Sam Vander Wielen:

It's been an awesome three years of trying to do this and trying to figure out podcasting, and I really love it. And I think it's the thing that right now could afford to just take a break.

Hey, hey, and welcome back to On Your Terms. Today, I am sharing with you that I'm actually taking a little bit of a podcast break for at least the rest of the summer, if not for a couple of months through 2024. So, let's kind of cozy up, get into it. I'll explain a little bit about what's going on behind the scenes, what I am focusing on in my business, and you'll definitely want to stick around for some advice when it comes to life feeling a little bit like on overload, business feeling on overload, what exactly should you focus on during those times so that maybe I can share or impart some lessons that I've learned so far about what I'm going through right now and how I'm kind of integrating that to help my business and my sanity, really, at the end of the day.

So, here's the deal. I'm editing my book, as you know. Probably if you follow me on Instagram or if you get any of my emails, I talk often behind the scenes of what it's been like to write my own book and, well, I'll tell you, it's a doozy. It's an awesome experience. I'm really loving it. I mean, there's so many things I'm loving about it. I think it's making me a better writer.

I'm really excited to be able to have one kind of central repository for all the business advice that I could ever give you. I really, truly feel I've left everything out on the field when it comes to this book. Everything that's in my brain is in this book. There's nothing else. Unless I develop something else between now and then, I am teaching you all my best marketing strategies, all email marketing strategies. I mean, literally in this book, I go through, I teach you all these different funnels to create email sequences, buying psychology, literally everything that I've learned in the past seven, eight years. And so, it's an incredible experience to be able to do that, to have this opportunity, to be working with my editor, Nana, who's just such a brilliant writer and editor. And so, she is pushing me to be better, to be a better writer, but also to be a better teacher by proxy. So, it's an incredible experience. And as you can imagine, it's a ton of work, right? No surprise, and it should be.

And this is why I think personally, I've always respected authors so much. And it already makes me so emotional to imagine my book ever being out there. I thought I already had a ton of respect for authors, and now every time I go to a bookstore, I'm like, "Damn. I know what you had to go through." It is a lot. It's a lot.

So, anyway, I'm in that process right now of editing the book and that is intense. For some reason, it's making me very, very tired. And I don't know, it takes up a lot of mental energy for me, I guess, because when you sit down to edit the book, I mean, I'm going to have a couple of more passes to go back and forth with my editor and then eventually with our copy editor. But I think that with each phase and with each pass of the book, you kind of get less and less room to make big changes.

So, like right now, the editing that I'm doing is the one that has the most opportunity for like, "Oh, I want to add a paragraph here. I want to completely rephrase this. I want to add a new concept." I still have that opportunity, but I think with every pass that we go back and forth, there's probably a little bit less of that because you're kind of just trying to perfect it as much as you can. And so, doing that and I guess feeling the pressure of the finality of what I've created and what's going to be out there, it has really set in.

And so, yeah, editing the book definitely takes up a lot of mental space, a lot of energy, and especially on top of running a multi-seven figure business already, it's so wild to me how we've just continued on as a company. And thank goodness for our incredible team who keeps everything kind of running behind the scenes and people have had to step in and pick up my Slack, pick up other people's Slack, just jump in and do what we can, it's very much like a startup mentality in that respect.

I always joke, I would clean the toilets if we had digital toilets. We would just do what we have to do. And that's what everybody on the team has done and has been kind enough to do. And it's what I've had to do, too, as an owner, I've had to let certain things go. I've had to put off certain projects or ideas that I've had. I've had to kind of just scramble and do things when I can.

So, yeah, writing a book has just been an interesting learning experience in like, Where does this fit into the business? How am I going to get this done on top of everything else? What stuff doesn't matter anymore or doesn't matter as much? And I think, really, it pushes you to see what could take a backseat for the moment or what can also get chopped maybe more permanently.

And when it came to the podcast, when it came to On Your Terms, it's the thing that I actually enjoy doing the most. I really, really enjoy podcasting. And it's also something that takes up a lot of time and that I feel like I've kind of reached a crossroads as to, Where do I want the podcast to go? Are people liking it? Is listenership growing? Is that even important? What role does the podcast kind of serve in the business in terms of it being more of a discovery, an attractor, a lead attractor versus a lead nurturing conversion magnet, which is where my podcast tends to be, is more of a conversion and nurturing magnet. Is that really what I need in my business?

It just has me thinking a lot. Actually, this is one of the biggest and best things I've learned from writing a book so far, is that it has me really stepping back and seeing the 30,000 foot view a little bit clearer.

Sometimes I think it's helpful when you go to give other people advice about what to do with their business or their life. You're like, "Oh, wait. Am I doing that too?" So, it kind of caused me to say, You know what? We have had this podcast now for three years. When you're listening to this, I think it's been three years and one week straight of podcasting, no breaks. And I've never taken a break. I know some people do seasons or they'll take a summer break. We've never taken a break. And when my parents both died, we kind of scrambled. I either had new episodes for at least one time of the week or we would have a replay option or something like this, but we didn't stop, we kept going. And it was pretty quick after both of my parents died that I was back in my chair recording new podcast episodes.

So, it's been an awesome three years of trying to do this and trying to figure out podcasting, and I really love it. And I think it's the thing that right now could afford to just take a break. So, it's my hope and my desire that the podcast doesn't go anywhere, that I come back, come back from the break, that we come back actually stronger than ever, maybe clearer and more focused, and maybe even with a little bit of a new twist or a new concept. Especially because when I come back, I will be much closer to the book actually coming out, it comes out April 15, 2025, and I want to make sure we have a good solid pipeline to the book.

So, there are really three reasons why I want to take some time, have a break, and have some white space, and why I really need white space.

So, first and foremost, is because I need to get these edits and get everything out the door.

The second thing is that I have not actually taken a full, true break from anything in business in I don't even know how long. Because even every vacation that I've gone on since my parents have died, there's been the executor of my dad's estate, and then after my mom got killed, there's been a lot going on dealing with all the stuff that's come from her death. And so, there's just never really been a time where I've actually taken off. Even since I got the book deal, it's then been like, "Oh, I have a break, I'll write the book." Or now, it's like, "I have a break, I'll edit the book." So, I really, really want that white space for actually having time off as well.

But the third reason is that what I'm hoping kind of comes from the white space, and I think it's actually really important not to force this and that maybe it just comes naturally, but I'm hoping that with just taking a break from putting out so much content all the time that I do have that clarity over like, "Okay. I love podcasting so much." I really love it when you listen to On Your Terms, especially when you reach out to me and let me know that you've listened and that some things resonated with you or has been really helpful to you when you've listened to the podcast. So, how can I approach this the best way possible when we come back from this break? What is the best thing for you? What is also the best thing for me as a creator? I think it's kind of a blend between the two, to be honest.

And so, I have a lot of ideas swirling, but maybe you've thought about something for your business or something in the past where you're just like, I feel like I'm hovering around something. I can't see it clearly yet. It hasn't clicked that satisfying seatbelt click. I haven't gotten that satisfying seatbelt click feeling yet. And I think part of that is because I'm always creating. And when you're creating a lot, it's really hard to have that more 30,000 foot view.

So, I'm just hoping that I take a pause, I see something a little bit more clearly that I'm kind of hovering around with the podcast, and we come back stronger than ever. So, my hope and intention was to come back in the fall. It's just more or less whether I come back early in the fall or later in the fall. I'm traveling a whole lot for the rest of the year. I'm going to, like, five countries between October and December, so I've got a whole lot of travel. I'm speaking down in Texas. I've got a whole lot of stuff going on. I'm taking a dream trip to Patagonia for a long time. So, I'm doing all that plus getting ready, obviously, to release the book, which will go on presale around the holidays, so that's really exciting.

Okay. So, here's the thing though, although I might be taking a little bit of a break for a couple of months from the podcast, I do want to point you in the right direction in case you've landed here or in case you've been listening to On Your Terms. I have a bank of evergreen content here on the podcast. So, I've got hundreds of episodes for you on every single legal topic you could think of from LLCs to DBAs, to business bank accounts, business insurance, what to do if people steal your content, what to do if clients don't pay you, how to pay yourself, small business taxes. Everything you can think of, I've already done it on On Your Terms.

And for the most part, that information hasn't really changed. So, it's the nice part about what I do, it's kind of cornerstone evergreen content. So, you've got hundreds of episodes here on the podcast to listen to. We've got playlists for you based on what you're looking for and what you're looking to learn about how to legally protect your business and based on where you're at. So, I'm going to make sure we drop all of those in the show notes.

Also, if you haven't already, go to my website, samvanderwielen.com/podcast. We have a brand new website in general, but one of the coolest things about the website and the podcast page is that there's actually a search feature where you can search the podcast catalog and find whatever topic you need. So, if you want to know if I've talked about email marketing, if you want to know if I've talked about DBAs, go and type that in on the podcast page and you will find the episodes on that. So, that is really cool and I really encourage you to take advantage of it.

Now, besides the podcast and the bank of evergreen content that I've created for you, I'm not going anywhere when it comes to other places in my business. So, I am very active and very engaged with my email list. If you don't get my weekly email, Sam's Sidebar, you're going to want to make sure that you click the link down the show notes to sign up for Sam's Sidebar.

You won't go down any gross marketing funnel or anything like that, but you're going to want to make sure you sign up for that because you do get an email from me each week with a behind the scenes story about how I'm building and maintaining my seven figure business. But I also share a weekly legal Q&A there as well as online business legal updates that you don't want to miss to make sure your business is up to legally snuff, you know, ways. So, make sure you're on Sam's Sidebar so you can get that every single Tuesday.

I also just signed up recently for Substack. So, if you're a Substack fan, I'll include my link down below to follow me on Substack. I post my newsletter there, but I also plan to do some writing, especially after I get through the book edits. I'm going to be sharing a lot of my more personal business essays. So, for those of you who get my emails and you're always so kindly responding, telling me you love my emails every week, you're really going to love Substack too. I'm a really big fan of Substack just on the personal side, and transparently, I'm also really interested in it as a discovery platform for my business. So, it might be something you want to consider for your business, too, Substack, because it has its own app. It's kind of like the best of both worlds with email and building your own email list because you do own the emails that you get there, but you also have this ability to reach an entire community of Substackers who subscribe to other people's Substacks, so it's really cool. And there's more of like an interactive component where you can comment and chat. So, I highly recommend checking it out. It's free. But if you don't already, come follow me on Substack.

And last but not least, I'm most active in terms of social on Instagram Stories, so we're always sharing the best legal tips there as well as a lot of behind the scenes of probably me and Huddy, and cooking food, and doing summer stuff here on the North Shore of Long Island, so I hope to hear from you there.

I hope that you'll reach out and let me know what you think about this break. If you're sad that we're breaking for a little bit, if you have any thoughts or opinions as to what you would love to see when we come back, with On Your Terms in a couple of months, I would love to hear it.

I should also mention that we're going to be posting a bunch of our podcast episodes and videos over on YouTube as well. So, I've always gone in and out with YouTube and I wish I had the time and energy to fully dedicate myself there, but we haven't. But because of this break, we're going to take a lot of the incredible videos we have created already and share them over on YouTube.

So, I'll share all these links down below, because, like I said, we're just taking a break here for On Your Terms just for a minute, but we're not going anywhere in terms of a lot of other platforms. So, I would love for you to come and join us on one of those, wherever you like to hang out. And please, wherever you do like to hang out, whether it's in my inbox or on Instagram, please reach out and let me know what you think and whether you miss it and whether you have any opinions, I would love to hear from you.

So, with that, I hope you have a great rest of your summer. I will see you very soon. When I see you again, talk in your ears again, I will have a fully edited finalized manuscript and it will be off to print, which I cannot believe. I'm so excited to bring my book, When I Start My Business I'll be Happy: A No BS Guide to Successful Online Entrepreneurship to your hands and to your ereaders next year in April 2025. So, I'll also drop the link down below to get on the VIP list to be the first to know when that goes on presale. I can't wait.

All right. Thanks so much for listening and I'll chat with you soon.

Thanks so much for listening to the On Your Terms podcast. Make sure to follow on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you like to listen to podcasts. You can also check out all of our podcast episodes, show notes, links, and more at samvanderwielen.com/podcast. You can learn more about legally protecting your business and take my free legal workshop, Five Steps to Legally Protect and Grow Your Online Business, at samvanderwielen.com. And to stay connected and follow along, follow me on Instagram, @samvanderwielen, and send me a DM to say hi.

Just remember that although I am a attorney, I am not your attorney and I am not offering you legal advice in today's episode. This episode and all of my episodes are informational and educational only. It is not a substitute for seeking out your own advice from your own lawyer. And please keep in mind that I can't offer you legal advice. I don't ever offer any legal services. But I think I offer some pretty good information.