TWC S02 E13: How to Create Space in Your Business for Writing with Special Guest, Darlene Turriff

I'm thrilled to share my conversation with Darlene Turriff, Content Development Implementation Expert. She talks about what it means to be a turtle as an entrepreneur, how that affects your business content, and how to create space in your business for writing. PLUS: Download Darlene's PDF: FREEBIE MAGIC (link in show notes below)!

Three times bestselling and International Impact Award-winning author, coach, and motivational speaker. She is a serial entrepreneur after a lifetime of autoimmune illness. She went from bedridden to running multiple businesses and now she and her business partner are creating a space for entrepreneurs to produce content with a touch of magic. It has been more than 7 years since she reversed her autoimmune symptoms. And now she uses the same techniques required to heal her body to help coaches and consultants create impact through their content. Darlene is a certified "deep thought strategist" and she specializes in content development and implementation. Her latest project is a membership called "Get Content Confident" where she and Nicole Washburn, copywriter, help entrepreneurs, and influencers produce consistent content easily.

STORY: 20 years unemployed and underemployed with continuous sick leaves. When I finally reversed my symptoms, a process which took over 3 years and I highlight in my book Mastering the Protocol, I knew I would never settle in a job I didn’t absolutely love, ever again. WHAT I also knew is that my health was not something I would jeopardize in the pursuit of my purpose.  I started with buying and running a vacation rental. BUT I always knew I wanted to write books. I stumbled into coaching because people wanted to know my secrets to healing. Fast forward a few years, I took programs, got certified, and tried to do it “their way”. BUT it wasn’t my dream job. SO, what about those women like us? Who don’t like intensity? But still want their own business? This is how our new partnership was born. I wanted to create space in my business for writing so why not offer a community to women just like me….

FREEBIE MAGIC: Darlene's Gift to YOU
PDF on how to create an opt-in that clicks.
https://www.darleneturriff.com/get-content-confident-Freebie-Magic

Connect with Darlene Turriff
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/getcon

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Email: katherine@katherineburrowscreative.com

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Premium Podcast Production Services by Carl Richards
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Podcast Music by Nathan Symen of NST Music: https://nst-music.bandcamp.com/

Transcript

Carl Richards: This is The Write Connection. This podcast is designed to help you choose the right words and stories in your business content to create authentic connections with prospects, clients, partners and colleagues.  Now the host of The Write Connection Katherine Burrows.

Katherine Burrows: Thanks Carl and welcome. Darlene Turriff I'm happy to chat with you today as a fellow member of when global and a fellow collaborator on the book Emerge welcome.

Darlene Turriff: Thank you, Katherine. I've been looking forward to this and I'm so to share a little bit of, what's got me here and where I'm going. 

Katherine Burrows: So you are an author award winning author, by the way. Congratulations, coach and motivational speaker, but your journey actually started with your health.

Darlene Turriff: Yeah, thank you for bringing that up and I fell into coaching accidentally, which is a part of my story, but for almost 20 years, I suffered with autoimmune disease, but for me it was a mystery illness It was not diagnosed. So it was like chronic fatigue 24/7, migraines, all kinds of symptoms that honestly left me bedridden and unable to work I found a solution with a diet. It's a protocol, the autoimmune protocol, and that got me on the right track, but it didn't get me all the way. And so I spent the next two or three years this was about eight years ago, doing a step-by-step pro to really regain my health. And I'm so thankful that it happened. My illness happened because it gave me that opportunity to do a full healing, not only of my body but of my life. And so yeah, it's eight years now. I am extremely healthy and I've been just checking boxes off my wishlist. And one of them was to become an author

Katherine Burrows: For those who are just listening. And can't see the video, Darlene looks lovely, her skin looks beautifully radiant, her eyes are sparkling, she looks very vibrant and full of life. So what a wonderful transformation and you went on to write about that experience.

Darlene Turriff: I did, I wrote the book called mastering the protocol. So the AIP protocol and other protocols, when I finally did my research, there are certain foods that trigger an autoimmune response. So a protocol, other people refer to it as a diet, it's actually a process of identifying what's triggering your autoimmune response. So what I discovered that the diet was only a portion of it. So that's why I wrote the book called mastering the protocol. I wanted people to know the diet, but understand the other factors that are also triggering and the protocol is actually about all those things, not only the diet all the other factors. So my book is mostly devoted to the step-by-step process to slowly take one trigger or one stressor out of your life one month at a time.

Katherine Burrows: And what are some of those triggers just to give us an example.

Darlene Turriff: So for me personally, I'll speak for me today on the recording. It is like minus 40 here. Cold is a trigger for me, but so is heat. I can't do heat and humidity now those are triggers. I cannot totally control, but when I'm fully aware of them, I have my own protocol of how to be more gentle. But other triggers for me was definitely emotional triggers so I needed to reduce all my emotional stressors and that meant I saw a therapist, but mostly I just decided. I decided that I needed to stop living for the other people and start living for me. So I have this thing that I call the autoimmune identity and part of what I've discovered, because I've been coaching other women through their own autoimmune healing for three years now. Is there are some factors that are true for all of us and one of these autoimmune identity is that we tend to sacrifice and I help women and myself learn about serving as opposed to sacrificing and that is really about how you come at what you do. How to use your time, money and energy by learning how to put yourself first, anything that comes after that is service. When you put your service before yourself, then it's sacrifice,

Katherine Burrows: Right. And that's applicable to life in general, but specifically to being an entrepreneur.

Darlene Turriff: Oh my goodness. Yes. And that's where I discovered it's like, this is not just about autoimmune healing. So it was like a way of life and that's what kind of opened up. So once I did that healing and some people asked me, it's like well, can you help me get what you-, that's, how I kind of tippy-toed into the coaching. But I also did something else that my heart was calling so that service is about following your purpose and your calling and we purchased a cottage and we renovated that for a vacation rental. I didn't know why it was important to me, but I knew it was something I really wanted to do so that was kind of the first thing I did after I got well enough. It was my testing ground to see can I put myself back out there in the world? Can I move into the workforce? Because prior to that, every time I tried to work, I would have a relapse and I would get all my symptoms would come back. But anyhow, so that was one of my services I learned to put this project first and it taught me so many things about entrepreneurship. And I moved that ahead with my autoimmune coaching. And now I'm taking that further with business coaching,

Katherine Burrows: So you have recently made a bit of a shift in your business and taken on a business partner.

Darlene Turriff: So yeah, if we go back to just a little bit of the triggers, I am way past triggers for autoimmune and I am into, how could I make my life really great and one of the ways to really enjoy more of my life was to find a partner. So she and I are there to support each other when we're having an off day or whatever, we can pick up the slack. So Nicole Washburn, who is a ghost writer, copywriter and author in her own, right, So she's basically another you Katherine, she's devoted her last three years to writing copy for entrepreneurs. So she's ended up with her own niche that she stumbled in to, and she's really great at it. And yeah, so she and I together have created this membership so when we looked at ourselves, we identify as turtles, we identify as entrepreneurs who are making progress, but we really don't respond well to intensity.

And a lot of the things being offered out there for entrepreneurs are about intensity like, get this done now. Anyhow, we were finding the thing we wanted out there so we said, well, what can we do? And I ended up coaching Nicole around finishing her own book and as you and I both know, because of the book emerge; I also worked with Steven Jane to be certified in deep thought strategy. So I've had this passion about helping entrepreneurs find their message and develop their content. So we just took all that and it's like hey, we could do something here. We need to help the other turtles out there and so that's why we came up with this idea of our membership, which is called Get Content Competent. And it's about just creating a space of accountability. We offer the little bit of structure, like all the outlines and things that you need if you want that but we offer that community, that writing community, not only for writing books or big pieces of work but writing those really tiny pieces of work.

Katherine Burrows: So what benefits did you see to your business from your book that you're now trying to pass along to your clients with Nicole?

Darlene Turriff: So again, I learned a bunch of lessons in healing my autoimmune, but the lessons I learned by writing a book again, I did it like this much for a business reason. I mostly wrote my book because I was drawn to write it, it was my calling. And definitely I wanted people trying to heal their autoimmune, to know these things and make it so affordable to them and what happened once I wrote the book is that I discovered oh my goodness, this has made my business so easy. So some of the lessons I learned around that was I had to make the time to write the book like writing a book is not the most obvious thing and it's a long process, so I had to make time to do that but what are the benefits to having a book out there is it speaks for you.

It speaks for your business, It gets you opportunities like this discussion and being invited to talk more but I think even greater for me is that there are people out there that couldn't afford to work with me that now have something in their hand to move them forward. So it is in my opinion, one of the greatest things you can do for your business to have these billboard pieces of content. That's what my partner has named them billboard pieces, where you are not talking about your stuff, your stuff is talking for you and a book is like the masterclass it's your top level of authority that you can create.

Katherine Burrows: So you're really creating a legacy that can be experienced by far more people than you could possibly help. Because of course, we're all human we only have so many hours in the day and days of the week so we only work with so many people.

Darlene Turriff: Yes, it's a legacy. I hadn't thought of it for me. I just think about impact and my billboard banner or on my Facebook is about creating impact one small step or one simple step at a time. And that is why I like a book, especially for someone with autoimmune or fatigue. And this works also for entrepreneurs is that you can read one chapter, you can read one third of one chapter, stop there and take action on that one thing. That's my greatest thing I've discovered is I really help people go no, you don't need to do whole thing. You need to be really crystal clear on your next thing and that's my rule in our membership I help people know exactly which piece of content they're supposed to be creating next and she makes it sing or have magic so the name of her book is called copywriting magic.

So she just brings some magic to the words, but to make progress like a turtle is you need to be working on something. That's gonna grow your business every day, every week, every month. And that's a side from all those urgent things and the important things that you have to just create this niche of time to work on that too. Because that thing we just talked about that the benefit or the big win of just having this thing out there working for you is so huge. So it's worth it whether it's 20 minutes a day or an hour a week, I honestly wrote my book in an hour a week like that's how it got done. 

Katherine Burrows: And you just make that commitment and you put it on your calendar, I'm guessing and you hold yourself accountable to that.

Darlene Turriff: I do. And that's where I'd already done the work of sacrifice and service because when I make a commitment to myself I don't go okay well, I'm too busy. This is more important, I don't do that. And as an entrepreneur I think is one of the biggest skills you need to learn is to stop pushing things that are really important and gonna grow your business to the side. You really have to make the room to have these pieces that are going to then make your life easier down the road get created, they get created in those daily commitments, not in a big vision statement or a big goal statement It actually shows up in your daily calendar.

Katherine Burrows: And I guess that's the balance between the time you spend working in your business and the time you spend working on your business and you have to schedule time for both.

Darlene Turriff: You do and that's why, again so if I can just bring up the membership, it's that accountability and the membership is a one hour commitment a week, which is what I use to move my business forward. So we really didn't want to download a ton of info to people. We wanna help them create one piece of content a month, like something that's really gonna move their business forward and that's them working on their business.

Katherine Burrows: And often I find once you do some, whether it's writing or otherwise, it's easier to do it the next time and the next time. And then you create processes where it really becomes repeatable.

Darlene Turriff: What I'm talking about is what we do for entrepreneurs, Nicole and I also have opened up a more exclusive offering. That includes a writer's circle. We call of this for our influencers. So these are people that are actually currently writing some significant piece of work. And for that it's more about those structures so we have a 75 minute call just a week and that's only for writing on top of everything else we help them accomplish. But we find that window and the people that have never done that for themselves so appreciate that just over an hour a week, that we do that because then they do it the next day It's so much easier really said, once you get that rolling, that it's that habit, It's the same habit that you heal with the writing habits or the creative habits are of true benefit to your soul and your business. So if we're in love with this new thing and if you have a calling to write a book, you should to be doing that. If you have a business, you really need to consider a book as your stretch goal, because you have this unique intellectual property and a book is a fabulous tool for your business.

Katherine Burrows: I a hundred percent agree with you. And the thing that I really love about books is we can keep going back to them. If you read a book today or, you know, this week, this month, whatever it is and it resonates with you in a certain way, at a certain stage in your business. If you read that book again, five years from now, you're gonna get different things out of it, hopefully deeper things out of it because you've done that growth In the meantime, you perceive different things when you go back through that content,

Darlene Turriff: Our choice to move forward in our business is really that it's a choice. We all kind of have the same time, money, energy issue. We get to decide where we're going to put our time, money and energy. And for me, it's really important that all my clients and hopefully your listeners identify one thing in there that is about progress. So working on the business, the progress has been so important to my healing managing doesn't get you anywhere, progress needs to be planned.

Katherine Burrows: Yeah and I think part of that planning involves thinking about our stories, the story where we've come from in how we got to doing this business and where we are today and the stories that we wanna tell and put out there to connect with people and reach our clients.

Darlene Turriff: And I think that's where, if I can send some praise, I think Katherine, you are an amazing storyteller and you also recognize stories for other people and you pull them out of them and I do not identify as a great storyteller I’m kind of a systems person. So my books, like right now, I am working on the sequel to mastering protocol. It's called the autoimmune identity solution so that's where I get more in depth about those identities that we take on. And that once we decided we're sick, we have to grieve that to decide we're well and I move into all that for me, that vision, I can see the whole outline. A book is already written in my head before I begin and I think most people have a struggle with what are they gonna write, the last thing I do in my book is put in-

So we all have our own gifts. And even if you don't feel writing is your gift. That's why it's so important to work with someone, I believe that writing a book or writing a article or good content or a chapter in a compilation book, no one is really gift with all the skills to make it through the whole process. If you were creative, maybe you don't have the sense of where you're going, or maybe you're unable to edit your own work. There's just too many things that require a different set of skills going through. So for me, storytelling, I so value it and I can recognize someone else's whoa stop that's an amazing story, let's see what kind of content we can create around that I am lousy at finding my story so it's really the last thing I put in the book and I always work with someone to help me find the right story.

Katherine Burrows: You've got a wonderful offer here today for people who want just one thing that they can start with on their writing. Can you talk about your freebie magic offer?

Darlene Turriff: Absolutely. So again, I always love being a guest on podcast, mostly because I can offer something to get people going. So we've talked about, is your freebie really working for you? Or is it a floppy and freebie magic it’s a PDF. And we're just gonna give you some things to really consider if you've not created a good freebie yet, or if you have a freebie and it's not working for you So we'd love up for you to get that PDF. And then we should have a link there you can join. We have a Facebook group in which we have a video training for how to do that, where we get to talk about all the other things a freebie should be doing and the content or big fans of having the exact right wording in the content and mostly every experience with your ideal client or any potential client really needs to help them move forward on one thing and that is also a freebie, It's not enough to just give something away Is it helpful?

Katherine Burrows: Exactly. Cuz we do wanna provide value that's all about telling our stories and leaving our legacy, we're doing it to provide value to others.

Darlene Turriff: I just wanna make people's lives easier that whether it be with their content or their healing like that's a passion of mine because I have an ability to see the small step that's easy, that's gonna make a big difference and that's all we can ever do is the small step.

Katherine Burrows: Well, thank you so much for being a guest today on The Write Connection. It's always a pleasure to connect with other people who love writing and love stories and our entrepreneurs and part of the networking communities that I'm in and you fit all of those boxes so it was extra awesome to have you here today.

Darlene Turriff: Super and I as always, I'm looking forward to your next-. So I'm always making sure people are writing if that it's their special gift and we know it is yours.

Katherine Burrows: Yes. I definitely have something in the works so stay tuned later in 2022. Thanks so much for listening today I hope something in today's episode inspired you to tell your own story more creatively please join me next time for more about how authentic words and create The Write Connection.

Carl Richards: Thanks for listening to The Write Connection. What did you think of the show today? Give us a rating and leave us a comment. If you have a question for Katherine, reach out to her by sending her an email, The Write Connection @Katherine Burrows creative.com or visit her website, Katherine Burrows creative.com and don't forget to follow Katherine on social media. Thanks again for listening to The Write Connection.