THE INSPIRATION PLACE PODCAST
Miriam Schulman: A lot of people in my audience and your audience—and we’ve all gone through this too—want to know all the steps, like, “What are the steps?” If there was an Amazon Influencer “How to Run a Livestream” course, I probably would have taken it. There wasn’t one. But the thing is, I’m only going to know by trying different things. Some things aren’t going to work, but I’m going to keep trying until I run out of ideas. Once I run out of ideas and it still doesn’t work, then we’ll regroup. But I’m committed for now.
Speaker 2: It’s the Inspiration Place podcast with artist Miriam Schulman. Welcome to the Inspiration Place Podcast, an Art World Insider podcast for artists by an artist, where each week we go behind the scenes to uncover the perspiration and inspiration behind the art. And now your host Miriam Schulman.
Miriam Schulman: Well, hey there, it’s Miriam Schulman, your curator of inspiration, and you’re listening to episode number 320 of the Inspiration Place podcast. I am so excited that you’re here. Today, I’m going to be joined by my friend and partner in crime, Jen Lehner. She’s been a recurring guest on this podcast for our special Kvetch and Kvell segments. And if this is your first time tuning in, “kvetch” is just a Yiddish word for “complain,” and “kvell” is a Yiddish word for something that we want to brag about or praise.
Before we dive into that conversation, a lot of what we talked about is the willingness to try things and to fail at them, and that is something that is really going to set apart the people who are going to succeed in artpreneurship or just entrepreneurship in general—people who are willing to fail. That is why this episode is called “Fail Better.” I actually took the title for this podcast episode from two sources.
So, there is a Samuel Beckett quote. Samuel Beckett was an existentialist who, I think, was writing his plays in the 1940s or 1950s—something like that. The quote goes like this: “Ever tried? Ever failed? No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.” This quote was originally published in Beckett’s short piece of prose entitled Worstward Ho, his second-to-last work ever published. And by itself, you can maybe understand why this phrase has become a mantra of sorts, especially in the glamorized world of startup founders hoping against pretty high odds to make it—because a lot of them do fail.
But even outside the business development niche, this quote is pretty inspiring. I actually became acquainted with it through Pema Chodron because she gave a commencement speech that she titled “Fail Again, Fail Better.” The part of that speech that really inspired me—and perhaps you’ve heard me mention this before on the podcast—is that failure is kind of like walking through waves in the ocean.
So, when you go into the ocean, if you think back to when you were a small child at the beach, those waves would knock you down. They could even knock you over. As an adult, if you’re in a really strong current, those waves can still knock you over. I remember when I had the lucky fortune to go to Costa Rica and learn how to surf. I was constantly knocked over by those waves. And when you get knocked over and the sand gets in your bathing suit, it’s pretty uncomfortable.
We’re not exactly going to talk about surfing, but even if you’re just walking into the water, the deeper you go, the waves still keep coming. They’re just as strong, but they don’t knock you over anymore. That’s what it’s like as you go along in your entrepreneurial journey: you still have failures, but you’re able to handle them better.
Now, today, I’m sharing with you in this conversation with Jen, I’m sharing one humorous story which I considered editing out, but we left it in there for you.
I figured I’d keep it authentic. The other second story—and I won’t spoil the first one for you; you’ll get it in today’s episode—is about how much I’ve been failing at making these Amazon livestreams. It’s something I was very hopeful about, and I’m still hopeful. We’re still experimenting and trying different things, but I’ve had quite a few failures along the way. I don’t always come on this podcast and talk about my failures, so I think it’s important for you to hear about those failures too.
A lot of times, when you follow someone like me or other people on social media, we’re only talking about our successes. You should know that we have failures too. The biggest difference between people who are successful and people who are not is that successful people are willing to try things that don’t always work out. We’re willing to try things that unsuccessful people are not willing to try. We’re going to fail, and we’re going to fail hard, but we’re going to learn how to fail better.
Well, hello everybody. Welcome to the Inspiration Place podcast. We are doing another segment of Kvetch and Kvell. And joining me is my partner in crime is the none and only—did I say that wrong? The one and only—Jen Lehner. Welcome to the show, Jen.
Jen Lehner: Thank you, thank you. I am so good now that I’m here with you, my friend.
Miriam Schulman: Yeah, we just finished doing or I just finished doing a presentation for your members.
Jen Lehner: It was a huge hit. They loved it all the feedback already is just like, wow, that was so great. No big surprise there.
Miriam Schulman: So let me just tell them what they got just so we can kind of plug you. Basically, I’ve launched the accountability pods inside of my group, and I also have taught two other membership people how to do it. I don’t charge for it. I just I don’t know why I should be. I should totally be charging member owners though, like a consult fee. Don’t you think?
Jen Lehner: You easily could.
Miriam Schulman: Easily. I mean, I kind of feel stupid for not doing it before. Not you and Tracy, but the other person I did it for. I’m like, why did I do that for free? I it makes me feel resentful, I think.
Jen Lehner: Um, but the goodwill that it brings. And then maybe if that person has a decent sized audience like there’s other, you know, other things.
Miriam Schulman: Well, for that no, I taught the owner, not the group. Right.
Jen Lehner: Well ask them to teach you something. Do they have anything to teach you?
Miriam Schulman: Yeah. I mean, basically, I’m going to call in that favor. So anyway, I did go into Jen’s group as a freebie for the members how to implement their own accountability pod system, and she offered it to her whole mailing list for free if they join live. If you missed it and you want to get it, it’s inside her VIP. What’s the link for that?
Jen Lehner: Yeah. FrontRowVIP.com
Miriam Schulman: Front Row VIP. And there were a couple artists who showed up who weren’t from my audience, who showed up, who said they’re going to use it, like for for their stuff. So, yeah, if you want that, you can go to Jen’s link. There’s a lot of cool stuff inside her group.
Jen Lehner: Thanks, Miriam.
Miriam Schulman: Yeah. Okay, we’re going to Kvetch and Kvell.
Jen Lehner: Oh, yes we are.
Miriam Schulman: So I’m going to start with my Kvell, which is about the accountability pods, although I kind of already kvetched. I think that always happens. My unofficial kvetching.
Jen Lehner: No, we’re not counting that one.
Miriam Schulman: Good, because I don’t like to think of it that way. All right, so my kvell is my accountability pods. We ran a—well, we called it a challenge, but really it was a contest. And the contest was about creating a welcome sequence. For my listeners who don’t know, when you join an email list, you need to welcome them. That’s what a welcome sequence is. It could be one email; it could be more. So many people got their welcome sequences done who wouldn’t have done it otherwise, and they said it was because of that support system. They really appreciated having that in place. I called it a contest rather than a challenge because a challenge is, “Let’s all get it done,” right? But a contest is, “Whichever pod does the best job gets a prize,” and they got a mastermind session with me.
Jen Lehner: Love that. That’s so great. I’m totally going to borrow that. I love it. And like, everybody needs—even if you have a welcome sequence, you need to freshen it up. Like, mine probably still says that I have three kids at home and a dog who died, right? My dog died—like, it’s not funny—but my dog died like four years ago. And my welcome sequence, I think they’re still in there. My kids are off at college now, except for one. So yeah, everybody could use that contest.
Miriam Schulman: Yeah, I really need to edit my own because it’s like the cobbler’s kids have no shoes—always. So, yeah, everything I’m criticizing everybody about, I do too, like, “Oh, you shouldn’t do this, this, and this,” and they’re like, “Yeah, well, we were just copying you.”
Jen Lehner: Yeah, no, it’s just—unfortunately, that is the way it goes across many industries. I think, you know, like the designer may have a disaster of a living room because it’s really just filled with all their samples and swatches, and they haven’t had a chance to redecorate their own home in, you know, ten years. So they still have, um, I don’t know, whatever.
Okay, my turn to kvell. Yes, I kind of have two. Okay, I’ll just do one, and then you tell me, because you know what the other one is—we just discussed it. But this one—okay, this one was so great. I mean, this experience. So, I was getting on a plane recently, the day that everything melted down, actually—you know, when we had that tech meltdown? Yeah. And all the airports, it was like the worst day that you could fly. And so my flight was delayed like four hours, and everybody was delayed, and everyone was kind of in a bad mood. But mostly though, I was impressed by how chill everybody was.
And this man in front of me had two giant bags of M&Ms. So as we were going to board the plane, he hands one of the giant bags to the ticket agent and says, “I know it’s been a tough day. Maybe this will help, maybe this will sweeten it up.” And she was, like, taken aback, and her face just lit up. I got goosebumps watching. And then I knew what he was going to do with the second bag.
So, we kept walking down the corridor, and we get to the place where the crew is, and the first flight attendant greets him, “Hello, welcome aboard.” And then he hands them the second bag of M&Ms and says, “It’s been a tough day, you know?” And I was like, now that is how you do it. That is how you be a nice human. Like, I don’t know, that was so elevated on so many levels.
When I texted it to my girlfriend—I have a little chat group with my two college roommates, and we talk every day, all day long—I told them what I saw, and my friend Meg said, “Isn’t it funny how just witnessing an act of kindness like that lifts you up, right?” Like, I wasn’t even the one who did it, but the endorphins were just pumping, right? I was like, “That is… that’s really cool.”
Miriam Schulman: But doesn’t it also make you want to carry around bags of M&Ms to give away?
Jen Lehner: Absolutely not. I will eat every M&M like no, no, no, no, but I will. I am going to copy that. I actually meant to do that on my next flight and then I totally forgot. But I am going to do that.
Miriam Schulman: You’re right. I would eat every last M&M as well.
Jen Lehner: Yeah, yeah. I can’t have—
Miriam Schulman: [inaudible]. Wouldn’t stop me.
Jen Lehner: No, nothing would stop me. Like, I’m just a sugar addict. I’ve come to terms with it, and I can’t have sugar around me because it calls to me like a voice. Like, “Here I am. Come and eat me.” But if it’s not in the house, I’m good. If it’s not within arm’s reach or in my car, I can manage. None of that.
Miriam Schulman: Do I tell our listeners about my illegal Mexican Ozempic that I did? Look at her shocked face.
Jen Lehner: Well, now you have to!
Miriam Schulman: Or I could edit this part out too. It’s my podcast.
Jen Lehner: It’s kind of hilarious.
Miriam Schulman: It kind of is. I’m dying to tell the story.
Jen Lehner: And you’re done with it, right? Nobody can come for you.
Miriam Schulman: I am done with it. They can come for me anyway. I don’t care anymore.
Jen Lehner: All right, do it because it’s pretty crazy.
Miriam Schulman: Okay. I went to Mexico. Jen was supposed to go by the way.
Jen Lehner: Okay. Move on.
Miriam Schulman: I went to Mexico for a wedding, a destination wedding, and I didn’t pack my tweezer, which I won’t go into too much detail, but women in their 50s know what you need a tweezer for on a daily basis. Let’s just leave it at that. So I was losing my mind. Okay. Losing my mind because I didn’t have a tweezer. So I went, uh, left the all inclusive place.
Jen Lehner: Wait, I just learned something like. That’s how you say—I say tweezers, like the way you would refer to pants. Like I need my tweezers. But you said a tweezer. So is that the way it’s supposed to be?
Miriam Schulman: I have no idea. You know what? Somebody write it in. Anyway, I had to go to a pharmacy for the tweezer or tweezers, we’re not sure. Which they had. They had a tweezer. I really didn’t like the tweezer in the pharmacy, by the way. I had to go to a different store for a better tweezer. Do you know how that is? Like the tweezers? Just, you know, it’s not going to grip those hairs.
Jen Lehner: I’m like, tweezer agnostic. It’s whatever.
Miriam Schulman: Oh, really?
Jen Lehner: Yeah, I don’t care.
Miriam Schulman: It doesn’t grip the hair. I’m very sad. Okay, so I went to a Mexican pharmacy and all. You see, it’s like a drug candy store. They had Viagra, and they had big signs—Viagra and, uh, Adderall. And I said, “Oh, do you have Ozempic?” They go, “Sí, you know, cuántos boxes do you want?” I was like, “Uh, just going to take one because I don’t know about this stuff.” It was like 200 and something dollars, by the way, which I think it’s thousands here. And it was not the kind you inject; it was a tablet, which made me very suspicious. So I brought it back to New York. I did not want to take it while I was in Mexico because I was scared I would have a seizure or something.
Jen Lehner: You should mention that you were just trying to drop, like, 5 pounds for a reunion that was coming up. It’s not like you were, I mean. Correct?
Miriam Schulman: Yeah. I’m five-two, and I weigh 144 pounds, so my BMI is actually quite high. So it’s not like, you know, whatever. So just, just—those are facts but whatever. I don’t care anymore. I’m very happy weighing 142 pounds, which I still weigh after Ozempic, and I weighed that before Ozempic. So, just to not bury the lead. Okay, so I wanted to lose 5 pounds for a reunion. And so, the first day, I took half a tablet. It did pretty much nothing, but I wanted to make sure I didn’t have a side reaction. And then I learned that actually, you’re supposed to take it on an empty stomach and wait 30 minutes to eat, which I didn’t always do. And then it still wasn’t working. And then I found out, well, actually, you have to wait a few weeks for it to build up in your system. But then I think it was working because I would get nauseous if I ate a regular amount. But you know how we were talking about our sweet tooth. So I learned how to work around the Ozempic—was that I would eat less vegetables so I wouldn’t get nauseous, so I could enjoy whatever it is I wanted to eat.
Jen Lehner: Oh my God. I think this is the part of the episode where we say, “Warning: do not do this at home. This is not advised by the host of this podcast or the creators of this network,” you know?
Miriam Schulman: Okay. People always ask me, “How do you, like, have the courage to do things like start a podcast or whatever it is?” And it’s because I’m just stupid. I do stupid shit all the time. Like, you know, I’m naive, and I just… I’m ADHD, I don’t have good impulse control, I don’t think things through, and I just do it. So, what can you say?
Jen Lehner: We’ll say impulsive. We’re not going to say stupid because, you know, MIT—stupid. Wall Street broker—stupid. Yeah. Bestselling author—stupid. But no. You’re impulsive. Maybe very impulsive.
Miriam Schulman: I’m very impulsive.
Jen Lehner: And brave. And I think it’s—But maybe I’m not going to say the Ozempic thing was brave. And again, we’re going to say, listeners, do not buy fake Ozempic.
Miriam Schulman: I think it was real.
Jen Lehner: I mean don’t buy ozempic in Mexico without a prescription. And especially when you don’t need it because you’re skinny. So I’m just saying. I’m just saying. Yeah. All right.
Miriam Schulman: I’m not skinny. I lost 2 pounds, and I gained it back because I figured out how to eat more on Ozempic. Because I wanted to eat like I like eating.
Jen Lehner: Right. No, I get it.
Miriam Schulman: It’s not about how full I am. It’s like I like to eat things, you know? So. So what?
Jen Lehner: So what? Enjoy. Life is short.
Miriam Schulman: Life is short. And, you know, uh, my partner likes me this way, so.
Jen Lehner: He sure does. Yes. I mean, I’ve witnessed how much—
Miriam Schulman: And my son. I don’t think I’ve talked about this on the podcast. My son is getting married to a beautiful woman who is very full-figured. So what my mom taught me about men liking skinny women is a lie.
Jen Lehner: Does she listen to this podcast?
Miriam Schulman: No, she’s gorgeous. She’s beautifully full-figured.
Jen Lehner: But does she listen to this podcast?
Miriam Schulman: None of my family listens. Thank god so I can talk about them.
Jen Lehner: My mother-in-law called me fat. I know you didn’t. I’m being funny. I’m just being funny. I’ve seen her. She is beautiful.
Miriam Schulman: I adore her. I never thought I would like my daughter-in-law. I love her.
Jen Lehner: I’m excited for you. Mazel tov times a thousand. It’s in August, right?
Miriam Schulman: Yes, it is. It’s coming up. It might even be before this airs, though. I don’t know when this is airing.
Jen Lehner: Oh, well.
Miriam Schulman: I don’t know if I’m in Israel where this is being—
Jen Lehner: Right, right, right.
Miriam Schulman: So let’s talk about business, because they did not tune in today to hear Miriam’s Ozempic story.
Jen Lehner: Well, but my kvetch is not really business. But I have a second kvell. That’s business. But okay. Wait—
Miriam Schulman: Save your—save your last kvell for last.
Jen Lehner: Okay. Did you do your kvetch?
Miriam Schulman: No, I didn’t.
Jen Lehner: Oh, yeah. Do your kvetch. Then I’ll do mine.
Miriam Schulman: Did you kvetch?
Jen Lehner: No, I’ll do it. I’m ready.
Miriam Schulman: No, do your kvetch. I did enough talking.
Jen Lehner: All right, here’s my—
Miriam Schulman: —the Mexican Ozempic.
Jen Lehner: And I hope I haven’t done this kvetch because it really is one that occurs for me often. And I hope I’ll—
Miriam Schulman: —I’ll tell you.
Jen Lehner: Yeah. Tell me. So it’s when I’ve told you in real life. So don’t confuse it with it being on your podcast. I mean, I’ve Kvetched about this before to you in real life, not on the podcast. So you might get confused. But I can’t stand it when people call old people cute, precious, darling. I will give you an example. I mean, you know what I’m saying? But like, I was watching an influencer in the vegan space, right? She’s a very big name in the vegan world, and I love her to death, so I still love her. But she had this hundred-year-old physician on the show, and this woman had traveled, even in her 80s and 90s, to Afghanistan and all over the world to help people with her medical expertise. And she was just the most incredible woman. Right. And to be a doctor, a woman at 100. Right. Like just the fact that she was able to do that back in those days and, oh my gosh, the host was like, ‘Well, you’re a feisty one, aren’t you?”. Oh my God, you are a feisty one. “You’re just full of sass, aren’t you spunky?” I thought I was going to die. It was so—
Miriam Schulman: Ageist.
Jen Lehner: It’s so ageist.
Miriam Schulman: And also sexist.
Jen Lehner: Well, she’s a woman, but, I mean, they were both women.
Miriam Schulman: But you can—it is—you can be sexist and be a woman because would you call an old man cute and feisty?
Jen Lehner: I don’t think so. I don’t think you would argue feisty. Okay, but but it’s along the same lines of what I was… My initial kvetch is that, like… I think I started noticing this with my mom when she was sick and, um, before she passed, and, uh, you know, my mom never really looked old until she was sick. And then, then she did look older. And whenever I would take her for her doctor’s appointment and stuff or whatever, people would tell me, ‘Oh, your mom is so cute.’ No, my mother is a smart, accomplished… You know, she’s a lot of things, but it’s just like, ‘Oh, there, aren’t you, darling?’
Miriam Schulman: But that’s. I think that’s more it’s. I think I’ve seen it with men too. Really?
Jen Lehner: Yes. Watch it with old men. They’ll be like, oh, he’s so cute. Oh my gosh, he’s precious. Like So I’m just saying to all your listeners, can we all just not refer to old people as cute and precious and darling? Those. Save that for the two year olds, you know, and maybe I’m 55 and I’m. And I’m, you know, I look at things in a different light. I never would have thought about that twice when I was in my 30s. Never. I probably called old people cute, too. You know what I mean? But old people aren’t cute. Like, they’re to be respected and. And that’s it. That’s it. That’s my kvetch.
Miriam Schulman: Okay. All right, so I have a kvetch. I’ve been trying to get these Amazon Live streams to work. We’ve been trying all kinds of different formats, which, you know, we talked about one week. We’re just not getting the kind of traction we want, but we’re committed to figuring this out. I feel like Edison trying to design a light bulb—we’ve got to figure this out.
So, we have so much content in our bank from when I taught online art classes. I thought, okay, let’s take one of those clips—it’s like a ten-minute clip—and upload it to StreamYard, which is the limit on StreamYard. It’s ten minutes of a demo, and then we can put in the carousel all of the products I’m using. And it crashed. Yes, it crashed, not because of the software, but because Amazon stopped the stream right before the end. Like, if it’s a ten-minute video, maybe I got eight minutes in or something, and they were like, “Oh, too much prerecorded content.”
Jen Lehner: So they know absolutely when it’s live and when it’s prerecorded.
Miriam Schulman: Apparently, the robots do.
Jen Lehner: And you’re only supposed to have a certain percentage of…
Miriam Schulman: I don’t know if it’s because the video itself was too long, and I hadn’t done enough live stuff. So, my point with all this, and this is why I feel there’s a lesson for the audience—or for you, listener—is the first time I did a live stream, it crashed because I invited a guest, and the guest dropped the F-bomb. And right after she dropped the F-bomb, the whole thing crashed. I think we may have talked about this. No, did we talk about this at all? I thought this was a different kvetch.
Okay, so the first time we did it, it crashed also. And then I was like, okay, well, I’m not going to have guests for a while, and we’ll do different content. We’ve just been kind of struggling to figure out what it is that people want to see from me on this channel and still stay authentic. So one week, we did one that was about productivity. I think people did like that—I shared my planner and the pens I was using and things like that. But yes, every single week… So, last week, I went behind the scenes of a museum exhibit, showed different paintings I saw. Yeah, I loved it, but I don’t think it was enough shoppable content. Or as my VA said, “overconsumption items.” So we’re going to—I’m determined to stick with it.
Jen Lehner: No, I love it. Stick with it for sure. .
Miriam Schulman: What we’re doing next week which again listener this may be this is actually this is in your past. So if you want to go see what we tried you can go to SchulmanArt.com/LIVESTREAMS. And you can see all my past ones that I’ve done. So the one I’m discussing will be there. Okay. So we’re going to broadcast from my living room. So it’s kind of going to be behind the scenes because heck, I have plenty of stuff I bought from Amazon in my living room.
Jen Lehner: Amen.
Miriam Schulman: You know.
Jen Lehner: I mean, it’s all around us. My gosh, I know.
Miriam Schulman: So I’m going to basically, it’s kind of like fireside chat and record from my living room. And speaking of that, what kind of microphone would you recommend for that? I already bought two different ones, but I think I might need to buy a Jen recommended third.
Jen Lehner: No, I’m not the person to ask. I mean, I’ve been through. No, I mean, I used to have a if you want the if you want the lav mic, then it needs to be a Rhodes. I mean, that’s like they’re the best, R-O-D-E.
Miriam Schulman: I think I have one that I didn’t put together and maybe stepped on, or maybe I never put it together. So the parts are somewhere and. Yeah.
Jen Lehner: But you know Miriam like your, does your, your doohickey. I guess you want to be able to walk around, but like, I think it would be fun for you to take this microphone and, like, mine’s clamped onto the table. Right. Go into your kitchen table and it swivels and you could just be standing up, you know what I mean? And you could be like this, like walking around and you could, you know, there’s some range and you can you can turn it as you go.
Miriam Schulman: And yeah, this one is plugged into a—
Jen Lehner: Mine too. It’s in—
Miriam Schulman: I’m going to show Jen, but I think I don’t even know how to use my mixer, to be honest. So I really am not even using it anymore.
Jen Lehner: Yeah, that’s a pain in the ass.
Miriam Schulman: It became too much of a pain because I really did. I think it only gets used when I’m recording a solo. It goes through there instead of through Zoom.
Jen Lehner: Well, I’ve got a little mixer, and you’re right, it adds a whole other third component. Like, yeah, yeah, just get the Rode. I mean, the Rode Lav, or if you already have one, test it out.
Miriam Schulman: Yeah, I probably have to buy a new one because I don’t know where this is from the move.
Jen Lehner: Well, they’re cheap. Okay.
Miriam Schulman: So that was kind of my kvetch. But the point is that a lot of people in my audience and your audience, and we’ve all gone through this too—you want to know all the steps, like what are the steps? If there was an Amazon Influencer how-to-run-a-live-stream course, I probably would have taken it. There wasn’t one. But the thing is, my brand isn’t about beauty, fitness, and home decor. So it’s like, how do I make this work? But I’m only going to know by trying different things, and some things aren’t going to work. I’m going to keep trying things until I run out of ideas. Once I run out of ideas and it still doesn’t work, then we’ll regroup. But I’m committed for now.
Jen Lehner: I love it. Yeah, keep doing it. I think it’s great. Okay, I had one more Kvell.
Miriam Schulman: I love it. Go ahead.
Jen Lehner: It is Stream Alive, so you and I just played with that in our previous live stream or in our Zoom. This is a software I’ve been using the last few times, just the free version, but basically it works with Zoom or Google Meet and some other stuff as well. It’s like a plug-in that really ramps up engagement. If you’re doing a webinar or a meeting, you could use it internally. Basically, you ask questions of the audience, they respond in the chat, and it will either show you a word cloud, or you can pop up a map of the world, or just North America, or just your state or your province, and ask, “Where are you coming in from?” As people type their cities into the chat, it populates on the map. So it’s really cool when people answer a question that might be like a poll-type related question. The poll shows up on the screen as people are typing in, and one piece of feedback that we got was from someone who said, “This is so much better than trying to keep up with the chat,” because you can see what everybody is saying on the screen when you ask the question. A lot of times, especially if you have a lot of people on a webinar or in Zoom, the chat is just flying, and it’s really hard to keep up. So, very cool piece of software. We’re using, again, the free version, and it’s called Stream Alive.
Miriam Schulman: Awesome. I’m definitely going to use that in my next boot camp, which I think will be coming up after this airs. So if you want to sign up for my next boot camp, it’s SchulmanArt.com/BOOTCAMP. If you’ve already been through boot camp, we change it every single time. The core teachings stay the same, but the bonus that I do for VIP changes, and it’s really a great way for you to get coaching with me for just the cost of doing VIP. If you want to get some personalized attention, or you can sign up for a commercial. It’s great.
Jen Lehner: And I was going to say, or you could sign up for it like I am, just so you can reverse engineer Miriam’s genius marketing. Like, if you’re interested in how she does stuff, signing up for somebody who really has a dialed in launch. I mean, we don’t want people to who aren’t interested buyers to flood your launch, but I’m just saying I’m going to be signing up because whenever I find a smart marketer who’s having successful launches. I want to see. I want to see what they’re doing and what’s working.
Miriam Schulman: I do that too. Yeah. I join other people’s stuff and see what I like and what I don’t like.
Jen Lehner: And because things are changing all the time, you know, like this tool, Neeca found this Stream Alive tool in somebody else’s launch, and she showed it to me, and, you know.
Miriam Schulman: So I have one more Kvell. There’s nothing to do with business. Remember that vegan restaurant we went to? I went there the other night. They had hazelnut vegan ice cream. Oh. So good.
Jen Lehner: Why are you Kvetching.? Is this a Kvell or—
Miriam Schulman: No, it’s a Kvell.
Jen Lehner: Oh I was going to say where’s the. So what’s—
Miriam Schulman: No, it’s a Kvell. No. It’s amazing.
Jen Lehner: It sounds amazing.
Miriam Schulman: This is why I’m telling you, like, I’m the only person who’s ever gained weight on Ozempic. I was like, “I’ll just eat less vegetables today.” Like, I’m filling up too fast on that. This is bad. I need room for my ice cream.
Jen Lehner: Right? No, I am. You’re so, like, spoiled living in New York. It’s the truth. You really are.
Miriam Schulman: Yeah, that’s why I think maybe the behind-the-scenes in New York City as the Amazon Live may actually be a good thing. Do you have any other ideas for me while we’re here? Like, you could be on that because you’re good at coming up with ideas.
Jen Lehner: For, um, for your lives? I mean, honestly, you know, you said, “Well, I’m not beauty and I’m not,” you know, and I’m not all that, but I’ve seen crossover. And if anybody could pull it off, it would be you, right? So, like, I think you could open up your beauty box. I mean, you know, when you are an influencer or whatever, uh, you are a—
Miriam Schulman: I like to think of myself as an influencer rather than an influencer. I like to be contrarian.
Jen Lehner: Well, whatever we’re going to call you, your face is everywhere. You gotta smack it on the landing pages. You gotta show up for Zoom. You have to. And guess what? All of us are having to do that too, right? So, be live stream ready. What does that mean? You got to have your Tweezer or -zers. You have to have your lip liner, and you have—
Miriam Schulman: Is it tweezer or tweezers? Please let us know. You can comment on Instagram under wherever you see our reels, or SchulmanArt. You can also comment on the blog post if you’re watching it that way, or whatever. Just send me a DM. I’m @SchulmanArt. I want to hear from you. Which is it? Tweezer or tweezers?
Jen Lehner: Yes, please! But yeah, I mean, that’s the whole show right there. Like, you knew how to be live stream ready. So then you can jump into your favorite skincare stuff.
Miriam Schulman: Well, the most Amazon product is in my bathroom.
Jen Lehner: There you go.
Miriam Schulman: So if I can get a Wi-Fi connection in there…
Jen Lehner: Well do a hotspot, but it’s never strong enough. But another one, like New York-related, would be like, you know, the best New York stuff you could buy on Amazon. You don’t have to come to New York for it, right? Like, because we all think of you as like New York, you know? And so I don’t know what those items maybe are.
Miriam Schulman: I have right now, I actually have three Yankee caps, each in a different color that I bought.
Jen Lehner: I love the Kelly green one. Do you have a Kelly green one?
Miriam Schulman: No, I don’t. Oh, I want to get the Army green one.
Jen Lehner: Yeah, the Army green is always nice.
Miriam Schulman: Now I have a white one, a black one, and I have a beige one.
Jen Lehner: Yeah, I love it. And so how cute to be on the show with that, and like, a blazer—that’s like a cute outfit—or a hoodie. You have on your New York hoodie. I don’t know what, but it’s like an “I Heart New York” episode.
Miriam Schulman: Okay.
Jen Lehner: But I definitely think the camera-ready thing ties into business. I mean, you’ve done the books, right?
Miriam Schulman: Like, yeah, The books, they don’t really. It’s no people. Only nerds like us. Like the book ones. Right? And then I had somebody yesterday who was a really good sport about it. I’ll shout out Melina Palmer. And that episode I think is before this one, so people can go listen to that. Which, by the way, her book is good. This one.
Jen Lehner: Oh. It looks fat. It looks long. Is it like a big print or is it. Oh it’s normal. It looks really big from here. Okay.
Miriam Schulman: Anyway, so she came on, and she had… I always ask my guest, “What’s your number one thing you want to promote?” And she said her books. I said, so when she jumped on Zoom, I said, “Hey, if you’re game, would you like to join me over on Do This as Amazon Live? I’ll send you the StreamYard.” She said, “Sure.” So she was a good sport about it. So we’ll see what happens. We didn’t tell anybody we were doing it, so there wasn’t really a live component because nobody knew we were there, right?
Jen Lehner: Cool.
Miriam Schulman: But it’s there, so we’ll see.
Jen Lehner: I’ll be thinking about it. You know, I’ve got an influencer account over there, and I’ve been meaning to try the live streaming myself, but—
Miriam Schulman: You should.
Jen Lehner: Add it to the list of things that I wanna do.
Miriam Schulman: Oh yeah. Right. All right, so what last words do we have for our listener before we call this podcast complete?
Jen Lehner: I would just say, do we want to do like a—you mean last words, like a summary of what we talked about?
Miriam Schulman: We could or… Yeah. What’s like the lesson today? I mean, I think for me, what I would share is, like, the lesson is not to be afraid to try new things. Maybe not Mexican Ozempic, but the other things we talked about.
Jen Lehner: Yeah, well, we talked about, um, well…
Miriam Schulman: Stream Alive, yes, on your meetings and Zooms, um, Amazon live streams.
Jen Lehner: And, and I would say—Oh yeah, the pods for sure. And, uh, and I would just add, like, think about one of those random acts of kindness that you could bring into a part of your day. You know, your symbolic bag of M&Ms—like, where can you hand out a bag of M&Ms in your day to somebody? You know, one of my favorite quotes is a line from a Rolling Stones song when Mick Jagger says, “A smile relieves a heart that grieves.” It’s the same, you know, same thought.
Miriam Schulman: Okay, that’s beautiful. All right, my friend. Well, thank you so much for being with me here today. Don’t forget, you can also find Jen Lehner on her podcast, which is:
Jen Lehner: The Front Row Podcast for Entrepreneurs.
Miriam Schulman: All right, I’ll see you the same place, same time next week. Until then, stay inspired. Bye for now.
Jen Lehner: Stay away from fake Ozempic.
Miriam Schulman: It was real. It just wasn’t effective because I knew how to cheat on it.
Jen Lehner: Don’t do it.
Miriam Schulman: Okay, fine.
Speaker 2: Thank you for listening to The Inspiration Place podcast. Connect with us on Facebook at facebook.com/schulmanart, on Instagram @schulmanart and of course, on SchulmanArt.com.
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