The One With Michelle Vandepas

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:00:14]:
You’re listening to the Keith Blakemore Noble radio show. Interesting chats with interesting people about interesting things and no adverts. Here’s your host, Keith Blakemore Noble. Hey. Hello. Hello. Welcome back. Welcome back to another episode.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:00:37]:
Thank you so much for joining me. I have got a fantastic guest. I wouldn’t have it any other way. I have another fantastic guest this week. My guest this week, Michelle Van Der Pas. Now, Michelle is a publishing consultant, a business strategist, a TEDx speaker. Michelle has over 25 years of entrepreneurial experience. As a co founder of Gracepoint Publishing, she has guided thousands of authors and thought leaders, guided them into bringing their ideas to life, producing more than 150 published books.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:01:11]:
That’s quite a library in and of itself. Known for her signature philosophy, Divine and Dangerous, Michelle empowers entrepreneurs to align their purpose with hold unapologetic action whilst building sustainable, profitable businesses. Her TEDx talk in honor of Procrastination reframes procrastination as a signal for alignment rather than a flaw. And this offers audiences a refreshing perspective on productivity and on success. Now, when she’s not mentoring authors or speaking, Michelle enjoys a life in the Colorado mountains with her family, with 40 goldfish, and with the occasional curious bear. That is my guest today. Michelle, are you there? Michelle?

Michelle Vandepas [00:02:03]:
Yeah. How fun is that bio? Thank you so much.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:02:06]:
I love it. I love that bio. That is a brilliant one. So we’ve heard your bio and a great bio it is too. I’m going to ask, who is Michelle? Who is the lady behind the bio?

Michelle Vandepas [00:02:19]:
Yeah. Pulling back the curtain a little bit. Well, you know, I’m just like everybody else, wanting to do better in life, connect with people, make a difference, live on purpose. I would imagine if you’re listening to this, you are looking for the same things I’m looking for, which is more fulfillment in life. Right. And how do we really make a difference? And so, you know, I’m a hiker, I’m an outdoors girl, I live in the mountains, I like to go camping. But then the other side of me is I’m out there speaking all dolled up, right on stage, making a difference. And so how do you hold both of those? I hope we’ll talk about that a little bit today.

Michelle Vandepas [00:03:07]:
How do you hold all sides of ourselves? How do you hold outward Persona that most of us give when we’re out in the world along with what’s really going on inside? And so I’m just like you and everybody listening.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:03:21]:
Beautiful. Love that you raised the point. So let’s let’s dive in with that. How do you do that?

Michelle Vandepas [00:03:29]:
Yeah, I think that’s one of the biggest challenges right now in the world is it feels like no matter where you are in the world, and we’re across the pond right from each other right now recording this. No matter where you are. It feels chaotic. It feels like AI and all the digital funnels and websites and everything should make life easier. And it just doesn’t feel like it has. All of us feel an overwhelm. All of us feel like our to do lists. When I did my TedX talk, I know we’re going to talk about that.

Michelle Vandepas [00:03:59]:
It was over a decade ago now. I look back, life was so simple and we were all in overwhelm then. And that’s what I talked about. Right? And now it just feels like our to do lists are huge. The information coming at us is huge. And what happens is we tend to shrink to protect ourselves from all the chaos out there. We’re like, I don’t know, you know, why it’s not easier, but adulting is freaking hard these days. And, you know, so we shrink.

Michelle Vandepas [00:04:30]:
And that’s not the way to live fully in life. We have to expand the capacity to hold the yin and the yang, the black and white, and live in the gray area where there’s not just one way, there’s not just right or wrong. There’s a lot of nuance to living right now. And so when I’m working with clients or talking with you, I would recommend just picturing expanding capacity. I’m going to sound a little woo now, but if you can picture yourself allowing all to enter and then filter through you, you don’t have to accept it all. You don’t have to be happy with everything. You don’t have to like, yes, I embrace the chaos in the world, but maybe that’s what you need to do, right? But just allowing it all, it is part of our experience. And when we try to push away and shut down, we’re shutting down all of us.

Michelle Vandepas [00:05:27]:
And so then we shut down all the miracles and the opportunities and perspective that we might have if we allow all experiences to present.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:05:40]:
Gotcha. Got you. One of the things that you mentioned there that really jumped out for me was the fact that as overwhelmed as we are now, if we look back to 10, 20 years ago in the past, we thought we were busy and overwhelmed there. We look back to that now and we think, oh, to have that amount of relaxation, right? What are we going to be like in 10, 20 years time in the future, do you think? I mean, how are we going to cope with that?

Michelle Vandepas [00:06:09]:
Yeah, I don’t know. Here’s what I would say to that. I think we have just as much opportunity for relaxation. The difference is we’re being bombarded with stimulation all the time, whether it’s on, you know, our phone or just even going out into the world. There’s TVs on everywhere, there’s news everywhere. So it’s harder to just decompress our mind. Right. People ask me all the time, what’s AI going to do with publishing? I don’t have the crystal ball.

Michelle Vandepas [00:06:42]:
I don’t know. There’s people smarter than me out there that know what’s going to happen with AI in the world. So I don’t know where we’re going to be in 10 years. What I do know is we all need tools to help quiet the mind. That sounds so, you know, 1980s meditation, but it’s true. Because there’s so much more coming at us now. It’s even more important to be able to filter out what we need to pay attention to, what is important to us, what will help direct our lives. Right.

Michelle Vandepas [00:07:16]:
Some people are born to be activists. Some people are born to be caregivers. Some people are born to help others in a different way. Whatever it is, you’ve got to filter what’s going to help and inform your decisions.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:07:34]:
Gotcha. Yeah, yeah. And you talk about helping others. That’s what you do a lot. One, one of the things you do is you. You help, you help people to become published. Published authors. You said over, over 150.

Michelle Vandepas [00:07:50]:
Yeah, we’re over 200 now, so I gotta update that.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:07:55]:
Wow, that must, that must take up a fair amount of shelf space.

Michelle Vandepas [00:07:59]:
Yeah, it does. And a lot of time I have a team, so I don’t do that by myself. And, you know, I’ve taught writing, I’ve been a book coach. I’ve done classes. So when you say I’ve helped thousands of authors, I have not all to publish, but I’ve been teaching classes online and in person for, well, more than 20 years. But, you know, it is. Not everybody wants to be an author. It is one way.

Michelle Vandepas [00:08:27]:
It’s only one way, but it’s one way to help get your message out. If you feel a calling that.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:08:33]:
Yeah. How did you get into, into, into all of that?

Michelle Vandepas [00:08:38]:
Into publishing? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like most people, it was a long and winding journey. And if you would have asked me, you know, 20 years ago if you would have said you’re going to have a publishing company, I would have said, nah, it’s too detailed for me, it’s too slow for me. It’s not what I want to do. And you know, sometimes life just takes you in weird directions. I really just had enough people. You really helped me as a publishing consultant now publish my book. I just, you know, I had enough demand for it that that’s what I did.

Michelle Vandepas [00:09:13]:
And publishing’s changed a lot since I’ve been in the business. Right. It’s changed a lot. And kind of a side note, if you, if you want to find out, one thing I’d like to do is pull back the curtain on publishing because there’s so much misinformation out there and you know, you may not like what I have to say, but I’m not going to lie to you or scam you. Right. And there’s a lot of people out there, they’re just bait and switch and take your money for cover or something and don’t give you what you want. I mean it’s, it’s a crazy world. Just like any industry.

Michelle Vandepas [00:09:50]:
Just like any industry, there’s good people and not so good people.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:09:55]:
Yeah, unfortunately. Unfortunately true there. Yeah. I mean I’ve done six books myself. Self published. Self published. So I kind of have a bit of an idea of the sorts of things that you take people through. And I have to say when I first started out, I wish I had somebody like you to help me out because at the time the amount of information that was there was very, very limited and there were a lot of unscrupulous ones around.

Michelle Vandepas [00:10:23]:
And there’s more now.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:10:25]:
Yeah, sad but true. Sad but true. One of the things you mentioned, and it’s the thing that pricked my ears up when I first read about you and thought I have to have Michelle on your 10x talk all about procrastinating in honor of procrastination. So a couple of things I want to explore here. One is we’re going to explore a little bit about your take on procrastination. I’m not putting that topic off, but we’re going to explore that in just a moment. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, it’s a good, really rubbish joke. But hey, you have to make it.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:11:00]:
That’s the law. But just before we do that, how did you get to, how did you get to be on a TEDx stage?

Michelle Vandepas [00:11:11]:
So I heard TEDx was coming to my town. It was, I was on the first TEDx in Colorado Springs and basically I just, I did a little Detective work. And I reached out to the organizers, I found them. It took a while because there’s a whole apple process and it was just a few weeks away and I asked if they still had a slot and I went through an application process and I was accepted. I guess they had a slot last minute. So I’m not sure if someone canceled. I don’t remember. And I went through, but I did not back back then in our town, we did not have rehearsals and all the things that you have now, like TEDx coaches and all, all that.

Michelle Vandepas [00:11:53]:
I’ve since been a TEDx coach, but at the time we didn’t have that. I’m not sure if it’s because it was the first time in Colorado Springs or I just didn’t get it because I was last minute. Right. And so I kind of threw together this talk and I’m gonna, you know, give you something you didn’t ask. And then what happened was the night before I curled up in a ball and called my two sisters and said, I’m not doing this. There’s no way. I’m not worthy, I’m not prepared, I don’t know what I’m gonna wear. I haven’t flushed out my talk, I haven’t got any coaching.

Michelle Vandepas [00:12:29]:
I’m not gonna do this. And literally I was like in that headspace until about 30 seconds when I went on. Luckily, both my sister said, no, you, you can’t back out. That’s not a choice for you show up. But that experience helps me relate to other people feeling like they know they’re on purpose, they know they’re supposed to do this. But there’s all this self doubt that might go on around, speaking, publishing a book, writing what you want to say, whatever it is, right? There’s always this little bit of internal confusion that you know you’re on purpose, but it’s like, really, I’m gonna go do whatever the next step is for you. And so luckily I did it. And then of course, right after I was finished, I look well, I wasn’t so bad.

Michelle Vandepas [00:13:26]:
Yeah, right.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:13:28]:
That’s soften the way, isn’t it? And I know it’s. It’s a lot more common than many people think. Even in, even in seasoned professionals, speakers, actors, performers. So many have this before going on. They, oh, I can’t do this. Even real big professionals, you know, Tony Award winners and so on, they often have their ritual just to get them centered in it. What advice or tips would you give someone who’s looking to do a TEDx talk? For example.

Michelle Vandepas [00:13:59]:
Well, it’s a little different now. However, you do have to do an application process. What I found it’s been a while since I was a TEDx coach too. TEDx speaker coach. So it may have changed a little bit. But you got to have a story. It has to be engaging. You can’t sell something.

Michelle Vandepas [00:14:18]:
Like I always get authors saying, now I want to go on TedX and sell my book. It doesn’t work that way. You have to have a different spin on something and you have to have some research behind it. They just don’t want your story. There’s got to be a little bit of research, a little bit of meat in there, right? So I would say apply, apply, apply. You know, Brene Brown, probably the most, one of the most famous TEDx speakers, obviously there’s a lot or TED speakers. Right. She talked about how she gave her speech to anybody that would like, listen before she got on stage.

Michelle Vandepas [00:14:57]:
Like she would talk to people at the bar, she would talk to people at coffee shops. Right. And practice snippets. And so if I would go back, I would practice more. I didn’t have the time, but that’s what I wish I would have had some more time to practice. And so that would be my advice, really hone your message so much that you can talk about your message in any context with anybody, anywhere. It’s not memorizing the speech, it’s knowing content.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:15:29]:
Yes, yes, Love that, love that. So many people when they, when they give a talk, they, they want to script it all as you’re reading from a script, which reading from a script is a very difficult thing to do without sounding like you’re reading for a script. That’s why, that’s why I just get paid the big bucks. I love your, your, that key point there. Just practice, practice, practice. Know your stuff so well that you can deliver it just as a chat in any context. Yeah, beautiful, beautiful. We’ve put it off for long enough.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:16:04]:
Procrastination. I know you’ve got an interesting take on, on the topic of procrastination. What, what’s your take on it and how did you, how do you reach that? How do you come to that?

Michelle Vandepas [00:16:19]:
I don’t really know how I came to it. I think it was just really my own personal self development, my own personal entrepreneurial journey and understanding how I get motivated and what makes me motivated to do certain things. I came to realize that what we label procrastination is sometimes fear and it’s sometimes just timing, like aligned timing is it your time. Like, sometimes it’s just not the right time yet. So there’s. There’s a couple of things if you are keep putting something off. There’s three points I want to make here. Can I just dive into all three? The first thing, is it yours to do? Some of us get bombarded with ideas.

Michelle Vandepas [00:17:08]:
Not everybody, but some of us, like, I’m one of these people. I’ll get 10 ideas a day, and I’ll go down rabbit holes and explore it and whatever. And other people are fed ideas from spouses or friends or whatever. And they’re not all ours to implement. We are human beings, and we pick up clues from the universe, from friends, from social, and we get clients. Great ideas does not mean it’s yours to implement. So the first thing is just sort of tune in if you have something on your list that you’ve been procrastinating on. That’s the first question.

Michelle Vandepas [00:17:47]:
Is it yours to do? You know, if it’s laundry, you have a choice. Do it, Give it to a friend to do, hire it out. But it’s got to get done, right? So that’s the first thing. If it has to get done, are you the one to do it, or can you hire it out? Otherwise, just, you know, buckle down and do it because you won’t have clean clothes. But if it’s like a business project or a personal project, like landscaping, do you want to do it? Is it yours to do? Does it light you on fire? Then the second question is, let’s pretend landscaping. Is there fear there? Is it like, I’m gonna do this, I’m gonna hate it. I’m gonna spend all this money, and it’s not gonna look like I want. I don’t know what I’m doing.

Michelle Vandepas [00:18:35]:
So that comes up in publishing books all the time. I don’t know what I’m doing. I’m gonna spend all this time and money, and I’m gonna end up with a book I hate. The way to approach that is more information. Get research. You the way to subside the fear in your head. Research and information. So if you don’t know if publishing a book is for you and you’re procrastinating on it, talk to you, talk to me, talk to another publisher, talk to a friend who’s published a book and just start getting the information now, that may not alleviate all the fear, but then you’ll start to understand, okay, this is how it works.

Michelle Vandepas [00:19:18]:
I’m still scared, but I’m going to move forward. At least you have the information to know this is mine to do, it feels like the right thing. Even though I’m scared out of my mind, it feels like the right thing that I’m going to do. Then the third thing is the timing. Like, sometimes I went through a period of life where I had a million family obligations, parents, husband, kids. Right. And I just couldn’t get a lot of extra projects done in my business. It was just a season of life for me.

Michelle Vandepas [00:19:50]:
And sometimes it’s just not the right timing and we have to be okay with, is it time for me to do right now? Is this going to be an easy, easeful, joyful process? Even though if it’s scary, even though that I don’t know what I’m doing, even though in a ball, does it still feel like the right time? Do I need to wait for more information? Do I need to wait for something else to shift in my life if it’s not the right time, but you know it’s coming, just prepare, prepare. So when it is the right time, you’re ready.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:20:30]:
Yeah.

Michelle Vandepas [00:20:31]:
Sometimes we’re just percolating. We’re thinking about things. It’s not timing, it’s not time yet. Not because of life circumstances, but we just don’t have time information yet. We don’t have the creative juice. We don’t have it all flushed out yet. So those are three real things that I talk about with procrastination to give us some breathing room so we’re not shaming ourselves all the time for not.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:20:57]:
Yeah, those are three really. I’ve penned eggs, I’m making notes. It’s one of the things I love about doing this. I get to chat with great people and I get to learn stuff as well. What’s not to like? The one I really like, the one that really jumped out for me, is it yours to do? And that is something that I’ve not heard anybody else talk about in relation to procrastination. And I guess that really is an important point. Is it mine to even be doing?

Michelle Vandepas [00:21:26]:
Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah. I mean, some of us are just really creative and get lots of ideas. Or someone will come to us and say, I have an idea for you, I have an idea for you. And I’m like, that’s awesome. I love this idea, but it’s not mine to do. Right.

Michelle Vandepas [00:21:41]:
But even when we get ideas right, you publish six books, you’re a podcaster, you’re an entrepreneur, you get tons of ideas, I’m sure. Right. You can’t possibly implement. Not everything’s going to light you on fire today.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:21:59]:
Yeah, absolutely.

Michelle Vandepas [00:22:01]:
And even if it does, it still may not be yours to do.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:22:04]:
Yeah, yeah, I like that. I do like. It’s your TEDx talk. Was that recorded? Is that available anywhere?

Michelle Vandepas [00:22:11]:
Oh yeah, yeah. You can just Google me. It’ll come right up. And to pass TEDx fan. To pass TEDx procrastination. Other people have talked about it since I got hate mail on that, just so you know.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:22:24]:
Well, it shows you. It shows you stood as was it Churchill said you have enemies. Good. That shows you stood for something in your life.

Michelle Vandepas [00:22:30]:
Yeah, right. I mean, I’m like, how can someone send me hate mail about that? But I did. I got hate mail.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:22:36]:
But at least you helped them away. Helped them to get over their procrastination about sending the mail.

Michelle Vandepas [00:22:41]:
Yes.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:22:42]:
Ah, dear me, goodness me. Now I know. 40 goldfish. So you live in the Colorado mountains. You got your 40, 40 goldfish, you got your family and the occasional curious bear. How, how does one end up with 40 goldfish? What’s going on?

Michelle Vandepas [00:23:02]:
I have a, I have a greenhouse and I’ve got a big pond in my greenhouse that helps regulate the heat and the cool in the greenhouse. And I just kept putting in the US you can buy these 99 cent goldfish at the pet store. And I just put them in. I have both fish that are over a decade old that are like this big now. It’s a huge pond. Big, big, big. Inside my greenhouse I have a big greenhouse. Yeah.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:23:26]:
Must be a big greenhouse. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. So what’s it like living there? What’s it like living there in the beautiful Colorado mountains?

Michelle Vandepas [00:23:35]:
Yeah, I’ve lived in this, you know, same house 42 years. I travel a lot, I get out a lot, but I’ve lived in the same place and like anywhere in the, in the world right now there’s lots of changes. Right. When I first moved there, it was not quite a dirt road to get to my house, but almost it was. I come from the walk both ways, uphill in the snow to get your glass of water, whatever those. That’s what it felt like when I lived back there. No street lights, no traffic lights. And you know, it’s changed, but it’s still the mountains.

Michelle Vandepas [00:24:12]:
I mean, we’re, you know, flood warnings, fire warnings, sometimes, you know, our water goes out, sometimes our electric goes out. But that’s not just mountain living anymore. That can happen anywhere, anytime now. Right. The more we rely on things like electric and Internet, the more we notice, I guess, when it goes down, like I Said they’ve always gone down, but now it’s like a catastrophe.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:24:40]:
Yeah, we’re so dependent on it, aren’t we?

Michelle Vandepas [00:24:43]:
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:24:46]:
What about the bear visit? What kind of bears is it that you have there?

Michelle Vandepas [00:24:49]:
Yeah. So in Colorado, no matter what color bear it is, it’s a black bear. So it can be a brown bear. And people go, oh, my gosh, there’s brown bears. No, they’re black bears. That’s the species. So we don’t have grizzly bears that are going to come eat you. So I brought up my kids and all our neighbors and myself.

Michelle Vandepas [00:25:09]:
Like, if you’re out at night, you’re like going, making yourself really big. Go away bear. Go away bear. Right. And if you’re a little kid, you’re making yourself big. My daughter used to take a big stick with her and she’d walk to the neighbors and all of that. But, you know, black bears are curious. They’re.

Michelle Vandepas [00:25:30]:
They like to eat things with seeds and, you know, berries and that kind of thing. And unless you get in between a mom and her cub, you’re usually pretty safe. That has happened to me a few times over 40 years. But, yeah, you learn how to work with nature when you live in the mountains. Yeah.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:25:52]:
And basically just if you encounter one, just stand your ground and make yourself big and scary and little.

Michelle Vandepas [00:25:58]:
Yeah. And they will snit, but they’re not grizzlies. They’re not out to eat.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:26:02]:
They’re just curious.

Michelle Vandepas [00:26:03]:
The thing that’s scary, though, are the mountain lions, because they’ll stalk you and you don’t see them and they hide those. Those are scary. You know, in 40 years, I seen bears, one or two or three bears every single year I’ve lived there. I’ve only seen mountain Lion, I think three times total in 42 years. And when you see one, you’re like, whoa. See that? I’m not supposed to see that. Yeah, yeah.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:26:37]:
You say you’ve only seen mountain lions of three times. I wonder how many times they’ve seen you.

Michelle Vandepas [00:26:42]:
Oh, yeah, yeah, A lot. A lot. Yeah. They’re there.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:26:48]:
Michelle, as it always does. Time is running away from us. I just want to thank you so much for taking some time out to share some really interesting insights into procrastination. Share some of your journey as well. I really appreciated it. For those who want to find out more or maybe even get in touch with you, what would be the best way?

Michelle Vandepas [00:27:08]:
Yeah, it’s easiest to find me on Michelle coaches dot com. Michelle with two L Coaches calm. I’VE got free resources there way to contact me, stuff about publishing and business strategy and all kinds of things. So come find me. Connect.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:27:26]:
Fantastic. Michellecoaches.com Michelle has given me some other links. They’ll all be in the show notes as always. KeithLangmanoble.com show look for the one one with Michelle Van der Paas. You’ll find all that info there. Or just go to michellecoaches.com that’s pretty much it for today. Again, Michelle, thank you so much for taking time out to be with us. Thank you dear, dear viewer, dear listener as well.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:27:53]:
I hope you’ve enjoyed this. If you had give us a like comment, share or subscribe give us a review. It really helps to get more people to see it, share it far and more. Tag a friend who you think will benefit from some of Michelle’s wisdom. Look out for all the other episodes as well. You can find them on all the usual podcast platforms, Apple Podcast, Amazon music, Audible, Spotify, YouTube. Everywhere you find podcasts. That’s it for now.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:28:20]:
I’ll catch you in another episode very soon. And I’m going to leave the last word to Michelle.

Michelle Vandepas [00:28:28]:
Wow. Thank you so much. I guess what I want everyone to know is we all feel in so much overwhelm. We all feel like we’re procrastinating. We all think we have a book. We got to get out right now. All of that is true. But the thing to know center yourself.

Michelle Vandepas [00:28:45]:
Know your own purpose. You’re exactly at the right time and space for where you’re supposed to be right now. Keep following your internal intuition. You will accomplish everything you’re meant to accomplish in this life as long as you stay aligned. You’re already on purpose. There’s nothing for you to do or chase. There’s nothing more for you to go after. We got to be centered now.

Michelle Vandepas [00:29:12]:
So already enough chaos. Center yourself. You’re already on purpose. Thank you so much.

Keith Blakemore-Noble [00:29:29]:
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