take out Legos or Lincoln Logs or Tinker Toys, like, you already have the pieces made. It’s just about pulling it out and putting it together in like in the form that fits in that moment. And so it removes emotional load that, that like I don’t have to spare in that moment, right? Yeah.

Ruth Poundwhite [00:34:24]:
Yeah, absolutely. And let’s shift gears slightly. And I want to ask you, because it’s definitely on my mind right now, and I know it’s on a lot of people’s mind, what is the role of AI in supporting your capacity in all of this?

Monica Herald [00:34:40]:
Yeah, I think it’s— I think AI is here to stay. And I’m gonna— I imagine that when you say AI, mostly what you mean is like a large language learning model like ChatGPT or Claude, or one of those. That’s, I would say, where AI mostly shows up in my business, although I also use AI Like with Otter, right? So like that’s been there for a long time, the Otter transcriptions. But with Claude or ChatGPT, I’m actually experimenting with Claude with writing cozy mysteries because that’s fun. It’s like a fun break thing. It’s not quite like a shiny object because I’m not like deep diving, uh, but it is something that I’m, I’m working on, and I see it as being a part of my long-term plan around building up like mystery series that can be on Amazon that people can purchase, or like with Kindle Unlimited. Um, so that’s like one piece, but what I think more is helpful for this particular conversation, um, is that like for general business use using it to help with like prompting my brain, right? So even though I have many years of experience copywriting and marketing and editing and doing strategy and like client relations or membership development, like I, I have a lot of tools in my kit, but when I ask ChatGPT, for example, to help me with my marketing plan, right? First, it’s so important how you prompt, right? So that beginning stage for me is really helpful because in order to prompt effectively and get something that isn’t garbage, I have to really think about what I want. Right? I have to have some clarity there for myself.

Monica Herald [00:37:00]:
And I know other people who use it differently, but that’s, that’s like my approach. And so I think that figuring out what I want to ask is, is like the first most important step, right? Because do I want to prioritize marketing? Like, do I want an overall marketing launch plan? Do I want a marketing plan that’s like specifically aimed on Instagram? Do I want to like have it do some research online with the web access and see whether it makes more sense to like put something on Instagram or on Facebook or on my blog? Do I want to have it analyze my statistics and like give me some approaches for email marketing, right? So like there’s, there is a soup of like a never-ending, like I’m thinking like Alice in Wonderland, like a soup river almost, right? Of like what AI can do. And so, so really formulating that question helps me clarify my own process and approach to the problem, but then using it to help generate ideas that I then adjust and tweak. We’ve also started using it for— we were trying to get better at the process for coming up with taglines for my Things I’m Loving newsletter. My assistant was doing them. And there was one that came out that I really did— like, I didn’t like it a lot. Like, I felt like it was just like, oh, it was like nails on a chalkboard. And so we’ve, we’ve started kind of giving it information about my work.

Monica Herald [00:38:42]:
And she gets it to generate like 5 general taglines, and then ones that are specific to that week’s issue. And then I look at the options in a Notion page that she’s made and like highlight the parts that I like, or she’ll highlight the one that she thinks is best. And then I say like, I like this, but yeah, let’s take out this or let’s adjust this. And so for those sorts of like small tasks, it’s really helpful. But I also do like it for the big overall thinking around like, how do I want to approach this launch? And, and I always keep in mind, it is not a human. It is not a brain. It is not thinking critically. It is an algorithmic predictor that is guessing what character comes next, right? And so I think that’s also a really important factor because if you just take what it says and apply it, like, it could be wrong.

Monica Herald [00:39:44]:
Or it might not actually understand the full nuances of the situation because it is a code. Like, it is a computer code program that is trained on more data than you or I could process in our lifetime, right? Which is why it seems so eerily good because it has such a deep repository to pull data from and like patterns for pattern recognition. So I like to use it for that. I, I do keep in ChatGPT, I keep like a couple different threads going that I reuse. Claude is a little bit different to use because they have, I think, a shorter token window, like context window for the chats. And then I still use the API with all of them. I really like using an API because it guarantees that I am not going to have my data training their models. And something else that you didn’t ask about, and I’m not really sure that it falls into exactly this, but I have turned on scraping for my content.

Monica Herald [00:41:02]:
Like originally I had turned off the AI scraping, like on Squarespace. and on Substack and all of the places where I am because I didn’t want AI to pull my stuff. But the trend is definitely that more and more people are using like Chat or Claude as a Google search essentially, right? And so I think that it’s an important business aspect that doesn’t get as much like talk time because if you’re not there, then like that does limit how people are going to find you now, right? Like ChatGPT searches are approaching overtaking Google searches for where people are finding things, and Google is even like pushing chat, like AI answers up to the top, right?

Ruth Poundwhite [00:41:51]:
It’s definitely heading that way. And I was actually going to ask you as well, you mentioned a couple of the limitations of it. Are there any other boundaries that you have with with the way that you use it?

Monica Herald [00:42:01]:
I don’t do the voice. I know a lot of people like to do voice-to-text with it. For me, that feels too human. So what I do to get around it that feels a little bit less human is I will— I’ll turn on my Otter and let that transcribe me. And then I’ll copy and paste the transcription into the chat and say, here’s what I think. Can you please pull out the most important points? And then I’ll like, so like I’ll have a conversation that way. And then I think the other thing, and it’s not quite a boundary, but something that I did have to reconcile for myself was the environmental impact. I think that’s my biggest concern.

Monica Herald [00:42:47]:
And there’s some really good articles that I’ve read that are helpful. To think about with that, that actually look at, like, water use and things like that. Because these studies that talk about, like, AI use— AI is a really broad term that just means artificial intelligence. It doesn’t just mean large language learning models. It means, like, the Netflix algorithm that shows you shows that it thinks you’re gonna wanna watch. It means like how Google’s algorithm decides what to put at the top of your list on your page. And like actual ChatGPT requests or Claude requests are way more minuscule than some of those numbers seem. And so really educating myself about that was important.

Monica Herald [00:43:42]:
I don’t use it indiscriminately. I’m not like, loosey-goosey, let me just use this to like work out my thinking most of the time. Not all the time, but most of the time. And I have a pretty small carbon footprint, like in my house, usually in my travel. I like volunteer at a farm that’s here and barter for my food from there. So like my produce isn’t traveling far distances. And so I feel like enough of my, my, my like individual eco footprint is small enough that like if there’s gonna be something that is gonna increase my eco footprint, I’m okay with like that being based on what I understand from my research being the amount that it is from like using ChatGPT or Claude.

Ruth Poundwhite [00:44:42]:
Yeah, I’ve gone through the exact same thought process and research myself, and it is really important to consider and talk about. All right, so I could talk to you about this forever, but we have to wrap up. So I’m just going to ask you 3 quickfire questions. The first one is, beyond financial success, what is the impact that you want to have in the world through your work?

Monica Herald [00:45:03]:
Oh, I want people to know that they can do it differently. And that, like, it might be their business, it might be their life, but they can do it differently. And I don’t think that it’s up to us to change the system now overnight, but I want to support people making small sustainable changes, right, that like help change the way that things are because they’re not working. Like, things are not working the way that they are now.

Ruth Poundwhite [00:45:33]:
Yeah.

Monica Herald [00:45:33]:
in our society, I believe. Yeah, that would be my answer if I’m keeping it short, rapid fire.

Ruth Poundwhite [00:45:40]:
Perfect. Question 2 is, if you could give a message of inspiration and encouragement to past you earlier in your journey, what would that be?

Monica Herald [00:45:48]:
It would be twofold. It would be one, everybody who tells you that you’re afraid to be seen is wrong and continue to believe that they’re wrong. Like, trust yourself on that. And I say everybody, but like I’m thinking of a particular few like loud individuals. Uh, and then number 2 would be it’s gonna take a while, longer than you’d like it to take, but that’s okay.

Ruth Poundwhite [00:46:13]:
That would be very helpful. Um, and finally, what does soulful selling mean to you?

Monica Herald [00:46:19]:
I think it’s selling in alignment with like your North Star. And that North Star may or may not include something outside of yourself.

Ruth Poundwhite [00:46:34]:
Beautiful. Thank you so much, Monica.

Monica Herald [00:46:37]:
You’re welcome. Thank you, Ruth. This was so delightful.