Leveraging Thought Leadership With Peter Winick – Episode 106 – Petra Kolber

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Many people struggle with making “perfect” content. That feeling can cause anxiety and fear, as well as creating issues in other parts of your life. Let go of your perfectionism!

Internationally renowned fitness expert and wellness leader Petra Kolber is our guest in this episode. As a beacon of authentic happiness, she shares advice from her book, “The Perfection Detox.”

Writing a book can seem like an overwhelming task. Petra shares what it took to get hers done, and how an author’s vision of success can be very different from their publisher’s. Can that difference cause friction? Petra talks about navigating those choppy waters, and discusses how you can expand your speaking engagements into longer commitments, as well as how to avoid burn out.

You can find more great wisdom from Petra on “Perfection Detox Podcast,” too!

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If you need a strategy to bring your thought leadership to market, Thought Leadership Leverage can assist you! Contact us for more information. In addition, we can help you implement marketing, research, and sales. Let us help you so you can devote yourself to what you do best.

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Transcript

Peter Winick And welcome, welcome, welcome. This is Peter Winick. I’m the founder and CEO of Thought Leadership Leverage, and you’re joining us on the podcast today, which is Leveraging Thought Leadership. Today I’ve got an interesting guest. Her name is Petra Kolber. She’s an internationally renowned fitness expert and wellness leader who’s known throughout the industry as a crusader for change and a beacon of authentic happiness. She’s pretty much transitioned from health and wellness to becoming a first time author. So her new book is called The Perfection Detox Tame Your Inner Critic? Live bravely and Unleash Your Joy. So moving more into sort of core content that we tend to focus on the show as opposed to just sort of the health and wellness stuff, which is probably part of who she is. In her spare time, she’s an aspiring DJ. So that’s interesting. A budding cook, an avid traveler and a podcast maven. Anyway, here we are. Welcome aboard, Petra. Thanks for joining us.

Petra Kolber Peter its a great thrill to be on your show.

Peter Winick There we go. Hi. So you had a career as a health and wellness fitness expert for a long, long time and saw that world go through a variety of changes in terms of the way people consume content from sort of DVD, CD, VCR to online. And so now you’re sort of moving into a little bit of a different space. Tell us about the transition and then we’ll get into some of the content and modality stuff.

Petra Kolber Yeah. So Peter, I think the transition, sometimes we make conscious transitions and sometimes we’re put into a place where we have to make that rapid pivot. And so about four years ago, I came back to New York unexpectedly and I had a decision to make. Do I stay in the world that’s known me for 30 years. And it’s a beautiful world, but it’s a world where at my age, it’s, you know, your days are numbered, let’s put it that way. Or do I use this time to create a new path in the form of still working with the people that have known me for like three decades, but reaching out to them in a different way. So it wasn’t leading with the physical aspect, but leading through the writing of my book, leading through keynote, speaking and seeing if they’ll come along with me on this journey. That was really a pivot from originally. I was known as the choreography maven. I transitioned, first of all into positive psychology, creating a brand called Moving to Happiness. And now, more recently, I call it the shadow side of the happier side. And that’s perfectionism. And I was blessed. I had a built in tribe, if you would like to call it that, came along for the journey. And along the way have reached out to many more people that probably would not have found me in my original modality of being a fitness expert, per se.

Peter Winick Wow. So you’ve got a part of the plan was to move some of the folks that knew you from one world into another. So let’s talk about sort of how do you take with you from one place and move to the next. The pieces that make sense and then leave behind those that don’t. You said that the physicality and all of the demands of being in the fitness space obviously would take its toll. What were the things that you’re developing now? These would be the book and sort of the new world of speaking and such for you that some of it came from your previous world and what were you adding to it? How did that more Thank you.

Petra Kolber That’s a great question. I think the first thing is pick it up, whatever modality you’re delivering. The biggest thing that I brought along with me was trust. I had built these people, this group of people, you know, thousands, tens of thousand people, their trust for 30 years. So they were like and I said, the one thing I really brought was trust, integrity. So they I had that three decades of credibility that they knew I wasn’t going to just blow up. But then the part that I did see was the pain from the physical world was such a part of the pain that I could speak to because I had been working and teaching around the world to what would seemingly from the outside looking in, women and men that were freaking looked amazing but were so unhappy or they could see was the one thing that was wrong with them. And so the part that transferred really well was Peter, the worst place for our happiness, our creativity, our focus, our leadership skills is sitting. So I knew movement had to be a part of it, but it was just going to transition out of the type of movement I had done traditionally, which in fact now, looking back and alienated the very people I was hoping to serve. Because a lot of what I did for the majority of real humans that we don’t see inside of Jim was so far out of their reach. I just didn’t realize it that at the time, because I was teaching to the 10% that were already converted, I felt I could actually reach more people. But I had to take that leap into the white powder because in my past, I would say three decades, I had always had someone to follow. And now I was going, okay, I don’t think I’ve seen anyone doing it in this space. First of all, the fitness space talking about positive psychology. And then as my reach grew, expanding into the perfectionism aspect.

Peter Winick Okay, So I mean, perfectionism has a lot of pieces to it. Let’s talk about you. So you find your space, which is sort of this overcoming perfectionism. Probably better way to say that, but that’s sort of the gist of it. How are you now creating content and getting it out there in order to build up the business side? Right. So this pieces of content that you put out that are free and then there’s things that are people paying for in terms of speaking. Walk us through sort of the continuum of the samples that are out there for free that anyone can grab. And sort of how that ticks up to things that are people in organizations are paying you good money for.

Petra Kolber Yeah. And I think that’s a real is a challenging question, Peter, only for the fact that the industry I came from was really good at celebrating wisdom but not so great and paying for it. So it was this scarcity mindset and I had to get really comfortable with re-assessing my knowledge and its value. So the first thing I did was I stayed with all I knew, which was a lot of free content, and that was my podcast, which I’m relaunching 20 episodes over the next couple of months. And then it was the book which while I did get a retainer for and traditional publishing, as we know, a book is a great, very expensive calling card. But it definitely it changed the people’s perception of me. Event planners, meeting planners, conferences. Once you have a book that’s I don’t know the first question is it why does need to be traditionally published or self-published that traditional publishing does add a cachet? That helped me, and now I’m in the action. The process of creating an online program because I realized I love Keynote speaking, but I had become it was another gig economy, which I had done very well in my fitness world, showing up every weekend. But if I didn’t show up, I didn’t get paid. So I’m realizing I’m very strong in that area. I feel very comfortable in that area. Peter. And now I’m in the process of doing that evergreen product where, gosh forbid, I can’t make it. I want to travel, I want to stay at home more. I’m developing more of that content to have a sustainable business. Whereas not trading dollars for hours.

Peter Winick Right? So interesting parallel to the world that you came from. I want to go back to a point that you sort of went over somewhat quickly in terms of the world of publishing and that the choices that everyone makes and there’s no one right or wrong choice. But how did you go about sort of analyzing the market and then making a decision on which route was best for you, traditional sell, etcetera?

Petra Kolber Well, I think for me, if I’m completely honest, Peter, if I didn’t have a publisher or an accountability partner, it probably would not have ever gotten written because it was so overwhelming to me. And but yet something I knew people needed for like in when I was in the fitness world, people was like, Why don’t you write a book? I had no interest in writing about the diet or fitness book, but yet I felt there was nothing really in the marketplace around this this topic, and I felt I could deliver in a way that was tangible, usable and very friendly. So I was there is a bit of luck to this because I do believe like as preparation, meeting opportunity and my agent’s wife had seen me speak and said, I love what you’re doing, you’ve got 1 or 2 books and in you and we talk about happiness and perfectionism. And the more I dialed it and beta tested it, I’m realizing, it’s going to be perfectionism. So I was blessed that the timing happened. I got a fantastic agent that probably without him, I don’t know if I would have gotten a traditional publisher, but we put it out, got five meetings, three of them fell through after I thought I had a great meeting. We had two people that wanted the book, and so I don’t have it had, let’s say, that had fallen through. Can I honestly sit here and be speaking you today saying, Yeah, I would have done it on my own? I don’t know, because it’s so much work. But having that publisher and a deadline made me accountable.

Peter Winick Sort of interesting because most people the consideration is more around the business model, the creative control, the rise of costs, cash flow, etc. for you is it’s just an interesting perspective by making that commitment to a publisher. And I guess maybe this is sort of ironic given the perfectionism, you have to live up to that, right? Versus if you self-publish and you’re writing all the checks to live up to yourself, well, you know, maybe it would happen, maybe it wouldn’t. Is that is that a fair recap of the story?

Petra Kolber Yeah, absolutely. You did it very succinctly. Thank you for that. And I think, you know, I think Peter to it, I did from the first time I met with the publisher before we’d even signed the contract, I and again, look, one person can say something that it can be a very different journey. I’ve heard this from many authors, right? They really kept my voice. And I work. I basically wrote 95% of the book. I worked with the Nazis to get across the finish line. And in terms of delivering the content and how they position me in the marketplace and the book cover, they went above I got I got lucky again because I’ve heard horror stories. You get your content back, you don’t even recognize it. So that had very few tweaks. Yeah, I got lucky on that one.

Peter Winick Yeah. Okay. So then the book comes out and rainbows and unicorns and we all live happily ever after, Right?

Petra Kolber Exactly. I made $1 million and I’m retired now.

Peter Winick And you’re calling us from Hawaii or something. Then what happens?

Petra Kolber Yes. As I write this real stories and I think this is really I think this is maybe hopefully helpful to your listeners is there’s this idea, this ideal of how success looks in the publishing world. Your book releases, you get on the top ten lists, you make them, and there’s so much pressure to make the list. And I. I kept my eye on the long game. I felt this book was going to be an evergreen private product. It was going to be like a Jensen Sarah where it took long. I’d be lucky if, I mean, you know, it was going to be the long game.

Peter Winick Let me just pause you on that point, because I think that’s a crucial, crucial point. Oftentimes, and I’ve seen it 100 times, maybe 1000 times, people authors get sort of sucked into what I’ll call the book industrial complex. And because the way the industry is set up, they have to treat the book as if it has a lifecycle of 90 days or six months is just it’s a seasonal item fashion where, you know, whenever the skirts are short this year and they’re long next year. But that’s not true when you think about the value to be extracting the meaning of the book to the author is you should be looking at your book as something that you’re amortizing the investment of time and energy over a five plus year period, which is not the cadence that the book sort of world works in. So I love that you played the long game. Does that create any tension or friction between your objectives and the publishers?

Petra Kolber Okay. So the only place we had a trouble with that was the copyright over the domain name.

Peter Winick Okay.

Petra Kolber I owned the domain name. I’ve owned the Perfection Detox for like five years since I thought about it. I own every iteration of that domain name.

Peter Winick Is a perfectionist. Would go out and get 87 of those domains. The first time I thought about it, of course.

Petra Kolber Pretty much. And you know, I trademarked it, I copyrighted it. I’d already had a trademark issue unwittingly by someone in Europe, which we you know, I paid thousands of dollars already for this. And originally, I guess that this particular publisher was used to holding the domain name and I refused to give it up. I’m like, No, no, no. Because, you know, I got the thing I did realize, Peter, I get being a realist. August 15th, the book has been out one day. I’m now old news. They’re on to the next book.  I have to agree. Yes, of course. This is my five-year IP that I’m going to build into courses and speaking and workshops and retreats. So that was the bit I got to say. I put on my big girl pants and I really fought tooth and nail. I’m like, I’m not budging on this. You know, I will. And we lucky we got it figured out and all this fantastic now. But that was a non-negotiable for me.

Peter Winick Got it. Okay, cool. So now the book’s out and then the book is obviously not where the financial impact happens. It’s where awareness more often happens. It’s a calling card. So now that the book’s out, what are the other avenues that you’ve gone down?

Petra Kolber Well, I think the biggest thing I saw, Peter, where a lot of book clubs were happening around there so that there’s a lot of action. Yeah. So especially in the new year, I felt like there’s this grassroots momentum that I had nothing to do with and I thought, okay, now is the time to then leverage that interest because they’ve already gone through it into a more in-depth course that they can do with me in person. So that’s the first thing. Speaking it affected in some ways, but not to the extent I chew on it, To be honest. I thought it would. It gave me leverage in the fact that some of the conferences I wanted to appear at, if they didn’t like my speaking fee, I was prepared to, you know, negotiate that for like buying books for your audience. So it’s another leverage tool. Sure. But it definitely I got to be honest here, it didn’t change my speaking as much as I thought it would. Some of that’s my own fault, I would say, because I haven’t done any outreach yet, because I can only and we spoke about this a little bit. There’s only so much I can do. I have people that help me, but I’m kind of going for the I know what it’s not lowest hanging fruit, but it’s the next thing I know I can do well and successfully on my own. Get that done. Use that as a marketing piece for the next thing I’m going to create. Get that done, Use that for marketing piece for the next thing I’m going to create. So I do have to do a lot more work around outbound and outreach for my speaking because I know once I get booked they’re often saying, how can we get more of you? So again is also then taking the speaking and not leaving it as a 1 or 1 thing to exchange. I speak, I leave. So now I’m also leveraging that into more long form content for their audiences. And again, it just adds more value.

Peter Winick Got it. It’s also not a strength, right? So you can do that in waves and phases. You don’t go accomplish everything in 90 days or something.

Petra Kolber No, exactly. And that’s the bit I’m trying to be more mindful of because if you look at, you know, a lot of the thought leaders out there, it makes you think that you have to do it all all the time and do it all incredibly well. And I don’t know if this is a difference between male and female energy, but a lot of a lot of the people I follow and really respect, it can be exhausting to try and keep up to that pace. And then you kind of begin to feel like, my God, I’m not doing enough. So it’s, you know, being inspired by other people maybe five, ten years ahead of you, but also being realistic with the world that we live in right now. The amount of content that is possible to consume, the rate that it’s being consumed. And really. Fine tuning. Where am I going to find my audience on a regular basis without being overwhelmed?

Peter Winick One, I would add to that, Petra, that the other thing is when we see people that we admire, that we’ve been following, that we say, well, you know, that’s interesting. I’d like not to replicate what they do, but, you know, they’re inspirations to you. What isn’t clear is how did they get there in terms of did that take them 15 years to get where they are? And little may only be doing it for a year or 2 or 3 and I’m only here. It would be interesting to be able to calibrate where you are against where those that you admire were at a similar point in time, because if you only see the finish line, right. So it’s sort of a built in stress, you know?

Petra Kolber Yeah. And one of my favorite quotes is I think that by John Acuff is they don’t compare your beginning to someone else’s middle, but it’s really hard to do, especially with, you know, social media. You’re being hit by an all you know, all angles. But I agree with you. If I if we could have that barometer going, Hey, Petra, you’ve been at this for like 18 months, you’re doing awesome. That would be lovely. But no one can do that but yourself, you know?

Peter Winick Exactly. And then. And then you go and take another hit on Amazon to see how the book is doing in real time in the moment, which could, you know, cause its own level of addiction, of tracking those sorts of things. So what’s next now? Where do you see the content going and the business? Because you’re more in a transition transformation phase moving from one universe to another. So what do you see happening over the next 18 months? Right.

Petra Kolber Yeah. No, I think my sweet spot is live. I mean, I think that’s my history from 30 years of being a present. I, I love it, but I don’t want to ever become burnt out by it. So I’m kind of navigating to path creating much more online content because I know I deliver high quality. I go above and beyond, as do you know, all people that love what they do. So it’s balancing the online with the offline. I wouldn’t give up either. I You mentioned the deejaying at the beginning. And so part of it for myself is as a speaker and you spoke to this with Jill and, you know, her magic Kryptonite is being behind the screen and being able to do amazing content across the screen. My Kryptonite is live, but I’m not a juggler. I don’t have you know, I’m not at.

Peter Winick Number one.

Petra Kolber New York, New York, New York Times bestseller. But I know how to read an audience. I know how to get them out of their seats. I know how to create music and visuals that will transcend anything anyone could say in an hour. So that’s what I’m doing. I’m going back to school. I’m learning how to deejay. I’m going to bring music into it because your music is your music. You know, music is your Kryptonite. You know, you can be more focused, more So yeah, I’m exploring all of that, trying to keep my curiosity and creativity engaged, as well as doing the day to day implementation of, you know, CRMs and email. Right?

Peter Winick And I also imagine some of the things that are natural to you or your Kryptonite as you describe it in the quote, the sort of the live world you can move over into the online not it’s not a one for one, right? Because it’s an asynchronous piece. But you can take some of the best practices that you know from mastering your craft for a long, long time in real time, face to face and say, these are the these are the parts that I can bring over to a digital experience.

Petra Kolber Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, like I think you were talking about with Julia, the day is like, you know, a lot of the webinars we see are and there’s nothing wrong in this. They’re all fantastic, beautiful slides and the person’s voice behind it. That is not for me. I don’t do it that way. It’s like I need, you know, even if I’m even looking at a screen, I want people at the other end to feel that I’m talking to their hearts. So I have to create and deliver content in a way that resonates with me, offer in many different variables, because I know people’s time. They’re not they’re not going to necessarily have time to sit for an hour. So then I’ll have the podcast variation, the downloadable. Yeah. So delivered in many ways as possible. But like you said, if we do recognize our strengths and still work on the areas that needs to be tended to, we can cross all platforms and ask for help when we need to.

Peter Winick Awesome. Well, this has been great. I thank you so much for sharing your journey with us. And it’s an interesting a little bit different than what we usually talk about here, but a transition transformation from sort of one domain to another, although not leaving the past entirely behind. So I appreciate you sharing that. There’s a lot to learn. And thank you so much.

Petra Kolber Thank you for having me.

Peter Winick To learn more about Thought Leadership Leverage, please visit our website at ThoughtLeadershipLeverage.com. To reach me directly. Feel free to email me at Peter at ThoughtLeadershipLeverage.com. And please subscribe to Leveraging Thought Leadership on iTunes or your favorite podcast app to get your weekly episode automatically.