Color Outside the Lines, Go Outside Your Lane

“It’s okay not to be okay.”  (Clare Cunningham on Episode 490 of “Now Hear This Entertainment.”)  “I’m giving you permission to take a vacation from your problems.”  (Richard Dreyfus in “What About Bob?”)  I’m telling you it’s alright to go a bit off the beaten path.  (Me in this week’s blog.)

If you read the weekly e-newsletter and/or follow me and Now Hear This or even the podcast on social media, or perhaps even by listening to the podcast, you have observed the flurry of activity around me and the various clients being served as well as the great guests being booked and interviewed week after week after week.  And you’re probably asking yourself, “How is this all possible?”

In a roundabout way it takes me back to five months ago.  I was speaking at the San Francisco Writers Conference and someone in the audience said, “You even EDIT the podcast yourself?!  How are you doing all this?  Where do you get the time?”

The short answer is that Now Hear This, Inc. is not only me.

The longer and more appropriate answer as a teaching moment for this week’s blog is that I’m not limiting myself.  I encourage you to do the same.



When I go out and speak, I tell audiences you can’t be all things to all people, meaning, you can’t be on every social media platform.  But the fact is, you have to put yourself in different (multiple) places, both online and IRL, as the kids these days like to write (as shorthand for ‘in real life’).

I remember years ago when a friend who owns his own business told me I should just stick with one thing.  He felt it’s too tough to have a few different things that you’re doing.  Yet here I am all these years later and Now Hear This still provides publicist/management services, the podcast has been going every week for almost nine-and-a-half years now, and I do get out and do lots of speaking engagements.

So, if you’re a creator or entrepreneur looking for opportunities or collab partners or clients or whatever it looks like for you that you want more of, heed the advice I’ve given so often on NHTE.  Don’t just sit in the house (apartment, etc.) and wonder why you’re not getting more work.

This morning I did a phone consultation with someone who’s starting a podcast.  I met her earlier this month at the Florida Podcasters Association.  I recently had a Zoom call with an actress in New York who’s interested in publicist services from Now Hear This.  She had found me on Stage 32.  (In fact, there’s a playwright on there – also in New York, coincidentally – who saw a guest blog I recently wrote and is inquiring about PR services as well.)  There’s someone in the Midwest that I’ve been talking to about becoming a new client and that connection was made by way of my having interviewed them on the podcast.  If you’ve been listening to NHTE you’ve heard me talk about the Owwll app and through using that I got a new client.


For that matter, all this week I’m on location at the Lake Martin Songwriters Festival in Alabama.  A past podcast guest had gotten me to the first edition of this event two years ago, and by staying connected with the organizers we’re now working together for the third year in a row.

As much as people will use the popular expression, “Stay in your lane,” you might be limiting yourself.  If all you’re doing is staying in your lane yet aren’t getting the results you’d like, that probably means it’s time to step outside the lines a little bit.

Maybe baby step it and start by calling me on Owwll.  For close to 20 years now I’ve been helping indie music artists, authors, entrepreneurs, small business owners, podcasters, and more.  Give me a call through that app and let’s meet each other.  Use the opportunity to take advantage of all my years working with clients across the country so we can get you moving forward and see more results with what you do.