113 - Author Interview Jim Jacobs

Nicole (00:17):
Well happy fall, everybody. One of the best things about doing what I do every day is helping to make dreams come true. I am truly, truly blessed to have something I do every day that some people call a job or work for me. It's a dream come true to do what I do for a living. And today is no exception. As I get to introduce to you a special guest, Jim Jacobs is someone I've been able to assist in getting his voice heard and making his book a reality. And he's helping many people as a result. Let me introduce to you a special guest on today's show. Jim R Jacobs is an author professional speaker, counselor, and coach. He's the author of Driving Lessons for Life: Thoughts on Navigating Your Road to Personal Growth. He writes more of his driving lessons for life in his column as a featured contributor for the internationally syndicated biz catalyst 360 Jim is a certified Daring Way Facilitator presenting the life-changing works of Dr. Brene Brown to individuals, couples, families, and groups. Jim loves to help people dare mighty things, rise strong and live more authentic and less perfect wholehearted lives. Jim is the founder and owner of driving lessons for life LLC, which provides professional counseling and coaching professional speaking, daring way workshops and driving lessons for marriage parenting and sexual intimacy workshops. Jim has been an employee of the church of Jesus Christ of latter day saints family services for more than 20 years providing counseling consulting and training across the United States. Jim has a bachelor's degree in psychology from the university of Northern Colorado and a master's degree in social work from Brigham young university. You can learn more about Jim, our Jacobs via his website, www Jim, our jacobs.com or driving lessons for life.com. You can also follow him on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn, please like the driving lessons for life Facebook page for inspiring articles and posts to improve your drive through life for a free personal consultation, or to engage Jim in a speaking opportunity, please feel free to contact him at [email protected] with all that said let's get into today's show. Well, hi, Jim, welcome to the show. I'm glad to have you.

Jim (03:10):
Thank you so much. It's a pleasure to be here.

Nicole (03:12):
Well, we worked together on your first book and I'm excited to be a part of your second book, and I'm excited to tell people about what you're doing, what you've done and, um, everything about the whole process and writing a book because that's what everybody loves to know. Like how did it all happen and what does it take to write a book? And, um, yeah, so we'd love to know, from your perspective, what does it take to write a book? How did you make it happen and how did you make it happen twice?

Jim (03:47):
Well, Nicole, thank you so much for asking and for having me here. This is just such a joy to be with you. Um, and to do this twice with you in terms of creating a book, um, I actually have come to believe since writing, uh, writing my first book, that everyone should write a book and with talented people like yourself, like I really believe it's in the hands of any of us to be able to write a book. Um, and I, I think for me, what that took took is that I had the idea in my head probably for a decade before I just finally decided, Hey, let's do this. And I knew nothing about writing a book. I knew nothing about how do you get something published or whatever. Um, but through friends and connections was led to you, uh, and to others who has cyst with this.

Jim (04:31):
And, uh, I just can't say enough about the helps are out there. The people are out there, people like you doing this work. And I just can't, I mean, I'm just in awe as I sit back and look at how you created for me, what was in my head, the dream of what a book would look like, what the cover would look like. And, uh, it's just been awesome to put driving lessons for life, to work and then to produce this second book that will be released officially on November 2nd. Um, it's just so exciting. And so thank you for the work you've done. I think anybody could write a book and with your, with your talent and the expertise that you have, or the, there, there's just nothing that could stop somebody from doing it.

Nicole (05:13):
And, you know, I always get ahead of myself cause I'm so excited to talk about all of it, but we w we need to back up a little bit, what is the title of your book and the subtitle and how did you come about all of that? And, um, and maybe you can elaborate on the name of your first book and how the second book became a part of that. And, and cause it's kind of like you have a series, I guess now

Jim (05:37):
It is. It's crazy. I didn't know that I had more than one book when I started, the idea actually came because most of us spend, I guess the average American spends 25 hours or more a week in the car. And either from growing up or just from my own experiences on the road, I started to go, Hey, there's kind of a metaphor for life, or there's a kind of an idea of something that could be weaved into a lesson. Um, and so I began to start having these ideas of what I call driving lessons for life, where, um, as we're going down the roads of life, we all have these common experiences on the road that then could be turned into a life lesson. And the idea behind it was that every time you experienced the lesson on the road or the experience on the road, it would remind you of the life lesson that tied present in my book.

Jim (06:31):
Um, so the first book was driving lessons for life thoughts on navigating more road to personal growth. And the focus was on using these driving metaphors to improve our personal lives, to, to help us to become better in our work, uh, in our home, in our families. Um, and, uh, it was such an exciting thing to produce. And the feedback that I get from people is it worked like every time I, someone tries to merge in front of me, I remember what you taught me, or every time I see the construction signs or whatever. And so I got a lot of feedback from people saying, Hey, we need more of this. So I wrote driving lessons for life to on the road again, to better living loving and leading that's. Again comes out on November 2nd. If people are interested, please go to driving lessons for life.com. And in each case, what we did is we took what I did is took a driving lessons or a driving experience and turn it into something that would make you think, make you change, help you learn a new skill. Um, and the real focus is on becoming more intentional, more, happy, more proactive, more focused people in both our personal, our family and our professional lives.

Nicole (07:41):
Awesome. And maybe you can elaborate a little bit too on how you use your book and your day to day, is it part of the business you do, or is it something extra or maybe you could elaborate on that.

Jim (07:55):
Thank you so much. I am actually a licensed clinical social worker and a counselor. I also do professional speaking and I do some personal professional and relationship coaching. Um, and I, I was actually already doing many of those things before I wrote the book. Um, but as I wrote the book, w what happened is that the opportunity to help others, um, kind of exploded. And so, um, I do operate a coaching business that helps people to look at the roads of life that they're driving down and what changes they may want to make to live a more intentional or wholehearted or brave life. Um, I'm very much into helping people live with more courage and more faith in themselves, and more faith in that courage in themselves. Um, and so driving lessons for life turned into a coaching program. Um, I offer, uh, driving lessons, workshops, um, with different themes.

Jim (08:49):
So we have driving lessons for marriage. So we have driving lessons for sexual intimacy. Uh, we also just have driving lessons for life, where we work on helping people live braver and more daring lives. It's been a wonderful, fulfilling thing. Um, I thought I was pretty successful before I wrote the book. Um, but, but it really gave me the opportunity to be successful in what I most want to do, which is to help people live happier and healthier lives. And the book, the whole process of showing the courage to write a book really helped unlock the opportunity to help so many more people.

Nicole (09:25):
Yeah. I do find that a lot of people tell me it gives them a lot more clarity when they write the book on what they do in their day-to-day lives. Did, did you find that to be the case?

Jim (09:36):
For sure. And I think for me, it was not only the clarity, but kind of the daring or the bravery braving, meaning like to do something brave, like to put yourself out there in a book is a really courageous thing. And I found that it helped me to be more courageous in all the things that I do. I became a better speaker. I became a better helper or a better listener because I had had to exercise so much courage in the process of producing these books.

Nicole (10:07):
Absolutely. Yeah. I, I find that with a lot of authors that, you know, they put it out there and they go, okay, now I actually have to live by what I put in there,

Jim (10:18):
For sure. Yeah.

Nicole (10:20):
Yeah. Okay. So when it came to obstacles that you faced in producing the book, did you, did you run into any, and it sounds like you had a lot of clarity, but I'm sure there were some obstacles along the way.

Jim (10:34):
No, for sure. And I think the, the biggest obstacle, first of all, was myself, just the fear and that negative voice in my head that wouldn't say, well, you don't really have anything to say, or you're not a very good writer. Um, you know, you don't, you don't know anything about writing a book. Um, and so that was probably the first fear to overcome. Um, and I found that the best way to overcome that was to start writing. And so I created a blog. I'd never had a blog before, and I just began to write my own thoughts and just practiced. And then I realized I probably ought to share it with other people so I can get some feedback. So that took courage to start posting blog posts, and then listening to feedback and such like that and realizing that, Hey, I did know something about that.

Jim (11:19):
So for me, the first thing I had to do was overcome that negative voice in my head that said, you don't know anything about this. I found that one of the biggest helps with that was not only practicing putting myself out there, but it was connecting with people like you who have been down this road, who helped people do this. And I found that it was so helpful to have somebody to talk to that said, Hey, you can do this. How about you set this goal to do this? And the coaching that came to help me to be able to kind of navigate some of those fears and overcome those obstacles. And then the biggest obstacle was probably when I was told that I needed to have a foreword for my book. Um, and, uh, I was like, I don't know anybody important. And, and the counsel I was given was, you know, you need to pick somebody who's going to add value to your work.

Jim (12:08):
And I thought, how am I going to ask somebody to take their time and write something? And I hadn't, I just, I just was so afraid of like this process of finding someone to write a forward. And so I actually seriously did this and maybe I should mention specific names, but I started by making a list of the people. I was sure who would say no. So I picked some pretty famous people. Um, and I, and I thought, okay, I don't know how you approach these people. I don't even know how you contact them, but most of them have a public email address or something like that. And I started contacting all the people that I was sure that would say no to me, that would reject it immediately. And the funny thing is, is most of the people on the list didn't even respond.

Jim (12:52):
If I never heard from any of them, but I got to one of the men on my list. Who's a New York times bestselling author. And I happened to like some of his books and he responded and he said, this is a great idea. He said, I wish I would have thought of a book idea, like driving lessons for life. And he agreed to do it. And over the next four months, I worked with him and we worked together to create the forward. And I learned a lot from that, that like the fear of rejection by taking that approach of just saying, okay, I'm for sure going to get rejected. So I aimed as high as I could. And to be honest with you, I never thought in New York times bestselling author would write the forward of my first book, but Jason agreed to do it. And I was just shocked. And so you've got to put yourself out there, you've gotta be brave. And some of it, some of it's by practicing, just doing what you're afraid to do. And some of it is really stretching yourself to say, Hey, rejection is a part of the deal, but if I'm willing to face that rejection and keep trying, you know, the experiences get an income.

Nicole (13:56):
Absolutely. And it was Jason who, that, that wrote the, uh, See, I already know that, but we'll let everybody else know, leave them in suspense. Okay. So I've heard you talking about the challenge we all face and trying to do our best. What's that all about?

Jim (14:18):
Well, thank you so much. Like, um, this has been a newer thing that as I've been working so closely with people who are just striving to do your best is that there's this trend that, um, I guess the way I would say it is we live in this world that tells us to do our best. And at the exact same time tells us that our best is not good enough. And what this happens, what happens in this for a lot of people is they get stuck. Um, I've noticed in my work with people as I've researched this, that when, when I ask people the question, Hey, did you do your best? The first thing everybody thinks of is all the things. They didn't do. All the mistakes. They made all the things they wish they would've done. And boy, a lot of people stall out in that.

Jim (15:02):
So, you know, they get stuck in neutral and they can't go forward. They can't go backward because they're so, so focused on, uh, trying to be their best. But, but there's no such thing as best. And if I do write another book and Nicole, you can help me with this. It might be titled no more best, which is best is not doesn't exist. It's kind of like driving towards the horizon when you and I hop in our car and we have the goal to drive to the horizon. The reality is, is we're never going to get there because it, it never ends like the horizon just keeps moving farther away. And the same thing is with doing our best. So I advocate approach of let's focus on something that's measurable that you can actually see your progress. So I help people craft kind of the question of how will you measure your life.

Jim (15:51):
So in driving lessons for life too, we talk about this a little bit, this idea of looking at what are your values, what do you wish most to be? And then let's measure that. So at the end of the day, you're asking a question like, how was I brave today? If bravery is your opposite, how was I wholehearted today? How did I so courage? Um, how did I show up for the things I committed to do? And this idea of living with passion, I've seen that in kind of your work where you, where you talk about finding your truth, or you talk about living to your true. What if we measured our life on that? How did I live? According to my values and truths rather than did I do my best, which is kind of like, well, I could have done this. I could have done that.

Jim (16:34):
I could've, I could've tried this. I wish I had done this, but when we say, how was I true today? Then we start to go, oh, you know, that person I talked to at the store and people start to notice the little things that they do every day when they start measuring it. One of my favorite experiences as I was working with a woman who struggled with just a whole lot of social anxiety and a lot of fear and engaging people or whatever. And we had been working on this idea and she happened to take a trip to the grand canyon and in the gift shop, she saw t-shirts that said go grand. And she was like, that's what I want to be. She said, I want to be someone who lives a grand life. I want to go grand. And so she began to frame a question or mind that at the end of an event, at the end of a day, she would ask her stuff, how did I go grand today?

Jim (17:25):
And I remember she told me about this business dinner that she went to wherever it was dressed up and everything. And she was sitting in the back corner at a round table, not talking with anybody. Her husband was up interacting. People were all socializing. And she was kind of nursing her drink, sitting in the back of the room and she went, I need to go grant. And she got up and it motivated her to extend our reach, to go out and talk to people to, to reach out and just think about how can I go Grande? And as she began to focus on that, the anxiety and the social pressure of I'm not good enough, and the voice in her head of I should be doing this, I wish I had done this, went away as she just focused on, I believe in going grand. I want to show up for my life. And I do that by going grand. And that was just one of my favorite experiences of watching someone make me, instead of focusing on doing my best, she's focused on going grand.

Nicole (18:20):
Wow.

Jim (18:22):
I see you do that. You know, you focus on being true. You focus on being true to who you are. And so why not measure, how was I authentic today? Or how was I true today? Or how did I show good? Or if like you're working on just a specific attribute for a period of time, like maybe you want to work on being more compassionate. Then at the end of the day, don't ask yourself, like, how did I do, like, that's not going to produce what you want. You're going to think of what you didn't do. But if you ask yourself, how was I compassionate today? You're going to see, oh, it was that nice thing I did. So that's kind of the idea behind it. There's so much behind it, but that's kind of the gist of it.

Nicole (18:59):
Wow. Wow. Well, I love your analogy and I love all the analogies to the horizon and putting it in neutral and that's great. That's my feet. Yeah. Yeah. Well, it does this have anything to do with, um, I know you're a daring way. Facilitator. What, what is that, is that related to this?

Jim (19:20):
It sure is. Um, many of us are familiar with the works of Dr. Bernay brown after her. I mean like super Uber viral, Ted talk, where she talked about vulnerability and talked about what vulnerability really is. And when I saw that, I just started to feel just like so connected to it. Um, and I began to read her books and I read her work. And then I had the opportunity. I, another thing where I was afraid of rejection, but I put myself out there. I actually asked and applied to be trained in her work as a certified daring way facilitator. And so part of what we do as certified daring way, facilitators is help people to live more brave, authentic value centered. And we talked a lot about wholehearted lives, where we're worrying less about being evaluated. We're worrying less about the critics. We're worrying less about the many.

Jim (20:11):
I mean, we live in such a negative world right now where everybody's like, it's like a major sport to like criticize everybody, you know, and find fault with everybody. And what we're doing as certified daring way, facilitators is helping people to rise above that and listen to their own heart. And really this idea of no more best has come from that work of how do we eliminate shame and how do we turn off the critical voices, not only in our own heads, but also in, you know, the noises that we hear from everywhere. We turn for media, you know, how do we turn all of that off and really live according to our truth and live according to what's right. Um, in our eyes, what we feel is right, and how do we live lives that except people where we eliminate prejudices and judges, judgments, and criticisms, and really just show up with brave and authenticity and courage. Um, and I'm just committed to living a brave life and to being courageous and really driving lessons for life too, is another attempt to show that, to live that, um, and be, be a person who shows up for life, wholehearted, giving all that I have and the best that I have to the situations that I have and finding so much joy in that.

Nicole (21:29):
Wow. Wow. Well, I don't know. It sounds to me like you have a wonderful future ahead of you with where we are in our world right now. And so many people are going through so much and, um, everyone's really evaluating, you know, who they are and where their places and all of this. And, um, you know, as someone who coaches, people with writing books, um, you know, I see a lot of this in, in my day to day is just giving people the, the, okay, that, yeah, you, you have something to say and you can write a book and, um, but you should definitely be a book coach.

Jim (22:13):
I love to leave that to you because I'd rather do is help people get the courage enough to do it and to feel brave enough to do it, and then hand them off to you because you've been valuable in that. And you know, if I can help people, please go to driving lessons for life.com or Jim, our jacobs.com. My kids tell me I'm easy to find online if you know my middle initial. So Jim, our Jacobs, you know, please look it up and, you know, I may not be able to help you publish a book, but if you need help feeling brave or courageous, I'd be happy to help you with that. And then I'll hand you off to Nicole. So you can write your story. You can write your book because she's got the tools and talents like Nicole. I mean, you just have such a great package of you not only know how to do the design elements and turn a dream into a reality.

Jim (23:01):
I mean, every time I look at my book, I just feel a surge of gratitude for you that you can take my idea and you can turn it into a tangible thing that I can hold in my hand. And it's just, that's the best feeling ever. And then the work, the work that you do to help people be courageous enough to write, and then your ability to edit and format, and really just kind of get the process going. I mean, you've got the whole package in terms of helping someone be able to take an idea for a book and put it into something. So if someone needs help to get to that point, call me. And then I'll say, when you're ready to write that, because all of us should write a book, everybody's got something to tell a story to tell, and we need you to help us do that, Nicole.

Nicole (23:44):
Well, gosh, I should have come on more often. I need the flattery.

Jim (23:49):
Please go to my website, driving lessons for life.com and you'll see Nicole's work. I mean like what she's done is just amazing. And I hope that you'll purchase the book in any of its formats. It's available in ebook as well as audio book, as well as in the beautiful hard cover. Uh, and Nicole is the one who designed all of that. You know, I gave her some ideas and she, she created two masterful books, um, and did all the artwork and design to make that happen. And it's exciting. So we, we need,

Nicole (24:21):
Uh, awesome. So, um, people find your book over on your website and are you also on Amazon?

Jim (24:27):
The, the, the ebook is already on Amazon and I'm understand that in the next couple of days, the second book will be on Amazon. So book one is already on Amazon and all bookstores and the ebook is available in all bookstores that you go to and on Amazon. And I'm told that it, within the next couple of days, the hard copy and the audio books should be available as well. So if you, all of them are available right [email protected], um, they should be available on Amazon fun, fun tidbit. We go to Amazon because we think it is cheaper, but actually my first book is actually cheaper. If you buy it from me, driving lessons for life.com, Amazon has hiked the price. I don't know if they'll do that with a second book, um, but please go to driving lessons for life.com to check it out.

Nicole (25:09):
Awesome. All right, well, uh, we'll have all the links over on my blog and, um, I'll put everything up so everyone can find you. And, um, but for now, uh, good luck, uh, with the second book I know it's launching now and, um, you've got a bright future. I look forward to more from you. I'm sure everyone does. So thank you for joining us.

Jim (25:32):
Thank you so much, Nicole. And thank you for the privilege of not only working with you on two different books, but having this opportunity today. Sure. Appreciate you.

Nicole (25:40):
Awesome. We'll talk soon.

Closing:
If you enjoyed today's show, please give it a share. I don’t always get the opportunity to visit with all my clients, but I do my best to capture their attention for a few minutes so that you know what it’s like to write a book. Stayed tuned for many more interviews in the future. If you missed one, please check out our website and blog for more great interviews with so many wonderful new authors. Ok, go make it a blessed day! There’s a lot going on in our world. Remember that we still have a choice on how we spend it. Do your best to move out of fear and into compassion and love for so many that are going through so much change right now. As always, wishing you peace, love and light!