What does it mean to show up courageously in your life? Who exactly are you showing up for? Why is it important to keep showing up. In the 431st episode of The Copywriter Club Podcast, Rob sat down with author and story teller, Jude Charles, to answer those questions and more. This episode is a bit different from the typical discussions we have on the podcast, but we think you’re going to like it. Click the play button below, or scroll down for a full transcript.

Jude’s Book (audio)

Get The Questions

The Copywriter Club Facebook Group

The Copywriter Underground

Rob Marsh:  A couple of months ago, I scheduled a catch-up call with my friend Jude Charles. Jude has been a guest on the podcast and a speaker at several of our TCCIRL live events. But we hadn’t talked in several months so we hopped on Zoom to catch up on what we were both doing. During our catch-up, our discussion got personal and a bit vulnerable and we shared some of the things we were working on and working through. And we both realized we probably should have been recording the call because there are probably a few people who could benefit from the insights we were sharing.

Some of the questions that came up included… What lights you up in your day-to-day life? Or in your work? Who are you showing up for? Who are you making a difference for with your work? And what do you do each day that requires courage? 

It was too late to hit record on that discussion, but we scheduled a time to revisit some of these ideas and this time we did hit record. That’s what you’ll hear if you continue to listen in on this episode of The Copywriter Club Podcast. This discussion is a bit different from the typical interview we usually share, but I think you’re going to like the change in topic and tone—at least for this episode so keep listening.

But first, this episode is brought to you by The Copywriter Underground. You’ve heard me talk about the monthly trainings—the next one happens this week and is all about how to land a “real job” for a client where you are their PT or FT copywriter. That’s happening tomorrow on the day this episode goes live. And of course it will be recorded and shared in The Underground training vault along with dozens of other trainings on building your authority and audience, on launch strategy, on building an email list, on research, on creating new products and services and so much more. To get your hands on all that training for less than you’ll spend on a single night out with your spouse or partner, visit thecopywriterclub.com/tcu.

And now, let’s go to our discussion with Jude Charles. 

Welcome back to the podcast. You’ve been here before. You know the drill. You were on episode number 217, where you talked about the demonstration of proof. And then you came back for an ensemble episode, if I remember right, 279, where you were chatting a little bit about burnout with a couple of other people and just kind of talking about how copywriters can deal with that. You and I reconnected a couple of months ago and we were just chatting and I think it was, we were chatting. I can’t remember which one of us said this, but we were like, we should be recording this. Cause it was a really, really good discussion. And so I’m thrilled to have you back. So we normally start out with your story, but since we’ve done that before, just kind of catch us up. What’s been going on this last year or two?

Jude Charles: Yeah. So I, Ironically, I think I’ve been going through a process of reinvention, maybe for the last, it feels like the last five years, it’s probably been less than that. It started at TCC IRL, where we’ve talked about it. I don’t know if we’ve ever talked about it online, but offline, we’ve talked about how you challenged me to get on stage and to share my expertise and what I had to offer. I was scared out of my mind the first time I did it. It was back in 2019. I remember I had been to TCC IRL the first year, which was only about 50 people. And then I came back the next year and it was much bigger than I was expecting. But yeah, I remember just almost like walking away from that and saying, you know what, I can’t do this. Because I went to tech check the rehearsal. And I remember looking at the room and I’m just like, I can’t speak in front of all these people. Like, this is crazy. But I pushed past my comfort zone and did it. And that’s what started this journey that’s what I feel like has been a process of reinvention for the last five years, where I have been on over 150 podcasts as a guest. speaking and sharing and sharing my purpose, which I believe is to lead and empower entrepreneurs to have relentless courage, but also sharing just my own journey vulnerably about my experiences going beyond business. And so in the last two years, I have been contemplating this transition that I’d kind of put out in the atmosphere that I would walk away from video production. But I think in 2014, not 2014, 2024, what was of wild for me is that it was the year that I received the most messages from people that basically told me how I, through my voice, I changed their life. And I don’t know if I shared this with you, I had to have when we were talking last, because I think it had happened already, but I got this one email from a lady back in November, and it started with this line that immediately caught my attention. It was a very long email, and I wasn’t gonna read it at first, but it was this line at the beginning that said, my father died a week after walking me down the aisle.

Rob Marsh: That’s a great line. That is a really, really good hook. Sad, sad as well.

Jude Charles: Right, and she’s not a copywriter, I was just like, wait, where is this going? Because it’s in response to an email that I send out that you probably remember is the email that I talk about right before my 30th birthday, I went to Colombia, the country of Colombia, and got lost pretty much. And so at the end of the email, I asked readers, what did you do for your last birthday? And so she starts that way. And it’s like, wait, she’s not answering the question, but she’s going on this long journey. And ultimately, what she shared with me is that, She lost her dad back in 2010, right after she got married. And then most recently, she lost her uncle, which is her dad’s brother. And in losing her dad’s brother, she felt like she was losing this connection to her dad. And she was spending time remembering her dad. He used to wear this hat called Life is Good. And she was like, his whole life, he never wore a hat. But just about a month before he passed away, he started wearing this hat, and on the hat it said, life is good. She couldn’t figure out why he was wearing this hat. But in losing her uncle, thinking about her dad, she decided she needed to hear a calm voice. And so she looked up my name on the podcast app. 

Now, I don’t have a podcast, but like I mentioned, I’ve been on over 150 podcasts. And she’s obviously heard me on maybe one or two, and so she looked it up, and what she decided to click on was a podcast I did recently that’s not in her industry. She sells draperies and blinds, window blinds, right? But she clicked on a podcast that I think was called something like How to Grow Your Etsy Business or something like that. And she listens to this hour-long podcast, but in the last two minutes of this podcast, the podcast host asks me, hey, what books are you reading right now? And I share with her, you know, two books that I’m reading. And then she’s like, I want to send you this book. And I think you’ll really love it. The book is called Life is Good. And it’s behind the brand that is Life is Good. And it was all this lady needed that went to go listen to this podcast to feel a deep connection with her dad again. 

And Rob, as I read this email, I started crying because I think to myself how I downplay sometimes. about the idea of me getting on podcasts and sharing and talking and doing all these things. And of course, I get on and talk about storytelling and what I’ve done in the last 18 years. But then there are people who need, in a dire moment, they need something different. They need something deeper. And what are the odds that this lady clicks on something that is not in her industry, that she finds an answer to her problem that has nothing to do with video production or storytelling, which is what I do, but it’s exactly what she needed. 

And so this year, you asked me what I’ve been up to this last year is like figuring all of that out because the process of reinvention is not just about how do I grow in this industry that I’m in or how do I scale the business to this big thing? It’s like, how do you grow you? Right? And I know that’s the conversation we started and that’s what I’ve been thinking, even as I, every year I take two months off, June and December, I’m just coming off of my December break. And it’s a lot of what I spent time thinking about because when I did my analysis, I realized there were 16 different messages I got last year that I didn’t, I didn’t tally it up in the beginning. I wasn’t really paying attention to it in the beginning, but after going through the analysis and realizing, wait, I’m living out my purpose in a much different way than I expected. So that’s what I’ve been up to. That’s so interesting.

Rob Marsh: I want to ask you about, well, I want to go back basically to that first couple of talks, podcasts, whatever, because it’s really interesting to me that that was so hard for you because you’re the guy who’s behind the camera, forcing other people to step up and tell their stories. You’ve been doing that for years. Years, yep. And as soon as the tables are turned, it’s a struggle. Talk a little bit about that and the realization of how hard it is to put yourself, I mean, I’m guessing you found a new bit of compassion or empathy for the people that you’re talking to on the other side because now you’re not just the one telling them to do it. You’re the one that’s gone through that process yourself and you know how hard it is.

Jude Charles: Yeah, it was a 13-year process that I had my head down before I ever decided I was going to get on stage and talk about what I do, or not even just being on stage. It’s just public speaking in general. I had never really done public speaking before that. Other than doing presentations to clients, I had never taken the time to say, hey, this is my expertise. I’m going to share it with a wide audience and just see how it goes. I’d never uploaded YouTube videos or anything like that. Even though I had social media, I wasn’t promoting my business on social media. I was just putting up random pictures, random videos. 

And so, yeah, having gone through that first year, I’ll say, one, being on stage at TCC IRL gave me the courage, because it wasn’t just that I did it. That was cool. It was what people had to say after that really surprised me. They came up. I remember telling the skydiving story, and I started with that. I can’t remember her name, but there was someone that came up to me. She was one of the first people that came up to me after I got off stage, and she was just like, thank you for your vulnerability. She was like, I had no idea who you were, but in the first five minutes you told me this story, and she’s like, I feel like I know you now. 

And then another year at TCC, because I’ve spoken multiple years, I remember when I talked about burnout, there was another woman who came up and she was just like, I didn’t know what I was going through until you started sharing your story. And now I realize the symptoms, and I can go get help. It was never easy to tell these stories or to get on stage or to get on podcasts. I had no idea what I was doing. I didn’t know if it would work. What was most surprising is what people would take away from what I was sharing that in theory I knew was like, oh, this is something that was powerful for me, but I didn’t know it would be powerful for others. I think It was, I didn’t understand, like you mentioned, the empathy that, I didn’t understand what my clients are going through when they would be afraid of how they look on camera, or they would be afraid of how they sound even. A lot of people don’t like the way their voice sounds. 

Because I’ve wanted to get better at public speaking, every podcast I’ve ever been on, I go back and listen to. and now I get it. I’m like, what was I saying there? Why was I saying, or why do I sound like that? There are times I see myself on camera and I’m just like, I must have been tired that day. It hasn’t been easy, but I look at it as, it’s still not easy. Even getting on this podcast this morning, it’s still not easy. But I look at it as an opportunity to just be human, to forget everything else and just be human and have this one-on-one connection. I think about, I literally replay in my mind what is my purpose and it’s to lead and empower entrepreneurs to have relentless courage. And if I walk away just having given you more courage today, Rob, that’s all that matters. It doesn’t matter how I sound. It doesn’t matter if I’m getting the words out right. It just matters that I share what I have.

Rob Marsh: Yeah. I mean, this is tactical, but I struggled with the same thing. I mean, I’ve done the podcast now. We’re closing in on 470 episodes. There’s a bunch of unnumbered episodes beyond what we have. I go back. I listen to every one of them as we go through the edit process and I hear myself talk. I hate it. 450 plus episodes later, I still hate it. It’s not because I don’t like my voice. I’m fine with my voice, the way that I sound. It’s that even after doing this literally for 500 hours, I still sometimes stumble to get a question. I pause, like I’m doing right now. As I’m thinking, I say, um and all that stuff. And it just kills me to listen to it. And yet, I will say, I’m really proud of the fact that for seven and a half years, almost eight years, maybe eight years, I’ll have to add it all up, since 2017, January 1st, we have released at least one podcast episode every single week, never missed, which has been, I mean, it’s a great run, right? And I’ve heard like you from a lot of people who say this podcast is the thing that got them started on copywriting or taught them that they had permission to raise their prices or help them understand that something was even a niche. And so like you, I feel a responsibility in a lot of ways to keep showing up even though there are plenty of days when I sit down and I think the last thing I want to do today is edit a podcast, listen to my own voice, stumbling to ask a question. I just think we need a lot more of this from everybody. It’s probably not a podcast for most people. Maybe it’s a book or maybe it’s, you know, regularly posting something different, outstanding, whatever, wherever it is that people post. Or maybe it’s just calling up a friend and having it, you know, talking with them, somebody that you haven’t talked with in a few weeks, right? There’s so many ways that this shows up.

Jude Charles: What was it for you though that, like, yes, you mentioned you’ve done this pretty much at this point, 500 hours, 500 episodes, but what was it for you that was like, If I don’t show up, this person won’t get what they need. I’m asking specifically that thing because I think to your point of it’s hard on certain days where it’s just like, I don’t really want to do this. I don’t really want to write another email. I don’t want to get on stage and speak. What was it that shifted for you or that reminds you? Because for me, that story of this woman and life is good is now anchored. That’s my anchor point now. What was it for you? Was there a moment that got you?

Rob Marsh: There are two things. One is a moment, but the first thing is the habit. Because I have done it for so long, every single week, the habit is there. It’s on my calendar, it’s in the back of my head. If I don’t have podcast guests scheduled a few weeks out, I start thinking who can I talk to that would bring something of value, talk about something a little bit differently. or have a different kind of conversation. So that’s always there. So the habit kind of forces it to happen. But there are times when I’ve thought, okay, well, maybe now is the time to quit. So a couple of weeks ago, I addressed on the podcast that Kira is no longer actively participating in the business. And when she just made that decision, that was an opportunity to say, well, maybe now is the time to pull the plug and do something different. And I had a conversation with Linda Perry, my friend. You know Linda well, I believe. Yep. She’s been on the podcast four times, five times. An awesome individual. And as we were talking, she just said, you can’t stop this because too many people need this podcast, the information, the ideas, the connection. 

She didn’t necessarily say why, but I think a big part of that is copywriting and content writing and even marketing to some extent is a very lonely venture, especially those of us that are freelancing. Most of us don’t see another adult other than maybe our spouse the entire day, unless we happen to go grocery shopping or maybe you run out for your coffee or whatever it is. And so this connection that happens through a podcast and being able to have a discussion with you, it’s not just about you and me. But there are ultimately 5,000 to 7,000 people who are going to be listening to this over the next couple of weeks. And hopefully, they get something from that that makes them think a little bit less about, oh, I’m in on this all by myself. No, there’s an army of people doing this too. We just don’t have a great way of connecting with each other except for the Facebook groups and podcasting. 

I’ve mentioned this a couple of times. Podcasting is really personal because unlike every other kind of media in the world, television, magazines, books, billboards, whatever, all of that stuff happens outside of our heads. But because most of us listen to podcasts with headphones, the discussion actually happens inside between our ears. And so it’s very personal. It happens where we do our deepest thinking. And so the ability to bring great ideas or insights or things that people haven’t tried, or even conversations like this, and have it be inside your brain is just, I mean, for me, it’s really gratifying that I’m able to hopefully do that for people. And I’m not patting myself on the back here. I mean, I know there’s some value to a lot of the stuff that we share, but if I didn’t do it, I’m sure somebody else would do it, maybe in a different way. And so it’s not really about me, but it’s about this opportunity to have these kinds of conversations.

Jude Charles: I’d argue it’s not about you though, because I would not… So my journey of speaking and putting myself out there, stepping out of the shadows, that’s what I call it. When I made a conscious decision in 2019 to step out of the shadows, that started with you. And It started because I started listening to the podcast. The only reason I knew about TCC IRL, even though I’m not a copywriter, is because I had been thinking about, okay, what’s next? I had been in business 13 years at that point and I’m, it’s like, okay, I’ve been doing this a long time. I know it’s not my end game. So what’s next? How do I shift this? How do I go to something different? And listening to the podcast for me was really powerful because it showed me what was possible out there. 

But then coming to TCC IRL, and being, transparently, being one of the only few black people there, you can sit in a room and feel lost or feel invisible. and it was just you having a conversation with me saying, hey, I think you should be on stage. You never heard me speak before, but it was just like, you should be on stage. Just getting to know a little bit about what I had been doing, you’re like, you should be on stage and you challenged me because I wasn’t looking for that opportunity. That’s why I say I think some of it has to do with you because I think between you and Kira, you guys have an ability to see things in other people that they can’t see. You guys have been in copywriting for so long, doing great work that you understand the industries so deeply, and still having a student-like mentality, but what you bring, no one else can bring that. Are there other copywriting podcasts? Absolutely. Are there other copywriting resources? Absolutely. 

But truthfully, for me, I haven’t listened to any others or been a part of any other community other than TCC. And I think that has a lot to do with you. It has a lot to do with Kira. So I’d argue that because even for myself, like I mentioned, I downplayed a lot of just, oh, I just get on here and share storytelling. And maybe I share a little bit about who I am, but it’s not that deep. And I’m realizing it is. Because like you mentioned, not only copywriting, marketing is a very lonely world. Entrepreneurship is lonely. And you have to be, you have to make a conscious effort to say that no, I’m not gonna, I’m gonna seek help in whatever way you seek help, whether it’s watching YouTube videos, going to conferences, listening to podcasts. But then I’m actually gonna pay attention to what people are saying and do something about how I’m feeling. Entrepreneurship to me is spiritual. It’s a spiritual journey of stepping out on faith, of finding the thing that feeds your soul, and that happens through the connection we have with people. And I wouldn’t be where I am today. I know you don’t take any credit for where I am today, but I wouldn’t, I genuinely would not be here had it not been for you in New York looking at me and saying, no, you should be on stage.

Rob Marsh: It’s interesting you say that too, because I’m not sure, like you’re right. I did not know you. We had never had a conversation before that day and you were sitting there. Uh, but there was just like this, it was an idea. It’s a thought where it was just like, you need to talk to Jude and say he belongs on stage. Like, and so whether you want to look at that spiritually or whether that was just an idea that, you know, came to me because you happened to be there when I was thinking about what we do next year or next time or whatever. I don’t know how to assign the blame there, but I think you’re probably right. It probably is a spiritual thing. And maybe that was the thing you needed to hear at that time. And I just happened to be the vehicle for it. And I think that that’s why I wanted to have this discussion and record it because I think there’s so many people out there listening that are just waiting for that person to say, it’s time for you to do this. It’s time for you to take the next step. And because we’re all alone, it’s hard to get that person into our lives. to hear that voice.

Jude Charles: Sometimes people have already said it, but we’re not paying attention to it. I still had to make a conscious decision. After you said what you said, I think what my words to you were is I’ll think about it because I had never done it, but I still had to go back home and make a conscious decision. Am I going to do this? Rob has challenged me, but am I going to accept the challenge? Even like I said, I’ve looked at the last year, just what people have been saying. It’s like, okay, what do I do differently now that people have shared this with me? It’s easy. As we’re growing, we’re ambitious entrepreneurs and we want to make more money and all these things. It’s easy to focus so much on what’s missing that you miss what’s actually there.

Rob Marsh: Yeah.

Jude Charles: and what’s there are the strengths that you already have, the messages that you have received from people but you downplayed and like, oh, that thing you just told me I was good at that, oh, that’s nothing, so what, right? I’m not sure what you saw in me that day in 2018, I think it was. I don’t know what you saw, but I know I had to say, okay, he sees something I may not even know what it is. He may not know what it is, but I can nurture this. I can decide I’m gonna do this and figure it out. And I showed up authentically on stage. For those who probably don’t know, when I showed up to TCCIRL 2019, I wore a black cape.

Rob Marsh: By the way, we have that presentation inside the underground if anybody ever wants to check it out. And it’s a great presentation.

Jude Charles: Yes, but it was intimidating. It was intimidating because I am a filmmaker showing up in a room with copywriters, marketers and copywriters. It’s like, what is this guy doing here? I showed up authentically and people loved it and you guys kept inviting me back and so I kept wearing the black cape, but I still had to accept the call. As people think about how do I reinvent myself, it’s the top of the year, I probably didn’t meet my goals last year or I don’t like the way last year went. How do I reinvent myself? 

You got to think about, I think I think about two things often. How do you strengthen your strengths, number one, and number two, what have people shared with you? Message, whether it’s a DM, whether it is an email like I talked about, whether it’s whatever, what have people shared with you? that you’re downplaying, that is probably one of your strengths that you should lean more into. I never had the idea of speaking on stage or talking. I came to TCCIRA that first year because I was like, maybe I can combine copywriting with video. That’s all I was thinking. I was just thinking, how do I grow the business? I was never thinking about, how do I grow me? And going through that journey of speaking more often and now receiving these messages years later is just like, I’ve realized this whole entire time, the process of reinvention has been about growing me, and not just growing the business. 

Yeah, it’s great to make money and all those things, and I’ve done that, but I also needed to grow, and I needed to pay attention to what people were saying to me. It’s not my intention to go through like, oh, this is a spiritual journey, but maybe it really is. You are not some random person that is just here to exist and take up space, right? You’re here to fulfill a purpose, whatever that purpose may be. It may not be necessarily serving clients, but it may be, like you did for me, just sharing something, nudging me to say, I think you should be on stage, and it completely transformed my life. That to me is that spiritual journey that I don’t know how to define it other than you have to answer the call and the call has probably already been put out there.

Rob Marsh: That’s a really good point because most of us have that negative voice in our head, maybe all of us, so we’re always discounting what other people say, especially the good stuff. Of course, we’re magnifying any of the bad stuff that happens. you know, we’re unworthy or we don’t know enough, or there’s somebody out there that’s better at doing this thing. And so that’s always happening. And you even said, maybe that was happening a little bit after I extended the invitation, you sort of had to come over that kind of head trash and be willing to step out. But it’s one thing to say it, you know, oh yeah, you’ve got to take the next step or listen to the person or whatever. But let’s talk about what were the concrete things that you did as you started thinking through this because you didn’t just show up with a presentation. Rob extends an invitation and I know exactly what I’m going to talk about. So how did you get, and it’s not even really to that first presentation, it’s really to where you are today. What are some of those steps that you went through to figure out, okay, this is the next piece. This is the next part that I’m going to fit in here or that I’m going to stretch and reach out for?

Jude Charles: It’s a great question. If I think back to that first presentation I did with TCC IRL, I thought a lot about just what had I already done that I could talk about and how did it tie to copywriting? That was kind of my first thought. But before I even got there, I think Of course, there’s a question of, could I do this? Could I do it? Not just, okay, Rob has given me the opportunity, but could I really do it? I think that question I kept asking over and over, even, like I said, that day that I came to rehearsal to do the mic check, and seeing how big the room is, again, I’m asking myself, could I really do this? I think that question kept coming up for me, because I hadn’t really done it before. Um, what does this mean to do it? Like, what are the opportunities here? You know, I’ve, I’ve always been a risk taker. And I think that part helped me in, like I said, I’ve been an, at that point I was in business 13 years and I know even starting the business, I started the business very young. I was 17 years old. but it was me just kind of being naive, and I think that having that naive spirit helped me to continue to say, well, what’s the worst that could happen? Like, I know I’m gonna be scared. I’m going to, I was very worried about stumbling over my words and not coming off clearly, but I was like, what’s the worst that could happen? 

I could go to this event. I live in Florida, so I had to fly to New York, go to this event, look like an idiot on stage and I’ll never do it again, at least I tried. I think that’s the process that I went through in my mind was at least I tried. There’s a lot of things I tried that didn’t work out. This one happened to work out and I think I had to think through what am I going to do to make it work out. There’s a lot of things I’m not good at and I usually try to find ways to fortify what I’m not good at. A specific example is that when I was really scared to speak at TCC IRL on the day that we did mic check, I really was going through my brain on what I could say to you and Kira to say that I’m not going to do this. Like I really was thinking of all the lies that I could say. And then I really don’t remember, and I’ve been trying to remember how did this idea come up in my head, but I had an idea that I would just record my entire talk. I had written it out. 

So I was like, I’ll record it. And I recorded it on my phone, and then I put on headphones as I went to sleep, and I allowed it to play on repeat. What that did for me was gave me the confidence to speak the next day, because I was just so worried about messing up. So I was like, if I’m so worried about messing up, what can I do to not mess up? I could rehearse it for sure, and I started doing that, but I was like, I’m still not feeling it. So it was like, let me just record it, put it in my phone, let it play on repeat. I had never done that before. Other than playing music when I go to sleep sometimes, I’ve never done where I’m listening to myself give a talk over and over. I don’t know. I don’t know if I saw it on TV or something. I don’t know how I came up with the idea, but I did that and that’s what gave me the courage. Those are the practical steps. I’ve always kind of been a risk taker since I was young, but also I know the things I’m not good at. What can I do to make it easier for me to not necessarily be good at it, but at least get through it? I think that’s kind of what I went through.

Rob Marsh: So as you came off stage immediately, you’ve done the thing. You probably feel pretty good because there was, I think there was a standing ovation. There was, yeah. And people start giving you the feedback. Was your initial thought, good, that’s over, go back to what I’m doing? Or was it like a high and it’s like, I’m going to chase this thing? It was a high.

Jude Charles: It was a complete high. When I walked off stage, I’ll never forget that. I walked off stage and I breathed a very big sigh of relief like, damn, that’s done now. It was a sigh of relief, but it was also like, oh, I actually did good. Because like you mentioned, there was a standing ovation and I wasn’t expecting that. There were jokes that I had in my talk that I wasn’t sure if people were going to laugh. It all went well. But it was a high, not necessarily just getting off stage, it was the high that came after there was a line of people that came to talk to me. Because I think when I spoke, there was a break right after. And there was a line of people coming to talk to me. and it was what they shared of what they took away that I wasn’t expecting them to take away. I thought it was the tips that they were going to take away, but then something else happened that actually you don’t know about. Parris Lampropoulos was right after me, after the break. We had a lunch break and Parris was speaking right after. I remember, I think I’d hung around just because I was taking everything in. Everybody else went to lunch, but I was still sitting in the room just digesting what just happened, everybody that came and said something to me. I was watching Parris prepare for his talk. Parris was doing something that I’d never seen any speaker do. He was going around.

Rob Marsh: I think I know what you’re going to say because I was in the room and I was also, it was one of those things where it was like, wait a second, what is he doing?

Jude Charles: He was walking around touching every chair. And I was like, I’ve never seen this before. But I walked up to him and I asked him. And I was just like, I see you touching every chair, what are you doing? And he ended up telling me, he was just like, his whole idea is about owning the room. He learned it from his mentor, his speaking mentor, own the room. But then he also shared something else with me that I use now. Because I haven’t done the touch the chair thing. That’s very spiritual too, but I haven’t done that. But he gave me another tip that was, he was like, find someone in the front of the room. He was like, it can be very intimidating speaking to a big room of people. I wish he would have told me this before I spoke. But he was like, find the person at the beginning, at the front of the room, the beginning of your talk. And he was like, just look at that person, lock eyes with them the whole time. And he was like, locking eyes with that person owns the room too. Because you forget about everybody else that’s in the room and you’re just talking to one person. And he was like, find that person. And so I’ve been doing that ever since, at least when I get on stage. And when I’m giving stories, there’s stories that are sometimes difficult to share, like when I lost my dad or things like that. And there’s parts in the story where I really lock in, because I’m like, I can’t look around the room. This is too difficult. I need to focus. And so I focus on the person. So I think it was the high, but truthfully, I think it was that, because at that point, I was watching a master. Parris was not only a master in copywriting, but then I’m watching a master who speaks, and he gave a great talk too when I watched it after. It was like, oh, this can be something fun. And so I think it was definitely the high, but it wasn’t just the high of being on stage, it was the high of impact. And it was the high of, if I do this right, if I master this, I unlock something completely different in myself that I didn’t even know I needed to unlock.

Rob Marsh: Your advice or Parris’s advice to find that one person to lock in with, I think is also good advice for podcasts. I think a lot of people are hesitant to go on podcasts because they’re thinking a couple hundred, a couple thousand, maybe a million people will hear me make a fool of myself. And the reality is we’re locked on talking to the guest or to the host, right? And you only have to talk to that one person. And it’s not about the hundreds of listeners who might stumble across whatever it is that you share or talk about. Obviously, you want to show up for a podcast prepared with some notes about what you want to share, or at least an idea of what you’re going to be talking about. so that you don’t make a complete fool of yourself. But you know, when you pitch podcasts, I’m not talking about you specifically Jude, but like all of us, it’s really a one-on-one conversation that then we as audience members get to listen in on and learn from. And so I think that same approach works not just for speaking on stage, but for almost any conversation that we have.

Jude Charles: Yes, it takes this grand idea, this grand thing, or at least something that in our mind we’re making big deal, and it really boils it down to this is how simple it could be. It’s like finding clarity and constraints. I talked about earlier how it’s easy to focus so much on what’s missing that you miss what’s there. And sometimes we can get held back thinking about what holds you back, the things that you’re trying to get to this point in your future, in your life, but you’re so focused on what’s holding you back. That very thing might be the thing to help you move forward. The best time I can think and strategize and write and all these things is when I’m locked in an airplane, in the air, and I can’t do anything else. No Wi-Fi. and I can’t do anything else. And that’s when the best ideas come to me. It’s a constraint. I think it’s the same like you’re talking about with being on a podcast. There’s this constraint. Yes, there might be thousands, hundreds of thousands of people listening or who might hear this, but it’s just me and you right now. And if I just focus on that and even in recording this, we didn’t have much conversation early on because you knew Last time we talked, we needed to record this. Let’s just jump into it. Because of that constraint of time, we’re now having this conversation. I had no idea where it would go, what we would talk about. I didn’t even remember the Parris story until we started talking about it, but that’s that clarity that comes from, yes, I have this thing that is, quote, unquote, holding me back, but what if I looked at that constraint as an elevation instead of a limitation, right? This is the thing to elevate me to the next level, not to hold me back. I try to remind myself of that all the time. The only limitation you have is the one that you create. And I think it’s easy to discount, it’s easy to downplay, it’s easy to give up and say, no, I shouldn’t do that. I’d rather take the risk, try and keep trying. I’ve tried things that at first didn’t feel good. I’m thinking about something. I transitioned to, it wasn’t a complete transition, but I decided to go into a niche. where I would do documentary series for interior designers. So I had been doing documentaries for just entrepreneurs, any type of entrepreneur, as long as they were running a high-level business and they wanted to tell their story, I would do their docu-series. But then I kind of fell into this niche of interior designers, and I remember giving a talk, or going to give a talk once, and I had just decided I’m going all in on this industry, and I had reached out to over 200 interior designers. Cold email. And some of them who had known me, because I’d been on interior design podcasts, some that didn’t. But in their own way, over 200 people that I spoke to, some that I got on calls with, I think maybe about 70 people I got on calls with out of that 200. And in their own way, each one told me no. Or not now, right? And then I remember going to an event in Orlando And I was walking through the hotel before I was speaking at this event. It’s an interior design focused event. I’m speaking at the event. And I remember walking through the hallways and I’m seeing faces and I’m seeing names and they’re saying hi to me. And over and over, it’s these people that have told me no. And immediately I get hit with a wave of rejection because I’m like, It’s one thing to get no through a Zoom call. It’s one thing to get no one at a time. Now I’m having to see their faces. I’m being met with this wave of rejection and I’m like, I got to get out of here. And I had to go back to my room, and I literally, probably almost the same kind of process that I took myself through with, I didn’t record myself, but the same process I took myself through with TCC IRL, I just had to go back to my room and figure out what’s really happening here, because it’s never happened to me before. And I remember, Thinking, going back and thinking about my why, which is to lead and empower entrepreneurs to have relentless courage. And I remember there was a year at TCC IRL, I think it was 2022, the last one, that I was going through burnout and I really didn’t want to be there. Not because I didn’t like TCC IRL, but I was tired.

Rob Marsh: Right.

Jude Charles: And I did accept the invitation, but I was just so tired, still going through burnout. But I remember writing on my watch band. I have an Apple watch and one of my bands are white. And I remember writing something to the effect of, I’m showing up for the one who’s afraid of being in the room right now. And I took myself through that same thought process when I gave this talk in 2023 at the interior design event. And I did my Jenga presentation that I did at TCC IRL. And I remember there was a woman in the room who, one of my last pieces is courage. So I, for those who don’t know, I do a Jenga exercise. where I throw out these pieces and on the pieces, there are words written on the pieces. And one of my last words is courage. And I usually leave that for that one person. I just feel like in the room, they need it most. And I try to figure out who that is, because I have conversations in advance and I try to figure out who’s that person that just needs it most. The year at TCCIRL, gosh, your name just escaped me, but there was the one I went- Was it Robin? Robin, yes, Robin Crump. I wanted her to speak or get on stage and start speaking, so I gave her the courage piece. But there was a woman at this interior design event who was crying the entire time, uncontrollably crying. And I didn’t wanna bring attention to it, so I didn’t throw her the piece, but I went and handed her the piece right after. And she came up to me and she was just like, I don’t know how you knew I needed this. And she was like, this year has just been so hard, and listening to you talk about what you’ve gone through, I needed that courage, I needed this piece. And she was like, I’m gonna put it on my desk, and it’s gonna be my reminder to just have courage every time it gets hard. And I remember thinking after that, I got hit with all this wave of rejection, but luckily I looked back at what is my why? Why am I here? Show up for that one person. And she was the one that needed it most. And that’s… There’s this, I can focus on so much on what’s missing that I miss what’s there, and I would have missed the opportunity to help that one person that, not the whole room, but that one that needed it most. My process of reinvention has been that, just focusing on the one. Not the 10 different people, not the 10 different things I need to do. What’s the one thing? If I do that, it will mean the world. It will mean more than money. It will mean more than anything selfish that I could think of. It would just mean that that one person got impacted. I try to think in terms of that, that constraint is what I give myself and that’s what gives me the clarity to keep showing up and to keep reinventing myself. Yeah, and so I think, yeah, we drill down into the one, we drill down into that thing and that’s what keeps us going.

Rob Marsh: That’s one of the questions that you asked me last time we talked a couple of months ago, is you asked me, who am I showing up for? And I think this is a really good question to ask ourselves anytime. Obviously, there are answers like, well, I’m doing this for my family. I’m providing, you know, those, but in some ways, those are the easy answers. Yeah, because yeah, everybody has to earn a living, at least to some level. And yes, you have to care for the people who you’ve brought into the world or that you’ve partnered with in some way. But there are a lot of other people out there, too, that we should be showing up for or that we could be showing up for and make a massive difference. And I guess this is sort of leading into my question. You do a retreat, like you said, twice a year where you just go and think. I want to know a little bit more about the process and some of the questions that you’re asking yourself. Now, I’m not saying everybody should do a month off twice a year, although that sure sounds nice. I think my wife would kill me if I disappeared for that long. But there is a place for this kind of self-reflection where you can go deep and say, not just who am I showing up for, but how do I reinvent? What are the next steps? And how do you identify those questions and then what are the steps?

Jude Charles: The questions, I’ll start with that. The questions I ask myself, this is a long list, but a lot of it stems around what worked and what didn’t work. What do I wanna start doing? What do I wanna stop doing? I do it, I first started, when I first started this, it was 2013, and I used to do it every November, December. I would take those two months off. And it would work out because business would be slow in that time, it’s the holidays, and I knew I needed that break. After burnout in 2020, I started doing it June and December because it gives me five months of working and one month off. It gives me that cadence. So five months working, one month off, five months working, one month off. And I love it because instead of trying to plan out the whole year, I just focus on the next five months, that next block of five months. And I… When I go on, so June is a bit more of a slowdown, I don’t completely unplug, it’s just I slow down, I don’t do as much work. December is where I completely unplug. And I sit and ask myself those questions of like, what worked, what didn’t work? How did I grow personally? What business and personal challenges did I have? And asking myself those questions, it’s not a one day thing. I think about it, I give some answers, and then I come back to it. and asking myself those questions, it really challenges me to call myself out on BS and to celebrate the wins that I’ve had too. It’s easy to focus so much on what’s wrong or what happened that’s bad because maybe you didn’t meet your goals, but you got to celebrate what happened that was good too. Last year, something that I celebrated is pushing through So when I first decided to go all in on this interior design focused docu-series offering, it was 2023. And like I mentioned, it didn’t go as great as I thought it would go. Well, 2024, I stuck out with it, continued to pitch and find a way to make it work. And I did four interior design focused docu-series last year. And I celebrated that because I started with zero and started with thinking it was going to be a lot easier than what it ended up being. But each and every one that I did in 2024 were amazing projects. Even the last one that I did, I ended up loving that one the most, but they were amazing projects. So I celebrated that. I celebrated how much I grew spiritually, that I did go deeper into my faith and how I how I responded to challenging situations that I felt like I wasn’t responding well to. So I celebrate those things. And then I find the gaps. What do I want to do better? What’s not working? One of the questions that I love, and this came later, it didn’t come at the beginning when I started doing this, but maybe in the last two years, there’s a question I ask myself. So there’s the 80-20 rule, basically that 20% of your input will give you the 80% of results that you’re looking for. But then I found, and I can’t remember how I found it, but I found this idea that what is the 20% of the 20%? What’s that?

Rob Marsh: That’s something Perry Marshall talks about this a lot. The 20% of the 20%.

Jude Charles: Right. And that extra 20%, I did the calculations on it and I realized it’s not really an extra 20. It’s when you put it together, it’s 24%, right? It’s just an extra 4%. But what was, what is that? that really got you what you were looking for? And that question is the game changer for me. I didn’t always notice it. Last year, I took a break from podcasting as a guest, but podcasting has been the biggest difference maker in me, not just my business. In my business, I can definitely account to, at this point, I think maybe about $600,000 worth of business because I started guest podcasting. In me, it’s made a bigger difference. I wouldn’t know that had I not slown down to ask myself the question, to really dig deep, to really look at numbers, to really look at, okay, these are all the messages I got. Why does this matter? All these things. It’s so easy to just keep going and trying to reach the goal, but you need to slow down to speed up. You need to slow down and ask yourself these questions, go really deep, figure out if there’s things that didn’t work, why didn’t it work? What’s the real route? Something I learned last year about myself, I started putting too much pressure on certain goals that I wouldn’t even reach the goal at all because I’m putting so much pressure on it. Instead of focusing on what’s the next thing I need to do to reach the goal, not just the pressure, but What’s the next thing? So for example, if I wanted to close a certain amount of clients, it’s not, oh, I gotta close the client, I gotta close the client. How do I set up the one-on-one to have breakfast with them so we have a deeper conversation, right? And that was something I was messing up last year. I definitely don’t recommend two months for every person. I need two months. So that’s why you gotta figure out what you need, but I do recommend at least three weeks. The first week is usually, it takes a while to decompress and to really slow down. Trying to get all of the bad vibes out of your life, yeah. Exactly. So that first week is difficult. Second week, you’re kind of getting into, you’re starting to feel relaxed. At least for me, I don’t always feel as relaxed the second, but that third week is where it really hits. I’m like, okay, this feels good. So I always recommend at least three weeks consecutively. and one of those three weeks by yourself. I know it’s challenging when you have a spouse and kids, but that time by yourself where you’re not, there’s no noise, you’re really learning to think, what do you think? Because obviously social media and TV and YouTube and all these things, I have to ask myself, okay, I get it. I may believe in certain things that people talk about, but what does Jude think? And why does Jude think that? And do I need to challenge the way that I think? Am I being loyal to an old version of Jude that no longer serves me? I am constantly asking myself, how do I grow? How do I push myself? These questions, there’s a whole list, and I can share it, but that’s what gets me to open up and to really, to just be able to flow. I wouldn’t be able to do it without the breaks.

Rob Marsh: Tactically, do you go into this thing, you turn off Netflix, you don’t take any books with you? Is it true silence, only letting your thoughts do it all? Or are you thinking, actually, I want to do some thinking around some questions that is in a particular book or a podcast that I heard. How does that all come together?

Jude Charles: Complete technology, what’s the word I’m looking for? I turn off all technology. Is it going to diet? Yeah, pretty much, right? A technology diet where even for my phone, I don’t look at my phone. Only time I might look at it is in the morning to check in and let people know I’m alive. I don’t look at my phone, I don’t watch TV, I don’t listen to anything. I do have physical books that I take with me. So sometimes I’ll go to a cabin for a week, and I love doing that because it’s in the wilderness, it’s completely quiet, unless you’re hearing nature. But every digital thing is completely turned off. And again, part of that is because it’s overstimulation for me. I’m trying to decompress and destimulate, and I don’t want to have any kind of influence. And so, yeah, the books that I take are books that I read every year. So, like, the one thing is a book that I read every year. There’s a book called Detours that I read every year now. It wasn’t always the case, but I read that now. And there were books that changed my life. Like, the one thing really, really changed my life. Another book is, gosh, I can’t remember the name of it. There’s another book, but there’s like, there might be two or three books that I take with me. And I remind myself of like, why did this change my life? Or what is it something new that I can learn from this book? And then it’s just the assessment. So it’s the assessment, it’s the books, and that’s it. And a lot of sleep, a lot of quiet time. and a lot of walking in nature. Even if I don’t go away to a cabin, I try to take long walks, so two, three hour walks. I think best when I walk, so I walk daily now, and I exercise a few times a week, but I like to, my best thinking comes from when I walk, so I like to walk a lot when I’m on sabbatical. This last sabbatical was a bit challenging, because there was a family member that passed away. And I thought a lot about legacy and what that means. He was 90 years old, and he left an amazing legacy. And I tried to think a lot about, well, how am I living my legacy now? So that’s the practical. It’s a lot of thinking. It’s a lot of internal thinking and some people are afraid to sit with themselves because it’s deep internal work. But honestly, I would not have grown the business where it’s grown to had I not done this deep internal work. It’s the most important work I’ve ever done in my life that will help me be a great person, not just a great entrepreneur, but a great person.

Rob Marsh: As a podcaster, I hesitate to say we need to turn off the podcasts and pull out the earbuds and all of that. Certainly true of all of the other podcasts that are out there, but you’re right. If there’s always a book going on, I mean, going back to what I said about, you know, that consuming information internally, if you’ve always got headphones on, whether it’s music or books or podcasts, or you’re always watching Netflix, or you’re always engaging on TikTok or Twitter or whatever, it’s hard to hear your own voice at all. And we’re just inundated with everybody else’s voice. And not only that, it’s usually not uplifting. It’s usually not the kind of stuff that helps us grow. It’s information Twinkies that we’re consuming because it tastes good and it feels good, but it doesn’t leave us feeling good ultimately long term.

Jude Charles: Yeah, it doesn’t leave us feeling good. It leaves us feeling empty. And we try to fill that emptiness with noise. And I’m trying to fill it with, I don’t know exactly what I would call it, but just what feeds me, not just the noise, but the transformation that I’m seeking. Am I growing? Am I truly growing? And not growing financially, not growing because I have more things, Has my thinking changed? Has it evolved? Something else I had to ask myself is, with this last election, do I really know where I live? It was really eye-opening to me to pay attention to everything that was going on with the election. It’s not about sides or anything like that, it’s just understanding people. And I don’t think I really understood people. I mean, to some degree, yes, because I’m in marketing and I understand human psychology, but I think that’s shifting. And I think it’s evolving in a much different way than we’ve ever anticipated, not just because of the election, but I think because of social media, because of artificial intelligence. And I had to look at, okay, what role do I play in that? How am I gonna go deeper with understanding people? It’s not just about what I think and trying to force them to think what I think. Why do they think the way that they think? Where is that coming from? And understanding people, it’s probably the reason I love storytelling, is storytelling is what truly helps you understand people and their worldview. But yeah, it’s so much deeper, and it’s probably deeper than most people are wanting to go and think about. But to me, that is the gift of life, is to go that deep and to transform so you can help others transform.

Rob Marsh: So we’ve pretty much been answering this question for the last hour, but with a minute or two that we have remaining, Jude, who are you showing up for in 2025?

Jude Charles:  I’m showing up for the person who is tired, who is unsure about what the next step of their life is, who feels exhausted by life and needs courage to step into the calling that they have been called to step into. I’m showing up for that person. To lead and empower them to have relentless courage. Every word of my purpose is very intentional. To lead means that I’m guiding you on this journey. To empower you means that you have it, you hold it. So I’m gonna guide you. It’s not just me telling you what to do or me just trying to get you to think what I think, but I’m empowering you to have it, to obtain it so that after I’ve left you, you can continue to have it. Relentless courage, relentless means it’s unwavering, you don’t stop no matter what gets in the way. And then courage is obviously to be bold and to step into it. That’s what I’m showing up for, is to lead and empower entrepreneurs to have relentless courage so that they can do whatever it is that they wanna do, not just what I think they should do. What do you wanna do? And go out there and do it. It’s a pretty good mission.

Rob Marsh: If somebody wants to follow you or connect with you, I know we’ve shared your book in the past, your emails, which are always insightful. They’re almost never short. It’s not the candy that a lot of emails are, including some of mine, but they’re thought out deep. Where should people go if they want that kind of thinking from you?

Jude Charles: So I’ll share the, I didn’t plan on this, but I’ll have it ready by the time this goes live. I’ll share the questions that I asked on my break. If you go to juicecharles.co forward slash TCC, I’ll have that download for you, and it’ll give you the questions to ask yourself to go deeper, to understand how do you reinvent yourself, how do you, How do you find out what value do I have or who do I want to become? JuCharles.co forward slash TCC. And then if you’re inclined to join the newsletter, that’ll give you the opportunity to join the newsletter too, but JuCharles.co forward slash TCC. And that’s how to find me, connect with me and go deeper.

Rob Marsh: I’m already on your list, but I’m definitely gonna go download the questions. So thanks Jude for taking the time to really have a different kind of conversation than what we typically do here on, at least on this podcast. So thank you so much for sharing so much about yourself.

Jude Charles: Thank you for having me back, man. It was a great conversation, and I don’t often get to share these kind of things, so it was good to dive deep into it. Yeah, if there’s one last message I want to leave everyone with, the only limitation you have is the one that you create. That’s great.

Rob Marsh: Great way to end. I will always be grateful that you came to that first TCC IRL, because, well, I got a friend out of it. So yeah, it’s great. Thank you so much. Thank you, Rob. for getting so personal with me on what it means to show up in your business and how to think about what’s next. Jude collected the questions that he asks himself each time that he takes a month off to think. And you can get on that list. You can get that list of questions at judecharles.co/tcc. 

Those questions will give you something to think about in your own business, regardless of whether you take off an entire month to do it. and they’ll possibly help you discover what’s next for you. Jude is obviously very deliberate in his process and there’s a lot that we can learn from him, so download those questions now. There’s a similar list of questions to ask yourself about your business in The Copywriter Underground. It’s part of our quarterly or annual planning process training that we’ve conducted in the past. A recording of that process is available right now in the Underground, so if you’re a member you can check those out now, and if you’re not a member, You can fix that by going to thecopyrighterclub.com/tcu and signing up. You’ll get that training plus more than 30 templates and dozens of other workshops and trainings to help you grow your copywriting or content writing business. 

Obviously this whole episode is about courage, the courage to show up for yourself, for your clients, for your audience, for your family, and for others. But the thing about courage is you don’t get courage and then act courageously. Courage is acquired in the doing. You move forward and you gain courage as you go. So you can’t afford to wait for courage to tell you that you’re ready for whatever it is that you’re waiting to do. Get started and the courage is going to follow.