In this episode of Expertise Made Real, Kristin N. Spencer wraps up her conversation with Lisa Simone Richards of Pearl Spark Pages with a question about celebrating wins, not just building confidence.

Lisa draws on her career as a publicist, where she noticed that many women hold off on reaching out to opportunities until they feel ready. Her first exercise for clients was always a “not so humble brag sheet”: a list of the time and money invested in their education, the results they’ve created for themselves and their clients, and the awards and certifications they’ve earned. That same idea shaped the Female Founders Journal, which she built around two frameworks. The morning prompts follow BRAGS (Building confidence, Reframing thoughts, Affirming strengths, Growing mindset, Self-reflecting) to start your day with confidence. The evening prompts follow PEARL (Progress, Evolution, Accomplishment, Reinforced positivity, Lasting gratitude) to help you reflect on a pearl of wisdom from your day.

Lisa also shares how she zags when others zag by hosting a quarterly wins party in the second week of each quarter, where the only agenda is looking back and cheering each other on. She describes how she invites people at in-store author events to finish the sentence “Today I’m proud of myself for…” and what she’s learned from watching who jumps right in. Kristin asks how to model this in front of her teenagers, and Lisa offers simple ways to celebrate, from a dance party to sharing a win out loud with someone else. Lisa also shares where to get the next run of the journal.

In this episode:

• Why a brag sheet is the first exercise Lisa gives clients
• What to put on it: education, results, awards, certifications, and the things you take for granted
• The BRAGS framework for starting your day with confidence and the PEARL framework for reflecting at night
• Why Lisa hosts a quarterly wins party before any planning begins
• How an “I’m proud of myself for…” board at in-store events reveals who treats celebrating as a muscle
• Simple ways to celebrate that aren’t shopping or food, and how to model it in front of your kids
• Why celebrating small wins consistently matters as much as the big ones

Resources mentioned:

• The Female Founders Journal by Pearl Spark Pages
• The BRAGS framework (Building confidence, Reframing thoughts, Affirming strengths, Growing mindset, Self-reflecting)
• The PEARL framework (Progress, Evolution, Accomplishment, Reinforced positivity, Lasting gratitude)

Connect with Lisa:

Visit pearlsparkpages.com for details on pre-ordering the next run of the journal, and read her blog, The Female Founder Diaries, for behind-the-scenes looks at building a business and a team.

Links referenced in this episode:

• www.pearlsparkpages.com
• bit.ly/expertisemr

Companies mentioned in this episode:

• Pearl Spark Pages
• Female Founder's Journal
• Amazon
• Layla's Cheesecake

In this episode of Expertise Made Real, Kristin N. Spencer is back with Lisa Simone Richards of Pearl Spark Pages to talk about something that doesn’t come easily to many experts: letting go.

Lisa gets candid about her control-freak tendencies, the story that “no one can do it better than me,” and the moment she realized she was the common denominator in a string of assistants that didn’t work out. Instead of staying stuck, she studied the problem. After reading Buy Back Your Time by Dan Martell and watching his YouTube content, she built a full onboarding for her new assistant, with 30-60-90 day plans, SOPs, and Loom videos. Her assistant told her it was the best onboarding she’d had in 15 years.

Lisa walks through the tools that keep the partnership running: Dan Sullivan’s one-page impact filter, which makes expectations crystal clear, a weekly scorecard each of them fills out on Fridays, and a daily 30-minute sync that has shrunk from five days a week to two. Kristin adds another resource for listeners, Now Hiring by Dana DeVito, and the two close with book talk and where to find more of Lisa’s work.

In this episode:

• Why “no one can do it better than me” is a story, not a fact
• What Lisa changed after going through multiple assistants
• How a thorough onboarding (30-60-90 day plans, SOPs, Loom videos) sets a new assistant up to succeed
• The impact filter: a one-page delegation tool that spells out the project, the desired outcome, and the cost of not getting it done
• How weekly scorecards keep a visionary connected to long-term goals
• The daily sync strategy: start at five days a week, then work down to two
• Why Lisa learns from free resources before she pays for anything

Resources mentioned:

• Buy Back Your Time by Dan Martell
• The Impact Filter by Dan Sullivan and Strategic Coach
• Now Hiring by Dana DeVito

Connect with Lisa:

Visit pearlsparkpages.com to learn more about Pearl Spark Pages, and check out her blog, The Female Founder Diaries, for behind-the-scenes looks at building a business and a team, plus the tools she uses to grow her company.

Links referenced in this episode:

• pearlsparkpages.com
• bit.ly/expertisemr

Companies mentioned in this episode:

• Strategic Coach
• Loom
• Claude (Anthropic)
• WhatsApp
• Indigo Books & Music
• Pearl Spark Pages
• YouTube

In this episode of Expertise Made Real, Kristin N. Spencer asks Bobbie Carlton, founder of Innovation Women, to walk through her system for speaking as if you’ve never heard anything about it.

Bobbie shares her four-part framework for deciding which speaking opportunities to say yes to. It starts with your “happy price,” the value you bring to the audience weighed against what it costs you to deliver the talk. From there, she covers treating every stage like an audition in front of the right people, looking for something else of value (video, photos, a prestige stage, a list of attendees), and the fun bonus of travel.

Then Kristin and Bobbie turn to what happens when speaking and authorship work together. Bobbie explains why an organization with no speaker budget may still have money for educational materials, swag, or gift bags, and why you should have organizers sell your book with tickets instead of settling for a table at the back of the room. They also talk about why a book, a framework, and a speech feed each other, so the content you’ve already created works across speeches, social media, your website, and workshops.

In this episode:

• The four questions to ask before saying yes to a speaking opportunity
• What a “happy price” is and how to calculate it
• Why every audience should be treated like an audition
• The non-cash value to look for in a speaking deal
• Extra business models that only authors have
• Why you want the organizer to buy your books, not you to haul them
• How one framework can feed your speeches, social media, website, and workshops

Connect with Bobbie:

• Sign up for the weekly newsletter at innovationwomen.com.

Links referenced in this episode:

• innovationwomen.com
• bit.ly/expertisemr

Companies mentioned in this episode:

• Innovation Women
• Harvard University
• United Nations
• Disney
• Universal Studios