See, Do, Repeat: The Practice of Creative Entrepreneurship With Dr Rebecca White

Summary

Summary of "See, Do, Repeat: The Practice of Creative Entrepreneurship With Dr. Rebecca White"

The Creative Penn Podcast For Writers hosted by Joanna Penn delves into the nuances of writing craft and the creative business in its episode titled "See, Do, Repeat: The Practice of Creative Entrepreneurship With Dr. Rebecca White," released on April 28, 2025. This episode features an in-depth conversation with Dr. Rebecca White, an award-winning entrepreneur, executive board member, professor, and author, who shares her insights on fostering an entrepreneurial mindset, maintaining optimism, and transitioning from academic to mainstream writing.

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Introduction to Dr. Rebecca White

Dr. Rebecca White begins by sharing her journey from a small town in West Virginia to becoming a prominent figure in entrepreneurship education. Influenced by her entrepreneurial mother, Betty White, Dr. White emphasizes the importance of an entrepreneurial mindset in various facets of life, including education, business, and creative endeavors.

Notable Quote:

"[...] there's always something new and a new opportunity to explore. So it's really just been a part of my life and everything that I've done."
— Dr. Rebecca White, [20:20]

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The 'See, Do, Repeat' Framework

At the core of Dr. White’s discussion is her book, See, Do, Repeat: The Practice of Entrepreneurship, which outlines a simple yet effective framework to cultivate an entrepreneurial mindset. This model is broken down into three competencies:

1. See (Recognize Opportunities):

   • The ability to identify potential opportunities is fundamental. Dr. White highlights the importance of curiosity and the skill of connecting disparate ideas to uncover new possibilities.

   Notable Quote:

   "Recognizing opportunities is the first step in the entrepreneurial mindset."
   — Dr. Rebecca White, [26:10]

2. Do (Take Action):

   • Taking decisive steps to act on identified opportunities is crucial. Dr. White acknowledges the challenges authors face when transitioning from recognizing to acting, especially in unfamiliar terrains like mainstream publishing.

   Notable Quote:

   "Putting it out there and testing it, and then educating yourself as to what it takes to make it happen and then continuing to persevere."
   — Dr. Rebecca White, [31:22]

3. Repeat (Persevere and Learn):

   • Perseverance is key to overcoming failures and setbacks. Dr. White emphasizes resilience, urging authors to view failures as learning opportunities rather than definitive endpoints.

   Notable Quote:

   "Failure is definitely a part of every success journey."
   — Dr. Rebecca White, [26:10]

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Maintaining Optimism in Entrepreneurship

A significant portion of the conversation revolves around the role of optimism in sustaining an entrepreneurial journey. Dr. White defines optimism not as blind positivity but as a proactive stance to create one's destiny through choice and action.

Strategies to Foster Optimism:

• Curate Information Intake: Dr. White advises limiting exposure to negative news to maintain a positive outlook. She practices this by avoiding TV news and focusing on uplifting content.

  Notable Quote:

  "I don't do it in an overly emotional way. I don't know. What are some of the practices you think foster optimism?"
  — Dr. Rebecca White, [48:22]

• Engage with Nature: Spending time outdoors helps in gaining perspective and rejuvenates the mind.

  Notable Quote:

  "Nature is great. It just gives you that perspective."
  — Dr. Rebecca White, [48:22]

• Practice Gratitude and Joy: Focusing on gratitude and finding joy in interactions fosters a resilient and optimistic mindset.

  Notable Quote:

  "Gratitude and just joy... bringing joy to them and ourselves at the same time."
  — Dr. Rebecca White, [49:04]

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Transitioning from Academic to Popular Writing

Dr. White shares her personal experience of shifting from academic writing to creating a more mainstream, accessible book. This transition was driven by the desire to reach a broader audience and make her research more relatable.

Key Challenges and Solutions:

• Adjusting Writing Style: Moving away from the rigid structure of academic writing to a more narrative and story-driven approach was essential. Dr. White focused on incorporating storytelling to make complex concepts more digestible.

  Notable Quote:

  "I was able to reference books and other research that supported what I was talking about, and I tried to keep that, but only on a smaller scale, and then supplement that with stories because I thought that would make it more relatable."
  — Dr. Rebecca White, [54:14]

• Overcoming Fear of Judgment: The fear of being scrutinized by academic peers deterred Dr. White initially. However, she overcame this by persisting with her vision, leading to positive reception from unexpected quarters.

  Notable Quote:

  "I had to overcome that fear of judgment, which it's always out there, I think, if you're doing something creative."
  — Dr. Rebecca White, [54:14]

• Adopting an Indie Publishing Approach: Facing challenges with her initial publisher, Dr. White took control by becoming an independent publisher. This move allowed her greater autonomy over her work and its distribution.

  Notable Quote:

  "I decided that I wanted to have more control over it and that I needed to walk the talk, what I was teaching my students to do."
  — Dr. Rebecca White, [38:33]

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Practical Applications for Authors

Dr. White applies the 'See, Do, Repeat' framework to her own publishing journey. When faced with setbacks, such as unfavorable experiences with publishers, she leveraged the model to identify opportunities, take corrective actions, and persevere through challenges.

Example from Dr. White’s Experience:

• Recognizing Opportunity: The pandemic disrupted traditional academic publishing, presenting an opportunity to explore independent publishing avenues.

  Notable Quote:

  "There were messages coming from outside that maybe I had the expertise and the credentials to do this."
  — Dr. Rebecca White, [31:46]

• Taking Action: She undertook the process of regaining publishing rights and rebranding her approach to reach a wider audience.

  Notable Quote:

  "I could have stopped there. I could have gone back to writing what I was comfortable with or knew, but I didn't."
  — Dr. Rebecca White, [31:48]

• Persevering Through Failure: Despite initial setbacks like delayed royalties and marketing missteps, Dr. White persisted, eventually finding success through independent channels.

  Notable Quote:

  "I continued to persevere and I had lots of failures along the way."
  — Dr. Rebecca White, [31:46]

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Advice for Authors Moving Forward

Drawing from her experiences, Dr. White offers several recommendations for authors aspiring to adopt an entrepreneurial mindset:

1. Embrace Storytelling: Incorporate real-life stories and examples to make your work more engaging and relatable.

2. Be Proactive with Marketing: Understand that writing the book is only part of the journey; actively promoting it is equally crucial.

3. Leverage AI and Technology: While navigating new tools like AI for audio narration, ensure careful review and adherence to licensing terms to maintain control over your work.

4. Cultivate Resilience: View failures as stepping stones and remain steadfast in your pursuit despite setbacks.

5. Maintain Optimism: Foster a positive outlook to navigate uncertainties and recognize opportunities even in challenging times.

Notable Quote:

"Once you see that opportunity, putting it out there and testing it, and then educating yourself as to what it takes to make it happen and then continuing to persevere."
— Dr. Rebecca White, [31:48]

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Conclusion

The episode concludes with Joanna Penn reflecting on the invaluable insights shared by Dr. Rebecca White. Emphasizing the essence of the 'See, Do, Repeat' framework, Joanna encourages listeners to identify opportunities, take decisive actions, and persist through failures as integral aspects of an author's journey. Additionally, Joanna highlights the reciprocal nature of their relationship, mentioning her appearance on Dr. White’s podcast, The N Factor, further underscoring the collaborative spirit within the entrepreneurial writing community.

Closing Remarks:

"What opportunities can you see right now? What can you do to take action in that direction? And if you fail before or you fail again, can you get up and carry on? That is literally the author life."
— Joanna Penn

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Key Takeaways

• Entrepreneurial Mindset: Essential for authors to recognize opportunities, take action, and persevere through challenges.
• Optimism: A critical component that fuels the entrepreneurial spirit, enabling authors to navigate uncertainties and maintain motivation.
• Transitioning Writing Styles: Authors can successfully shift from academic to popular writing by embracing storytelling and adapting their communication style.
• Indie Publishing: Offers authors greater control and flexibility, allowing for more personalized marketing and distribution strategies.
• Continuous Learning: Leveraging tools like AI responsibly and staying informed about industry trends can enhance an author’s creative and business endeavors.

This episode serves as a comprehensive guide for authors seeking to blend creativity with entrepreneurial strategies, providing actionable insights and inspiring narratives to foster a resilient and proactive approach to writing and publishing.

Transcript

[Joanna Penn]

Welcome to the Creative Penn Podcast. I'm Joanna Penn, thriller author and creative entrepreneur, bringing you interviews, inspiration and information on writing, craft and creative business. You can find the episode show notes, your free author blueprint and lots [e-mail] and that's Pen with a double n. And here's the show Hello Creatives, I'm Joanna Penn and this is episode number 806 of the podcast and it is Friday 25th April 2025. As I record this in today's show I talk to Dr. Rebecca White about the practice of entrepreneurship and how you can see, do and repeat while also focusing on optimism in your viewpoint on things and also shifting from academic writing to writing more of a mainstream kind of book plus fear judgment, which I know is a challenge for many, including me. So that's coming up in the interview section and I am also on Rebecca's podcast which is called the N Factor. So like the Entrepreneur, the N Factor en factor. This week if you'd like to hear me being interviewed on the topic of entrepreneurship and writing, I go into the evolution of being an indie author and how technology changes have played such a part as well as my early failures and strategies for a long term creative career. So you can check that out as well. And the interview with Rebecca is coming up soon. In Writing and Publishing Things, there's an interesting article on self publishingadvice.org about the rise of short form audio, which actually ties into Derek's interview last week on using shorter form fiction on YouTube and podcasts. And also if you remember, I mentioned this after meeting with Spotify at Author Nation last year and they mentioned how one Hour Audio is great for community writing. And so I made a playlist of my short stories back then and suggested that authors of similar genres make playlists as well. And this article on self publishing advice expands on some other ideas, including Spotify's new program for licensing short form audio. Currently only open to romance, mystery, thriller and sci fi, the most popular genres, but who knows, they might open it to other things. Lots of authors are experimenting with using AI audio to narrate the shorts, but the article said authors using AI tools for short form work should always review licensing terms carefully, especially if uploading content to third party platforms. Retaining control over your rights and understanding where and how your work is being used remains essential in the fast evolving audio space, which obviously is true. Whatever you're doing, you should always look at licensing terms and the terms of service of these platforms. Some of them are excellent Some of them are pretty bad. Also, the article says, remember to review the audio. I didn't actually believe that people would do this, but judging by some of the emails I've had recently, people are. Do not just press a button, generate AI audio and upload it or publish it because there are always changes you'll want to make. I know I'm a bit of an audio.

[Dr. Rebecca White]

I don't know.

[Joanna Penn]

I'm certainly not an audio purist because of course I am using a voice clone for Death Valley. I've used other AI audio. I obviously narrate my own. I listen to a lot of audio, but. But I cannot believe that people are just clicking like if they're in the audible virtual voice, AVV or ElevenLabs or whatever service. If you click to generate the whole book, you must, must listen to it, whatever length it is, review the generated narration before clicking publish. You need to do this with a human narrator, obviously, but you also need to do it with an AI generated audio because sometimes the pronunciations are incorrect and you need to change things. Sometimes emphasis is different. So for example, with Death Valley, I'll be proofing it and I'll say to Simon, who's making it for me, you know, put the emphasis here, put this word in caps because the, the emphasis is slightly wrong. So you need to proof it and yeah, so you need to do that. Listen to the audio however you generate it, then the article ends. Whether you're using short audio to offer free samples, revisit a novella, or experiment with serialized storytelling, the tools are evolving quickly and IND authors are well positioned to lead. With more distribution options, improved voice technology and listener demand on the rise, short form audio could become a core part of your publishing strategy in the years ahead. Absolutely. And in terms of this position to lead, one of the massive differences between traditionally published authors and indie authors is the need to ask permission. So if you have signed a contract with a publisher, even for, let's say three books in a series, what you might find is that contract also stops you publishing, publishing anything else in that series, sometimes anything else under that author name without permission. Now, many indie orders authors do not like asking permission. I certainly don't. So what I love about short form audio is obviously much quicker to write a 5 to 10 to 20,000 word story or short non fiction or something like that. Then you can turn it into audio, publish that. And as Derek talked about last week, you can do this quite quickly. So yes, I, I think this is a good question for you today. Now this does not have to have anything to do with AI. The question is, can you use short form audio for your author business? You can pay a narrator, you can narrate it yourself. You can use AI tools to either bring in more revenue by licensing them, putting them on all of the audio platforms, or as a marketing tool as say chapter one in your whole book or whatever. So can you use short form audio? How can you use it? Have you considered it? What might it bring? And then into other AI things. Many authors are still holding off from using AI tools, but this in the last couple of weeks. I'm really pleased because the publishers are now releasing guidelines on this Wiley, who are a non fiction publisher primarily they have released a substantial AI guidelines page on their website. I'll link to it in the show notes, but it'[e-mail] and it's AI guidelines enabling responsible use, encouraging responsible use while staying within their publishing guidelines. It's very long and I'll link to the text, but here are a few sections. So first up, Wiley welcomes the thoughtful use of AI tools. So the thoughtful use of AI tools. This, and this is what I've always talked about as an AI assisted artisan author. It's all about being thoughtful. It's all about doing this responsibly. They say authors may only use AI technology as a companion to their writing process, not a replacement. Again, completely in line with what I say. And Wiley values authors unique creativity and expertise and views AI technologies as tools that enhance rather than replace creativity. And one of the common questions that I'm kind of asked by people who don't use the tools is isn't it killing your creativity? And I'm like no, it's it Inn enhances it, it amplifies it. I feel like I'm far more in flow, on fire in the zone when I work with these tools than when I work on my own. I find it incredibly useful. So this word companion is excellent, I think in this case. So also as an AI assisted artisan author, the emphasis is on the assisted. So they then go into lots of ways you can strategically use AI. For example, analyzing and identifying patterns or themes across research materials, exploring approaches to complex topics, adapting examples to suit different audiences, polishing and reviewing your work. They say break your process into specific steps so you can identify areas where AI might be most useful. Yes, and that's one of the things we always say is like find the use cases that are most useful to you. You're not replacing what you love to do, you're replacing things you don't like doing, for example, writing sales descriptions has for the last two and a half years now I've used AI to write my sales descriptions. I think it's brilliant. They say try testing out how AI tools respond to your needs to assist on small and specific tasks. Think of it as a junior assistant and prompt it as you would someone with less experience and knowledge of your needs. They also say plan to spend 10 to 12 hours exploring these tools before fully integrating them into your workflow to build confidence and competence. With AI assistants experiment and they go into various ways. So I love that because most people who dismiss the tools have either just not worked with them or have tried one or two prompts and then given up. But the more you work with these tools, the more useful they are. This article goes into prompting, comparing different tools, safe and responsible usage biases, accuracy hallucinations, copyright implications, image use disclosure and in fact they have their own disclosure at the bottom of the article which shows they used Claude 3.5 Sonnet Chat GPT4 Turbo models to write the draft, which I think is brilliant. So I love this. Well done to Wiley, the publishing house, for putting this together. Hopefully more publishers will follow suit because I've heard from lots of authors who said, well, if no publisher is going to accept this, then I can't use AI in any form at all. But again, it's all about assistance rather than generation. So this article I think will help you if you are concerned about where the lines are. Nothing I've ever said is any different to what they have on the guidelines, which is a relief to me. Also in AI news, as reported by the Guardian, the ALCs in the UK, the Licensing and collecting service and other licensing agencies are working on collective licensing for AI training rights, which is what I suggested back in my 2020 book on AI. So I'm really glad that this might be happening now. Americans don't have this kind of public usage rights payments, but here in the uk, in Canada Commonwealth countries we have payments for things like photocopying or extra library borrows collected centrally by the ALCs and we get paid. It's not hugely significant, but it's something and this is the right group to do it. Certainly for UK authors. If you are a UK author and you haven't registered for ALCs, then definitely do it and of course update it over time as you publish more books. So in personal news, I've been working on proofing the audiobook for Death Valley with my voice clone and also writing I've backed successful self publishing the fourth edition I withdrew the last edition a while back and I'm definitely out of sync with my editions. I had multiple digital editions and different print versions. It's a mess. So I've just gone with the fourth print edition that will be the official one. I did feel that last one was probably now two and a half years out of date and I felt like it was it was just too much work to do it. So I've put it off and put it off. But as I I did mention this last week but I want to mention it again because it's so useful if you're doing new editions. I uploaded the old edition to O3 chat GPT O3 model and said can you do a gap analysis in terms of what has changed in the last couple of years, what I need to update and give me a plan to work through the content and that just helped me so much. So I'm rewriting almost every chapter, adding new stuff obviously around AI, but also different forms of sales, some new business models, changes to companies and my recommended tools. So it is now on pre order at all the usual stores and my own store creativepenbooks.com all the links are at thecreativepen.com SSP4 so successful self publishing 4 SSP4 it will be on my store 2nd of June and everywhere else on the 9th of June. So it's only one week later. But yes, you can always get it from me or you can get it everywhere else then Coming up on my books and travel podcast this week I'm talking about Lindisfarne holy island in Northumberland with Laura Wild who lived on the island and we talk about all kinds of things. If you don't know Lindisfarne, it really is one of those places that leaves a deep impression and we talk about that from two very different perspectives. As I did cross over there on my St Cuthbert's Way pilgrimage. I'm also working on a solo episode about some of my favourite graveyard, cemetery and ossuaries. So that will be out soon too on my books and Travel podcast. And if you've ever wondered about doing the Camino de Santiago or want to hear more about pilgrimage, I'm on the El Camino de Santiago Pilgrims podcast with Bradley Chermside talking about my walk along the Portuguese coastal route and the challenges and joys of pilgrimage links in the show notes. So thanks for your emails and comments and photos this week. Sunni said. This was such an interesting episode with Derek on YouTube audiobooks and has sparked so many ideas as someone who writes more short fiction than novels, the idea of a regular story on YouTube without showing my face and narrated by AI is a game changer. Thank you. Brilliant Sunny. I'm glad it helped. Shelley said. Also on Derek's what an inspiring episode. This really lit my fire and got my brain working. Thanks. I'm so glad because as I said, listening to Derek inspired me too. Charles sent a picture a beautiful green English spring garden, the view from my window as I do my morning aikido exercises and listen to your inspiring podcast and talking of cemeteries, Cats sent pictures from the Hollywood Forever cemetery, Johnny Ramone's grave, still decorated with banners and lots of flowers. And I find this fascinating because of course, Hollywood is not forever. Nothing is forever and the hubris of the so briefly famous is clearly on show there for sure. And as evidence of time passing, Suzanne sent pictures from a Neolithic burial chamber overlooking the sea on the Isles of Scilly. All our names are forgotten, which as ever, I find strangely comforting because it means we can just make the most of our lives now and perhaps worry less about what others think. Okay, Please leave a comment on the podcast show [e-mail] or on the YouTube channel. Message me on x hecreative Pen or email me. Send me pictures of where you're listening or your favourite cemetery or graveyard. Joannathecreativepenn.com I love to hear from you. It makes this more of a conversation. So today's episode is sponsored by Draft2Digital, which I personally use for my wide ebook distribution to Apple, Nook Library Systems and more. They also have print Are you an indie author in need of an easy and efficient print on demand service backed by a world class customer support team? Look no further than D2D print from Draft 2 Digital. D2D print is ideal for authors who've already published ebooks but haven't yet experimented with print. You can convert your ebook to a Print on demand file with just a few clicks. Turn your cover image into a full wraparound print cover in seconds. Choose from dozens of beautiful interior layouts for a professional look. Choose from a variety of industry standard trim sizes and formatting options. Distribute your Print on demand files worldwide with Dafta Digital's free ISBNs if you want to use them. You can order Author copies within 32 countries and order print proofs from a variety of shipping options and without proof stamped on your book. You can also use free change tokens every 90 days to make updates to your published books. All of this and more with no setup or recurring fees. Print on Demand is a game changer for indie authors because while brick and mortar bookstores can't physically stock every book, they can check for the print on demand availability of a book when a customer requests it. If you only publish digital ebooks, you could be missing a huge opportunity to reach more readers. Let's fix that with D2D print. Just go to draft2digital.com that's draft number two digital.com so this type of corporate sponsorship pays for the hosting, transcription and editing, but my time in creating the show is sponsored by my [e-mail] thecreativepenn thanks to the four new patrons who've joined in the last week and thanks to everyone who's been supporting for months and years. If you join the community, you get access to all my backlist video and audio covering topics on writing, craft and author business, as well as tutorials and demos on AI tools and my Patreon Only Q and A solo shows as well as live office hours. This week I shared a tutorial on AI images and book covers with ChatGPT03, Midjourney and Canva. The Patreon is a monthly subscription, the equivalent of buying me a black coffee a month or a couple of coffees if you're feeling generous. You get access to everything, all the backlist content, all the Q and A's, everything. So if you get value from the show and you want more, come on over and join us at patreon.com P-A T-R-E-O-N.com TheCreativePen Right, let's get into the interview.

[Dr. Rebecca White]

Dr. Rebecca White is an award winning entrepreneur, executive Board member, professor, and the author of See Do Repeat the Practice of Entrepreneurship. She's also the host of the N Factor podcast. So welcome to the show, Rebecca.

Thank you Joanna. I am honored to be here. I love your podcast and I'm excited. I am reading your book Pilgrimage and I just love everything that you've done. So it's really great to be here and have this conversation today.

Oh well, thanks so much. So first up, tell us a bit more about you and what drives your interest in entrepreneurship.

I grew up in this small town in West Virginia. Don't know if you've ever been there, but it's quite rural and I always had these dreams and interests of doing other things rather than being in a small town. And I had the I had a wonderful mother. Her name was Betty White. So great name. Maybe not the Betty White most people think of, but she had an entrepreneurial mindset back before we even had the words to put with it. And so I learned about this whole mindset from her as a child, and it's really driven everything I've done. It's kind of like it grabbed me and I had to hold on. And so I've really applied an entrepreneurial mindset in everything that I've done, from being an educator, to a book author, to a podcaster, to even a corporate board member. And you mentioned all those slashes in my career. I think that's part of being an entrepreneur as well. This whole idea that there's always something new and a new opportunity to explore. So it's really just been a part of my life and everything that I've done, I think, because I learned it from her.

[Joanna Penn]

That's cool.

[Dr. Rebecca White]

When you said West Virginia, I just had that song playing.

[Joanna Penn]

Country Take Me Home.

[Dr. Rebecca White]

Yeah. Country Road. Yeah. Everybody knows that.

Yeah. That's the only thing. I've never been there, but that's what it brought to mind, which. Which was quite funny. So did you. So you were in this small town and you had this mindset, but how did you get out of the small town and get into work and how did you make it out of there? Because I know some people listening, it might. It might just be a life situation they're trapped in, or a job. You know, many people were in a job and they might want to be more entrepreneurial, but they were. They didn't have the mindset that your mum gave you. So how did you get out? And how can other people get out if they feel trust trapped?

Yeah, that's a really great question. For me, it was education and I just kept going. My parents valued education. My mom was very curious and she was way ahead of her time. The way she approached life and saw things. And she had her own business, she was a florist. And when I graduated with my undergraduate degree, she invited me to come back and take over the business. And that's like the last thing I wanted to do. I had worked in that business all my years growing up, and it was great for her. It was a great opportunity for our family. It afforded us, my brother and I, the opportunity to get an education. But once I left and went to college, and I didn't go that far away at first, but once I went to college, it was like I knew. I just knew that I wasn't going to go back. There wasn't a lot there and. And fortunately, my parents didn't expect it. So for me, it was really through. I was young, and so it was through taking my first job and then going back to school. And there's all kinds of stories in there that I could share, but really it was just taking one step at a time and having parents that supported that. And at a young age, just. I just had sort of a wanderlust, I guess. I felt like there were always opportunities out there that I wanted to check out and try. I also got married in the process, later divorced, but I went to graduate school. I got my master's, and then I got a job teaching with my master's and found that I did well with that. So I went back to get a doctorate. And after I got my doctorate, I accepted a teaching position in Cincinnati, Ohio. I was actually educated in Virginia at Virginia Tech, and then went to Cincinnati, Ohio. By this time, I had two small children and I was divorced. It was quite a challenging time for me and I managed to write a dissertation with two small children as a single parent. It wasn't easy, but I took that job in Cincinnati and started building programs and really became part of a movement in entrepreneurship education. And actually my PhD is not in entrepreneurship, but that's because they really didn't have that kind of degree back then. So I got a PhD in strategic management and took my first job. And there wasn't. There weren't any entrepreneurship courses offered at that time. So I was very fortunate. I had a dean at the time that was very supportive and allowed me to pursue this interest in offering an entrepreneurship course. And we offered a course, and it was something the university had never offered. So I had to create it. I explored the field, the discipline, the few people that were out there doing this. I did my research and created this course. And then we raised money. So just like any entrepreneurial venture, we had to raise enough money to start a program. And so I went through all the steps really of a startup to build an entrepreneurship program at this university in Cincinnati, Ohio, and in doing so, really kind of launched my career as sort of the second tier pioneering group in entrepreneurship education. And since then I've just had so many opportunities to work with programs, work with students actually around the world, and in this space of entrepreneurship education. So really it was education that kind of. For me, it's not for everybody, but for me, it. It was the way that I was able to kind of get out and build this career.

If you don't mind, you referred a few times to it, you know, sort of the past. Can you tell people how old you are. Or so that they just get some sense of how long this period's been.

So, yes, I'm in my 60s now, so I've been. I've been teaching and doing this entrepreneurship gig for almost four decades. Yeah. And so it's been a long time. Time. It's been a long time. Yeah. And you know what I thought by now, Joe, would be that I would be retired or at least close to retiring, but the opportunities just still come along and they keep getting bigger, it seems like.

Yeah. And also, I wonder whether entrepreneurs ever retire. I mean, you might retire from.

I don't think so.

No, exactly. You want to start something else. Right. But let's get into the book. So what is the see do repeat framework? And why is it useful for authors to consider?

So teaching. All those years as an entrepreneur, I saw a lot of change in our field. And so when I first started teaching, it was all about start a business. And in fact, in the earliest years, it was more about small business. Everything was taking what we had studied in business school, which was primarily around corporate business, and applying it in a miniature way, if you will, and it really didn't work. So the field started to develop its own body of literature and research around entrepreneurship. And that direction was really interesting because although it started in this whole area of creating new companies and running small businesses, it really morphed, I would say, into a focus on the mindset of entrepreneurship and how it applies in almost virtually any context. And I started out my description of my background by just saying that I've applied it everywhere. And so that became really interesting to me. And I've always been fascinated by the way people think and by the stories. It's why you mentioned my podcast. It's why I love my podcast. I just love to ask people lots of questions and find out about them and the way they think. So this whole book is really after, I would say, 20 years of research that I had been doing, trying to understand what this entrepreneurial mindset was, because we talked about it a lot, but it didn't have a whole lot of definition. People always seemed to know it when they saw it, but they didn't really know exactly how to describe it. And entrepreneurship education became much more than just just starting a business. It's applying it in so many other contexts. We've had students come through that have been interested in starting not for profits. They've started churches, they've developed new products that then they license. They didn't even start a company around them. And I found I was always drawn to the creative students and I think you and your audience would appreciate this because I saw over the years that most creatives had to have some of these entrepreneurial mindset skills because they were going to be in a position where they were taking advantage of opportunities and they were going to have to raise money or at least find a way to pursue their craft. And that included maybe some marketing, it included maybe raising money from donors and investors. So I became very interested very early on on for entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial mindset for students who are not studying business. So that's been a lot of the focus of why this book was written. And I spent a lot of years trying to understand an entrepreneurial mindset. And so this book was really an effort to bring all this academic literature to a popular audience and share the idea of a mindset in a very, very simple and easy to remember and understand framework. And so that, see, do repeat, it's based also in what we call competencies. And a lot of fields like nursing and health care have used competencies for a long time to sort of find a way to measure something that's, you know, measure tasks that are challenging to define and measure. So it's identifying three competencies of an entrepreneurial mindset. And over the years these are the three competencies. And then associated with each of them are multiple skills that have been, that I found have been repeated among all entrepreneurs. And it's the ability to recognize opportunities, that's the C part, the willingness to take action that's due, and the perseverance and resilience to execute past failure because failure is definitely a part of every success journey. And this is, you know, along the way, the people who are not successful as entrepreneurs tend to get stopped. They may recognize an opportunity, I can't tell you. Multiple times a day I have people reaching out to me with, I have an idea. What do you think? You know, but the, the difference is do you take action on that and then do you keep going and execute past failure? And so there are a lot of things we could talk about with that, but that's the principles of the book. It's really to take this, all this academic research of an entrepreneurial mindset and make it something simple and something that people can apply.

Yeah. And. Well, can you give us just a concrete example of the CD repeat in, in the author entrepreneur space? I guess.

Oh, sure, absolutely. I could, you know, I'll use my own example, if that's okay. Yeah, of course. So what happened with me? I, I've been writing for a long time, academic writing, and it's a completely different animal. And I've also been a writer for, you know, I've always, I write for fun and I write for therapy. I know you've talked about the morning pages. Oh my.

Julia Cameron.

Julia Cameron, yes. My mom gave me that book many years ago because she was an artist. And so I've written for therapy. I love writing. But this particular book, I was approached by a pretty well known book publisher in the academic world who they write books not for textbooks, but for faculty. And those books are, they're much more academic and they combine research. And so I was approached by a book publisher to write a book on entrepreneurial mindset for that audience. And so that was pre pandemic. And so I, I started exploring that. I had conversations with an editor that was assigned to me. And so we were getting started on that whole process when the pandemic happened. And so my editor lost her job and I was assigned to somebody else. And we didn't have a great, great fit. So I stepped back from that and I thought about it and I said, am I really that interested in continuing to write for other academics? Because what I'm really interested in is how I can make this book different. So the opportunity started to emerge for me and I started to recognize in, in my world that there was probably an opportunity out there for people to learn more about this. So I think for any book author, it's paying attention to the world around you. And I talk about this in my book, about how we recognize opportunities. And really curiosity is a big part of it. Anybody who's curious, paying attention and then connecting the dots. And that's a big part of the creative process. So. So for me, a lot of it was there were messages coming from outside that maybe I had the expertise and the credentials to do this. But there were also messages coming to me from other people that I was working with that or people that I was surrounded with, or things that I read that led me to believe there was an opportunity to write for a different audience. So, so that opportunity came, the taking action. That was a really tough one because I started down this path like so many others, without a clue about what it would take to write a book, more popular press book. And so there's a lot of lessons I learned there, but I had to overcome a lot of, I guess, my own personal beliefs that I didn't have the skills to write a book that would be successful in popular press. And the more I learned about what it meant to get published by a traditional publisher, which was pretty much all I knew at that time. I just saw that it was going to be a monumental hurdle to overcome. And so I just started doing my research and started taking action. And I could have stopped there. I could have gone back to writing what I was comfortable with or knew, but I didn't. I continued to persevere and I had lots of failures along the way. In fact, this book was first published by, I wouldn't say a traditional publisher, but an intermediary, a publisher, let's just say that. And I don't want to say too much about them because it wasn't a great experience, but I learned a lot along that process. And while I don't think that that was necessarily that publishing this book was a huge failure, it wasn't the success that I had hoped or that I. That it maybe could have been. And I had lots of failures along the way. In fact, not getting paid royalties for a long time and a lot of other things that just didn't work out. And not understanding, quite frankly, that I had to really put a lot of effort into marketing, that was probably my biggest lack of understanding. I've never been an absolutely huge fan of social media, although I do more of it now than. And I have people that help me. Students are great with that, by the way. But I made a lot of mistakes along the way and I feel like, you know, the see, do, repeat, it's played out in everything that I've done. And I think for any book author. Back to your original question, long answer. It's really about once you see that opportunity, putting it out there and testing it, and then educating yourself as to what it takes to make it happen and then continuing to persevere. And the repeat of the CDO repeat model is sometimes the hardest one, I think, for people to understand because I am not suggesting that you never change course. I'm not suggesting that every idea that you have is truly an opportunity that should be acted on. So it's not that, but it's about really recognizing that if you remain optimistic and you recognize the problem that you're trying to solve and you stay focused on that problem rather than the solution you had in mind, you will come to an outcome that will be favorable and out of the process. Along the same time that I was right writing this book, I was launching my podcast. And what happened was my podcast really became research for my book. And so I was able to sort of take my research out of my office. So to speak and make it available so everybody could hear the stories. And so as I was writing the book, I was able to use stories that I was capturing as I was doing the podcast. So it all came together and I never could have envisioned that. Exactly, exactly. I knew where I was headed. I knew what I. What the opportunity was that I thought was there, but I had to stay focused on the problem I was trying to solve, and that got me to where I needed to be.

Yeah, And I think what's also interesting is some people like you, you said you had a difficult time with the publisher that you had originally used. Some people would have just given up on that book and maybe written another. Another book or something. But you also clearly chose to keep focused on making this book more of a success. So presumably you went and got the rights back and then sort of got on with the publishing process yourself.

Yeah, yeah. In fact, I'm an indie publisher now, and in large part thanks to you and what I've learned from you. So I published this book in 21, and I still believe in it. I still believe it's an important book and I intend to continue to market it and sell it and use it and the model, because I still believe in it. And I've gotten a lot of positive feedback about it. But I also decided that I wanted to have more control over it and that I needed to walk the talk, what I was teaching my students to do. And so I was googling around trying to find out how to get back back the rights to my book. And I came across a podcast that you did probably a couple of years ago. I know you've got about 800 now, so it was in the 600.

This one would have been with Caitlyn Duncan, probably. She's got a book.

Yeah.

Take back your book, right?

Yeah, I think that's probably right. I think that's probably right. And it was a few years back and I listened to that. And interestingly, I have a husband who's an attorney, me. But in, in spite of that, this is very specific kind of thing I wanted to do. And getting out there and hearing your podcast was the beginning point for me. And then I, I started listening to more of them and I still enjoy them. And I have really embraced this idea of being an indie publisher, and I love it. I have several, you know, I have other books I want to write. In fact, some fiction books I'd love to write, but that's a whole nother story, so.

Well, I love that. And I think what you've done. There is great. A lot of non fiction authors who have like this is your whole career and this book is a real, I guess it's one of the magnum opus style books. It really does encapsulate a lot of your body of work. And so of course you're going to keep promoting that, keep marketing that, keep doing other work around it. And I think that's really important to say in the indie community we often focus, focus on having more books, writing more books, putting more out there, which is one way. But there's also a lot of people, especially in non fiction, who have one sort of key book, even if you're going to write more, and then that's the sort of focus of their talks and their kind of career side. So I think that's completely valid. But I did want to come back on. You did mention the word optimistic, which I wanted to come back on because you have a whole chapter on optimism. And I'm by default an optimist. I'm also a techno optimist. I think humans will figure things out. But as we Talk now, it's April 2025 and we're not going to get into politics and the world. But it is an uncertain time and with AI and all of this, authors can feel not quite so optimistic. So what are your thoughts on how we can choose optimism and foster optimism?

That I love that question. And I saw this modeled in my, my mom and my grandfather in particular. And I'm like you, I'm optimistic as well. And I think every entrepreneur has to have some level of optimism because otherwise why would you do it? You know, if you don't believe that you have agency, if you don't believe that you have some control over your future, if you don't have some hope for the future, why would you do all the work that's required? So it's really in my mind, optimism is about creating your own destiny through choice and action. And that to me is a big part of what an entrepreneurial mindset is all about. Optimism also sees opportunities instead of difficulties. And I'll give you an example. When the pandemic caused us to have to go online with all of our classes and teaching, we had some graduate students at our university that were quite upset over the experience. And I understand everybody was upset. It was a very scary time time. And you're right, we're, you know, I don't know that we still have a lot of uncertainty, but I did a little video for them to, to talk to them about how that period in time was very special and it was a unique opportunity for them to find opportunity. And it resonated with some of them. Some of them continued to be angry about the experience because, because quite honestly, we have a beautiful facility on our campus for entrepreneurship and they had signed up to be able to take advantage of all the events and programs and things that we run in person there. And the idea that they weren't going to get that, they felt cheated. And I understand that we did our best to create alternative opportunities for them. But at the end of the day, as we look back on it, I think we can all think of many examples of things that came out of the pandemic which were positive outcomes and opportunities. Certainly many were not. But that, that optimism, I think is something that is, is critical for entrepreneurs. Now there is, you know, I talk about my book. There are dangers of being overly optimistic and there's plenty of research that's shown that if, especially if you're overly optimistic about your financial situation, that can be kind of dangerous. But, but most psychologists agree that entrepreneur, that optimism can be learned. And so it's not a static thing. It really has to do with the way you look at the world, whether you personalize things or whether you recognize that everything in the world is not about you. The pervasiveness of things and the permanence of things. So you could really, if you feel like maybe, you know, anybody that's listening, that you would like to be more optimism, optimistic. There is something called learned optimism and there's books out there and plenty of things that you can do. But I think it's, I think it's critical to have that trust in ourselves. And what's the alternative really, Joe? I mean, do we, do we just stop and sit and complain? You know, that's not much fun.

No, I think that is a really good point. I'm sure there is a default level, level of optimism that people have and I think obviously you and I have that. But as you said, it can be learned. And I think one of the things I've discovered for myself as well. And in the beginning of the pandemic, and in fact I, I look at my photos, I took a lot of screenshots in the first few months in, in 2020 from the January because I was on Twitter looking at what was coming out of China and then Italy and all of this and I took so many screenshots, shots, evidence of my doom scrolling and then. And I thought I was going to write a book on a pandemic as many of us did at that time. And then I obviously realized that this wasn't helpful. And my, my photos, I take a lot of photos and screenshots and stuff, but my photos change to pictures of flowers and the outdoors and walking a lot more. And I've avoided the TV news. I like, I haven't watched the news on TV for over a dec. Probably more like two decades. I do read the news on some apps on my phone, but I don't watch TV news. This is a challenge for people listening. Like, one of the things I think makes me more optimistic is just curating what goes into my head and being quite careful. Some people think that's denying what's going on, but I'm very aware of what's going on. I just don't do it in an overly emotional way. I don't know. What are some of the practices you think foster optimism?

Oh, I, I, well, I love that, making that choice. I mentioned that. It's really about, it's about choice and agency. There's a lot we can't control. That's, that's just the bottom line. I've learned that. But there, there's a lot we can control. And that's exactly what you're talking about. You can control how much of that you let into your head. And it can be hard, especially I'm married to a news junkie. And it can be really hard because I want to know what' in the world. And I'm like you. I tend to read it more than watch it on tv, but I also choose like, for example, during the pandemic, I don't know if it was, it was the same in the uk, but for a while, every night there would be this thing on the news about how many people had died that day. You know, and I'm like, I am not going to bed thinking about how many people died today. You know, I mean, there was plenty of, there are plenty of people that sat die every day. No matter what's going on in the world.

Life, people die.

That's right. That's right. There were people being born as well. And I made that choice. And it sounds really weird, but when I made the choice to stop all of that, I remember I had this really vivid dream and it was in color and I mean, this is going to sound so weird, but I had this dream that I was flying and it was like I was leaving all that behind and I was going to accept that whatever happened, happened and I could control what I could control and that Was it? And I would suggest that it's about taking control of what we let into our head, just like you said, choice and action and agency. Recognizing that there's only so many things we can control, but within that control, we have so much power. Within what we can control. Control, yes.

In what we can control. And yes, if I get too miserable, I will get off the computer, off my phone and go for a walk in nature.

And I was, oh, nature is great. Yes.

Yeah. It just gives you that perspective. And I love. I was thinking, because at the moment here in Bath, the. The sun is out, spring is here, things are growing again. Things in my garden that I seriously thought were dead have started sprouting and growing leaves. And it's another one of those, you know, this too shall pass and the seasons will turn again. And that just makes me feel more positive and. And happy. It's been a very long winter here. I imagine some people listening, it might still be winter by the time they hear this, but I. I feel like that also makes me more optimistic is seeing how nature recovers every year.

Yeah. Yeah.

Things always get better.

Absolutely. And I think I mentioned it in the book, too. Gratitude. That was something that my mom always believed in. And I think gratitude and just joy. You know, I have to say when I. I always enjoy your podcast because you are always so joyful in the way you communicate with people. And I just think that is very special. We have that choice to be kind and to bring joy to what we're doing. And it's so amazing when I meet people that I know are struggling, but they're still able to be kind and thoughtful to the people around them. Taking that, I guess, that pressure off by not focusing so much on ourselves and what. What's missing, but opening up to the fact that there are other people in the world and we can bring joy to them and ourselves at the same time.

Well, coming back to the book, because you did say earlier that you've written a lot of academic writing as part of your job and that this was your sort of trying to write something more popular. Popular. What I would say it is, is incredibly well researched and has a lot of references. It is, I would say, more of a crossover to academic books. It's certainly not a pop sort of book where there's no references at all, or maybe only a couple in the appendix, for example, the kind of things I've written. And I wondered what your thoughts were. So there are people listening who will be academic writers and they will struggle with, I think A. A lot of the relaxing that has to go into writing a more popular book. So any tips for those who want to kind of cross over from academic writing to more popular books?

Yeah, thank you for that question, because that was a struggle for me. And a lot of it has to do with how you're trained, I guess, or prepped for whatever the opportunity is that you're going to pursue with your writing. And for me, I had been living in this world where everything I had written before it was published, it was going to be peer reviewed and it was going to be evaluated for accuracy and legitimacy and reliability and credibility. So the idea that I could just write something and I could say it was totally, totally different for me. And I think you're right. I mean, I worried a little bit about whether this book would be readable, but I felt like I really changed my writing style a lot.

Definitely readable. Just to be clear for everyone, this is a popular book, but I can also sense the amount of research, and you're very meticulous about that. So I think you have managed both. But it is hard, I know.

Yeah. Well, thank you for that, and I really appreciate that because that's a very high form of compliment for me because I think that fits with who I am and my background. But it was challenging because I wanted it to be readable and I wanted it to be the name as an example, working, coming up with that see, do, repeat name. I practiced what I write about in the book. And one of the. One of the techniques that I recommend to help get your creative juices flowing is to do something that takes your mind completely off of everything that you're doing. It's called the incubation period. And so I work out a lot, and I've been a runner. And so I had. Was working with my editor and publisher on. On the name, and we had gone through all these names, and I went out for a run one day and I was just really pushing it. I had all this research in my head that we'd been doing, and I was. All of a sudden it came to me. I'm like, what words? And I'm fascinated by words. I love words. But I guess every author is. But I said, what words would, you know, convey this in the simplest form? And that's how I came up with, see to repeat. And so the whole book is really kind of taking my academic writing and reframing it and trying to think about it from a very practical, applied way. And I think one of the things that helped me Most was to really focus on storytelling. And it was easy, again, because I was in the midst of my podcast. And although not every story comes from my podcast, most of them come from entrepreneurs that I have interviewed either in my classroom or for my podcast or that I've spent time working with. And I think that's. That's how I made that transition. I'm able. I was able to. To. To reference books and other research that supported what I was talking about, and I tried to keep that, but only on a smaller scale, and then supplement that with stories because I thought that would make it more relatable.

But did you have any fear of judgment by other academics or sort of that. Just that feeling. I imagine it would have been quite different doing this book compared to writing an academic academic paper.

Oh, my gosh, yes. So did I have fear of judgment? Yes, on every count. And that's probably been the thing. If I were going to advise anybody about writing, it's that you got to get over that. I had that very early on with my academic writing. I would hold on to things far too long. I think this book would have been published many years earlier if I had. If I had allowed myself to get beyond that. So, yes, I mean, I had to let go of that. And I continued. Tell you the. One of the first. I went to a conference. It was at Notre Dame University, and I had just published this book, and I was among many of my peers that I had worked with for many years, and it was very scary to have my book there. But what's interesting for that conference now, ever since that, you know, I had books there, and I actually had a little table and sold some of them. Not many, quite honestly, but ever since that time, the organizers of the conference have been buying my book for everybody that attends. So even though it scared me to death, you know, to. To put it out there in front of my colleagues, they're sharing it with other educators. And so it's not the audience I initially intended it for, but I'm grateful that they're doing that. And I just had to overcome that fear of judgment, which it's always out there, I think, if you're doing something creative.

Yeah, absolutely. So we are out of time. So where can people find. Yeah, so where can people find you and your book and everything you do online?

Oh, well, thank you for asking that, Joanna. I just have to say I'm working on a new book now. It's called Choose Yourself, and it's tied to the very last chapter of my book. I'M pre selling that book on my website in a very different way and I'm sharing parts of it as I go through writing it. So it's really a model to help people take that do step. So if you could visit my website, it's Dr. Rebecca White and that's Dr. Rebecca White.com and I'm also available on LinkedIn, same handle, Dr. Rebecca White. And then on Instagram and on Facebook, Dr. Rebecca J. White. So I'd love for you to to visit me there. You can check out. I have a new community which I've started and I'm writing this new book and again, it's all to help anyone who wants to do something entrepreneurial or make a big transition in their life pursue a passion. I'd love to help. That's kind of my legacy to help as many people as I can have the joy of an entrepreneurial mindset as they go through their lives.

And just also mention your podcast.

Oh yes, my podcast. I'm sorry, it's the N Factor podcast. And you'll be happy to know that I have the infamous Joanna Pin coming on the podcast and I think by the time this is aired it should be available. But it's called the N Factor. E N F A C T O R. Think like the X Factor, only the N Factor. So it's all about entrepreneurial mindsets. So yes, please, please check out the M Factor podcast and all my other resources on my website.

Brilliant. Well, thanks so much for your time, Rebecca.

That was great, Joanna, thank you. It's been an honor and such a pleasure.

[Joanna Penn]

So I hope you found Rebecca's interview interesting and that you can consider how see do repeat might work for your author business. What opportunities can you see right now? What can you do to take action in that direction? And if you fail before or you fail again, can you get up and carry on? That is literally the author life. Especially if we define failure in a specific way. Like if I don't sell a thousand copies next week, I'm a failure. You definitely need to get past that for sure in a long term author career. Also, if you'd like to hear me interviewed on the topic of entrepreneurship and writing, I'm on Rebecca's podcast the N Factor, the En Factor, talking about being an author preneur, author entrepreneur as I prefer to say. So let me know what you think of today's show. Leave a comment on the podcast Show Notes at the creative pen.com or the YouTube channel. Comment on X at the Creative Pen or email me joannathecreativepen.com Send me pictures of where you're listening or your favourite cemetery or churchyard Next week. I'm talking about make your life your biggest art project with lots of mindset and creativity ideas. Ideas with Pia Lishter. In the meantime, happy writing and I'll see you next time. Thanks for listening today. I hope you found it helpful. You can find the backlist episodes and show [e-mail] podcast and you can get your free Author [e-mail] Blueprint. If you'd like to connect, you can find me me on Facebook and X at the Creative Pen, or on Instagram and Facebook at Jfpen. Author Happy writing and I'll see you next time.