Lessons from Goal Getter School: Joy Overstreet

Episode 14

Lessons from Goal Getter School: joy overstreet

Sue Campbell

The new year is coming and I want you to be well prepared to set goals in a new and more effective way, so I’m bringing you interviews with students from my Goal Getter School for Writers.

In this episode, I’m talking with the author Joy Imboden Overstreet (https://www.joyoverstreet.com/). Joy created the original Thin Within workshops in the San Francisco Bay Area in 1975.  She was one of the very first health educators to ditch diets in favor of mindful eating. She’s published a book called The Cherry Pie Paradox and came to Goal Getter School to work on finishing the accompanying workbook and audiobook and the marketing around them. 

Learn how she used Goal Getter School to complete her audiobook and workbook, book podcasts to promote them, and start on her next memoir project. In Goal Getter School, you will set a big goal for your writing career and learn a framework to manage your mind to achieve it. The goal of the program is to teach you to manage your mind so you can better realize your creative potential for the rest of your life.

If you’re interested in learning more about Goal Getter School and maybe even applying for the January 2023 cohort, visit http://pagesandplatforms.com/goalgetter

transcript

SUE CAMPBELL: Hey writers, you're listening to the Pages and Platforms podcast with book marketing and mindset coach Sue Campbell. I'm so happy to bring you a mini-season on goal setting. The New Year's coming, and I want you to be well prepared to set goals in a new and much more effective way. So, I'm bringing you interviews with students from my Goal Getter School for Writers. Today I'm talking with the fabulous Joy Imboden Overstreet. Joy created the original Thin Within workshops in the San Francisco Bay Area in 1975. She was one of the very first health educators to ditch diets in favor of mindful eating. Now, she's published a book called The Cherry Pie Paradox, and she came to Goal Getter School to get to work on finishing the accompanying workbook and audiobook and the marketing around them. Let's hear the conversation. 

SUE: Hi, Joy Overstreet. Welcome to the Pages and Platforms podcast.

JOY OVERSTREET: Thank you. I'm glad to be here.

SUE: Can you just start out by telling the audience a little bit about yourself and what you write?

JOY: Sure. I have written a book that's a combination of how-to and memoir about a process of losing weight and changing your mindset around weight and food based on a program I created way back in 1975. And I wrote this book after procrastinating for 40 years on writing it. The book is called The Cherry Pie Paradox: The Surprising Path to Diet Freedom and Lasting Weight Loss. Because I'm no longer associated with this weight loss realm at all — haven't been for 40 years — nobody knows that I was at the forefront of the whole mindful eating anti-diet craze that's been going on for the last 20 years or so. I wanted to speak up for myself and also share something that I really felt was an unusual and important contribution because people are still as crazy about their weight as they were 40 years ago. Anyway, because I'm an unknown in this realm, I felt like I really needed marketing help because nobody knows I exist or the book.

SUE: So you have The Cherry Pie Paradox, and then you also write other things. You're like a multi-potentialite, is that what it's called?

JOY: Yeah. I've written many, many, many things over the years. This is the first book I'd written. I've had a newsletter or blog for 20 years in some form or another, and I've done technical writing and magazine articles, stuff like that for hire. This is the first time I've done something as an entrepreneur. I think the trouble comes for me when I have this gift I wanna give to the world, the book of the things I've learned, the wisdom, blah, blah. And everyone should be flocking to it, but they don't know I exist. To me as an artist, I'd like to say all writers are artists in some way. In this whole country, we have musicians, artists, theater people, dance, people, writers. We do our thing and then we're told, well, that's great that you did your thing. Now you've gotta get out and market it. And it's like, I didn't sign up for that.

SUE: Mm-hmm. Very common.

JOY: So that's to me the rub is like, damn, I don't have the qualifications. I don't wanna do it.

SUE: So enter Goal Getter School.

JOY: Enter Goal Getter School.

SUE: When I put the word out that this was something, and you're in the Happily Ever Author Club, so we've known and worked together for, I don't know, almost like two years now, I think. And we've had private calls together. What appealed to you about Goal Getter School? Why did you think that this would be something that could help you with the marketing side?

JOY: The book had been out for 10 months maybe. The traction that I had originally was beginning to peter out and I still had a couple of things I wanted to complete on it. I wanted to complete the audiobook and the workbook, and at the same time I was, shall we say, losing steam on the marketing. I felt that to get the finishing touches of the book — the whole thing was a suite of products that made a complete package — I felt that I had to complete the whole thing to, in essence, complete my agreement with myself. I would give it all. I was losing steam and enthusiasm as the sales dropped and I felt like I could use a little help to get me over the edge of finishing it up and letting it go so that I could get on with the next thing that I wanted to write. So that's part of it. The other part is I am what Gretchen Rubin calls an obliger. That is to say, I am somebody who really needs accountability. I need a deadline. I need to know that I have to get this thing done by such-and-such date, or I need to know that somebody is at the other end of the line waiting for me to say I did the thing that I said I was gonna do.

SUE: That makes perfect sense. How has it been going for you so far?

JOY: It's good. I think I completed my suite faster than I expected in a sense. I also completed my commitment to it faster. I just was like, I am so done. I wanna move on. All the goals that I had originally set for the Goal Getter School kind of got pushed aside as I made way for the next book.

SUE: Let's talk specifically about how we shaped your goal that you came into Goal Getter School with for a minute. I wanna publish the workbook, I wanna put out the audiobook, and then I wanna tell my newsletter about it. I want to get the word out through some podcasts. And then I think we also had two social media posts per week.

JOY: Yes. The other thing that we had a conversation, which was very helpful, I joined a podcast matching group called The Podcast Collaborative. They ask you to write a blurb about yourself and what your selling point is. At first, I noticed that there were a jillion other health/weight mindset kind of people there. I didn't really wanna talk to them and I wanted to differentiate myself from them. In our conversation, you and I discussed what might set me apart and landed upon the fact that I'm 82 and perhaps have some other things that I could talk about. I wrote a blurb on the podcast Facebook page, focusing not as much on my book and health qualifications as on the fact that I was 82 years old and had learned a few things over the years, and managed in many ways to make lemonade out of a bunch of lemons that my life had tossed at me. That garnered, oh gosh, six to 10 inquiries. So far I think I've been on five podcasts at least, and have a couple more, two or three more in the wings, to talk about a variety of things. These podcasts have been, not just in the United States, but one from Australia, one from Quebec. It's been fun talking to these people and basically becoming friends in an hour with somebody I'd never met before and having great conversations. So that was really fun.

SUE: Let me just point out for our audience: Earlier in the conversation, Joy, you said, I don't like marketing, I don't wanna have to do this, I didn't sign up for this. But then when you actually do it and you go on the podcast, you're like, I'm making friends and having great conversations with people. Our brain tries to tell us that marketing is this set of activities that we want nothing to do with. Then when we actually do it, we're like, it's lovely, I made friends, I'm having wonderful conversations.

JOY: Yes. And for me, it's the gap between sitting here at my desk doing the things that I wanna do and the conversation that I'm having with this delightful person. It's all the stuff that has to happen in the middle. It's like finding the right podcast and pitching that podcast and setting up the appointment and blah, blah blah. That's the stuff that I don't like to do.

SUE: Right. That's where something like the outer accountability of something like Goal Getter School comes in for you because it keeps you doing that so you can get to the good stuff.

JOY: Right. The conversations that you and I have had have been really helpful because they often guide me to looking at my stuck places slightly differently so that I can move on.

SUE: Absolutely. I just wanna reiterate how far you've come. So you did publish the workbook. You did publish the audiobook. You put out an offer where if people buy the workbook, then they get the audiobook for free. So you checked the box on that goal 100%. You're doing your social media posts and then you were pitching podcasts. Really you kind of clean-swept. You avoided having to write as many pitches as you had planned because you did the podcast collaborative and you kind of hit your goal for the number of podcasts that you wanted.

JOY: Yes.

SUE: Now you're in stretch goal territory where you've started working on your memoir with the last month of Goal Getter School. Can you tell us about that? 

JOY: It coincided with the memoir workshop by Allison Williams. I've missed some of the meetings that we've had in Goal Getter School because they were scheduled at the same time as the memoir workshop, which was very helpful. In terms of focusing the structure of the memoir, I'm still trying to wrap my arms around the size of it and the scope of it and the focus of it. But it's been helpful to know that you're asking me the questions that I need to answer to hone in on that. I've set some goals with you and I'm moving forward on them in terms of what I said I would do, getting all the information that I have. I'm gonna have 120 pages of notes that I took and journals that I wrote, or blogs that I wrote during this trip. So I have that. I'm also reading other memoirs that might give me an idea for structure. I started rereading Wild by Cheryl Strayed and went into despair, which you said — to compare is to despair. I've put that in the back of my mind as I look at these other memoirs and think, okay, I am not Cheryl Strayed. I am not Michelle Zauner. That's actually the closest I think that I'm gonna come to a good memoir for a structural idea. I'm just putting that little voice in the back of my head a little farther back and proceeding.

SUE: The week that we had that conversation. I actually had a couple other clients — things come in clusters, I feel like — so there were a couple other clients who were having the same challenge. One of the things I like to point out is you're comparing the beginning, the very beginning of your process, to somebody else's final award-winning made-into-a-TV-movie results. Right?

JOY: Correct. Yes.

SUE: That's your brain being a super big asshole to yourself. 

JOY: Exactly, yes. I think the other thing about the Goal Getter School and the Happily Ever Author Club is just knowing that I'm not alone. I mean, I know that I'm not alone, but to actually talk to other people who are in the same struggles or at some point, either slightly ahead of me or behind me, that's very helpful to know. 

SUE: The community aspect of it, having somebody else who knows what you're going through and where you can be like, oh, I'm not a bad person, or I'm not cut out for this, or I'm not an idiot. Like everybody else is going through this at one time or another too. Writers have all of the same recycled thoughts and challenges and obstacles and it's really helpful to see other people when they hit them and when they push past them.

JOY: And you're very good at noticing that and keeping us on the positive side. I would say that's a skill or quality that you have.

SUE: Thank you. Very big on normalizing things for people. We have a negative thought about something and then we have a negative thought about our negative thought and it's just like, let's just know that we have a human brain that's gonna do that kind of thing and let's steer it back over here.

 JOY: Yeah. It's hard. I mean, I'm pretty skilled at mindset shifting in certain arenas, but others it's like, but that's real, this consideration is a real one. The others were just like, I could move past that. This is actually a big deal, this one.

SUE: We're all so good at doing that. And I do it too. I absolutely do it too. That's why everybody needs a coach, in my opinion. Coaches need coaches. Everybody needs coaches. So what have you learned about goal setting itself during this time?

JOY: I have learned that I'm a weasel. That I really don't like setting goals. I really, really do not. I don't mind setting a goal that I'll turn in this paper or article or assignment on January 15th at noon. I don't mind that. I don't like saying I'm gonna do three of these things every week for the next four weeks or whatever the thing is. And I don't like saying that I'm gonna do them at 10 o'clock on every Wednesday. I can't think of anything in my life where that has worked well for me. I don't know what that is, a rebel, whatever, I don't know. But if you and I are gonna meet on Wednesday at 10, I'm there and I'll be ready to do what we had agreed that we were gonna do. Whether it was something I was gonna have written or that we were gonna go for a walk or a run or a tea or whatever. I'm still very squirrely — weasely. I don't like it. 

SUE: But that's such good information for you to have about yourself. Like this set of tools about reaching goals doesn't seem to work for me or I have a lot of resistance to it. But this method where I've gotta account to someone, where I've got a meeting scheduled and I'm gonna have to say what I've done and be ready, does work for you. 

JOY: I even have trouble putting stickers on my calendar that I wrote and that I exercised.

SUE: How are you feeling about what you've accomplished so far?

JOY: I feel good actually. I do. I feel bad that I have as many books under my bed, I have a box of books that I need to get rid of. I feel bad about that. I feel good that I've completed getting The Cherry Pie Paradox suite out into the world. I wish that somebody would sweep down from the heavens and discover it and explode it into the world. I don't think that's gonna happen unless I do something about it. I'm really looking forward to — or not looking forward — I'm enjoying the process of figuring out what this new book is gonna be about. It's a puzzle and I'm having fun with the puzzle so far.

SUE: Yeah, that was something you and I talked about at the beginning, right? Cuz we have goal-shaping conversations at the beginning of Goal Getter School. You come in thinking you wanna do a certain thing and then I help shape it and ask nosy questions and things like that. One of the things that was really clear was on a certain level you wanted to tie this up in a bow, this old project, so that you could feel like you honored it and did what you did and you were very eager to move on to the next thing.

JOY: Correct. Yeah.

SUE: So that was how we built in your goals. It's like, all right, the podcasts that you're gonna do, you don't have to talk about The Cherry Pie Paradox exclusively. You can talk about all of these lessons that you've accumulated in your lifetime and how you've made lemonade, et cetera, and let's move you into the next project. So it was kind of like the carrot of moving forward and wrapping all of this up.

JOY: Exactly. The carrot, exactly what that is.

SUE: So you're gonna come out of Goal Getter school doing what you said you're gonna do and at least have your outline for your novel and have a bunch of words you can work with.

JOY: I think I have all the pieces. I'll need to do some research for sure to plump up the pieces. But I have the pieces and the question I still have to figure out is how to actually weave it together. It's a memoir so I have to figure out how to weave the trip, the situation in the world, and the internal situation in my life together so that it flows and is coherent. That structure, I'm still not clear about, but I'm working on pieces meanwhile.

SUE: Awesome. And you've got the club side. So Goal Getter School comes with three months in the club, you were in the club anyway. Then you have Rochelle and Ann when you run into any structural issues. You also have the wonderful memoir class that you took, but you've got two insanely gifted developmental editors if you run into anything with weaving these structures together who are right there.

JOY: Yeah. I still have not had a chance to do anything with them and I look forward to that. Cuz I think the developmental editing part is what I'm gonna need. I'm gonna have a bunch of parts and I'm gonna need to have some clarity on how to string it together. 

SUE: And that was one of the exact reasons why I made it so people could either have Happily Ever Author Club concurrently with Goal Getter School or they could set it up so that it starts once they're done with Goal Getter School. Because some people were working on getting their zero draft done and some people were working on marketing goals. I wanted to make it flexible enough so that if you needed to be heads down — which is what you were doing, you were super heads down — you can move into the next phase where you're doing the follow-up and kind of setting out your next plan. You'd have the club there for support when you were ready. 

JOY: Yeah, I look forward to visiting and finding out exactly what they're offering.

SUE: You're gonna love it.

JOY: Good. I hope so.

SUE: What do you think you're gonna take forward with you from this experience?

JOY: I think what I take forward is that I still need accountability and that's why I'll be staying with the Happily Ever Author Club because I do need — I know myself well enough to know that I need ongoing support.

SUE: Yeah. If anyone is interested in taking that quiz that Joy alluded to, the Four Tendencies quiz from Gretchen Rubin, it's a really helpful framework to help people understand what makes them take action on expectations. If you go to https://quiz.gretchenrubin.com, you can take that quiz. Both Joy and I are obligers so we know we need that external accountability to really keep us going. It has to be meaningful accountability. I once paid for a huge yoga class package and showed up to one class cuz the only person it really mattered to if I didn't show up was me. 

JOY: I have done that more than once. Many times more than once. 

SUE: Any parting words or anything you wanna leave us with Joy?

JOY: It's been a great experience so far and we have how much time left to go?

SUE: We have just under a month left.

JOY: Hopefully I will be able to attend all the meetings going forward. Which I missed some before. And I will use you fully.

SUE: Yes, please do. That was the other piece that I was hoping would work out really well. When I designed Goal Getter School I was like how do I get people this mix of the community part and the group accountability and then also that one-to-one? I think having one week we have a group call and then the next week everybody gets a 20-minute private call. I've been really pleased with how that's been working and it seems like everyone in Goal Getter School liked it too. Did that work well for you?

JOY: The one-on-one calls have been phenomenal. The meetings of the group have not been phenomenal because I have missed most of them.

SUE: I am super-duper impressed with what you have accomplished so far. I'm super proud of you. I got to know you even better through this process and it's just been really amazing. I really wanna warmly thank you for being in that first cohort and helping us get everything figured out. The diversity in the range of people and their styles and experiences has been really helpful for me to help craft something that can work for everybody.

JOY: I think this is your perfect niche actually, cuz I think that you're really a gifted coach and encourager and it's nice to have somebody like you in my corner.

SUE: Thanks Joy, and thanks for coming on the podcast and sharing your experience. Really appreciate it.

JOY:  Thank you.

SUE: If you're interested in learning more about Goal Getter School for Writers and maybe even applying for the January 2023 cohort, visit https://pagesandplatforms.com/goalgetter.