STP 82
===
ā€‹
[00:00:00] James Marland: Welcome friends to the scaling therapy practice podcast. I'm your host, James Marland. Today, we have an inspiring episode for you that you're not going to want to miss. Because joining us today is Annette Leonard. She's an advocate for those living with chronic pain and illness, and she's become a beacon of hope and resilience in this episode, and that's going to share with us her incredible personal journey, which highlights her fight with chronic health conditions and her mission to empower others.
[00:00:44] James Marland: in similar situations. You're going to discover the transformational power of self advocacy in the health care setting. We're also going to discover tips and strategies for maintaining wellness, even when dealing with chronic illness. And finally, we're going to learn how Annette transformed the way From patient to powerhouse advocate, turning her experience into valuable resources like podcasts, courses, blogs, and other ways to support people with their chronic health journey.
[00:01:20] James Marland: Stay tuned to learn from Annette. And her experiences, and hopefully you'll be motivated to put your own mission in motion.
[00:01:29] James Marland: Before we start the show, I wanted to talk to those DIY course creators out there, the ones that want to do it themselves. Hey, DIY course creators, are you ready to take that jump into the online course arena? But you're stuck on making some critical decisions like where to host your course, how to add content, how to collect payments.
[00:01:54] James Marland: Well, I have a resource for you on Wednesday, August 21st from 12 to 1 PM Eastern Standard Time. I'm hosting a powerful 60 minute webinar designed just for the DIY course creators. We're diving into your course creation roadmap for decisions to make before you launch.
[00:02:14] James Marland: In this webinar, I'm going to walk you through four essential decisions you need to make before you make your course a success. We're talking about where to host your course, how to shape your course content, the best way to collect payments, and how to enroll and support your students effectively. with some essential tech decisions.
[00:02:36] James Marland: If you're ready to simplify the process, avoid common pitfalls and make the best choice for your course creation. Then this webinar is for you.
[00:02:44] James Marland: Don't miss out on the chance to get the clarity you need when making these important decisions to launch your course and to launch it with confidence. Click the link in the show notes or go to course creation studio. com. Click the pop up and sign up for this important webinar. I want to help you get on the right course so you can launch your mission with success.
[00:03:06] James Marland Podcaster: Welcome to the Scaling Therapy Practice. This is your host, James Marland. This is the show where we empower mission driven leaders to launch life changing online courses. Today I have a special guest, Annette Leonard, with me today.
[00:03:23] James Marland Podcaster: Annette has a resource and a pod, uh, pod, you have a, you have a podcast too, right? I do, yeah. A pod, resource, podcast, courses. blog pages all about helping people who live with chronic pain and illness. I read her bio and she has an interesting story to share with that. Uh, but let's welcome Annette to the show.
[00:03:43] James Marland Podcaster: Annette, welcome.
[00:03:44] Annette Leonard: Hey, James. Glad to be with you today.
[00:03:47] James Marland Podcaster: So, As I mentioned, you do have an interesting story, your journey about how you got here and how you're trying to help people with chronic illness. Uh, it's a personal journey for you. Can you share with our audience a little bit about how you ended how you ended up trying to help people with chronic illness?
[00:04:04] Annette Leonard: Sure. Um, it's interesting to try to nutshell, you know, one's life and I will say that I had to leave the world of work about a dozen years ago because of my chronic health conditions. And, um, 8 years ago, I landed on the list waiting for a double lung transplant. And. There's nothing more sobering, perhaps, than being told in your early 40s that, um, you're going to need two new lungs.
[00:04:37] Annette Leonard: And. At that time, I was told that I had less than a year to live and coming face to face with my mortality and living with extraordinary pain and obviously really world altering illness. Um, Changed the course of my life. And I'm speaking to you today with my own lungs and still rolling with factory parts.
[00:05:08] Annette Leonard: And so I have a pretty heroic story that that isn't everyone's and what is true of a life. With with chronic pain and chronic illness has some common threads. And so, um, in the midst of real pain and darkness, um, I found a mission about what it means to try to find, uh, wellness in our In our spirits and in our hearts and minds, even if our bodies may never be well again.
[00:05:44] Annette Leonard: And, and so that is the nexus of the work that I do.
[00:05:49] James Marland Podcaster: Wow. Um, I didn't, uh, yeah, I had read that you had some of those health issues and then, um, you know, how it took you out of your, what you thought your life was going to be like.
[00:06:01] Annette Leonard: Sure. Not,
[00:06:02] James Marland Podcaster: and, uh, you're, but that still comes with challenges, right? The chronic pain part.
[00:06:13] Annette Leonard: Most definitely health
[00:06:14] James Marland Podcaster: issues, which gives you a, an immediate connection with other people dealing with, with, uh, issues, chronic illness, health issues, maybe not lungs, but also just like.
[00:06:29] Annette Leonard: That's right. From diabetes to, um, arthritis. You know, I think that what's staggering is that the statistics are that seven and 10 people have a chronic illness and that five and 10 have, have two chronic illness, have more than one.
[00:06:48] Annette Leonard: And, and so we are a very, um, Pain and illness riddled society, and I think that just as many of us don't know what the challenge our neighbor is dealing with, many of us don't know the burdens that that others are carrying and in relation to illness and pain.
[00:07:11] James Marland Podcaster: So you're on a mission to help those people.
[00:07:13] James Marland Podcaster: What what came first, web page, course, uh, advocacy? Like, where did you get started in all this?
[00:07:20] Annette Leonard: Yeah, well, so it was, um, right after I started to gain some ground in my lung function, um, that, That at the point where I went inactive on the lung transplant list that I thought, uh, if I, you know, to be perfectly blunt, if, if I'm not busy dying, then I have to get busy living and, and so something shifted where.
[00:07:52] Annette Leonard: I started feeling like, well, then I, I have a mission here. I have a message and how do I, how do I start making change around that? And I started giving talks here and there. And, and my background is in training and, um, a friend of mine who. Works with speakers said, Annette, you, you have to start getting this message out there.
[00:08:18] Annette Leonard: And so he said, start getting on YouTube and record a video a day. And so it started with my YouTube channel where I was recording five and 10 minute videos, five days a week, and then just started ripping the audio for that, to turn it into my podcast and eventually got my website and my blog up and going and started writing articles and just, uh, Contacting people however I could and, and really for me, it's sort of a one person at a time.
[00:08:48] Annette Leonard: You know, if I hear from someone saying, um, you helped me understand that I am not my diagnosis or you made me feel a little less alone or showed me that my self advocacy in a doctor's appointment matters. Because, uh, I didn't understand that I am the expert on my illness or my body, you know, I really was giving that power over to my position.
[00:09:14] Annette Leonard: Um, that matters to me. That matters a lot.
[00:09:20] James Marland Podcaster: Wow. The, uh, that, that last minute could probably be a book. Agreed. All those life lessons like power packed right in there.
[00:09:31] Annette Leonard: Yeah.
[00:09:31] James Marland Podcaster: And that kind of leads us to your, you're sharing your mission more with, with more people. And we met doing a, uh, Kajabi mini course challenge.
[00:09:40] James Marland Podcaster: It was like this two week challenge. It took, it took me a month, but it was a two week. It was a two week challenge where they laid out the steps of just getting, just getting it out there. Like just, Using the program to and follow these steps. And, um, done is better than started or like, just get it, get your course out there and you have a dream.
[00:10:08] James Marland Podcaster: You have a mission. We've been talking about mission. Get it out there. So how does a course help you and your mission?
[00:10:18] Annette Leonard: What a great question. Um, shout out to our instructor. I hope I get her name right. Alessandra Wiki. Uh, she really put us through the paces. And I agree that, uh, two weeks rapidly turned into four for me.
[00:10:34] Annette Leonard: And, uh, I think for me, um, I have been a Kajabi user for, um, five years and I, behind the scenes, have five courses that I've never put up in part because it's such a powerful tool and I was Sure that I was missing steps or that some part of my mechanism would be broken and also that piece about, um, I wasn't ever sure that my courses were good enough to really be putting out there and so having this radical handholding and having each step really so thoroughly and carefully laid out for us.
[00:11:18] Annette Leonard: Was the boost that I needed, and for me, the courses are a natural progression of what I'm doing are an extension of helping people get. The message digested and, uh, and the first step that that she had us do was pull people about what, what the course needed to be about. And I don't know about you, but for me, um, it was a bit of a surprise.
[00:11:50] Annette Leonard: I, I, I put out 4 things that, uh, that I pulled my audience about. Which of these four things should I have my first mini course about? And the answer that I got back was not the answer I expected. And, um, it makes sense. The answer was how, how do you advocate for yourself in a doctor's appointment? You know, how do you bring, how do you show up at a doctor's appointment?
[00:12:16] Annette Leonard: What do you bring with you? What do you ask? What's, what are the nuts and
[00:12:20] James Marland Podcaster: Yeah, especially, um, I, I'm just assuming. Just with my limited experience with doctors, if you show up with the same problem time after time, they might tune you out
[00:12:34] Annette Leonard: for sure. And, you know, even if it's not that, even if it's, I'm going to a new specialist or, uh, in light of today's health care, you know, I have 10 minutes.
[00:12:46] Annette Leonard: How do I use that?
[00:12:51] Annette Leonard: So all of those things are true. All of those things.
[00:12:54] James Marland Podcaster: That sounds extremely useful. And it follows some of the principle of solve one problem, you know, that and you can deliver on that promise, you can definitely somebody says, how do I talk to my doctor? My doctor's office? Here's a course on how to talk, how to advocate for yourself in the doctor's office, get what you want without being a jerk or something, you know, without feeling bad about advocating for yourself, something like that.
[00:13:20] James Marland Podcaster: That's right.
[00:13:21] Annette Leonard: How to, how to just feel like you met your goals when, when you leave that doctor's visit, unlocking the power of that doctor's visit. You
[00:13:28] James Marland Podcaster: live with yourself. you know, 24 days, 24 hours a day and you have all these questions and when you get in that office, you feel pressure like there's this pressure.
[00:13:41] James Marland Podcaster: And fear to even say anything. So,
[00:13:45] Annette Leonard: yeah, that's right. And I think so often we think of doctors as the authority and forget about the fact that we are living with the consequences of whatever they're suggesting and forget about our own authority in that regard. And, uh, it's easy to override our own experience or.
[00:14:07] Annette Leonard: Kind of black out about it in those settings and, uh, and taking some time in advance and being really prepared can, can help us be collaborative in that setting.
[00:14:22] James Marland Podcaster: Yeah, so we're, uh, we're talking about getting that mission out and, uh, the, the, the mini course helped us. So, for
[00:14:31] Annette Leonard: you, James, the, what was useful about, about being in that mini course setting about walking through those steps in that way.
[00:14:40] James Marland Podcaster: Uh, there was a lot of things useful. Uh, I think just narrowing down the subject matter because you're an expert. A lot of times people who sign up for these things are an expert at what you do, and some of the things that are easy for you are not, you don't even list them down. As possible comments, because you're just you're you're good at those things.
[00:15:06] James Marland Podcaster: You've been doing it for a while and it's just sort of part of your knowledge base. So doing doing the research was important and just maybe realizing it's okay to narrow down your subject matter to for me. I like to help people build online courses, but that's there's 3 big topics. What I found is like, The mindset of the course, like the mindset of a maker, like who, who am I to even be a teacher and the fear that prevents you from going outside your comfort zone.
[00:15:37] James Marland Podcaster: Then there was the making of it, like the audio, the video, the technical, the lighting, the programs, the email marketing, where do you host it? YouTube, all those things. AI, and then, and then marketing is the third piece, uh, who, who's going to buy my course? Where do I find them? How do I join Facebook groups?
[00:15:58] James Marland Podcaster: How do I send emails to get people to take the group? How do I put it on? Do I do webinars? Do I do blogging? Do I do Google ads? Things like that. And so it helped me realize I can do most of those things, but I'm, I'm better at the technical than the, uh, The mindset and the marketing, I'm still figuring out, even though I've read books and I know the piece.
[00:16:24] James Marland Podcaster: So if there's something I'm going to help people with, it's more of the technical side of things than the marketing and I probably could do mindset because I worked in mental health for 18 years. In fact, my mini courses on overcoming imposter syndrome and launching, you know, just getting started.
[00:16:42] James Marland Podcaster: That's what I chose my mini course on.
[00:16:47] Annette Leonard: When I think about the fact that I've been a Kajabi user for five years and not posted a course, I think there are many of us who are ready for your course. Yeah.
[00:16:57] James Marland Podcaster: Yeah. So, so, um, my first run of my customer ladders, my podcast, like what we're doing here, we're talking about courses and Mission and trying to find ways to do that.
[00:17:09] James Marland Podcaster: And then I have the blog that goes with that. Then the next wrong might be your mindset because the people who don't think they're a teacher, or they don't think they have something to give are just going to be satisfied with the false security of that paycheck. And they're never going to break free and go to the life that they want to have.
[00:17:30] James Marland Podcaster: Then the next rung is the making it. And that's probably where, um, that that's probably where the, the premier course is going to be just helping people make. Their things and because you're you're already the expert. I've had a couple conversations with people like I know how to I know my stuff. I just don't know how to get it out of my head.
[00:17:51] James Marland Podcaster: So that being confident to narrow my subject matter down to something that I know I can help people with has been very beneficial to me. The other part of it, though, was doing it in a group. It's easier to do things. hard things in a group. And so in this, uh, mini course challenge, there was a couple of hundred people in it.
[00:18:14] James Marland Podcaster: I don't know if you noticed this though, there was only like 20 people that finished it. Did you see that?
[00:18:19] Annette Leonard: I did see that there were less than, yeah, as you say, there were about 20 and, and there were, I would say a good, Again, 20 or 30 of us who were very active in just really providing feedback and encouragement and, uh, checking off each other's, uh, progress and, and cheering one another on and for me,
[00:18:45] James Marland Podcaster: And given tips like you were very encouraging in the group and like commented a lot of
[00:18:50] Annette Leonard: as for you the and and just people saying here's the program I use or here's how I add captioning or, uh, here's what I use for editing and and all of that was, uh, Really helpful and encouraging to me to keep staying on task and not fall away when things got hard.
[00:19:10] Annette Leonard: Or when she said, this is going to take 30 minutes and it took me 3 days
[00:19:14] James Marland Podcaster: at least 1 or 2 of those where it's like, I know I blocked out an hour for this, but I took a day to do it.
[00:19:26] Annette Leonard: Yeah,
[00:19:26] James Marland Podcaster: yeah. Yeah, fun times, fun times, but we did it like they're out and they're launched and people can view them. Um, what, uh, what, what are some things that if somebody was going to put their own course out there, what's a lesson that you can share with them?
[00:19:47] James Marland Podcaster: What's one thing you'd tell them, um, about, well, just either encouragement or a lesson or a tip you learned in the last month here with the mini course challenge.
[00:19:59] Annette Leonard: Well, I think I share with you a belief that, um, That we all have something of value to offer the world. And, uh, I do think that, uh, That it's not always what we think it is in terms of just that polling piece being really useful to understand what others most want to know from us about what we know.
[00:20:27] Annette Leonard: I mean, I'm not saying, you know, if you're a mechanic start pulling people about what you want to cook, but, but, but narrowing the field by, by doing some of that polling was really valuable. And I think that where, um, where that meant I didn't keep up on the timelines was I hadn't already built curricula about that subject matter.
[00:20:52] Annette Leonard: And so I did need a little more time to do that, that curriculum building. And so, um, but, but I guess the 2nd piece of that for me is, um. That, that going in a group and, and building some structure around when you're going to get things done, uh, really matters in terms of getting these things out in the world and not just, uh, starting to procrastinate or decide that the world doesn't need that message or decide that you can do it in two more weeks.
[00:21:26] James Marland Podcaster: Well, uh, the, the one key principle for me anyways, was deadline drives behavior and. But every every link in the challenge had a deadline, even if I missed it by a day or two, I knew, you know, I got to complete this to keep going. And I created a schedule for myself where I checked off every day if I was working on it or not, and just checked off time.
[00:21:51] James Marland Podcaster: And that really helped me with my behavior. The other one is Parkinson's law, where I think it's like the work expands to fill the time you give it something like that.
[00:22:03] Annette Leonard: Yes. Right.
[00:22:04] James Marland Podcaster: And if you gave yourself a month to do it, it would fill that month. But if you give yourself two weeks to do it, even if you miss the deadline, maybe it'll take three weeks.
[00:22:16] Annette Leonard: I think of that as the law of purses or garages.
[00:22:24] Annette Leonard: And as Phil, the nutritionist said in our class, like I can always take this video down and with one that's better if I decide later, the, and. Good. Yeah. Get one up and I love the law. The
[00:22:40] James Marland Podcaster: law of curses and garages or closets. Your closet's gonna fit like it'll be whatever junk you have. You're gonna fill that.
[00:22:51] Annette Leonard: That's right. Whatever size it is. Rest assured. You will find enough stuff to put in it.
[00:22:59] James Marland Podcaster: That's perfect. That's lovely. So, uh, let's, let's, uh, start wrapping up with where can people find you? What's your course about? What's your podcast about? I'm sure there's people that would want to know more. So tell us.
[00:23:12] James Marland Podcaster: What's the easiest way to find you and what are you offering?
[00:23:15] Annette Leonard: Excellent. Well, um, you can find links to everything I do at AnnetteLeonard. com. Uh, the podcast is called chronic wellness and it's on all the places you can find podcasts and it's also a visual podcast on YouTube. Um, And the courses are also there at a net Leonard com.
[00:23:38] Annette Leonard: If you do a net Leonard. com slash wait list, you can get in on, uh, being the one of the folks who gets in on the free offering of my mini course, uh, available through the end of summer. So if you get in before the end of August, you can take that course on, uh, how to unlock the power of your next doctor's appointment for free.
[00:23:58] Annette Leonard: And I'd really. Uh, my mission is to help find people who need this. So if it's not you who need this and you're listening, like if you're hearing my voice and you're thinking, Oh my gosh, I have a girlfriend or my friend's dad just got diagnosed, the, My podcast is less than 10 minutes long and, uh, part of the, the name chronic wellness is not about some sense of false positivity that, that we never feel ill or we never succumb or that our illness never overtakes us.
[00:24:35] Annette Leonard: But the, my, uh, My mom knew the words to most of the books and most of the Methodist hymnal growing up. And when I was at the height of my illness, the, the words of the hymn, uh, it is well with my soul came to me. And, and so the, the notion that whether or not our bodies are well, our, our minds or spirits can gravitate toward wellness is really, um, what the heart of the podcast and.
[00:25:07] Annette Leonard: The platform is about for me. How can we find wellness in the midst of illness?
[00:25:13] James Marland Podcaster: Well said. Well said. Really, Annette, this was wonderful. Thanks for being a great, uh, supporter during the mini course and also just being an awesome guest. Thanks so much.
[00:25:23] Annette Leonard: Well, to you too. I so appreciate this opportunity and, and the chance to get to know you better.
[00:25:28] Annette Leonard: I appreciate that so much, James.
[00:25:31] James Marland Podcaster: Thanks everyone for listening to the show. I hope you visit Annette and her webpage and get the subscribe to her YouTube and podcast. It'd be a really big, uh, encouragement to her for that. And also just help give you more resources for being well. Thanks again for listening and go put your mission in motion.
