Jake Kheel took a job inside a major Caribbean resort company expecting to learn how to fight the private sector. Instead, he discovered its enormous untapped potential to solve environmental problems. In Waking the Sleeping Giant: Unlocking the Hidden Power of Business to Save the Planet, Jake shares 20 years of lessons from Punta Cana, from restoring coral reefs to turning 15 tons a day of organic waste into a profitable worm compost business.

In this episode, Jake joins Travis Stoliker to talk about why sustainability and profitability can work together, how writing for one specific reader made his book more useful, and the surprising result of publishing: two paid board seats that came almost directly from the book. He also shares what it really takes to become a paid speaker and how he is repurposing his book into social content today.

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Dr. Mike Simpson spent 32 years in the U.S. Army, most of it in special operations as a Ranger, Green Beret, and physician, before writing Honed, a men's health guide for staying sharp after 40 that he published with Scribe. When a pandemic layoff left him with three unexpected months off, he finally wrote the story that had been in his head for decades: The Last Dungeon Crawler, the first book in the Falgrim Firebeard trilogy, about a 6,000-year-old dwarf who teaches archaeology at NYU by day and hunts dangerous artifacts by night.

In this episode, Mike joins Travis Stoliker to talk about the pivots that shaped his life, why today's storytellers have to hook readers in the very first sentence, and the Facebook ad playbook that has worked best for his novels. He explains how his nonfiction readers followed him into fantasy, why you can't manage what you don't measure in book marketing, and how he learned from a Pentagon colleague that Honed had been cited in congressional testimony.

For more information on Mike Simpson, visit https://scribemedia.com/authors/michael-simpson

For more information on Honed, visit https://scribemedia.com/published-books/honed

Shep Hyken has spent his entire career on one question: what makes customers come back? As Chief Amazement Officer at Shepard Presentations, he has worked with companies like American Airlines, AAA, and AT&T, and he has written eight books, including The Convenience Revolution, Amaze Every Customer Every Time, and Be Amazing or Go Home, which he published with Scribe.

In this episode, Shep joins Teddy Smith to explain why the real value of a book is the reputation and speaking business it creates. He shares how a traditional publisher came calling after seeing the quality of Be Amazing or Go Home, why owning the rights lets you use your book as an "expensive business card," and his playbook for getting books into the right hands, from LinkedIn engagement to having clients buy a copy for every attendee. He also walks through how he uses AI to edit and challenge his thinking, but never to write for him, and how one book can become a full year of content.

For more information on Shep Hyken, visit https://scribemedia.com/authors/shep-hyken

For more information on Be Amazing or Go Home, visit https://scribemedia.com/published-books/be-amazing-or-go-home