TCC Podcast #156: An Unconventional Conversation with Les Hughes

Sometimes we like to try a little something different with the podcast and today's interview is a bit different than our standard. Preacher, coach and copywriter Les Hughes is our guest for the 156th episode of The Copywriter Club Podcast. We talked to Les about ..... •  how awesome, giving and kind Kira is •  the path from preacher to business coach •  what he did to build his platform as he pivoted his “business” •  having the right mindset before you make a shift •  trusting the process (and mentors and a higher power) •  what he would have done differently—and faster—if he did it again •  the tactics that helped him move forward quickly •  what he does today and the success he has found •  what copywriters can do to build their own authority to serve their own clients •  why you need to create a success path for your clients •  how to get your clients to help you serve them more effectively •  the importance of humility •  how he helps his own clients thing more strategically •  Les’ writing process and what helps him improve his writing •  how to prepare for adversity (but hope for the best) •  the place service to others plays in a successful business To hear it all, download this episode to your favorite podcast player or click the play button below. If you're a reader, scroll down for a full transcript.   The people and stuff we mentioned on the show: Ray Edwards Mel Abraham Stu McLaren Tribe Jim Rohn Zig Ziglar Joni Eareckson Tada (athlete, painter) Les' website Kira’s website Rob’s website The Copywriter Club Facebook Group The Copywriter Underground   Full Transcript: Kira:   What if you can hang out with seriously talented copywriters and other experts, ask them about their successes and failures, their work processes and their habits, then steal an idea or two to inspire your own work? That's what Rob and I do every week at The Copywriter Club Podcast. Rob:   You're invited to join the club for Episode 156 as we chat with preacher, business coach and strategist Les Hughes about his surprising career path, how we can think more strategically about our own businesses, what he does to help his clients transform their businesses and the power of volunteer work to change lives. Kira:   Welcome, Les. Rob:   Hey, Les. Les:    Thank you all both. Kira, great to talk with you again. Rob, great to talk with you as well. I really look forward to our conversation today. Kira:   It's so great to hear your voice. We met in Ray Edward's Mastermind last year and it was so great to meet you. I'm just happy to hang out with you for the next hour because it's been a while since we've chatted. Let's kick this off with your story, Les. How did you end up as a preacher, a pastor to pastors, a coach, a strategist to business leaders, a copywriter and many other things? Les:    I will do that and thank you for asking. Before I do, I'd like to share if I could take a point of peripheral privilege, so I'm going to ask for forgiveness rather than permission, okay? Kira, the people that know you are going to know what I'm going to say, but maybe new listeners or those that only listen to your podcast. Kira:   You're making me nervous. Les:    Well, don't be. It's going to be good. Listen, it's going to be a little uncomfortable for you, but that's all right. I want your audience to know what a giving and servant-hearted person you are genuinely. I think that doesn't come always across on your podcast because you're also very professional and objective and friendly and all of that. You're a very organized person, but I want the people that are listening this to know that you are one of the most giving, kind, empathetic people in this space that I've met. I just wanted to say that. I don't know if I've ever told you that, but I wanted you to know that. Les:    When we began our relationship in the mastermind group together, you were certainly further ahead than many of us in terms of your business. Boy, you came into that group with a servant's heart and have been so helpful to me personally. Thank you for the things that you've done. Now- Rob:   It's nice praise. Les:    I'll be glad to tell the story. Kira:   Thank you, Les. That's very kind of you. Les:    You're welcome. I began sensing as a very young adult, actually probably a senior in high school, that there was something pulling on me. I realized later on it was someone and that was God. I just felt as if there was a sense of calling on my life to do something in terms of ministry. I had grown up in that environment. Both of my parents were faithful followers of Jesus. That was the environment that I was raised in. As I got to making those decisions on my own, it began to become my faith and not just my parents' faith. I did not believe it first that that was going to be pastorate because by nature I'm a major introvert. The pastors that I had had as I was growing up were larger-than-life figures. They were magnetic and charismatic and never seen like they met a stranger. That certainly wasn't me. As I grew, I just realized that God had made me the way he made me for a reason and that I didn't need to be anyone else. God had them. He made them. I just began to grow into that. I learned later on that going to that calling that is and then I learned later on that this concept of calling, it's not only for people who are professional ministers, it can be for anyone. Where we get the word vocation from is actually voca. It's Latin word that means to call. Before we got in the modern era and make this distinction between the sacred and the secular, people had much more of a holistic view of the world as being sacred and whether someone was a carpenter or an artist or a pastor, it was all calling. That's all where that all started. To put a transition point in a nutshell, about 2015, I came to the end of about a three-year fight. It was a struggle between leadership in a church that I served at the time. It really came to a hit. It came to point. All I'd really done in ministry life is pastor a local church, but it really got to a point in terms of knocking heads with some leadership in the direction that I was leading versus the direction that many of them, some of them wanted to go. After that fight, it was just time for me to go. The best thing for me to do for especially my family, my wife and I, and the environment that we were in, it was just not healthy for us at that time. Though we weren't angry at the ministry overall or certainly didn't blame God, there were a few individuals that just caused us to reevaluate where we were, and we ended up leaving that local church. There I was trying to figure out what was going to be next. Even though I wasn't an employee of a local church anymore, I still had this sense of calling on my life that had to do with teaching scripture in a very practical and relevant way for people to understand and life transformation and faith and people, just ministering to people and helping people put with life stuff. That didn't change, though I wasn't an employee of the church. I began to look at other ways to have that kind of ministry that led me to many people in our space, especially years ago such as Michael Hyatt and others that talk about having a platform. I began to do a lot of homework and a lot of research and then tried somethings. I just began blogging and writing. I had published a book, so there was some in my background. Writing is really just another ... It's a manifestation of a teaching platform or a teaching ministry. Then doors just began to evolve and open up. We can go into some of those specifics as you all like, but that's really what my transformation was like. Although my wife and I still serve the local church and we love ministry, I've got sons now, adult sons that are also pastoring local churches. I want them and other pastors too to know that ... Believe it or not, there are about 1,500 pastors of churches that are leaving their ministry every month. A lot of them don't know what to do now. I'm trying to mentor and coach some of them as well as my own sons to say, ‘Maybe God's desire for you, maybe His mission for you is more vast than only that one-local church setting.’ It certainly includes that, but that's what I'm helping people do now, including my own sons. My wife used to talk about just trusting God for our income and trusting God for our livelihood and we certainly do, but those people sometimes, that's a little different story. I just saw that it was unwise to put all your eggs in one basket. This is the economy that we're living in now, not only in ministry, but I think most vocations. It's much more of a freelance economy where we're the CEO of our own organization, so it's really up to us. Rob:   Les, as you made that transition in your life from being a pastor of the church to the next step, will you talk through how you thought about the platform that you needed to build and the different things, I know you mentioned blogging and the writing that you were doing, but the other things that you did to start building your authority as you were building this platform to go after the next group of people that you could help? Les:    Sure, Rob. I think the hardest part was probably the mindset of all that because the inner as well as the outer voices, we like security and safety and the known. It's a little fearful to go out there into the unknown, but I would say mine evolves of course with time. I'm a researcher. I love to study. I love to prepare and do the work of that as well as deliver it. What happen was I just got to a point in my life even before I left that particular ministry, that particular church,