September 24, 2025 • 24 mins
“It’s not that a lesson is different. It’s that the story that makes it memorable.”
Episode Highlights
00:02:22 – How financial myths became the foundation for a parable.
00:05:41 – Building real, flawed characters that teach through story.
00:09:35 – Why dialogue makes or breaks a parable.
00:13:04 – Learning from mentor John David Mann and building a new business model.
00:19:36 – Why parents may want to give this book to their kids.
00:21:40 – The difference between repeating lessons and telling better stories.
00:22:12 – First steps for writing your own business parable.
Author Jeff West joins Jody Maberry to share how he turns timeless lessons into unforgettable parables. From flawed characters to unexpected settings like a bank robbery, Jeff explains why story makes teaching more effective, how mentors sharpened his craft, and what it takes to start writing your own business parable.
Read the blog for more from this episode.
Connect with Jeff West
Order Jeff's Book - The Hidden Heist
Connect with Jody
About Jody - https://jodymaberry.com/about-jody-maberry/
Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/sugarjmaberry
LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/jodymaberry/
Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/sugarjmaberry/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/jodymaberry
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Foreign.
Welcome to the Jody Mayberry Show. This
episode, I'm bringing back a friend who you've heard before. He
was a guest once with Bob Berg.
It is Jeff west and Jeff has a new book out called the
Hidden Heist. Jeff, welcome back to the show.
(00:21):
Oh, thank you so much, Jody. I appreciate you having me on. It's an honor
to be with you. Well, you have been busy since we last talked.
That was wonderful that you got you had the chance to write a book
with Bob Berg, everybody's sales professional. I think that's a
true statement. I've never heard it before, but I will endorse it as true.
And now you've written another book,
(00:44):
the Hidden Heist. Okay, so first, here's
why I'm fascinated by this is you've hit another
home run in a parable style story.
And I just know that's not easy to do.
Business professionals, sales professionals, we think
nonfiction and you take wonderful
(01:05):
nonfiction lessons and turn them into a parable, which I think is
just fantastic. So let's set this up
first. Okay, You've got business points
you want to get across. And now you know, okay, I know how to write
a parable. So, so tell us about that process
on the Hidden Heist. Did you have your points already
(01:27):
there when you started writing? How does that look? Well, you know,
that's such a great question, Jody. In my case, often I will
co author like I did with Bob on, on Streetwise to sales wise. In
this case, my co author is Bill Cates and he
has a wealth of information. He has followers in the financial
advisors industry. He just, and he's a huge
(01:49):
source teaching those people how to gain more business. Well, in this case,
what Bill wanted to do was he wanted to teach some really great money
mindsets and principles to build financial
independence on and he wanted to do it in a different way. And so
actually Bob connected Bill and I and basically what we
did, we took some of Bill's principles that he wanted to teach,
(02:11):
especially young adults, all the way through middle adulthood, really,
and I guess seniors could use this as well. But he wanted to teach them
some, really some myths about money and then how to
do that. So he reached out to me and my goal, as you know,
when I'm writing a business parable, it's kind of twofold. I want
to first write a story, the fiction that is strong enough
(02:33):
that the readers would love the story even if there weren't lessons in it. And
then second, I want the characters to feel so real, so
flawed and fascinatingly. Human that they,
the reader, can. They don't just teach the lessons like you're watching a PowerPoint
that's kind of put in a story, but they live the lessons in such a
way that the reader stays engaged. So we took. In this case, we took
(02:55):
Bill's principles he wanted to teach, and I turned it into
a story that I don't think people will forget for a long time. I set
the entire financial parable in the middle of a bank robbery.
The first line of the book, Jody, is, everybody on the floor.
That is not what you would expect from a book that's going to teach you
(03:17):
about finance. That's music to my
ears, quite frankly. That's exactly what Bill and I wanted.
Okay, so you put it in such an extreme
environment. Did that idea. Is
that something you had kicking around in your head, like, okay, next time I
write a book, I'm going to put it in a perilous situation like a bank
(03:39):
robbery? Or did that come once you
knew what the lessons from the book were going to be? In this case,
it was actually kind of brainstorming around the lessons. Bill and I were
on a zoom call. It's funny, we did the entire book and all of our
consultations were on zoom calls. And I interviewed hostage negotiator, and I
interviewed bank robbery victims and all this. But Bill and I did
(04:01):
it. We met finally in person just last month. It's so funny. But
we brainstormed around the principles and thought, okay, what would be a unique way to
teach that? And that's how we came up with the idea of the bank
robbery. And also, I needed. In crafting the story
in a business parable environment, people have a certain
expectation. So, yes, I could set it in the middle of a really tense
(04:24):
situation as long as I didn't leave the reader there.
So this is one of those things. There are plot twists that people are going
to love that they never see coming there. There are moments where you laugh out
loud in it, and it teaches some really strong financial principles that I'm
very proud of. I'm proud of what we've done. Yeah. I just like it
because it is not what you expect. 1,
(04:46):
2. There are a lot of books out there that teach you
financial information, but we know you learn better
when it's wrapped into a story. And my
goodness, you've hit a home run with this one. How fun. So when
it comes to character development, tell us a
little bit about how you come up with the characters for your stories.
(05:09):
You know, it's there's a similar process in all of my parables that I go
through. And I actually will write out. Well, I will do
a complete character background on each character that
it's in my book. I don't always use that information in the actual book,
but I'll. I'll talk when I write it out. I'm going to talk about their
childhood, and I'm going to make notes on their character flaws
(05:30):
and what their little psychological ticks are or whatever. I write that out
for me. It'll never make it in the book, but then as I'm writing the
character, I'll write it with that in mind. So I give
them those flaws that come across as very real for people.
And so I'll do a little bit of that for each character. I will.
When it comes to the plot itself, my writing coach is someone you
(05:53):
know very much to John David Mann, Bob's co author on the Go Giver
series, and he's my writing coach. I've been in
his program for three years now, and the level of my writing with each
new book has gone up so much. I can say. I can't say enough good
things about that program. If anybody is a writer and they want to improve their
craft. But in the mix of that, I will.
(06:14):
I'll have story arcs, I'll have things that I'm planning, but I don't let
it handcuff me because I look at it as if the story's
in there, and it's my job to make room for it to come out. So
sometimes I feel like I'm hitting, I'm chiseling stone. Sometimes I feel like I'm
crafting to a fine detail. But by the time I go through the process and
the story arc is there and every single time I write any book,
(06:37):
I want to throw in some sort of surprise that people don't see coming and
that it's not that I'm. What's. Oh, gosh. I can't think of the
producer's name that does the movies, did the movie the Sixth Sense. He always
puts something M. Night Shyamalan. He always puts something in there that people
can't really figure out. And I try to do that as well because I want
the reader to be entertained by the fiction, and I want them to
(06:58):
remember the story and the lessons forever. I really do. How do you
feel? You mentioned you get better with each one. The
book you did with Bob Berg. Fantastic. What did you learn
between that book and this book that helped you write
an even better book? That's a great question. You know, John
David Mann wrote the forward for the Hidden Heist, the new book. And
(07:21):
we were laughing because he and I've become friends over the years
and my progression with awards has gone up. Like my first
book was, it was a good book. It won a bronze award from the Axiom
Book Awards, but it wasn't to the same level it is now. I'm proud of
it. It was a good first book. The second one with Lisa Wilbur said the
lady with the blue hair won the silver award. And then the one with
(07:43):
Bob won their gold medal. And so it's gone up. And
John says, okay, now what's next? I said, well, I don't know. Well, well,
we'll have to say. But the thing that got has that probably if I were
to pick one area that's improved the most, from Street Wise
to the Hidden Heist, it's probably my ability to write dialogue.
Because this is a very dialogue heavy book. And
(08:06):
it's the plot twist and the humor. You've got to really,
when you craft that, you have to do a good job or the reader can't
keep up. In this one, it's very easy for the reader to keep up. And
also we on the audiobook, we hired an actor, a
voice actor named Jonathan McClain to do the audiobook. And he
is so good with the voices. So even with all the dialogue and the different
(08:26):
voices, he was amazing. He actually is the voice actor for
John's three novels, the Steel Fear, Cold Fear and Blindfear. He does
the voices for those you mentioned. Dialogue is a big improvement. What
did you do between the two books that helped you get better at
dialogue? Probably a combination of
stronger character development in the mix
(08:48):
of how I pulled the story together. But also there's
a great deal of just actual
craft, the mechanics of how you pull dialogue off. John took
a course on screenwriting, another great way to learn how to write
good dialogue for a book. And there are certain mechanics that you
can do that really pull that off well in
(09:10):
a parable. It's so important because if you don't have dialogue
that is good and that teach, that has a great story that also will teach
the lessons you're trying to teach. It can easily come across that you.
You're basically doing a PowerPoint with a story and that that's
just not my style of writing. And so it was important to
develop that, but probably just the actual craft of how to
(09:33):
put the dialogue together in such a way that it's. That it's not repetitive, it's.
It's unique and that each of the parts fit together well. The
background work that you do on the characters that no
one but you will ever know about, how does that contribute to dialogue?
Oh, that's amazing. That's a great question. I
interviewed people like in this for the hidden heist. There's a
(09:55):
hostage negotiator involved. I interviewed a real life hostage
negotiator. As a matter of fact, when, when people. One of the things that
we've done in the book is we have access to assets that people can get
for free. It's called the Vault. And some of the assets that are in there
are the recordings of these interviews. I interviewed a real life
hostage negotiator. I interviewed a friend of mine, actually
(10:16):
that was in the middle of a bank robbery at one time and Bill
interviewed another bank robbery victim. But those
interviews give me character traits that I can work into the
storyline. Even some actual events that took
place in the real world gives me story ideas to
spin into the fiction. And so it's a fascinating
(10:38):
process to me as the writer and hopefully if it's fascinating to me when I
write it, it'll be fascinating to the reader as well. Do you
map out your story ahead of time or
how much of it just comes out when you write? For me, it's a
combination. You know, there are certain writers. Gosh,
I'm trying to think of the person's name, Lee Child, who
(11:01):
wrote the Jack Reacher series. I think I remember him being interviewed once
and he talked about he doesn't use an outline. I actually do
use an outline or a synopsis in my mind, but I
don't let it handcuff me. It will be a framework that I can
easily adjust because there are times, Jodi, when you're writing that I'm
going through it and I'm letting the scene unfold in my mind and if it
(11:23):
doesn't fit the outline I had to start with, I really don't care if
it's good, I'm going to do it. I'm going to let the story come out.
And that's one thing. Probably the biggest lesson I think I've learned from John is
to trust the story. If you're working and the story's
flowing and you get in that rhythm, trust the story. What a
great opportunity for you to have. Yes, you've
(11:45):
gotten to write with some great people or do projects with great people, but to
have a coach like that, my goodness, what a great opportunity for
you. Oh, it's been wonderful. And you know, I had met
John before he had his writing program, as a matter of fact, of
course, with him being the co author with Bob, there's a connection there. That's how
that John and his wife Anna. But in the mix of all this, John
(12:06):
was doing a book tour through Texas one time, and so I had messaged him
and I said, can we get together for lunch? So we had lunch in Waco,
Texas. And just to be able to sit there and
absorb from the man is incredible. I mean, he said he's written over 40 books,
nine New York Times bestsellers, and he knows what he's doing. And at that
time was when I was changing my business model so that
(12:27):
people that were starting to expand their reach, that wanted to.
Wanted to get another message out there and do it in a different way when
they were there, they could contact me and I would co write with them and
do the parable. Like in John's case and most in his books, he's the lead
writer, but he's taken. If it's a parable, he's taken the principles. Kind of like
what we've done in Streetwise and in the Hidden Heist, and he works that into
(12:48):
the store. But John, John is the crafter of the thing. So he
helped guide me a little bit in starting that as my business model. But then
when he started his program, Writing Mastery Mentorship,
it talked about doing it. And I sent him an email and said, well, let
me know as soon as you get that together. Let's talk about it. And so
he has everybody do an application to start the program. So I filled out
(13:09):
the application and I was his first call. And he. We got on the zoom
call, kind of like what you and I are doing now. And he said just
a little bit about. And I said, okay, how much is it? And when do
I. Where do I sign up? He started laughing. I said, look, I
already know I want to learn from you. And I said, so the rest of
it's kind of a moot point. And by the way, don't get spoiled here.
This is the easiest sales conversation you're ever going to have.
(13:33):
What a good story. And it just shows how
easy it can be to sell or really all he was doing was
solving a problem you had because of the content,
the relationship, the reputation that he already had out there. Right.
And he's one of the most gifted people. Jodi. I've got degrees in
music and I have studied with musicians that were absolutely
(13:57):
phenomenal musicians. They weren't as strong in teaching,
they weren't as good of a teacher because a lot of them really didn't have
to learn their craft. I've also had people who couldn't play an instrument,
but they knew pedagogically how to teach it and were great teachers.
John is that rare combination who is an absolutely great
artist at his craft, who is also the best teacher I
(14:18):
could ever vest for. It's so good. It makes
such a difference in a career to have a mentor. And then
when you're shifting careers from sales to writing,
my goodness, I think it's probably even more important. Oh,
it is. And Bob gave me one of the kindest compliments.
This was back when we were doing a lot of appearances for Streetwise to Sales
(14:41):
Wise. And Bob and I've known each other for 20 plus years now.
And he would knew each other when I was still in sales with an
insurance carrier and, and was estate manager and all that. And he said one,
that he was telling somebody one of the things he liked about watching me and
our friendship is when it came to sales, I became a
student of the industry. I wasn't a natural salesperson. I had to learn how to
(15:02):
do it. And I devoured material from great sales
trainers and put that to use in my career. And he said, and he's
done the same thing with writing. When Jeff decided he wanted to be a writer,
he has started doing exactly the same thing. He pours himself into
getting education on it. And now for the last three years I've been studying with
John David Mann and that he was referring to that. That is the kindest
(15:24):
compliment I could possibly imagine. Because you can't teach if you
can't be a good student. You know, when it comes to future
books, maybe I know this book is just coming out.
You've got a lot of promotion to do, a lot of talking to do about
this book. Too early to think about future books, I'm sure.
But somewhere in a file on your computer or a
(15:45):
file in your brain, do you have. Okay, I would
really love to set a story in this like
Boston Marathon or Glacier National Park. Do you
have some. An idea already sitting there just waiting for the
right opportunity to write lessons into a story.
I do actually have two. One of them I'm already drafting. I'm
(16:08):
in the drafting stage on it. And it's a book with Susan Solubic.
I don't know if you know Susan. She used to be a regular contributor
on Fox Business News. She's a big personality on TV and all that.
And, and she and I are writing a book together and it's. It's going to
be about a young lady who is getting out in the world for the first
time in the job market and it's going to be nice. But probably my favorite
(16:30):
pet project behind the Scenes is a novel that I'm working
on and it's a time travel based novel. It'll be my first novel. I'm not
going to. I'm not really going to try to teach anything. I'm just going to
try to make it something people want to read. But it's a time travel novel
where the tagline is, a devoted father travels
helplessly through time while trying to save his daughter's future
(16:51):
before they're ripped apart forever. And it's going to. He's going to be jumping
around in time. I know the story is going to be based out of San
Antonio, but he's going to be jumping around in time. He can't control it, and
he's trying to help make sure his daughter's okay on something. And
I'm going to surprise the reader in so many ways in that one.
How fun that I look forward to that one. I'll tell you, there
(17:13):
were two reasons I had you here, Jeff. One, being a
nice guy helping a friend promote a book. Two, a
selfish reason. I've had an idea kicking for in my head
around for a while, like, I want to take some business lessons and
write them into a park ranger parable. Because as a former
park ranger, I know rangers, I know parks. What a great way to
(17:35):
write in some business lessons. And as we've gotten to know each other,
I've always thought, oh, I need to ask Jeff this, I need to ask Jeff
about that. And then you had a new book come out. And I said, well,
wonderful. I get to ask all the questions I want of Jeff and act
like I'm interviewing him for my podcast.
Perfect timing. Perfect timing. That's right. You should definitely check out John's course,
(17:57):
too. You can reach out to me anytime behind the scenes as well, and we'll
talk about anything you want to. Yeah. Wonderful. Well, I know you're going
to love Jeff's book. It's a wonderful story and you might,
you might learn a few things. There are some great lessons
in this book that I know you're going to enjoy. If you had
to say, Jeff, okay, this is who Bill and I
(18:19):
actually wrote the book for. Did you have a particular
person, type of person, audience in mind? We actually do. And this
isn't Departure for me, as you know, all of my past parables
have been basically geared toward a sales and leadership audience.
This audience is so widespread because everybody
can use better financial principles in their life. Everybody can use a
(18:42):
mindset about money that's helpful instead of hurting them. I guess if I were
to pick a target range, it's going to be those young adults who
didn't learn financial principles in high school and need to learn
them now. And so we, I would say anywhere from 18
to 80 probably will work, but especially those in that 18
to 50 range because they're still trying oftentimes
(19:04):
to get ahead and they make some mistakes that this
book could help them have a different future. Yeah, I can
tell you already that with a immediately my kids will
be reading this book because I feel like financial
lessons are one of those things that you hear your parents say over and over
and over and so much that it doesn't mean anything anymore.
(19:27):
So maybe some outside assistance wrapped in
a really good story will also help my kids understand
finances better. From your lips to God's ears is all I'll
say about that. But you know, it is funny that I can literally see this
being something that people are buying as gifts for high school kids, for
adult children, because oftentimes parents aren't equipped
(19:49):
to teach these things. And this is going to help everybody, I think. Well, the
other thing I think of when it comes to this is Lee Cockrell told me
a story one time on how one of his grandkids was having
trouble in a particular subject in high school and his daughter
in law, Valerie, and the kid just kept butting heads over
and over and Valerie finally had enough and hired a
(20:12):
tutor. And then because it wasn't his mother teaching it,
he got it. And it helped with the relationship because
now his mother wasn't always on him about the subject. He got to learn it
from someone else. That's kind of how I see this, is
that you can give it as a gift because it's a good story and you
might learn something. You can say, here it is as we go
(20:34):
through it, let's talk about it. There's a lot of great options with this book,
right? And you know, that's funny that you say that. It's kind of like when
I'm doing sales workshops and keynotes or whatever, I can show up
and say some of the same things that their sales managers been telling them forever,
but suddenly I'm the expert with that from out of town. And because Jeff said
it, it's right. Yeah, yeah. That's right. It makes it.
(20:56):
And that. That's why I'm go back to Lee Cockrell.
Lee will say, if people would just do what they're supposed to do,
I wouldn't even have a job. Because all I teach is common
sense, and it's the same. But it makes a difference to hear it from
someone from the outside, someone that has different credentials,
someone that you don't see every day. Right. And every now and then, it's someone
(21:18):
who has a way of explaining it that's just a little differently. You know, my
degrees are in music, and when I was doing my practice teaching, the plan at
that time was for me to be a band director. I had a great mentor
who said, sometimes the best way to teach is to find
a bunch of different ways to say the same thing. Because one student's going to
get it from one explanation and another student will get it from a different
(21:40):
one. Yeah, yeah. And quite often, you know this very well,
Jeff. It's not that the lesson is different, it's the story
that they're telling is different. Exactly. Perfect. All right,
I have just one last question. So let's.
Hypothetically, let's say there's someone who wants to write a parable
with some business lessons in it. What are the. The first
(22:03):
one or two things you would tell them to get started? Do you map out
a story a little bit? Do you write down the lessons? How do you even
get started on this type of book? I would start with the lessons
and have those mapped out. Like when. When people are wanting to co author with
me, and they've gone on my website and looked at the information about how I'll
do that and that they want to co author with me. The first thing I've
(22:23):
have them do is, okay, let's get the principles you want to teach so that
I completely understand what you're doing. And once I have that, then
I go into story form. And in that story form, I'll be
thinking of different scenarios where someone might have to learn that
lesson, and then I'll start working from there. All right,
wonderful. The book can be found anywhere you want to buy books.
(22:45):
But also, Jeff, where can we go to find out more about you or
just find your own promotion on the book? Well, thank you for
asking that. The book gets released September 16th. As
we're recording this now, it's already available for preorder. That's what's on
Amazon. Practically any booksellers got it. And they.
There's a website for the hidden heist.com that's
(23:07):
for just the book. But if someone wants to just find out more about me,
go to jeffc west.com and you'll see the different
menu options there and where it says books. If you
click on the one for the hidden heist, you'll actually have a surprise there. You
can listen to chapter one of the audio book just by going to that and
it's got the rest of the information as well. But I put that little special
(23:28):
thing there for people that go see it that way. All right. Wonderful. Jeff, it
was great to have you back on the show. Oh, Jody, this has been an
honor. You're so much fun. Thank you for having me here. All right. Thank you,
Jeff. And I'm sure the next time you're on you the next book will be
even bigger, even better. You're doing great work. It's so good to see.
And thank you for listening to the Jody Mayberry show.
(23:55):
Always trying to come the raw prawn. It's Sugar J.
Foreign.
Welcome to the Jody Mayberry Show. This
episode, I'm bringing back a friend who you've heard before. He
was a guest once with Bob Berg.
It is Jeff west and Jeff has a new book out called the
Hidden Heist. Jeff, welcome back to the show.
(00:21):
Oh, thank you so much, Jody. I appreciate you having me on. It's an honor
to be with you. Well, you have been busy since we last talked.
That was wonderful that you got you had the chance to write a book
with Bob Berg, everybody's sales professional. I think that's a
true statement. I've never heard it before, but I will endorse it as true.
And now you've written another book,
(00:44):
the Hidden Heist. Okay, so first, here's
why I'm fascinated by this is you've hit another
home run in a parable style story.
And I just know that's not easy to do.
Business professionals, sales professionals, we think
nonfiction and you take wonderful
(01:05):
nonfiction lessons and turn them into a parable, which I think is
just fantastic. So let's set this up
first. Okay, You've got business points
you want to get across. And now you know, okay, I know how to write
a parable. So, so tell us about that process
on the Hidden Heist. Did you have your points already
(01:27):
there when you started writing? How does that look? Well, you know,
that's such a great question, Jody. In my case, often I will
co author like I did with Bob on, on Streetwise to sales wise. In
this case, my co author is Bill Cates and he
has a wealth of information. He has followers in the financial
advisors industry. He just, and he's a huge
(01:49):
source teaching those people how to gain more business. Well, in this case,
what Bill wanted to do was he wanted to teach some really great money
mindsets and principles to build financial
independence on and he wanted to do it in a different way. And so
actually Bob connected Bill and I and basically what we
did, we took some of Bill's principles that he wanted to teach,
(02:11):
especially young adults, all the way through middle adulthood, really,
and I guess seniors could use this as well. But he wanted to teach them
some, really some myths about money and then how to
do that. So he reached out to me and my goal, as you know,
when I'm writing a business parable, it's kind of twofold. I want
to first write a story, the fiction that is strong enough
(02:33):
that the readers would love the story even if there weren't lessons in it. And
then second, I want the characters to feel so real, so
flawed and fascinatingly. Human that they,
the reader, can. They don't just teach the lessons like you're watching a PowerPoint
that's kind of put in a story, but they live the lessons in such a
way that the reader stays engaged. So we took. In this case, we took
(02:55):
Bill's principles he wanted to teach, and I turned it into
a story that I don't think people will forget for a long time. I set
the entire financial parable in the middle of a bank robbery.
The first line of the book, Jody, is, everybody on the floor.
That is not what you would expect from a book that's going to teach you
(03:17):
about finance. That's music to my
ears, quite frankly. That's exactly what Bill and I wanted.
Okay, so you put it in such an extreme
environment. Did that idea. Is
that something you had kicking around in your head, like, okay, next time I
write a book, I'm going to put it in a perilous situation like a bank
(03:39):
robbery? Or did that come once you
knew what the lessons from the book were going to be? In this case,
it was actually kind of brainstorming around the lessons. Bill and I were
on a zoom call. It's funny, we did the entire book and all of our
consultations were on zoom calls. And I interviewed hostage negotiator, and I
interviewed bank robbery victims and all this. But Bill and I did
(04:01):
it. We met finally in person just last month. It's so funny. But
we brainstormed around the principles and thought, okay, what would be a unique way to
teach that? And that's how we came up with the idea of the bank
robbery. And also, I needed. In crafting the story
in a business parable environment, people have a certain
expectation. So, yes, I could set it in the middle of a really tense
(04:24):
situation as long as I didn't leave the reader there.
So this is one of those things. There are plot twists that people are going
to love that they never see coming there. There are moments where you laugh out
loud in it, and it teaches some really strong financial principles that I'm
very proud of. I'm proud of what we've done. Yeah. I just like it
because it is not what you expect. 1,
(04:46):
2. There are a lot of books out there that teach you
financial information, but we know you learn better
when it's wrapped into a story. And my
goodness, you've hit a home run with this one. How fun. So when
it comes to character development, tell us a
little bit about how you come up with the characters for your stories.
(05:09):
You know, it's there's a similar process in all of my parables that I go
through. And I actually will write out. Well, I will do
a complete character background on each character that
it's in my book. I don't always use that information in the actual book,
but I'll. I'll talk when I write it out. I'm going to talk about their
childhood, and I'm going to make notes on their character flaws
(05:30):
and what their little psychological ticks are or whatever. I write that out
for me. It'll never make it in the book, but then as I'm writing the
character, I'll write it with that in mind. So I give
them those flaws that come across as very real for people.
And so I'll do a little bit of that for each character. I will.
When it comes to the plot itself, my writing coach is someone you
(05:53):
know very much to John David Mann, Bob's co author on the Go Giver
series, and he's my writing coach. I've been in
his program for three years now, and the level of my writing with each
new book has gone up so much. I can say. I can't say enough good
things about that program. If anybody is a writer and they want to improve their
craft. But in the mix of that, I will.
(06:14):
I'll have story arcs, I'll have things that I'm planning, but I don't let
it handcuff me because I look at it as if the story's
in there, and it's my job to make room for it to come out. So
sometimes I feel like I'm hitting, I'm chiseling stone. Sometimes I feel like I'm
crafting to a fine detail. But by the time I go through the process and
the story arc is there and every single time I write any book,
(06:37):
I want to throw in some sort of surprise that people don't see coming and
that it's not that I'm. What's. Oh, gosh. I can't think of the
producer's name that does the movies, did the movie the Sixth Sense. He always
puts something M. Night Shyamalan. He always puts something in there that people
can't really figure out. And I try to do that as well because I want
the reader to be entertained by the fiction, and I want them to
(06:58):
remember the story and the lessons forever. I really do. How do you
feel? You mentioned you get better with each one. The
book you did with Bob Berg. Fantastic. What did you learn
between that book and this book that helped you write
an even better book? That's a great question. You know, John
David Mann wrote the forward for the Hidden Heist, the new book. And
(07:21):
we were laughing because he and I've become friends over the years
and my progression with awards has gone up. Like my first
book was, it was a good book. It won a bronze award from the Axiom
Book Awards, but it wasn't to the same level it is now. I'm proud of
it. It was a good first book. The second one with Lisa Wilbur said the
lady with the blue hair won the silver award. And then the one with
(07:43):
Bob won their gold medal. And so it's gone up. And
John says, okay, now what's next? I said, well, I don't know. Well, well,
we'll have to say. But the thing that got has that probably if I were
to pick one area that's improved the most, from Street Wise
to the Hidden Heist, it's probably my ability to write dialogue.
Because this is a very dialogue heavy book. And
(08:06):
it's the plot twist and the humor. You've got to really,
when you craft that, you have to do a good job or the reader can't
keep up. In this one, it's very easy for the reader to keep up. And
also we on the audiobook, we hired an actor, a
voice actor named Jonathan McClain to do the audiobook. And he
is so good with the voices. So even with all the dialogue and the different
(08:26):
voices, he was amazing. He actually is the voice actor for
John's three novels, the Steel Fear, Cold Fear and Blindfear. He does
the voices for those you mentioned. Dialogue is a big improvement. What
did you do between the two books that helped you get better at
dialogue? Probably a combination of
stronger character development in the mix
(08:48):
of how I pulled the story together. But also there's
a great deal of just actual
craft, the mechanics of how you pull dialogue off. John took
a course on screenwriting, another great way to learn how to write
good dialogue for a book. And there are certain mechanics that you
can do that really pull that off well in
(09:10):
a parable. It's so important because if you don't have dialogue
that is good and that teach, that has a great story that also will teach
the lessons you're trying to teach. It can easily come across that you.
You're basically doing a PowerPoint with a story and that that's
just not my style of writing. And so it was important to
develop that, but probably just the actual craft of how to
(09:33):
put the dialogue together in such a way that it's. That it's not repetitive, it's.
It's unique and that each of the parts fit together well. The
background work that you do on the characters that no
one but you will ever know about, how does that contribute to dialogue?
Oh, that's amazing. That's a great question. I
interviewed people like in this for the hidden heist. There's a
(09:55):
hostage negotiator involved. I interviewed a real life hostage
negotiator. As a matter of fact, when, when people. One of the things that
we've done in the book is we have access to assets that people can get
for free. It's called the Vault. And some of the assets that are in there
are the recordings of these interviews. I interviewed a real life
hostage negotiator. I interviewed a friend of mine, actually
(10:16):
that was in the middle of a bank robbery at one time and Bill
interviewed another bank robbery victim. But those
interviews give me character traits that I can work into the
storyline. Even some actual events that took
place in the real world gives me story ideas to
spin into the fiction. And so it's a fascinating
(10:38):
process to me as the writer and hopefully if it's fascinating to me when I
write it, it'll be fascinating to the reader as well. Do you
map out your story ahead of time or
how much of it just comes out when you write? For me, it's a
combination. You know, there are certain writers. Gosh,
I'm trying to think of the person's name, Lee Child, who
(11:01):
wrote the Jack Reacher series. I think I remember him being interviewed once
and he talked about he doesn't use an outline. I actually do
use an outline or a synopsis in my mind, but I
don't let it handcuff me. It will be a framework that I can
easily adjust because there are times, Jodi, when you're writing that I'm
going through it and I'm letting the scene unfold in my mind and if it
(11:23):
doesn't fit the outline I had to start with, I really don't care if
it's good, I'm going to do it. I'm going to let the story come out.
And that's one thing. Probably the biggest lesson I think I've learned from John is
to trust the story. If you're working and the story's
flowing and you get in that rhythm, trust the story. What a
great opportunity for you to have. Yes, you've
(11:45):
gotten to write with some great people or do projects with great people, but to
have a coach like that, my goodness, what a great opportunity for
you. Oh, it's been wonderful. And you know, I had met
John before he had his writing program, as a matter of fact, of
course, with him being the co author with Bob, there's a connection there. That's how
that John and his wife Anna. But in the mix of all this, John
(12:06):
was doing a book tour through Texas one time, and so I had messaged him
and I said, can we get together for lunch? So we had lunch in Waco,
Texas. And just to be able to sit there and
absorb from the man is incredible. I mean, he said he's written over 40 books,
nine New York Times bestsellers, and he knows what he's doing. And at that
time was when I was changing my business model so that
(12:27):
people that were starting to expand their reach, that wanted to.
Wanted to get another message out there and do it in a different way when
they were there, they could contact me and I would co write with them and
do the parable. Like in John's case and most in his books, he's the lead
writer, but he's taken. If it's a parable, he's taken the principles. Kind of like
what we've done in Streetwise and in the Hidden Heist, and he works that into
(12:48):
the store. But John, John is the crafter of the thing. So he
helped guide me a little bit in starting that as my business model. But then
when he started his program, Writing Mastery Mentorship,
it talked about doing it. And I sent him an email and said, well, let
me know as soon as you get that together. Let's talk about it. And so
he has everybody do an application to start the program. So I filled out
(13:09):
the application and I was his first call. And he. We got on the zoom
call, kind of like what you and I are doing now. And he said just
a little bit about. And I said, okay, how much is it? And when do
I. Where do I sign up? He started laughing. I said, look, I
already know I want to learn from you. And I said, so the rest of
it's kind of a moot point. And by the way, don't get spoiled here.
This is the easiest sales conversation you're ever going to have.
(13:33):
What a good story. And it just shows how
easy it can be to sell or really all he was doing was
solving a problem you had because of the content,
the relationship, the reputation that he already had out there. Right.
And he's one of the most gifted people. Jodi. I've got degrees in
music and I have studied with musicians that were absolutely
(13:57):
phenomenal musicians. They weren't as strong in teaching,
they weren't as good of a teacher because a lot of them really didn't have
to learn their craft. I've also had people who couldn't play an instrument,
but they knew pedagogically how to teach it and were great teachers.
John is that rare combination who is an absolutely great
artist at his craft, who is also the best teacher I
(14:18):
could ever vest for. It's so good. It makes
such a difference in a career to have a mentor. And then
when you're shifting careers from sales to writing,
my goodness, I think it's probably even more important. Oh,
it is. And Bob gave me one of the kindest compliments.
This was back when we were doing a lot of appearances for Streetwise to Sales
(14:41):
Wise. And Bob and I've known each other for 20 plus years now.
And he would knew each other when I was still in sales with an
insurance carrier and, and was estate manager and all that. And he said one,
that he was telling somebody one of the things he liked about watching me and
our friendship is when it came to sales, I became a
student of the industry. I wasn't a natural salesperson. I had to learn how to
(15:02):
do it. And I devoured material from great sales
trainers and put that to use in my career. And he said, and he's
done the same thing with writing. When Jeff decided he wanted to be a writer,
he has started doing exactly the same thing. He pours himself into
getting education on it. And now for the last three years I've been studying with
John David Mann and that he was referring to that. That is the kindest
(15:24):
compliment I could possibly imagine. Because you can't teach if you
can't be a good student. You know, when it comes to future
books, maybe I know this book is just coming out.
You've got a lot of promotion to do, a lot of talking to do about
this book. Too early to think about future books, I'm sure.
But somewhere in a file on your computer or a
(15:45):
file in your brain, do you have. Okay, I would
really love to set a story in this like
Boston Marathon or Glacier National Park. Do you
have some. An idea already sitting there just waiting for the
right opportunity to write lessons into a story.
I do actually have two. One of them I'm already drafting. I'm
(16:08):
in the drafting stage on it. And it's a book with Susan Solubic.
I don't know if you know Susan. She used to be a regular contributor
on Fox Business News. She's a big personality on TV and all that.
And, and she and I are writing a book together and it's. It's going to
be about a young lady who is getting out in the world for the first
time in the job market and it's going to be nice. But probably my favorite
(16:30):
pet project behind the Scenes is a novel that I'm working
on and it's a time travel based novel. It'll be my first novel. I'm not
going to. I'm not really going to try to teach anything. I'm just going to
try to make it something people want to read. But it's a time travel novel
where the tagline is, a devoted father travels
helplessly through time while trying to save his daughter's future
(16:51):
before they're ripped apart forever. And it's going to. He's going to be jumping
around in time. I know the story is going to be based out of San
Antonio, but he's going to be jumping around in time. He can't control it, and
he's trying to help make sure his daughter's okay on something. And
I'm going to surprise the reader in so many ways in that one.
How fun that I look forward to that one. I'll tell you, there
(17:13):
were two reasons I had you here, Jeff. One, being a
nice guy helping a friend promote a book. Two, a
selfish reason. I've had an idea kicking for in my head
around for a while, like, I want to take some business lessons and
write them into a park ranger parable. Because as a former
park ranger, I know rangers, I know parks. What a great way to
(17:35):
write in some business lessons. And as we've gotten to know each other,
I've always thought, oh, I need to ask Jeff this, I need to ask Jeff
about that. And then you had a new book come out. And I said, well,
wonderful. I get to ask all the questions I want of Jeff and act
like I'm interviewing him for my podcast.
Perfect timing. Perfect timing. That's right. You should definitely check out John's course,
(17:57):
too. You can reach out to me anytime behind the scenes as well, and we'll
talk about anything you want to. Yeah. Wonderful. Well, I know you're going
to love Jeff's book. It's a wonderful story and you might,
you might learn a few things. There are some great lessons
in this book that I know you're going to enjoy. If you had
to say, Jeff, okay, this is who Bill and I
(18:19):
actually wrote the book for. Did you have a particular
person, type of person, audience in mind? We actually do. And this
isn't Departure for me, as you know, all of my past parables
have been basically geared toward a sales and leadership audience.
This audience is so widespread because everybody
can use better financial principles in their life. Everybody can use a
(18:42):
mindset about money that's helpful instead of hurting them. I guess if I were
to pick a target range, it's going to be those young adults who
didn't learn financial principles in high school and need to learn
them now. And so we, I would say anywhere from 18
to 80 probably will work, but especially those in that 18
to 50 range because they're still trying oftentimes
(19:04):
to get ahead and they make some mistakes that this
book could help them have a different future. Yeah, I can
tell you already that with a immediately my kids will
be reading this book because I feel like financial
lessons are one of those things that you hear your parents say over and over
and over and so much that it doesn't mean anything anymore.
(19:27):
So maybe some outside assistance wrapped in
a really good story will also help my kids understand
finances better. From your lips to God's ears is all I'll
say about that. But you know, it is funny that I can literally see this
being something that people are buying as gifts for high school kids, for
adult children, because oftentimes parents aren't equipped
(19:49):
to teach these things. And this is going to help everybody, I think. Well, the
other thing I think of when it comes to this is Lee Cockrell told me
a story one time on how one of his grandkids was having
trouble in a particular subject in high school and his daughter
in law, Valerie, and the kid just kept butting heads over
and over and Valerie finally had enough and hired a
(20:12):
tutor. And then because it wasn't his mother teaching it,
he got it. And it helped with the relationship because
now his mother wasn't always on him about the subject. He got to learn it
from someone else. That's kind of how I see this, is
that you can give it as a gift because it's a good story and you
might learn something. You can say, here it is as we go
(20:34):
through it, let's talk about it. There's a lot of great options with this book,
right? And you know, that's funny that you say that. It's kind of like when
I'm doing sales workshops and keynotes or whatever, I can show up
and say some of the same things that their sales managers been telling them forever,
but suddenly I'm the expert with that from out of town. And because Jeff said
it, it's right. Yeah, yeah. That's right. It makes it.
(20:56):
And that. That's why I'm go back to Lee Cockrell.
Lee will say, if people would just do what they're supposed to do,
I wouldn't even have a job. Because all I teach is common
sense, and it's the same. But it makes a difference to hear it from
someone from the outside, someone that has different credentials,
someone that you don't see every day. Right. And every now and then, it's someone
(21:18):
who has a way of explaining it that's just a little differently. You know, my
degrees are in music, and when I was doing my practice teaching, the plan at
that time was for me to be a band director. I had a great mentor
who said, sometimes the best way to teach is to find
a bunch of different ways to say the same thing. Because one student's going to
get it from one explanation and another student will get it from a different
(21:40):
one. Yeah, yeah. And quite often, you know this very well,
Jeff. It's not that the lesson is different, it's the story
that they're telling is different. Exactly. Perfect. All right,
I have just one last question. So let's.
Hypothetically, let's say there's someone who wants to write a parable
with some business lessons in it. What are the. The first
(22:03):
one or two things you would tell them to get started? Do you map out
a story a little bit? Do you write down the lessons? How do you even
get started on this type of book? I would start with the lessons
and have those mapped out. Like when. When people are wanting to co author with
me, and they've gone on my website and looked at the information about how I'll
do that and that they want to co author with me. The first thing I've
(22:23):
have them do is, okay, let's get the principles you want to teach so that
I completely understand what you're doing. And once I have that, then
I go into story form. And in that story form, I'll be
thinking of different scenarios where someone might have to learn that
lesson, and then I'll start working from there. All right,
wonderful. The book can be found anywhere you want to buy books.
(22:45):
But also, Jeff, where can we go to find out more about you or
just find your own promotion on the book? Well, thank you for
asking that. The book gets released September 16th. As
we're recording this now, it's already available for preorder. That's what's on
Amazon. Practically any booksellers got it. And they.
There's a website for the hidden heist.com that's
(23:07):
for just the book. But if someone wants to just find out more about me,
go to jeffc west.com and you'll see the different
menu options there and where it says books. If you
click on the one for the hidden heist, you'll actually have a surprise there. You
can listen to chapter one of the audio book just by going to that and
it's got the rest of the information as well. But I put that little special
(23:28):
thing there for people that go see it that way. All right. Wonderful. Jeff, it
was great to have you back on the show. Oh, Jody, this has been an
honor. You're so much fun. Thank you for having me here. All right. Thank you,
Jeff. And I'm sure the next time you're on you the next book will be
even bigger, even better. You're doing great work. It's so good to see.
And thank you for listening to the Jody Mayberry show.
(23:55):
Always trying to come the raw prawn. It's Sugar J.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
CrimeLess: Hillbilly Heist
It’s 1996 in rural North Carolina, and an oddball crew makes history when they pull off America’s third largest cash heist. But it’s all downhill from there. Join host Johnny Knoxville as he unspools a wild and woolly tale about a group of regular ‘ol folks who risked it all for a chance at a better life. CrimeLess: Hillbilly Heist answers the question: what would you do with 17.3 million dollars? The answer includes diamond rings, mansions, velvet Elvis paintings, plus a run for the border, murder-for-hire-plots, and FBI busts.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com