When you write, you think better: The untold benefit of writing - with Jennifer Wright - Mind Blend

Episode Transcript
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(00:01):
Welcome to the show Mind Blend. I'm your host, Karen Chong, and
I'll be diving into the minds ofincredible people, each an
expert in their very own way. Together, we'll uncover insights
and share ideas so you can be inspired and empowered to
navigate your own unique journeyin life.
Ready to get curious and discover what's possible?

(00:22):
Let's blend. So most people think of writing
only as a communication or content creation tool.
But turns out there's more. So today we will talk about all
things writing with Jennifer Wright, no pun intended.
She's a seasoned author, editor and publisher, a comedian and a

(00:45):
leadership coach, so she shows professional how writing serves
as a performance enhancement tool, essentially mental
training that directly impacts your bottom line and career
trajectory. Welcome to wine Band, Jennifer.
Thank you. Thank you.
I'm excited to be here. I'm excited to talk to you as
well. So let's start with how you got

(01:06):
to where you are today and what you're doing today.
Oh gosh, it's been a journey. So I spent quite a few years in
Cororate doing business rocess strategy execution, but there
was always a part of me that wanted to be, I was actually a,
an English major in college and I was an English teacher very

(01:27):
early in my career. So I, I've been a writer for,
you know, as long as I can remember.
So I stepped out of corporate several years ago and tried my
hands at being a freelance copywriter.
I enjoyed it, but that world wasit was new and it was
challenging. So I ended up kind of being

(01:48):
pulled back into corporate, but I always knew that I wanted to
step back out at some point and really do something more
meaningful. And about 10 years ago, a friend
asked me to help her write a book.
I didn't know how to write a book.
She didn't know how to write a book.
So we we kind of tackled it together and we did that.
And then we wrote her second book together about four years

(02:10):
ago. And then people just started
showing up asking for that kind of help.
I used a lot of my organizational skills that I had
learned from being a business process expert and a project
manager. So a lot of it was the
organization of the book. It was the organization of the

(02:30):
content and all of her ideas to pull it all together.
And then the other thing that I used was my interview skills
that I had kind of learned on the job as well.
So I spent a lot of time interviewing her and kind of
pulling information out of her and then just getting it down on
paper and being creative with itand, and putting it all
together. And it was such an enjoyable

(02:53):
process, particularly the two ofus working together.
We took a couple of weekends away, we called them our writing
retreat and we've worked on the book.
And so and then when we your second book, we did the same
thing. We went away for like a four day
weekend and kind of worked on it.
And so it was just such an enjoyable process and such a

(03:14):
collaborative process. And then as other people kind of
saw us doing that and wanted thesame thing, and I decided I
thought, you know, I think that might be something I could
really do for people. So I stepped out of corporate
again about 3 years ago. And since then, I've been really

(03:37):
kind of building the business around helping people to write
their books. It's helping them sort of like
an extra tutor, almost a. Little bit, yeah, I take, I take
a much more educational approach, although if someone,
I've had a couple of people thathave been interested in really
kind of having someone do it forthem more like a ghost writer.

(03:59):
So certainly could certainly do that if that's what someone's
looking for. But it it's really more advice.
I've had quite a few people who are looking at creating their
memoirs, or they're looking at creating, taking their
experiences and turning them into ways to help other people.
And we look at that and we look at who the audience is, and we

(04:22):
look at the type of information they're sharing and how they can
make it better and how they can make sure that it's resonating
with their audience. I know a few self published
writers in my circle, like in just the past year these people
have dramatically increased. So I don't know why I see the

(04:44):
desire to kind of spread their message.
Similar to what I'm doing with the podcast.
I want to spread the message andthey want to write a book.
So what do you think writing does to us?
So I've been doing some researchrecently on that topic and I'm
finding I sort of, I've always kind of known what it did for me
personally, it's like meditation.

(05:07):
It's a way to get things out of me that I can't necessarily say.
It's a way to help calm myself when I'm feeling very anxious.
It helps with my memory. If I write something down, I
remember it much more easily than if I don't.
I had this idea that writing canbe a mental health tool and but

(05:30):
I didn't know exactly how it worked.
And so I really started doing some research and I what one of
the things I've discovered is there's a lot of data out there
about how writing and specifically handed paper, like
pen to paper writing, how it helps cognition, it helps

(05:52):
learning, it helps memory. There was a study done recently,
the scientists took or psychologists took a number of
subjects. They did brain scans on these
subjects as they were writing. And they discovered that in the
brain scans, their entire brain lit up when they were writing on
paper. So it was affecting the

(06:15):
cognitive part of their brain, the memory part of their brain.
Even the parts of the brain thatdeal with hearing and eyesight
was being affected as they were writing.
So it helps so many different parts of the brain.
It helps to stimulate it. The other thing it does is it
opens up neural pathways. So the neural pathways are what

(06:37):
help us learn. So the more we write, the better
we get at learning. We also learn to our spelling,
improves our grammar, improves our understanding of complex
ideas can improve through writing in addition to reading.

(06:57):
So reading helps those as well. So it's there's just so many
different benefits. The other benefit that's really
interesting is it can help with trauma.
It can. Help with trauma with.
Trauma, yes So for someone who has gone through a traumatic
experience at some point in our lives, we all have probably had

(07:20):
some level of trauma. What writing can do is help that
person to talk about the what happened to them or write about
what happened to them without necessarily experiencing the
emotions. So sometimes when you talk about
an event, I've experienced this,you've probably experienced

(07:41):
this, you might get choked up. You can't say the words, you
can't necessarily say everythingthat you wanted to say about the
event. Writing, In a lot of cases, a
person can actually share much more about the event when
they're writing then they can when they're trying to speak

(08:04):
about it. You can separate it from the
heavy emotions that you're feeling while trying to kind of
relive that experience. So it helps people to actually
get those, get the words out without necessarily getting kind
of caught up in the emotion. So it's can be a pretty powerful
tool for dealing with a traumatic event.

(08:29):
And of course, I always believe that pen to paper writing is
better because I do think that there's your brain just operates
differently when you're writing pen to paper.
However, if you're not comfortable with that and you
really want to write on a keyboard, there is still benefit

(08:50):
to doing that. But, but there's, there are a
lot of benefits to pen to paper writing.
And as a matter of fact, when I'm talking to authors, that's
one of the thing I recommend when they're dealing with
writer's block. If you're trying to type and
you're having a hard time getting everything out, switch
over to like a pad of paper and a pencil.

(09:13):
Or I like writing with a pencil because there's something about
the feeling of the pencil that Ilike.
It can be a pen, it can be colored markers, it can be
whatever, but it can actually bea great tool to break writer's
block by trying to write in a different way, like trying to
write pen to paper. It can actually free up some

(09:34):
different parts of your brain and help you to maybe generate
some some new ideas. Yeah, I can imagine just like
changing your environment and sewing from physical, because
there's a little bit more physical in the writing on paper
than typing and the energy, the effort to draw the word onto

(09:54):
paper, I feel like there's relationship between that and
how it ingrains in your brain. So let's say if for people who
grew up writing on paper how theword should look like, maybe
more ingrained in their brain. Yeah, so it.
Improves the spelling because right now you just type whatever
it auto corrects it for you. You don't even know that it's

(10:15):
not spelled right, Right. Yeah, I can definitely relate to
that. Like, I think now I don't think
I'm able to write an essay or, like, back in school days, you
have to write an essay in an hour.
That's the exam. I don't think I do that anymore.
Right? It's just talking to a friend
because she's doing, like, grad school.
And then she has to do that in the exam.

(10:37):
And she's like, oh, my God, like, how did I do it when I was
in school? Right.
So, yeah, yeah. And it is, it's also, it is a
learned skill. When I talk to people about
writing books or maybe not even writing a book, just writing an
article or writing, you know, a smaller piece, I hear a lot of
people say, oh, I've got a lot of ideas, but I'm not a good

(10:58):
writer. And writing is a learned skill.
It is not something we're born knowing how to do.
The more you do it, the better you get at it.
Just like if you're learning to play piano or guitar or learning
a sport or anything like that, the more you do is so that it's
practice. So I really encourage people

(11:20):
when when they're feeling that way and they do want to really
write more to find a way to practice.
Journaling is a what great way to practice or just even if it's
not a journal per SE, just writing on a regular basis.
Even, you know, you can write, you were saying essays, you can

(11:40):
write, just write list of ideas.See, I mean, there's, there's a
lot of ways to practice. I encourage people to.
So one of the ways that you can practice writing is by finding
writing prompts. And if you go out on the
Internet, you can search on writing prompts and you can find
thousands of them. And a writing prompt is just,

(12:00):
it's a short sentence that gets you, gets an idea started.
So it may say something like write about your first job.
So it's just, it's just a list of like these short sentences
that just get you, give you an idea of something to write about
and it, and it's kind of amazingwhen you sort of have something

(12:22):
to start with, how much you can get out.
There's a couple of other other techniques too.
So, so one way you can do it is there's sort of these regular
prompts that you can use. So you can say to yourself, I
don't like and then finish the sentence, or I don't believe and

(12:44):
finish the sentence, or I do believe and finish the sentence.
So there's some kind of like, ifyou get yourself stuck, you can
say something to yourself, I believe, and then see what comes
out. Sometimes it's just a matter of
just a little something to get it started.
And the more you write, the moreyou want to write because it

(13:08):
builds your confidence, it builds your skill and it builds
your confidence and it makes youwant to do more of it.
Typically not everybody, but, but you know, a lot of people.
So the people you have helped, like your clients or the people
you coach, how have you seen them change from when they first
started coming to you to when you're done with helping them?

(13:30):
So one of the things that we do when we first start talking is
we we talk about goals because not everyone's goals are the
same. Some people want to write and
their goal is to sell, you know,a lot of copies of their book.
Some people want to create something that they can use to

(13:51):
maybe become a professional speaker.
So they have something, if they're, if they're on speaking
stages, they have something thatthey can either sell to the
audience or they'll give away. Well, I work a lot with people
who own businesses. They're small business owners,
so they're looking to share their information, share their
experience and really kind of raise their credibility in the

(14:14):
marketplace. And maybe maybe one of their
goals is to have something have a leaf behind that they like.
If they go to a client, they canleave a book behind that has
their name on it. It's a it's a really nice
business card. Yeah.
And I tell people, I said, if you have a book and you give it
to someone, a business card, they may look at the business

(14:37):
card, they may capture the information and then it'll
probably go in the trash. They're not going to do that
with book. It's going to sit on their
calendar. It's going to go on their
bookshelf. It's going to and they're going
to see it periodically. So it's, it's a really nice way
to stay in touch with people. There are also some people and
there's some very, very successful people who have

(15:00):
turned their books into programsand, you know, ways to really
get themselves out in the marketplace.
So it's really all about their goals.
So we understand what their goals are with their book.
And then then it's we're creating the book and we're
creating kind of the plan aroundwhat to do with the book.

(15:22):
We do that against what their goals are.
So for the most part, my clientsare small business owners.
Their goal is to have something that tells their story, gets
their information out into the world and helps really helps
kind of raise their visibility for their business.
And for the most part, they havebeen able to do that.

(15:43):
You know, their businesses have grown.
And what I really love is those who are then able to take that
all of that information because it takes a long time to write a
book. There's a lot of work that goes
into it. And why not use all that
information in other ways? So those who have been able to

(16:03):
take their books and turn it into other things like programs,
classes, workshops, those are the ones that I'm, I really love
because it's so you're not just putting out a book and kind of
crossing your fingers and hopingpeople buy it.
You're really using it to help people.

(16:25):
And those, those are the ones I I really love working with, you
know, with those kinds of projects.
So earlier you mentioned that when you were partnering with
your friend, you use your like organizational skills to help
her in the writing of this book.Thinking back on why I didn't
choose psychology as my major incollege, one of the reason was

(16:48):
because I didn't want to write so and I knew there'd be a lot
of writing, so I didn't pick it.So I think organization, like
how to get my thoughts out and organize it in a convincing way.
That's an art. So how do you help these authors
or leaders or business owners build that skill?
So one of the things is really kind of understanding what kind

(17:11):
of writer you are. And there's from an
organizational perspective, there's kind of two kinds of
writers. There's outliners and there's
they call them pancers. I'm the outliner.
OK project. Management for you I'm right
point. So definitely I'm an outline,
right? Right.

(17:31):
So if you're an outliner, you'reworking off of an outline,
you're working off a plan if you're a pancer.
So pancers, they call them that because they fly by the seat of
their pants and they're they more just sit down and write.
So, so kind of understanding that helps some people fall a

(17:55):
little bit. I'm kind of in between.
I'm a little bit of a because I do have that project management
background like you. So I'm a little bit of an
outliner, but I also have my days where I can just sit down
and write. So yeah, kind of understanding
that it's one of the first stepsbecause then that helps you sort
of plan out how you're going to approach creating the content.

(18:18):
If you're an outliner, then you start with the outline and very
much like a project, you start with your outline and then you
break down each piece and you continue breaking it down.
You can then write sections based off of the pieces of the
outline. So you don't have to write the

(18:39):
whole book, you know, together it's you're writing the pieces
of it. If you're more of a pancer, then
it may come to you more inspirationally.
So you may, you may have to schedule writing time.
So you may have to say, OK, I'm going to sit down for 30 minutes

(19:02):
a day and write and then just kind of see how the content
comes to you during those blocksof time.
Now, some people who write like that can sit down and write big
chunks at a time. Not everyone can.

(19:23):
It may just come in in small chunks.
So that's when the organization comes is then you get your small
chunks of writing, then you haveto take a look at it.
And that's kind of the way we created the first book I
mentioned. We had all of these chunks of
content. Then it was a matter of sitting

(19:43):
down and kind of going through all the different pieces and
parts and putting it all together into a flow.
And then as you kind of do that,you start to see where where the
pieces are missing, where you have gaps and you start to fill
that in. Either way, there's some
organization to it you have to kind of think about.
What is the logical order to it?So for instance, if you're

(20:07):
writing a memoir, is the memoir written in chronological order?
Are you writing it from like early to later?
Or is there some other order that it needs to have that might
make more sense? If it's not a memoir, you still
have to kind of think about the same the same things.

(20:27):
What is the order of the of the information that you want to
present? How does it make sense to you?
How would it make sense to the audience?
And then having an editor reallyhelps as well so that they can
go through it. You have another set of eyes,
someone who's sort of separated from the content.
They can look through it like a reader would and kind of tell

(20:50):
you, OK, you might be missing pieces in here.
And this this piece doesn't really flow with the last piece.
So, so having that extra set of eyes helps too helps.
So that is wow. Yeah, I have sort of wondered
what the editor's role in writing a book.
I figured it would be like checking to see if it flows

(21:12):
well. And spelling used to be a thing,
maybe now not so much anymore. So there's a couple of different
roles an editor can play. So there's the organizational
piece of it. So making sure the book as a
whole flows well. Then there's the content piece
of it, so that you're making sure that the content is written

(21:38):
well and the reader can comprehend it.
And then readability is a thing.So making sure that it's not
written too complex, it's not more complex than what the
audience can understand. And then there's the copy
editing, which is exactly what you were saying, the spelling,
the grammar, the sentence structure, tone and voice is

(22:02):
making sure all of that is consistent.
And then the, the last one that I always recommend is the
proofread and the proof is a physical copy of the book.
The proofread is actually reading the the book after it's
been printed so that you can make sure it would, you're

(22:23):
amazed when you go through that all of the things that you find
when you're actually reading it like your reader does.
It's, it's just a nice final step to make sure that you're,
you're just covering everything that the formatting looks good
and, and all the structure looksthat's good.
So, so yeah, there's a couple ofdifferent, a few different roles

(22:46):
that an editor can play during the process of writing the book.
So what you were saying, it can apply to any writing.
You have to organize yourself. You have to, absolutely.
You have to use the right language.
You have to have it flow naturally like logical order and

(23:06):
how it comes out. So if it's meant for the
Internet, writing it like an encyclopedia doesn't work.
So a lot of flies or any sort ofwriting too for.
Absolutely our. Listeners who are not currently
writers but who want to try how writing can benefit them, what
are some of the things that you would suggest them do?

(23:27):
You mentioned journaling. Really.
I think that's probably one of the best ways to start.
I would even recommend no. There's nothing wrong with
journaling electronically, but Iwould recommend even trying.
Go and find a nice journal that you like.
You know, kind of just said, I like writing on blank paper.

(23:47):
I'm a doodler and I like to doodle while I'm writing.
So I find the blank paper or thedotted pages work really well
for me. Some people like the line pages,
so kind of the blank pages are alittle bit harder to find in
journals. So I'm when I find one, I always
buy it because I'm because I can't, I don't find them very

(24:10):
often. So but think about what you,
what you like, what you prefer and even try a few things.
I would also say think about creating a practice for
yourself. Even if it's 10 minutes in the
morning or 10 minutes before yougo to bed at night, find a good

(24:32):
time. It can be a way to kind of
energize you in the morning and help you awake.
It can also be very relaxing in the evening and help you kind of
wind down. So, so maybe try a few different
things and if you're not sure ifyou're an outliner or a pantser,
maybe try a little of both and see what you're more comfortable

(24:53):
with. Go out and you can search on
writing prompts and you can findlots and lots of different
writing prompts out there. I also, so shameless plug, I
also have a book. It's the, it's called the
Author's way. It's a 90 day journal and it has
writing prompts in it. So it actually has 90 days of

(25:18):
journal pages. So it actually gives you and I
did then it dotted pages. So if you like lines or if you
like blank pages, it it sort of is in between.
So that's out for anyone you know, to get if they want.
It has writing prompts, it has gratitude, it has word of the
day and all all of those are different things that they can

(25:40):
write about South. And that's another thing you can
do kind of a word of a day and write about that.
So there are lots of things out there that you can find to help
kind of prompt you to write. And you might be, you know, kind
of amazed at what comes out whenyou sit down to do it.

(26:01):
Yeah. Like what do you have mentioned
relaxing you like what vegetation does kind of get your
thoughts out and sort of just challenging yourself.
Like all these things you're youhave inside, you have no one to
talk to about or you don't even know that these things are
inside of you. Yes.

(26:22):
Writing can help you achieve that, so I would definitely give
it a try. I have set a goal to produce
more content this year. Oh good.
I have been producing audio content, yes, but I do have a
few notebooks that I bought thisyear that I do want to.
OK. Yeah.
So I'll give you, I'll, I'll take you a little trick.
So audio content can become written content.

(26:43):
So I tell people, if you're not comfortable sitting down and
writing, we all have a recorder on our phone.
So record and then you can use their, any number of
transcription tools out there that you can transcribe it and
then all you have to do is edit it.
So there are lots of ways to turn things into different types

(27:05):
of content. Yeah.
So for this last part, I would like to ask you some rectifier
questions. So are you a morning person or
end of the day reflections person?
I'm both. I am a morning person, but I am
an end of the day person as well.
I actually I also, I have found that I get a burst of energy

(27:29):
late in the day and I can get a lot done when I have that little
burst of energy. Yeah, that's great that you have
more than just one moment of writing.
Yes. Yes, what's?
The strangest place you have ever jotted down an idea.
Oh. Gosh, where?
I don't know if it would be strange, but I walk a lot and I

(27:53):
find little walking trails and Ifound that that tends to give me
a lot of ideas when I'm at walk.I don't know if that's
necessarily strange, but that's so that's that's one of the
things I found like. It makes sense because you have
very little distraction. Yes, when you're walking.
Yes. Cool a writing or a workout?

(28:15):
What would it be? So like yoga hit Marathon I.
Think it'd be yoga? OK.
Of the meditation sort of yes, reflection aspect for.
Me anyway, yeah. When was the last time you used
the voice dictation instead of writing?
So I do interviews and I record the interviews and turn them

(28:40):
into content. So probably about a month ago,
if that counts. I found that it, during the
interview process, it gives me the ability to focus on the
person I'm interviewing and thenI can turn it into a transcript
and get, you know, content out of it.
I agree with that. Taking meeting notes, same

(29:01):
thing. Yes, yes.
You are not taking meeting notes, you're more engaged in
the conversation. Right.
Yeah. All right.
Well, thank you very much for talking to me today, Jennifer.
Thank you. Have heard of studies that shows
the benefit on your brain when you're writing on paper or even
reading on paper versus the monitor, right?

(29:22):
So I'm really glad that we can actually hear from an expert.
Thank you about the benefit and how it can help all of us be
more cohesive. Or how would you say if you were
to say like 3 words that people can become, what would they be?
Oh gosh. I would say calm would be 1,
reflective would be another and confident, yeah.

(29:46):
How? Because you start to learn much
more about yourself and you start to learn much more about
the other people around you as you're reflecting and and
writing about these things. And that builds confidence.
Yeah, building confidence. I'm sure a lot of our listeners,
this is something that they wantto work on.
Otherwise, yes, turning in, turning in.

(30:08):
Right. All right.
Thank. You very much all.
Right. Thank you.
I've enjoyed this me. Too, Thanks for listening to
this episode of Mind One. If you enjoyed the conversation,
don't forget to follow and shareit with anyone who needs to hear
it. And let's keep the conversation
going. Connect with me on LinkedIn or

(30:29):
leave me a comment. Until next time, stay curious,
keep exploring, and let's continue to blend our minds and
discover what's possible.

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}When you write, you think better: The untold benefit of writing - with Jennifer Wright