The Life Story Coach

Illustrated Heirloom Books, and What Goes into Creating Them

In this episode, we're going back to the first part of our conversation with Lisa Kagan.

As an artist and writer, Lisa is fascinated by the intersection of visual art and storytelling. She brings all her gifts to bear on the illustrated heirloom books her company produces, allowing the clients a chance to become intimately involved in the creation of the words an...

Workshops serve clients and creatives, and help to build a personal history business

Family Heirloom Arts offers the usual range of services to its personal history clients: interviewing, writing, editing, photo management. But its founder and owner, Lisa Kagan, takes things a step further by inviting clients to create their own personalized artwork to illustrate their books.

That's just one of the things that makes Family...

Marketing with a local newspaper column and more

Lisa Lombard O'Reilly of Your Stories Written joins us for a conversation about personal history. Listen as we discuss:

• Lisa's experience writing her dad's life story book
• using Kindle Direct Publishing for cheap proof copies and supplying friends with print-on-demand books
• Lisa's monthly column on personal history for Coastal View, a local print publication

Lisa ...

Part 2 of our interview with Lettice Stuart, Portraits in Words

Join us for an insightful conversation about the business of personal history and the art of interviewing.

In this episode, Lettice discusses:

• how much she charges for life story projects, and how that number has grown through the years
• a clever pre-meeting tactic that gets Lettice into the right frame of mind for that always-difficult money conversation ...

Lettice Stuart was a journalist with stories in the New York Times when she shifted to writing life stories. While her writing credentials helped give her credibility, it was good old-fashioned conversations with people that grew her business.

In part one of the interview, we discuss:

• the importance of talking about your personal history work in any social situation, and why it's easy
• how and why to contact groups looking for ...

For Steve Pender, personal history comes alive in Legacy Video

When Steve Pender started his legacy video company years ago, it wasn't to produce videos, but rather to teach DIYers how to make their own. Then technology changed. You still needed the know-how and the artistic flair to produce top-quality videos, but you no longer needed the big commercial studio. That's when Steve pivoted to do what he loved most: create co...

In six short years, Starts at 60 has grown to a platform with a million and a half visitors per month. 

Now Starts at 60 is looking toward markets outside the US, and there's room for us life story professionals to leverage the systems they've already built.

The idea I like best is starting monthly coffee groups. Maybe it's because I saw how lonely my dad was after my mom died. Maybe it's because as a waitress in my teens, I saw ho...

Running and growing a video life story business

This is part 2 of our interview with Mike O'Krent (listen to part 1 here). In this episode, you'll hear Mike talk about

• public speaking and how it can grow the public's awareness of our services. (Hint: Check out Toastmasters for improving your speaking skill and spreading the word about your services)
• the power of seeking out influential people and connectors in your co...

How volunteering for Steven Spielberg sparked a career saving stories

Mike O'Krent was volunteering for an organization in Austin when he learned about Survivors of the Shoah, a foundation created by Steven Spielberg to interview and record the stories of Holocaust survivors. His training in L.A. set him up for successful interviews with survivors in Texas. In an article by Rich Polt (a previous guest on this podcast), Mik...

Maureen Taylor talks about helping people solve the mysteries of their unidentified photos, a skill we as life story professionals can use to help our clients. 

Maureen Taylor's early career as a curator exposed her to lots of photos. But it wasn't until she opened shop as a photo historian that she discovered just how many unidentified photos people have.

Frequent questions she hears:

• Who is in the photo?
• What is happening in...

When he first started Acknowledge Media, Rich spent hours teaching himself Adobe Premiere Pro. But while he sees the need to have the skills that are foundational to the projects he creates, he recognizes that his team of videographers (including Jordan Freeman), editors, archival producers, and media directors are better suited to the technical side of things, while he handles the rest of it: new business development, sales, marke...

Rich Polt started his legacy video company in 2016; three years later, it's growing by leaps and bounds.

Rich Polt left a lucrative career as owner of a public relations firm to pursue his passion—helping people record their legacy stories on film. And he did it all without knowing a thing about movie-making.

It started with a personal project called Talking GOOD, where Rich interviewed change-makers with the power to insp...