STP 67 Mission Driven Passion
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[00:00:00] James Marland: Welcome to the scaling therapy practice podcast. This is your host James Marland. This is the show where we empower mission driven helpers and leaders to launch life-changing online courses.
[00:00:21] James Marland: I'm Really glad that you're here today.
[00:00:23] James Marland: Today's episode is going to take contain some minor explicit content. As we talk about.
[00:00:30] James Marland: The topics of sex and intimacy in marriage.
[00:00:33] James Marland: And we also discuss.
[00:00:34] James Marland: Purity culture in the evangelical church.
[00:00:38] James Marland: We're going to do this respectfully
[00:00:40] James Marland: and you are going to discover principles of starting an online course business. As we discuss this delicate topic. But, you know
[00:00:49] James Marland: whenever you talk about sex, sex is the thing that comes to mind. But this is a course creation show. So you are going to learn some principles of that.
[00:01:00] James Marland: But because there's opposing views on how sex is taught in the church, you might, you might not agree with everything.
[00:01:06] James Marland: That you hear in this show, or maybe this is the first time you've heard of some of these things and it's going to cause you, these are going to cause you to ask questions.
[00:01:15] James Marland: To be like, no, I don't care. Or get angry about it.
[00:01:18] James Marland: Like you're going to have some sort of response to the discussion and that's good. Because I do think. These things when listened to with an open mind, generates some interesting.
[00:01:29] James Marland: Discussions and new ways to think about things.
[00:01:32] James Marland: And these things. The Angela talks about is, should be brought to light.
[00:01:37] James Marland: So we're going to talk with
[00:01:39] James Marland: Angela Griffin.
[00:01:40] James Marland: The Christian sexpert on a tick tock in social media. As we talk about Angela and her journey.
[00:01:48] James Marland: Well, because this is a course creation show.
[00:01:50] James Marland: I want you to make sure that you listen for some key insights. Like she had some really. Good insights about how to start
[00:02:00] James Marland: Business and how to start an online course business.
[00:02:03] James Marland: So I'm going to outline some of the things to listen for. And some of the things in the conversation that I'd like you to try to pick out. And understand as we discuss this delicate topic.
[00:02:14] James Marland: First.
[00:02:15] James Marland: It's going to be obvious that there's a niche.
[00:02:17] James Marland: Like you're going to learn about how she kind of stumbled into her niche just by being her unique self. You don't have to be anybody new. To develop an audience. You just have to be more of yourself and more of
[00:02:32] James Marland: Find more of your passion. Second. We're going to talk about how.
[00:02:38] James Marland: You're your key audience. You might think you're going to be doing one thing, but then you end up doing something completely different. Almost like you find your key audience as you keep. Doing the things that.
[00:02:51] James Marland: Are aligned with your behavior. And finally Angela is going to share her story providing insights on engaging with your target audience and building a loyal community.
[00:03:01] James Marland: And she is really good on that. Before We start the show If you want to start a mission-driven online course like Angela, but you're, you're lacking confidence and you're not really sure what your strengths are. what your abilities are. I have a mini course for you that is, that has seven tools. designed to help You get to know your strengths, get to know your values, get to you write down some of your stories. some of your And set a destination for yourself.
[00:03:29] James Marland: And in that I use tools like the soul compass to help you identify your top three values and the destination planner to help you.
[00:03:37] James Marland: Look for the things that are truly important to you and set.
[00:03:42] James Marland: your
[00:03:42] James Marland: Put put in action steps to help you get to that destination. The destination planner.
[00:03:49] James Marland: And find The things in your life and business that are worthy of your attention. So go to course creation studio dot com and click the store button to learn more, or just go to the show notes of this. episode.
[00:04:00] James Marland: And there will be.
[00:04:03] James Marland: A link for that as well.
[00:04:06] James Marland: their will.
[00:04:06] James Marland: So let's let's join in with the conversation with Angela here and look for ways she's incorporating her values, her strengths And her mission as she launches. her own online course project.
[00:04:20] James Marland: An online project.
[00:04:26] James Marland: and welcome to the Scaling Therapy Practice podcast. This is James Marland. This is the show where we empower mission driven helpers to launch life changing online courses. And today I have a guest, Angela Griffith, who is the Christian Sexpert.
[00:04:44] James Marland: That's her web page. And she is going to tell us about how she started creating an online course in business without even really knowing that she was creating an online course in business. Angela, welcome to the show.
[00:04:57] Angela Griffith: Thank you so much for having me.
[00:05:00] James Marland: So can you introduce us and your and my audience to what you do? And then we'll get into how you got started.
[00:05:08] Angela Griffith: Absolutely. I'm Angela, the Christian sexpert. I talk all about sex and intimacy in Christian marriage. What I usually say is you don't have to be a Christian to follow me. About half of my followers are of no particular faith affiliation or would even term themselves exvangelicals due in part to the trauma that they've received at the hands of purity culture from the evangelical church and a lot of them I I get comments all the time almost daily that this is the sex ed.
[00:05:38] Angela Griffith: I should have had this is the sex ed I wish I would have had in church and And so I'm just out here fighting stereotypes, fighting purity culture and telling people to go have good sex.
[00:05:52] James Marland: Great. So, what do you mean by purity culture? Cause and fighting purity culture. What is, what is that and how does that resonate with your audience? Okay. Uh,
[00:06:03] Angela Griffith: Specific set of teachings that were popular in like the eighties, nineties. And it's even taught in some churches still today. And people get really angry when I say that, you know, purity culture needs to go because they're like, you just want teenagers out here having orgies. And I'm like, like why do you think you're linked to a scissor purity culture or, or. Purity culture was a specific set of teachings based in high shame and control tactics that sought to control teenagers behavior rather than a true science based, fact based sex education combined with a biblical worldview. purity culture did things like in youth group, you would take this rose and the youth pastor would say, look at this rose.
[00:06:53] Angela Griffith: Isn't it pretty? We're going to pass it around and everybody should smell it and feel the petals and blah, blah, blah. So it goes around and by the time it has reached the end of the 50th kid in youth group, the rose is obviously disgusting because everybody's had their grubby little hands on it. So now the youth pastor takes this very, very pathetic, dead rose and he's like when you have sex with someone before your wedding this is what you're giving to your husband on your wedding night and that was another key feature of purity culture is that it focused primarily on the girl's virginity and guys were taught Just don't think about it until you get to your wedding, and then after you get married, your wife will be available to fulfill your every desire. Whereas girls were told things, like ten year old girls were told, You have to make sure you cover up your belly because the men, the men, in the church could lust after you if they see a sliver of your belly under your shirt. So make sure your belly's long enough. Make sure your shirt is long enough to cover your belly. All right, so why are we not calling out these grown men for being pedophiles for lusting after a 10 year old? And those are all like really big examples of purity culture. Versus let's give some actual evidence based sex education combined with a biblical worldview that says, you know, We know that God has a perfect plan for our lives when we love him, we want to follow his ways. And so how do we help our kids fall more in love with Jesus?
[00:08:27] James Marland: that growing up in the eighties some of that stuff resonates with me. I've heard those things before. So, how did you get started? It seems like you're really passionate about this project. And as we were talking in the pre show, you were talking like, I didn't even start out to start a business.
[00:08:43] James Marland: So how, how did this all come to be for you?
[00:08:47] Angela Griffith: Absolutely. So I didn't actually get saved until I was 19 and it was the late 90s. So, I only had a few years of really encountering purity culture. Before I got married because I, you know, good girls from small towns did not go to school to be sex therapist. Good girls from small towns in the late nineties, early aughts went to school to get their MRS degree. And so I graduated with a degree in religion and psychology. Couple weeks after graduation, got the MRS by getting married and I remained
[00:09:22] James Marland: It's a big week for you. Those, the getting married right after graduation is very stressful. Yeah.
[00:09:33] Angela Griffith: a wedding, you know, living two hours, an hour and a half from home, two hours from home. In fact, one of my classes, I just did not, I gave up, I didn't care. And I got like a C or a D or something, and you could only have one class where you had below a certain grade in order to graduate, and you had to get a waiver from the chair of the department in order to You know, graduate with that one lower grade. So I showed up at this guy's house standing on his porch and then he's like, I guess you just had other focuses this semester. Yeah, I guess I did. I'm a woman. I'm a woman in the, in the religion department. Of course, ring by spring. Like you people, like are the ones that push this narrative. Come on. Anyway, side note the ADHD is strong over here. So I will Easily derailed. So I remain fascinated with human sexuality because, you know, and psychology. And so I continue to just study everything I could get my hands on about human sexuality for years. I had my son when, after we had been married for like 12 or 13 years, an online international women's ministry and anytime sex came up in, because it was a ministry for moms, and so anytime sex came up, I was getting brought into the conversation. Eventually, I was asked to join the leadership team for the ministry. one night somebody, somebody tagged me to a discussion about sex and they said, paging the group, sexpert, Angela. we kind of laughed about it. and then the leadership team were talking about what do we want to do when our kids older and they don't need us so much anymore. And I was like, guys, this is what I want to do. Like, I want to help. I see the damage that purity culture has done to marriages. And I see. You know, all of these hurting women in our ministry that have been damaged by purity culture that have been damaged by bad you know, like the, you know, the sayings that we hear in church all the time.
[00:11:45] Angela Griffith: God created men to be need sex. God created men to be more visual. things have no biblical or scientific basis, but the church keeps promoting these ideas and I see the damage, you know, even to local women have a higher rate of sexual dysfunction than the general population and that shouldn't be the case. We are the ones that have been called in a relationship with Jesus. We should be having better sex than the general population not have a higher rate of sexual dysfunction. And so I'm like I want to do this when because my son has some extra needs. I homeschool him. You know, I'm involved with this ministry.
[00:12:20] Angela Griffith: So I'm like, when I'm not so busy, I want do this. And a couple of months later, literally just a couple of months later, God was like, that's not a later thing. That's a now thing. Because one night, one of my friends was like, Angela, that should be your TikTok handle is the Christian sexpert. And I was like, yeah.
[00:12:41] Angela Griffith: It should. So I ran over and I like reserved the name and I wasn't planning on doing anything with it. And they were like, you don't really make it on TikTok. You need to post like four videos a day. And at the It all felt like a whim because if you're listening to this on audio and you can't see me, I am a fat middle aged homeschooling housewife from the midwest, okay? I am not the person that you would think would be talking about sex on the internet, okay? This is not like I should be baking cookies for a bake sale somewhere So it was kind of like, ah, sure, whatever. But I started posting four videos a day and I started the TikTok in late January. I had gone viral by Easter with a video at over 5 million views. And. Every step of the way it was like God was like, okay, and here's the next step and here's the next step So the next thing I did is I started a patreon and the patreon is where I teach all the spicy things I can't teach on this app. So, you know, I talk about positions or kinks role plays toys, how to do things safely, because there's no place in Christian culture where we can go and ask those questions and not get shamed for asking them or run into pornography or other things that we don't want to be encountering with a Christian worldview. And so that's what the Patreon is for. And then God was like, all right, start coaching. And then God was like, all right, we're gonna, like, we're gonna write some products. And then it's okay, we're gonna Write a course. Okay, you're going to start doing speaking engagements. So I'm, I'm booked on the, to speak at Women Evolve with Sarah Jakes Roberts in September with over 50, 000 women. And it was all because one night in the middle of January, God was like, this is a now dream.
[00:14:43] James Marland: That's an amazing story that doors kept opening and you kept saying, okay, I'll walk through and see what happens. So that's, that's pretty cool. But it really does sound like you're, you're you're passionate about your, your, I call them dream clients or the people you want to take on your journey.
[00:15:02] James Marland: Your, your passengers that you want to take with you on your journey. That's what I kind of, how I describe them. Who is the, who is the person that you want to take on a journey with you? Like, who's your, who's your ideal client or customer or student?
[00:15:16] Angela Griffith: So my ideal client is the evangelical woman who is married, who realizes that like there is. More available to her in her marriage and her sex life. And that she realizes there's more than the evangelical church has told us is available to us as women, as wives, as mothers. You know, the narrative that women hear so often is things like, you know, if, if your husband cheats, she'll get asked, well, were you giving him enough sex? not the, and that's
[00:15:53] James Marland: Very shameful
[00:15:54] Angela Griffith: yeah.
[00:15:55] James Marland: and hurtful. All right.
[00:15:56] Angela Griffith: that's not, that's, that's not the vibe. Okay. You know, things like I I'm overwhelmed in motherhood and I want to enjoy having sex with my husband, but I feel like I've lost my way somehow, you know, like. of those things weigh us down as evangelical women, and God has more for us, and I want to bridge that gap.
[00:16:22] James Marland: So I'm going to ask a couple of questions related to your course and like your, what you offer. These are questions that anyone can ask themselves as they're starting to think about creating a business in a course that helps them see their, see what they're offering through the eyes of their, their ideal student, their ideal customer.
[00:16:46] James Marland: So, When, what makes your, what makes this different? What you're offering than everything else that I've seen.
[00:16:55] Angela Griffith: So, the course that I am currently launching is called Finding Your Fire, and it's designed for breaking out of the roommate stage of marriage, right? I,
[00:17:05] James Marland: Can, can you go back to
[00:17:07] Angela Griffith: yeah,
[00:17:08] James Marland: being married for 25 years, that roommate stage of marriage, we've talked about that. My wife and I, a couple of times, like, Oh, we just feel like we're roommates. What, what does that mean to you?
[00:17:18] Angela Griffith: so the roommate stage is not been some sort of significant trauma, right? So neither of you have cheated on each other 17 times. You, you have an okay marriage. You have a, maybe even a decent marriage, but life has sort of begun to overrule the marriage. it's like, It's like two ships passing in the night, right?
[00:17:44] Angela Griffith: Like, you probably have a pile of children with a pile of activities and you've got, you know, you're both working and groceries are stupid expensive and, you know, like, you're trying to figure out how to feed all of the people. Why do people have to eat all of the time? That's what I want to know as, like, the primary parent in my household.
[00:18:03] Angela Griffith: Why do I have to feed them three times a day?
[00:18:05] James Marland: And do laundry too. Like if, if you could solve that problem, that would be great.
[00:18:09] Angela Griffith: If you do, my nine year old is responsible for about half the laundry in
[00:18:13] James Marland: Oh, good. So, so the, the roommate is, was just talking about somebody who you're, you're living together, but you almost feel separate. Like you're, you're, you're both living your own lives and you want a deeper connection. That's kind of what I'm getting from that. Okay.
[00:18:31] Angela Griffith: right, and typically when we were talking about the roommate stage, things are feeling probably a little stale in the bedroom. Like, sex is good, it's okay, it's enjoyable, but like, you don't also probably have lost that passion from when you were first married.
[00:18:46] James Marland: Mm hmm.
[00:18:47] Angela Griffith: you want to try and recapture some of that passion again.
[00:18:50] James Marland: Mm hmm.
[00:18:51] Angela Griffith: One of the things that I specifically address at, in the introduction to the course is you are not married to the same person that stood next to you at the altar. Right? Life circumstances change us. We should be growing continually. And if you have been, literally, on a cellular level, if you have been married for more than seven years, your body has an entire new skin.
[00:19:17] Angela Griffith: because our bodies shed our skin every seven years, and so over the first seven years, you know, I've been married 21 years, over the first seven years of marriage, you know, we had our go to, you know, like, oh, he really likes it when I do this specific thing, or she really likes it when I kiss her here, right? And that the human brain always looks for the path of least resistance. Right? We look for the easiest way. We look for the shortcut. And that happens in the bedroom too. We, we go to our go to positions. We go to our go to moves. We go to the, you know, this gets her hot super quick. I'm going to do this and we're just going to get it done.
[00:19:58] James Marland: definitely going to have to put the not made for kids marker on this show. Anyways, continue.
[00:20:04] Angela Griffith: Every, every podcast I do comes with that warning.
[00:20:08] James Marland: I'm going to have to like, it's a little veering off the norm, but you know, not, not things that should be talked about. I mean, this is, this is stuff that you growing up in a Christian home and go into, you know, life groups and whatever. You don't talk about this.
[00:20:24] Angela Griffith: That's, that's my whole thing.
[00:20:26] James Marland: Ever, so,
[00:20:29] Angela Griffith: so the, the course is designed to break you out of those shortcuts
[00:20:34] James Marland: mm hmm. Mm
[00:20:35] Angela Griffith: remember and realize that you guys have changed, like
[00:20:38] James Marland: hmm.
[00:20:38] Angela Griffith: have changed. Maybe what was initially the thing, like the go to move, that's not the go to move anymore.
[00:20:45] Angela Griffith: neither one of you has known how to, like, bring up the fact that I don't like that as much as I used to.
[00:20:51] James Marland: Mm hmm.
[00:20:52] Angela Griffith: And so
[00:20:53] James Marland: or if you talk about it, you hurt feelings.
[00:20:55] Angela Griffith: Right! Exactly! And so the course is designed to walk you through all of those things.
[00:21:04] James Marland: Cool. So that's so, that's part of what makes it different from what other people and it sounds like whether you're, you know, you go to church or not, you could use something from it, but it specifically helps the, the person who has some of that church background.
[00:21:22] Angela Griffith: All of my content is designed So I I am a faith filled, Holy Spirit filled Christian believer, Jesus follower, right? Well, all of my content is coming from that worldview. So you're never going to see like, I, I, you're never going to see like naked pictures or, you know, anything with my content. And everything's always going to be aligned biblically. But my content, all of my content is also designed that you don't have to share my faith to still have value in what I am teaching you. Right. You don't have to share my faith for me to teach you how to break out of the roommate stage because faith is an integral part of my worldview. But I acknowledge that the evangelical church has hurt so many, but this information, like you still need this information. And so it's a delicate balance of acknowledging that the church has caused hurt, but the Bible is still the true. Word of God, and I, but I still want to help heal marriages no
[00:22:28] Angela Griffith: you fall on the faith spectrum.
[00:22:29] James Marland: yeah, I think it really hits on that. So, so that was what makes this different from everything else I've seen. So the next question that people who are making courses or content for other people should ask is, why does this matter to me? It's like, why does this matter to me?
[00:22:47] Angela Griffith: So, it matters because, so, ooh, ADHD, so many thoughts, so little ability to say them all at the same time. So, sex is integral part of a healthy marriage. Now, can you have a healthy marriage without sex? It, yes, it is possible. But for the majority of marriages, sex is part of a healthy marriage. And I, I say that because I don't want to, you know, like there are plenty of people with disabilities or issues like.
[00:23:23] Angela Griffith: Sex is not part of their marriage and they can still have a healthy marriage. So I don't ever want to say that you have to have good sex to have a healthy marriage, because that is not a true statement in and of itself. And I gotta get better at being concise. so it matters because when. Couples who do want, oh, reset
[00:23:50] James Marland: pushing. Keep pushing.
[00:23:52] Angela Griffith: reset. Okay. So one of the things I talk about is the 12 types of intimacy that we can experience in marriage.
[00:23:59] James Marland: Mm-Hmm.
[00:24:00] Angela Griffith: say intimacy in marriage, your immediate thought is sex. Sex is only one of 12 and we need all 12 pieces of the pie in order to have a healthy marriage. But that means that we need to intentionally work on all 12 of the intimacies To have a healthy marriage and good sex doesn't just happen in a vacuum. Good sex takes work and intentionality and effort. And so the course matters because you can keep doing what you're doing and maybe things will eventually get better, but it's when you do the intentional thing, it's when you invest, right?
[00:24:39] Angela Griffith: in what is important to us financially, emotionally. You know, things like that.
[00:24:43] Angela Griffith: And so when you are investing in a healthy sex life, that's when you're going to see improvement and change and better intimacy overall. There we go.
[00:24:54] James Marland: You, you did it
[00:24:56] Angela Griffith: The ADHD did not win this time.
[00:25:00] James Marland: So it, it matters, it matters to people who, who want to have, who, who want to have better relationships. And they might be stuck or they might be like, they, they might have, might wanna talk about certain things, but they don't know how to bring it up. And this gives them the avenue, the vehicle to. You know, have those conversations in a safe in a safe place that you're not because we're not taught about how to do this.
[00:25:30] James Marland: You either talk about it, like, how your family talked about it, which is either nothing or yelling or, you know, or you just don't don't talk about it or you talk about it. And, and everybody gets mad and then you're like, well, I'm not talking about that again. So,
[00:25:46] Angela Griffith: Because especially performance is very. So in modern American evangelical culture a man's ego is very intrinsically tied to his sexual performance. And so especially evangelical women are socialized to keep sweet, keep him happy, you know, don't advocate for our own needs. And so if we as an evangelical woman believe that his ego is tied to his sexual performance, I'm going to, you know, like, how do we have that conversation where. I don't really love this thing. If we believe that that's going to hurt his ego, if that's going to go against how we've been socialized, all of those things. And so we need to learn to have healthy conversations around our sex lives and advocate for our own pleasure and learn what pleases our spouse.
[00:26:35] Angela Griffith: Because if you, if you want a healthy sex life, you should be invested in making sure that they are enjoying themselves as well. And so the course really helps those conversations in safe ways.
[00:26:47] James Marland: The next question you can ask for creating for getting into the minds of your audience is how would I know if this is right for me? So if your audience, your audience is going to ask this question as they look at your course or your product, how, how would they know if this is right for them?
[00:27:04] Angela Griffith: If so, they'll know that it's right for them. If they want to have a better sex life, if they are looking for tools to improve communication in the bedroom, if they're looking to break out at, you know, if there, they're feeling like that two shifts in the night, you know, things are passing. We want to get better.
[00:27:22] Angela Griffith: We just, we were so overwhelmed. Like the, Decision fatigue in for, for married couples right now is at an all time high, right? We want to figure out how to improve this, but we don't know how, and we don't know. Sometimes we don't even know the questions to ask to make this better. Right. And so the course helps you figure out what you should be asking, what you should be talking about. You know, it sort of like reduces the decision fatigue of, know, we need, you know, like How do we even start to have this conversation? Like, what do we even look for to have this conversation? Because that's the other thing, like, people are afraid, like, especially evangelical couples, they're afraid to, like, Google something related to sexual intimacy.
[00:28:06] Angela Griffith: You never know where you're going to wind up on the internet. Right? So,
[00:28:11] James Marland: So if. If you were if you were going to start with something like, do you have this problem? Who, what would that be? What problem just briefly? We don't have to go too deep into this, but what is what is 1 of the problems you wanted to solve with your course? Like, if, if you were. Yeah, go ahead.
[00:28:31] Angela Griffith: problem is, I, I, I see it every day in my comments. Like, we're married, the marriage is fine, but we just, like, how do we make things better in the bedroom? That's, that's the big thing is, you know, we, we just kind of drifted, communication isn't. Awful, but it's not great. How do we improve these things?
[00:28:52] James Marland: And then related to that is how, how does your ideal person or, you know, if you're talking to, I don't, I don't know what age or like, if you would identify specific things about your ideal person, how would they be feeling? Like, what, what are they feeling before they come into your court?
[00:29:09] Angela Griffith: So when they're looking for my course, they're probably feeling a bit of ennui, you know, this very sort of, it's not great, but it's not awful. Like we don't need, I feel like we don't need to go to therapy, but we need something.
[00:29:25] James Marland: Hmm.
[00:29:26] Angela Griffith: What's that thing that we need? How are you like, how are we gonna spice things up? We want to spice things up We don't know what that looks like. Yeah, so it's just sort of this. I don't I don't hate him I don't want to kick him out of the house I Wanted to feel like when we were first married and I was excited to see him and I was excited
[00:29:45] Angela Griffith: up in a bed And you know recapturing those sorts of Fiery feelings from the, when you were first married, you know, the Bible talks about not forsaking the passion of your youth, you know, that sort of,
[00:30:00] James Marland: And I would, I would think there might be some fear to, like, fear, like, your ideal person is afraid to or anxious, maybe to approach the subject because it's everything's okay, but not great, but you don't want to make it worse than it is. And so a little bit of anxiety and probably a little bit of shame, like, if I was a good person, you know, I'd know how to do these things.
[00:30:28] James Marland: Okay.
[00:30:29] Angela Griffith: yeah, definitely. But I, even anything sex and evangelical culture is, comes with a healthy dose of shame anymore. It be like you don't need shame when it comes to sex, more
[00:30:48] James Marland: So, another question for creators or people who are making a course or a subject thinking about your audience is what, what hope is there? So what's in it for me if I actually listen to you? So, for your ideal audience, you know, what's in it for them? If they listen to you.
[00:31:06] Angela Griffith: So in it for them is so my tagline on my socials is go have good sex. what's in it for them is good sex, improved communication around the bedroom. More passion, more enjoyment, more fulfillment feeling empowered to have, because I offer practical communication tools surrounding sex in the course. And so feeling empowered to know that even if You know, in five years, we get to this place again where it's, you know, we're feeling distant from each other, a little disconnected. We can come back to the tools that we learned in the course and get back on track.
[00:31:47] James Marland: All right. So I'm gonna ask some behind the scenes questions. What is, what, where are you hosting your, your course? Like is it on Kajabi? Is it on think Offic? Where Teachable's another big one. Where are you, where are you putting this thing on
[00:32:01] Angela Griffith: that. So back when I said I didn't set out to start a business, it just kind of happened to me.
[00:32:09] Angela Griffith: has been a journey
[00:32:12] James Marland: Yeah.
[00:32:12] Angela Griffith: out like what so, I My website is hosted on Squarespace
[00:32:18] James Marland: Okay. Yep.
[00:32:19] Angela Griffith: knew that I could host a course on Squarespace However, I designed the course to drip So the course is designed to be a month long, and they don't get access to all of the materials all at once.
[00:32:33] Angela Griffith: They
[00:32:33] James Marland: No, that's smart. you, you course coursework, like you can't. People will just zip through it and not get the the meaning that you want like I think you probably your homework probably has Communication and talk and worksheets and like examining what you do and like try this out like you can't do that in an afternoon So anyways, I agree.
[00:32:57] James Marland: I like your methodology of dripping it out and saying this is a journey We're gonna go on a journey You know, stay the course. This is how it comes out.
[00:33:06] Angela Griffith: Yes,
[00:33:06] James Marland: don't, don't, yeah, you can't microwave a relationship. Like you gotta, you gotta do the work. So anyways, drip campaign squares where something,
[00:33:16] Angela Griffith: is hosted on Squarespace, and I was like,
[00:33:17] James Marland: yeah.
[00:33:18] James Marland: Well,
[00:33:21] Angela Griffith: However, I have come to realize that my brain despises, despises, I cannot emphasize this enough, hard limit, hate doing anything on the back end of my website. I just want to get on the internet and talk about sex, alright?
[00:33:38] Angela Griffith: I don't want to be a website designer. And so I was like, cool, I'm just going to go on Fiverr and I'm going to hire a freelancer and they're going to put the course up for me. I will give them my brand packaging, you know, they'll, they'll, so I hire this person, a week goes by and they're like, Oh, like go check, you know, everything's up.
[00:34:00] Angela Griffith: Let me know like what needs changed. And I go in and I was like, They're getting all of the videos at once, that I told you in the project brief, it was a drip design. And they're like, oh, Squarespace can't drip out content. And I'm like What do you mean Squarespace can't drip? Like, I told you in the brief, and you said, yeah, yeah, yeah, no problem. So then, I start googling, confirm Squarespace cannot drip content. Find a workaround. So, the final, I am patently incapable of answering any of your questions succinctly today. The
[00:34:40] James Marland: beautiful content though. This is good.
[00:34:42] Angela Griffith: final outcome of what's going on with my course, it is being sold as a product on my website rather than a course. I already pay for video hosting on Vimeo for my Patreon subscribers, right? And so, I have an automation set up where they purchase the course as a product, get their welcome email that has the introduction video and week 1 video, alright? And then, the email automation on the backside of my website, goes out a week after purchase and they get the week 2 link and password, etc, etc. That actually worked out better financially for me, because on Squarespace, you have to pay an additional like
[00:35:33] James Marland: Like 9%. Oh, it's 15.
[00:35:36] Angela Griffith: no. So I have the way my website, I'm already selling digital products on my website. So I have a
[00:35:43] James Marland: a business plan. Yeah. Yeah.
[00:35:45] Angela Griffith: So I pay like my one flat fee for the year, and they're not taking any percentage of my sales, but you have, Squarespace wants you to pay additional money you know, either monthly or whatever, to host over a certain number of minutes video content
[00:36:03] James Marland: a limit. Yeah. Mm-Hmm.
[00:36:04] Angela Griffith: And so, I'm already paying for Vimeo. I have the video storage I could possibly ever need on Vimeo already.
[00:36:14] James Marland: Vimeo takes high quality videos. Like they're, they're, they, they do seven, 20 or 10, whatever. Like, they're, they're a good service. I like I like I use them for a little while. I like,
[00:36:24] Angela Griffith: Yes, and so this actually works out better financially for me because I'm not paying Squarespace to host videos when I'm already paying Vimeo to host videos.
[00:36:35] James Marland: Mm-Hmm.
[00:36:36] Angela Griffith: it actually worked out better, but the whole journey to get there was very frustrating. Which goes back to I'm just making this up as I go along and figuring it out.
[00:36:45] James Marland: Yeah. And what do you, what do you use to record? Like what does Vimeo have? The recording software that you use for your videos.
[00:36:54] Angela Griffith: So I record on my iPhone because I have an iPhone 15 and so that the, the quality is fantastic. I don't need any, you know, special equipment for that. And then I use CapCut software to edit my long form videos.
[00:37:11] James Marland: hmm. Okay. I've never used CapCut. Is it paid? Is it a paid program?
[00:37:16] Angela Griffith: Yeah, it's like a one time fee, but it was not much at all. And with, so with my Patreon I do, I release two Patreon videos every single week. To my subscribers. I'm, I was already using CapCut to edit my Patreon videos. So.
[00:37:36] James Marland: Okay. I like, I like the technical side, the equipment, the microphones, the programs. I'm a, I, I like to learn new things. I I use Descript to edit my videos, so it's pretty good. And I, I host on Kajabi. I do have a Squarespace account, but Kajabi, So I do the podcast. It has the podcast and the newsletter and the course, course hosting community groups.
[00:38:02] James Marland: They're starting a cohort coaching program. It's not out yet, but they have a cool coaching program. So anyways, it's got all the tools for one, for one price. And I don't have to, I don't have to learn 10 things. I can just open it up and. And learn and they're really good on their back end with customers.
[00:38:24] James Marland: That's really cool. I think your journey is exciting and inspiring really to a lot of people that you found a cause. You found a group of people that you can serve something you're passionate about and you're just following. You know, following through on that. I think that's really important. So let's let's go into the part of the show where we, where I ask you, where can people find you and where it's your offering?
[00:38:47] James Marland: And you know, do you have a, it looks like you have a, a freebie. So let's talk about where people can find you first. Where can people find you on the internet?
[00:38:56] Angela Griffith: thechristiansexpert. com Yes That's
[00:39:01] James Marland: it looks like is the Christian S underline. X-E-X-P-E-R-T. Okay. So,
[00:39:09] Angela Griffith: whole bit of nonsense. Yes.
[00:39:11] James Marland: so you can't put sex in your title, is that the is that what TikTok is?
[00:39:16] Angela Griffith: removed my username So I when I first started my platform, I actually had christians reporting my content for like adult You know content or whatever. So I had to like figure out how to do that work around things and make people stop reporting me. so I, I just say, if you want to get to my socials, just go to my website, thechristiansexpert.
[00:39:42] Angela Griffith: com because some of my usernames are funky and everything is linked on my website.
[00:39:47] James Marland: Okay. And it looks like they can get a resource, a free resource on your, on your website. What it, it's small moments of connection. Can you tell me about that? Mm-Hmm.
[00:39:57] Angela Griffith: absolutely. So going back to the concept that there's 12 types of intimacy that we need to experience in marriage. I based small moments of connection on that because I myself am, you know, the Midwest homeschooling mom, you know, my husband sometimes has to travel for work and sometimes we just don't feel like, I don't feel like I get a lot of time with his face. but then like also we're busy parents, we're exhausted at the night in making a decision of how to spend time with each other. Feels like one decision too many sometimes and so small moments of connection is like a menu of things that don't involve screens that help you connect in like 10 minutes or less so you're not, you know, like, you're not having to drag out a bunch of, you know, like things you're not having to. Plan something. It is literally, we're going to look at this list. Okay. We're going to do this and it's 10 minutes or less and you feel better connected at the end of it. I want, I'm looking to reduce decision fatigue for people.
[00:41:02] James Marland: Yeah, especially if you just what you described, you know, you're busy throughout the day. You've made decisions all throughout the day. Nobody wants to hurt anybody's feelings. So how do you, how do you how do you make that connection without just like, oh, let's go watch or let's go binge our show, which is your, it's time together, but not super connecting
[00:41:22] Angela Griffith: Instead of our show, let's go binge the Christian Sexperts videos.
[00:41:27] James Marland: and then talk about it and have this deep converse, deeper conversation about, you know, Yeah, our relationship. Very good.
[00:41:34] Angela Griffith: I'm going to put that on the small moments of connection guide. Binge watch
[00:41:38] Angela Griffith: Sexperts content.
[00:41:39] James Marland: All right. Well, hey, this has been awesome. This has been a really cool discussion. And I really your Pat Angela, your passion for your audience came through and like you want to repair relationships and you want to have people to actually enjoy their relationship with their partner and give them some avenue to discuss and talk about it.
[00:42:03] James Marland: Thank you so much for coming on the show and sharing with my audience about your passion.
[00:42:07] Angela Griffith: Thank you for having me.
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