Episode 165: Big News! improve it! Pod Turns 3 & I'm Writing a Book! Here's Why!
“Skydiving was a crash course in entrepreneurship. You can plan and prepare and then you just have to jump.”
On the improve it! Podcast’s third birthday, Erin dives (pun intended) into how planning for her first skydive and planning for her career as an entrepreneur have more similarities than you might think.
If you’re thinking about starting a podcast, writing a book, or just taking the leap – this is the episode for you.
ICYMI – Your Post-Episode Homework: Listen to some of the past episodes of the Failed It! Podcast/improve it! Podcast that Erin mentioned in today’s show. Check out some of the guests that we've had and the recent Self-Healing Series. Most importantly, give yourself the gift of investing in you.
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Connect with Erin Diehl:
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Email Erin: info@learntoimproveit.com
Erin Diehl is the founder and Chief “Yes, And” officer of improve it! and host of the improve it! Podcast. She’s a performer, facilitator and professional risk-taker who lives by the mantra, “get comfortable with the uncomfortable.” Through a series of unrelated dares, Erin has created improve it!, a unique professional development company that pushes others to laugh, learn and grow. Her work with clients such as United Airlines, PepsiCo, Groupon, Deloitte, Motorola, Walgreens, and The Obama Foundation earned her the 2014 Chicago RedEye Big Idea Award and has nominated her for the 2015-2019 Chicago Innovations Award.
This graduate from Clemson University is a former experiential marketing and recruiting professional as well as a veteran improviser from the top improvisational training programs in Chicago, including The Second City, i.O. Theater, and The Annoyance Theatre.
When she is not playing pretend or facilitating, she enjoys running and beach dates with her husband and son, and their eight-pound toy poodle, BIGG Diehl.
You can follow the failed it! podcast on Instagram @learntoimproveit and facebook, and you can follow Erin personally on Instagram @keepinitrealdiehl here. You can also check out improve it! and how we can help your organization at www.learntoimproveit.com. We can’t wait to connect with you online!
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Episode 165 Transcription
Erin (00:00):
Welcome to the Improve It Podcast.
Erin (00:11):
Improve It Peeps. Okay, first of all, happy birthday to you, to to us, to this community of amazing, amazing Humans. First and foremost, you read the title of this episode, you Clicked Play. There's some spoilers for you in the title, but we are three. The Improve It Podcast Turns three this year, which is crazy. I am turning 40, so when this episode launches, it will be the week of my 40th birthday. So having some feelings about that. But we started this show on April 22nd, 2020, which April 22nd is my birthday, and we started the Improve It Podcast on April 22nd, 2020, my 38th birthday. Now, I just wanna give you full transparency. I had zero clue what I was doing. I mean, I figured out how to get us here. I figured out how to press play <laugh>, send it to an editor. I mean, there were some kinks to work out, but truly had zero clue what we were doing.
Erin (01:36):
I get chills every time I think about somebody starting back at episode one to start benching the show because I have changed. You have evolved. We have evolved together back in 2020. I knew you improve at Peeps, but I didn't really know you. Like I know you now, we have grown together through this journey. We started this show as the Failed It podcast. So all my OG listeners who have been here for the past three years, this was the Failed It Podcast. As you know, we were called the Improvement Family. That evolved into the Improvement Peeps and their episodes on why we changed the show, why we changed the name of our community to Improve It Peeps. But truly the evolution is this. You can go back and check out those episodes for full, the full length version of how those things came to be.
Erin (02:40):
But the Failed It Podcast was actually, I'm just gonna keep it a hundred percent real with you, which is what I do. I named this show The Failed It Podcast because someone in my life told me that we couldn't call it it, the Improve It Podcast. I'll get into that in a minute. But what happened was we had 50 episodes talking to very successful people about failure. It was awesome. I loved the show, but it got to this place where we weren't really touching on all the things that we do at Improve It. All the things that help you transform, evolve, become the best version of you. We were just giving you one side of the story. So calling it the Improve It podcast, just open the doors to so much great conversations, so many fantastic guests. And speaking of guests, if you are new to this show or you've been here a while, I mean think about some of the most amazing people that we've been able to talk to.
Erin (03:48):
We've had authors from Kim Scott, who is the author of Radical Candor, and Kara Golden, the founder of hintwater and the author of the book on daunted. We've had Liz Fos from Liz and Molly, all of those fantastic cartoons you see all over Instagram and LinkedIn and her book, big Feelings. We've had my girl, Judy Hollerer, who is the author of Fear as my homeboy. We've had Sharine Daniels, the author of the Anti-Racist Organization. We've had so many amazing authors and people we've had thought leaders in the professional development space, such as Chris Doe, who's the founder of the future, Claude Silver, who's the chief art of Hart Officer. I said Hart Hart, officer at Vayner Media with Gary Vaynerchuk. We've had John Miles, who is the C E O and the host of the Passion Struck podcast. We've had Aubrey Blanche, who is the senior director of People at Culture Amp.
Erin (04:50):
We've had Mark Metre, who is the top 10 voice in mental health. Christine Michelle Carter, the number one voice for working moms. Madison Butler, the corporate unicorn, Tara Robinson, the LinkedIn Top Voice, and Rocky Howard, the Chief Equity Impact Officer for the Mom Project. And in the personal development space, we've chatted with Angie Lee, who has a Forbes top podcast, Helen Hall Leland, who is the founder of Blender Bombs. We've talked to May soon, Zed, who is a disability activist. The list goes on. I can't possibly name all the amazing guests we've had cuz we've had 160 plus episodes. But this show has evolved. It has grown into this amazing masterpiece and masterclass for you to become your best self personally and professionally. We've gone from one episode a week of this show to now three episodes a week, giving you more bite-sized chunks of content, more digestible, easily digestible shows.
Erin (06:06):
So if you have been here a while, I wanna say thank you, thank you for three amazing, fantastic growth inspiring years. And if you are new to this show, I wanna tell you, welcome The Improve It Peeps are a very special community. These are people who love helping people you love, leading, helping, watching others evolve into their best selves. And I am so honored to be here with you and talk to you week after week on this journey. So if this is one of your first episodes of the show, go back, listen to some of the guests that we've had, listen to some of the solo shows. Know there's so much more to come and I wanna just say happy birthday to us. I mean, this is a feat. This is a feat. It is no small task. I wanna say thank you from the bottom of my heart to this team.
Erin (07:15):
This is like an an acceptance speech right now that I'm giving myself. But I truly wanna say thank you. We've got Rachel, our podcast manager, who makes this show go smoothly Behind the scenes, we've got Nicole, who you've heard on the show as well. Rachel's been here too, who's our client experience associate who helps from all things marketing, social media, putting it on our website week after week for you. She created our wellness workbook, which we've talked about in previous shows. Say thank you to Mike, our fantastic, amazing editor who probably gets sick of listening to me multiple times a week. Mike, thank you. Truly, thank you. So it truly takes a village. I have to acknowledge that it's not as easy as it seems. Just sitting here pressing record and talking to you. It actually takes a lot of work and a lot of endurance and a lot of preparation to give this content to you.
Erin (08:13):
And I'm so happy that you show up for it and you should be so proud of you for showing up for yourself and giving yourself this time. So I wanna go back to that story of why I did not call the show the Improvement Podcast to begin with. You know, this is an evolution. My gut screamed at me for years to create a podcast for years. When I sat on the idea, I sat on it, I didn't feel ready. I had so many limiting beliefs. And then when I finally decided, okay, this is going to be the year we're going to launch the show, I had a person in my life say, well, what are you gonna talk about? And I said, well, we'll just give out tips and tricks of things we do at improve it. And this amazing person who I do love said so you're just gonna give it all away.
Erin (09:18):
And I said, yeah. And then I sat on that for a minute and I said, you know what? You're right. We should not do the Improvement podcast. Let's talk about failure. Because failure's a part of the improv world. It means no mistakes, only gifts. And so instead of listening to my gut, we went in the opposite direction. Now let me just say this. The Failed It podcast was awesome. I started this show knowing that that was going to be the topic we're gonna talk about. Failure, no mistakes, only gifts was the main mantra, which is a huge rule from the improv theater.
Erin (10:00):
And I'll tell you this, I listened to my gut, but I didn't follow my gut. And so after launching the show and then changing course again, there are no mistakes, only gifts. I sometimes wonder what would've happened if we would've started calling the show, the Improve It Podcast, episode one versus episode 50 something. And it made me think of a parallel story that I posted about recently about my first skydiving experience. So hear me out. Here's the post. I'm just gonna read it to you because honestly I can't say it any better than I said it here. So I have a picture of me skydiving and the caption says, I thought skydiving was the scariest thing I had ever done until I became an entrepreneur. I went skydiving for my husband's 30th birthday. I had not yet started my company and prove it, but I had the idea.
Erin (11:07):
I was just waiting for the right time to start. We were in Miami for a friend's wedding and made it happen in three simple steps. One, I booked and scheduled the summit in our calendar. Two, I prepared mentally for the plunge. Three we put on our gear and just jumped. The first 30 seconds of free falling at 13,000 feet was terrifying. I could not breathe or catch my breath. The last three minutes of coasting through the clouds after the parachute was pulled was pure bliss. A true magical and spiritual experience. Turns out skydiving was a crash course in entrepreneurship. You can plan and prepare and then you just have to jump. Some days you're terrifying, and some days you're guiding along, untethered, absolutely in shock. You get to live this life. So whatever that thing is you are afraid of doing, I want to encourage you to just jump. And while you're at it, make sure to enjoy the ride. I'll tell you, I sat on the idea of building this business for a long time. I sat on it for about three years. And then when I built the business, I planned, I planned, I planned. And then I had to just jump similar to this show.
Erin (12:36):
I sat on it probably for three years as well. The idea of having a podcast in a podcast community where I could pour every single piece of knowledge that I have into you week after week, sat on my heart for a long time and I planned and I thought about it and I second myself. And then finally I jumped and it was terrifying. Like I said, I had zero clue what I was doing in the beginning. And then throughout the the journey and the Ride, we figured it out along the way. There are times with this show that I feel like I'm just coasting because it's going so well. And then there's times where I'm like, oh crap, we gotta figure this out. We need some guests. We need more on our content calendar. I need to become more grounded to be able to sit here and talk to you and give you the knowledge that you need. So there's something on my heart that I have been sitting on a long time and you've read the title of the show. It's not a shock to you. But I am jumping, I am leaping, I am getting out of this plane. I'm building the plane. While I'm flying it, I'm jumping. I'm writing a book.
Erin (14:02):
I had to pause right there because your girl got chills. And I know that I've been planning and plotting this and thinking about doing it for a while, and now is the time for me to just jump. If you wanna read that post, that skydiving post, you can check it out on my Instagram at Keeping It Real Deal because this post serves as a reminder to me. I do a lot of things for you. That Post was a reminder to me to jump and to not look back and to enjoy this journey. So I've thought a lot about why writing a book is so to me and I boiled it down to three reasons. One, I love books. There have been so many books in my life that have changed my life and have changed the course of my career trajectory. And my Health, skinny, which is a book about becoming vegan, didn't make me become vegan.
Erin (15:17):
But I live a completely plant-based pescatarian lifestyle because of it. And I read that book in 2007. I've been a pescatarian since 2007. The book, the Compound Effect by Darren Hardy showed me how small simple actions can lead to big goals, which is the book I used to start Improve it. Rocket Fuel is a book that showed me how to lead with innovation, how to be an innovator, and how to always have an integrator in your life. The artist Way by Julia Cameron taught me what it is I truly want out of life. That water is my calm and that I needed to live near the ocean, which is essentially what brought me to Charleston, South Carolina. The book, when the Body Says No by Gabo showed me that my mind has the power to heal my body. So did the book Healing Back Pain by Dr.
Erin (16:20):
John Sarno, both of which can be talked about in depth in our self-heal self-healing series. Here on the show. Those are episodes one 50 to 1 55 of this podcast. If you wanna change your health journey and the mind body connection behind it, check out those episodes. But all of these books changed my life. I love books. Which leads me to the number two reason why I'm reading this book or reading. Well, you'll be reading this book while I'm writing this book, which is that all of these books have helped me remember who I am. I truly believe that we are born on this earth knowing who we are and we forget along the way. So we are born remembering, but then we lose it. So we have to experience life in order to get to that part of being human being. And I finally feel like in 40 years of my life, I am being the person I was put on this earth here to be.
Erin (17:46):
So there's no other time for me to write this first book. There's gonna be more. So hear me when I say that. But the time is now. I have evolved into who I am here to be and I have remembered who I am, which leads me to my third reason for writing this book. It's you need it, you need it, and you need it now. And I hope this book can change your life and help you remember who you are. So just so you know, there's so much going on behind the scenes with this book. I just finished a huge proposal. I'll share this journey with you every month. It's a long process. Book writing is probably going to be the most, one of the most hard things I've done in my life. Childbirth was really hard, but writing a book is no easy feat.
Erin (18:52):
So please stay tuned. Stick with this show. There's so much coming your way. If you liked today's episode, go back in. Listen to some of the episodes I mentioned. Check out some of the guests that we've had. Check out the Self-Healing series and give yourself the gift of investing in you. And I want to say from the bottom of my heart, thank you for three amazing years. We are just getting started. You know what I'm gonna say? Keep failing. Keep improving cuz the world needs that special It that only you can bring. I'll see you soon. Hey friend, did you enjoy today's show? If so, head on over to iTunes to rate and subscribe. So you never miss an episode. Now, did I mention that when you leave a five star review of the Improve It podcast, an actual team of humans does a happy dance? Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. That's right. So leave a review for us on iTunes, screenshot it, and send me an email at info learn to improve it.com. I'll send you a personalized video back as a thank you. Thanks so much for listening. Improve It Peeps. I'll see you next Wednesday.