We were lucky to catch up with Meg Calvin recently and have shared our conversation below.
Meg, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Let’s kick things off with your mission – what is it and what’s the story behind why it’s your mission?
Formerly in the non-profit world as a minister to children and families in the mainline protestant church, Meg spent nearly 15 years studying how the brain works toward her aim of building, catalyzing and comforting strong volunteer teams. In seminary, she studied curriculum writing and pastoral care.
It was during her time in this role that she began coaching fellow ministerial leaders in professional sustainability with the International Network of Children’s Ministry. She was blown away by how many ministers had limiting beliefs around self-care, their talents, relationships, money and ambition.
This led to her second book and to her first podcast with friend, Miranda Priddy, ‘The Listening Chair‘.
Upon the release of the second book, she began to notice that some of these ministers (“over-committed Christians”/ “recovering holy-rollers”, as she calls them) had amazing book ideas within but were being held back by the above limiting beliefs along with a paralyzing limiting belief around marketing.
Meg’s heart was broken by this as she envisioned the healing and positive impact that their books could have on others. She noticed that the same religious doctrines that they had committed their lives to had grown into their main stumbling block in serving others well with the message that had chosen them through their book idea.
She then stepped away from serving in the church, invested in marketing coaches for her own growth and began coaching Christian content creators in their marketing with BeADisciple.com for nearly three years while serving authors on the side. In the summer of 2021, she became a full-time content creator, life and writing, and marketing coach where she helps Spiritually-Attuned Go-getters write, market and sell their books.
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
Meggie Lee Calvin (Meg) is an Amazon Bestselling Author, Wife, Mom, Master Air-guitar Player, Speaker and Coach who helps Spiritually-Attuned Go-Getters write, market and sell their Amazon Bestselling books on Kindle, paperback and Audible. She is best known for her intuitive gifts, unconventional practices that help writers become creatively unblocked, and her award-worthy performance as a tree in A Midsummer Night’s Dream as a third grader.
Formerly in the non-profit world as a minister to children and families in the mainline protestant church, Meg spent nearly 15 years studying how the brain works toward her aim of building, catalyzing and comforting strong volunteer teams. In seminary, she studied curriculum writing and pastoral care.
It was during her time in this role that she began coaching fellow ministerial leaders in professional sustainability with the International Network of Children’s Ministry. She was blown away by how many ministers had limiting beliefs around self-care, their talents, relationships, money and ambition.
This led to her second book and to her first podcast with friend, Miranda Priddy, ‘The Listening Chair‘.
Upon the release of the second book, she began to notice that some of these ministers (“over-committed Christians”/ “recovering holy-rollers”, as she calls them) had amazing book ideas within but were being held back by the above limiting beliefs along with a paralyzing limiting belief around marketing.
Meg’s heart was broken by this as she envisioned the healing and positive impact that their books could have on others. She noticed that the same religious doctrines that they had committed their lives to had grown into their main stumbling block in serving others well with the message that had chosen them through their book idea.
She then stepped away from serving in the church, invested in marketing coaches for her own growth and began coaching Christian content creators in their marketing with BeADisciple.com for nearly three years while serving authors on the side. In the summer of 2021, she became a full-time content creator, life and writing, and marketing coach where she helps Spiritually-Attuned Go-getters write, market and sell their books.
Her podcast, ‘An Uproarious Profundity: Unconventional Wisdom for the Spiritually-Attuned Go-Getter’ feels like trivia at a party with a nun, a comedian, and a publicist that sometimes gets interrupted by a guest whose toast is good, but a lil’ lengthy.
The Bluebonnet Child: Finding Grace in Poor Soil with Wipf & Stock is her first book. It seeks to equip us to offer hope to kids whose homes seem hopeless and equips churches, schools and other non-profits to be the supplemental family to kids of troubled homes, i.e., bluebonnet children. Her second book and Amazon Bestseller, I Am My Own Sanctuary, with Quoir Publishing reads like Seth Myers and the Benedictine nun, Joan Chittister conceived a book-baby.
This, “Full-steam comedic rant”, as Dr. David Dault of the NPR Show, Things Not Seen called it, was written for other “recovering-people-pleasers” and encourages them to take back the power over their lives from others by tapping into the power of the Divine within. It’s available on Kindle, Audible, and paperback. There is a supplemental I Am My Own Sanctuary Journal that guides readers into deeper reflection with ten questions per chapter and fancy-lined pages.
Meg has been featured on NPR, and has served as a workshop presenter at state-wide and national conferences. Fellow spiritual satirical writer, David Hayward (the NakedPastor) had this to say of Meg’s latest book,
“If you want to read a book
about taking good care of yourself that is approachable, honest, wise, and funny,
then read this one.
It’s an enticing, educating,
encouraging, and entertaining read.
Actually, all those adjectives describe Meg, too!”
Meg is obsessed with Saturday Night Live and loves to play air guitar, actual guitar, play with her local improv troupe, and act in musicals with her daughter. She and her husband spend most of their free time playing pickleball, trying new fancy food, or walking their two other “children”: Rod and Libby (the best pups in all the land).
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WHAT SETS ME A PART IN THE GAME OF COACHING is that I emphasize the spiritual part of the work. This is where the magic happens re: building a sustainable author brand and serving others toward life transformation with your bestselling book. I am also triple threat (or sorts :P ) because I can serve authors around breaking through those deep, subconscious creative blocks, writing the book and marketing the book all the way to bestseller. I am very proud to have been able to serve 40 clients in the past 3 years toward birthing and releasing their healing and helpful books into the world .
Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?
It’s sinful, bad and egotistical to want attention and to make an abundance of money from serving others.
We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?
I can share on your show 5 tips that I share with my clients and use for my own brand with organic social media marketing: 1) Be human (out of age information, we are now in age of intuition
2) Keep the lettuce fresh with your post types (i help authors master 12 to 16 types)
3) Always remember ‘WIIFM’ as a main marketing principle
4) Make sure that in 3 to 4 seconds with your bio and an overview of your posts, that someone could be crystal clear on who you serve and how you help them [roi]
5) Speak only to your target audience and ignore the rest :P
Contact Info:
- Website: megCalvin.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/heymegcalvin/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/meggie.calvin/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCBe3z98Ay1N7FvmUuF3cPLQ
- Other: https://www.tiktok.com/@megcalvin?lang=en
Image Credits
Blissful Moments Photography