In a world hungry for connection, how do you spark joy and build a thriving community while you’re at it?
In this episode, Samantha is joined by Rachel Marie Martin, founder of the Finding Joy community. Together, they explore the art and heart of building communities that not only thrive but truly connect in our hyper-digital world.
Rachel shares her journey from a beginner blogger to leading a million-strong Facebook community, all while balancing motherhood and a passion for authentic engagement. If you’re looking to spark meaningful relationships, we’ll uncover strategies that go beyond algorithms and automation.
True connection starts with showing up authentically and taking that first brave step, even when it feels uncertain. What matters most is just getting started..
IN THIS EPISODE YOU’LL DISCOVER:
- Why community is a secret weapon in the AI era (00:02)
- How Rachel grew a 1.1M community on Facebook (02:33)
- Juggling seven kids and building an empire (05:53)
- Why pivoting your strategy is non-negotiable (10:56)
- Creating a loyal following through engagement (11:44)
- Your audience reflects your company’s values (14:54)
- Show up where your people and passions align for maximum impact (18:27)
- Why social media is about more than just likes and shares (24:06)
- How to sustain social media momentum (27:43)
- Inside Rachel’s book: What you need to know (29:56)
- Getting in touch with Rachel (33:29)
- Fear of starting over? Here’s why it’s worth it (34:42)
RESOURCES
QUOTES
“We expect the grand slam, we expect the big moment right away. But it is a lot of trial and error — try again, try again, adapt, figure it out.” – Rachel Marie Martin
“There’s nothing worse than reaching out to a company and being grateful for what they do, and then hearing crickets.” – Rachel Marie Martin
“You really need to know where your people are, but also where you love to create, where you love to hang out. Because, again, it’s that mirror. If you don’t like to be there, it’s just not going to be the same.” – Samantha Riley
“It’s really about creating some type of content that shares itself, that when somebody sees it, they think, ‘I need to let my friends know about this right away.’” – Rachel Marie Martin
“There’s something very special in having the conversation that’s already going on in someone else’s head. That is the glue that brings us together.” – Samantha Riley
“When we live alive and in congruence with who we are created to be, we inspire others to do the same. And it’s amazing what we can do as a group of people when we live with that type of joy.” – Rachel Marie Martin
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ABOUT RACHEL MARIE MARTIN
Rachel is the writer behind the site FindingJoy.net and author of Mom Enough and The Brave Art of Motherhood. She co-founded Audience Industries to mentor entrepreneurs and has a vast online presence with articles in over 25 languages. Based in Nashville with seven kids, she speaks globally.
WHERE TO FIND RACHEL MARIE MARTIN
- Website: https://findingjoy.net/
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rachelmariemartin/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/finding_joy
- Facebook: https://facebook.com/findingjoyblog
CONNECT WITH SAMANTHA RILEY
Facebook: Samantha Riley
Instagram: @thesamriley
LinkedIn: Samantha Riley
Twitter: @thesamriley
TRANSCRIPTION
Samantha Riley 0:02
Welcome to today’s episode of Influence By Design. I’m your host, Samantha Riley, and today we’re going to talk about community, how to create community, how to nurture community, because this is what’s going to make us really stand out in these times of AI and these times where people are craving connections so much, even though we’re more connected than ever before. So Rachel Marie Martin, welcome to the show.
Rachel Marie Martin 0:28
Thank you for having me. I’m excited to talk about community with you.
Samantha Riley 0:32
Absolutely, and it is really the thing that people are craving, and it’s the thing that’s going to have us standing out. I was just chatting to my husband earlier, and he’d been on a call, an early call, with our mentors, and they were talking about automation and LinkedIn, and we were having a conversation, saying, we’re not there for that. Like those times are done where you connect with someone. The next message is, hey, buy my thing. It’s like no. And that community and being able to nurture relationships is going to really have you standing out right now. That’s my belief. I’m guessing that you’re on that same trajectory.
Rachel Marie Martin 1:11
I’m absolutely on the same trajectory. I truly believe that it’s the community, places and sites that foster community are the ones that are going to stand out. And if you look at any large, even global business, the one companies that take the time to understand the language of their consumer and their audience are the ones that people will talk about without even being asked to talk about them.
Samantha Riley 1:38
Absolutely, it’s like the Maya Angelou quote that’s, you know, people won’t remember what you say, but they’ll remember how you made them feel. And if, if any of us are asked, you know, what of those, those things that stand out? It’s always the way that we’re made to feel. They’re the memories that really are top of mind. And it’s not, you know, what award has this person won? Or who were the top three people that won this thing? It just isn’t. It’s, this person really cared about me and, or I had this amazing experience with someone. Now you’ve got a community of over 1 million followers, and I believe that’s with your community Finding Joy. Can you tell us a little bit about your journey into really getting this huge community around finding joy?
Rachel Marie Martin 2:33
I would love to. So the community that I have is on Facebook, and I love talking about it, because sometimes you’ll hear Facebook is dead, don’t go there, but there’s still a very active community there. And honestly, I love to tell entrepreneurs that it’s finding where your people reside, in what social platform, where they like to go. And for me, this Facebook, Facebook has been a fabulous community. It’s because, for me, it’s been a place of a little bit more long form discussion, where there can be give and take. I started my Facebook page in 2011 I believe. So I started blogging in 2005, 2006 and I’ve always been an early adopter of technology and the internet. And my very first Facebook post, because prior to that, I was quite active on Twitter, which is now X was, I guess I’m going to give this Facebook thing a try. And I’m like, It’s a brilliant first Facebook post. How did, but I just, you just don’t know. And I went into it with, you know, not knowing what was going to happen, I hard coded Facebook Like buttons onto my website. I just figured it out. And I really believe on the other side of community, you also have to have this tenacity to allow algorithm changes, different things, to not stop you, but be a spot where, what can I do to figure it out? Because you’re eventually going to, you’re going to keep bumping into them, and if you think that it’s game over, then you’re not, then you’re not going to figure it out. And so I always went in with the idea of, how can I create this amazing community online and not let any of those algorithms and all that stuff deter me? And now, you know, a little over a decade later, there are 1.1 million people there, which people ask me too, like, Well, did you have to pay? And I’ve never paid Facebook. And in fact, Facebook pays me as a content creator now. So it’s turned out pretty well.
Samantha Riley 4:32
So, 2005 you started blogging. What inspired you to start blogging? What were you doing at the time where you thought I’m just going to start blogging?
Rachel Marie Martin 4:42
So I tell people I’m going to back it up even before that, in 1983 or so, my dad bought a personal computer, way before they were common, and my husband and I did research on personal computers, and it was only like 6% of the population in the US had computers at that point, and 20% had computers in 1990 and by 2000 it was only 50%, so I really consider myself a very early adopter of the computer and the internet. Well, the segue into blogging was because I was in Yahoo groups. And Yahoo groups, I found community. I found this fabulous way to connect with people. I started in Yahoo groups when I had moved to San Diego, California as a young mom. I wanted to connect with other moms, and I was in there, and what happened was I started writing, and somebody said, I really like what you write, maybe you should start a blog. And I’m like, Well, what’s a blog? But because I grew up in this place of early adopting, my dad taught me to code. I just decided I don’t really know what it is, but I’m gonna try it. And that was my segue into blogging.
Samantha Riley 5:53
Love that. Now, you’re a mom. I read that you’re a mom with seven kids. That’s incredible. Congratulations. Seven kids and a business. I mean, I’m wondering where your cape is today.
Rachel Marie Martin 6:08
All moms have capes. Yes.
Samantha Riley 6:10
True story. True story. How did you, you know, get that business started, create community, be a mom? There’s plenty of people listening right now that are like, oh my goodness, I just don’t have enough hours in the day. How did you do it?
Rachel Marie Martin 6:25
For me, it was an outlet in the beginning. I didn’t know that it was the business that was going to change my life, but it was an outlet for creative expression, and for me to connect with women, was community. Then my first marriage was very unhealthy, and I went through a really, really challenging divorce with those seven kids, and I became a single mom and the sole provider, and that lit a fire under me like nothing else, because I knew I needed to make it work. And because I knew I needed to make it work, I just put everything I could into it, and decided to not listen to the naysayers, to really, really focus on what I was doing, but I also allowed myself to be authentic and vulnerable, and that authenticity and vulnerability in the post is what eventually started to make them go viral, is there was something that was different. It wasn’t a cliche answer, it wasn’t the same content regurgitated. There was a definite voice where people would see it and they would know, oh, that’s Finding Joy. That’s Rachel’s and I cultivated and curated that voice, especially in a time early 2010s to 2015 was a lot of like, I’ll share this. You share that. And I just stayed in my lane. I just was like, I need them to know what Finding Joy is, what that site is. And so often people would, you know, find stuff and say, Hey, that sounds like you. And what I ended up creating was a brand. I really ended up creating a voice where people knew, this is Rachel.
Samantha Riley 8:02
So consistency was key there. And, you know, it wasn’t a I’ll do this thing one week, and then I’ll do something else another week. How did you turn that consistency into something that was a business, because you started off just writing out of interest, right? How did you turn, how did it turn into a business? How did you monetize it? Where was that point where you’re like, oh my goodness, I’ve got something here that can be a business?
Rachel Marie Martin 8:29
So I really also believe that there was timing. When I started blogging was in the, I would say, the golden age of bloggers, where companies saw bloggers as these people were disruptors in their normal advertising world. Bloggers, all of a sudden gained more traction than, let’s say, a commercial and so I was in this spot when companies were very willing to say, we need to work with bloggers. So I helped write that landscape, figure that out. So part of the monetization came in that way. The other way was I took my website and monetized it with Google, and I had Google Adsense and all of those things on it. And I can remember being of, the single mom getting a check from Google for $31 and I wish I still had it, but I had to spend it that back then, going out of a financial situation, but I remember getting it thinking, Okay, I have, I can make this grow, if I can create more traffic. And the, other the final way I monetize it with it was I actually published an ebook of content that I had written where readers were saying, Do you have an ebook? I would like to send this to my friend, and we published it into an ebook, and then people started buying it. And that was the moment where I thought I could make this a business. But it means being vulnerable, putting yourself out there, saying, Hey, I’ve got this, and being okay, if you know, you get crickets or all of that. I think that’s part of it is, we expect the grand slam, we expect the big moment right away. But it is a lot of trial and error, try again, try again, adapt, figure it out.
Samantha Riley 10:09
Yeah, before I go down the route of really this community piece, I want to ask a little, dive a little bit deeper into this. For anyone that’s heard The Outliers this, this was a huge epiphany for me to realise that there is luck involved. It doesn’t, there needs to be timing. There needs to be connections. Obviously, you mentioned that you started your blog, in the golden age of blogging. If someone used the same strategy now it is not going to turn out the same. What are some tips that you could give people that wanted to start something, start some sort of community now, because the strategy might be a little bit different.
Rachel Marie Martin 10:56
First of all, don’t be afraid of adapting. I think back to all of the companies that are no longer in existence, like Blockbuster, the movie rental company, they didn’t pivot. They didn’t adapt. They thought, we have the strategy, we’re not going to shift. People won’t, people won’t change. But people, culture, society, the internet, it’s constantly changing. It’s constantly adapting. And to not look at it like I’m not going to do it. Figure out, how do I fit within it? But the strategy for starting again, it goes back to, first of all, writing and creating a community about something that you love. Because I’ve worked with a number of people that would have these giant pages, let’s say, on Facebook, but they were miserable because they no longer related to the content that they were sharing, and it was just a grind. And so be really conscious of that is, create the community, create the business where even on your worst days, you can be like, Okay, I still love what I’m doing. I still have this passion for the people on the other side. And the last thing, and this is so important to me is I know that every person that replies on Finding Joy with a comment has decided to take time out of their day, 30 seconds, two minutes, whatever. And the most, I’m appreciative of that time, I’m very aware that they have given me a gift in that time, and I try my best to show up and respond to them. To me, there’s nothing worse than reaching out to a company and being grateful for what they do, and then hearing crickets, and I’ve had that experience. And so creating community. It’s about community. It’s not just you, saying, push, giving, giving, putting information out, it’s this give and return.
Samantha Riley 12:43
I’m so glad you said that. I haven’t actually heard anyone say it like that before, and I always am saying to my clients, if someone leaves a message on your social media, don’t just give it a like. They have invested time to say something. Take the time to respond back. People are craving being seen and heard, and they’re time poor, the most that you can give at that time is some acknowledgement for them taking the time to share something. And I haven’t heard someone talk about it before, so I’m really glad that you said that, because I’ve also been on the opposite side, like you say, where someone just gives a like, and you think, huh? You took 10 minutes to write something really heartfelt, and something there, right? You just gave it a thumbs up, thanks.
Rachel Marie Martin 13:32
Right. Maybe the caring emoji, yeah, social media is social. That’s the thing if you’re going to use, so it’s a social interaction. And you’re right. I really do take time and in my day where it may look like, well, she’s just on Facebook, but I’m responding to people or my team, we’re working on like, it’s this very intentional response of not just like you said, thumbs up, like or a heart emoji. It’s where I listen to what they’re saying. Because the other thing about creating community is the comments, they tell you the heart of your, of the person that’s on your page, they tell you they’re using the words that you can reflect back to them. And without reading it, it’s just a one-sided conversation. And if you can just kind of slow down, listen to it, maybe even see where like, something is shared. I know by seeing what’s a share and going and clicking on it and leaving a comment there. Thank you so much for sharing, that content that I’ve shared has been shared with churches and doulas, and I see where it’s shared, which then is another insight into the community. So if you want to create community, you have to invest in the community and kind of do that little bit of work where you’re like, Okay, where are they coming in from?
Samantha Riley 14:54
Can you explain a little bit what community means to you? And then the second part of the question is, why it’s so important, as a business owner, that we build community? Or is it important?
Rachel Marie Martin 15:09
I believe community it’s a conversation. It’s a place where you can gather. I call Finding Joy’s community a sacred space on the internet, because I don’t allow, really, any of that fighting to happen. It’s a conversation where we can sit at the table, we can have differing opinions, but we can love and respect each other, and that’s to me, what community is. And I truly believe community is important if that’s the part of your business that needs it. And I think most businesses that create some type of community, that there is that edge, there’s that spot where you know you’re invested, they’re invested in you. I have an example of when I, recently with this book. I was on Good Morning America, so I was on national television, and I shared a post on Instagram about how, I was really grateful for in-flight Wi Fi, because I was watching my clip as it was airing, and I tagged the airline, which was Southwest Airway. And they responded. And I thought, well, that’s cool. First of all, they responded. I thought that was really neat. And then they said, hey, we’d like to send you something. So then I’m like, that’s even cooler. And then they sent me something, and it wasn’t just a generic card, it was a card that said, we’re really glad that you found joy on our flight. And I thought, oh my goodness, not only did they send a response, but they knew who I was in it, and that, to me, made me think, I’m gonna fly them all the time. So that’s a really powerful moment of them training their employees to not just be generic, but to invest in the people that take time to mention them. And so that, to me, is why community is important. It’s important because it tells the people who come into your, whether it’s physical or online platform or store, that you really are appreciative of them entering and you want the experience to be good.
Samantha Riley 17:13
What I just heard then, and I’ve never thought about this before, was that that community actually mirrors the culture of the company. And that is priceless. That is priceless.
Rachel Marie Martin 17:30
Yeah.
Samantha Riley 17:33
There’s no marketing that can give you that, right?
Rachel Marie Martin 17:38
Right. That makes me teary, because I do think it’s a culture. It’s what you stand for, and when you create that community, it’s powerful. I’ve been traveling all over the US, meeting people and the best compliment I get is you’re exactly who I thought you would be. There’s this congruency there. There’s this part where they see the authenticity online, and it’s extended in real life. And I truly believe that the companies that are set up the best, everybody adopts that, they believe in it with that intensity, that that’s who they want to be, and that’s what they want to present to the world. And when you have a culture that’s like that, that values community, you don’t have to do so much of the work to get people to join it, because they naturally want to be a part of it.
Samantha Riley 18:27
Now, a major part of your community is your Facebook group for people that are like, Well, my people aren’t on Facebook. A, I’m not 100% sure that that’s as blatant as what people think it is. There are still a lot of people on Facebook. But B, what are some different places that you see people creating community just to get people’s, I guess, get some sparks of ideas of like, I hadn’t thought of that.
Rachel Marie Martin 18:55
I think it’s anywhere. I see Tiktok, Snapchat. I remember when Snapchat first came out in like, 2013, 2014 and they marketed, the company, Sour Patch Kids marketed, they did their marketing on Snapchat. Well, it’s brilliant, because teens love Snapchat, and teens love Sour Patch Kids, and so it was a perfect spot. And so it’s really looking where your community is. Maybe it’s Instagram, maybe it’s on Substack. There’s so many places to find community, and it’s finding the place that resonates with the content that you create, too, is if you’re a podcaster, maybe that’s where you can start to create community, but not decide, not trying to do it in every single platform. I’ve done many, hundreds of website reviews, and one of the things that I always tell people is like, pick two, maybe three, but pick the places where you’re going to show up. Don’t just have all these like, you know, secure your name in the other places, but don’t market it that you’re going to be there and then, it’s just crickets, or you’re reusing content that shouldn’t be on that platform on it, because we all know, we’re like, that’s a Pinterest pin on Facebook, or that’s an Instagram, we just know, and when you do that, it’s not as authentic. So I would say, find the platform where you like to gather, where you would go naturally, and where your people would and then create content that matches the language of that platform.
Samantha Riley 20:28
It’s interesting. As you were speaking then I was just, there’s a creator that I follow on Tiktok. I love to consume content on Tiktok. I love it and, you know, I actually can’t think of her handle off the top of my head, but her first name is Jess. She’s a female football player in the AFL Women’s League. But this creator, she started off by sharing in the off season, like, you know, her going to the gym and what she ate, and she started to transition into, hey, this is just what I do. This is life. And she’s gone viral here to the point there’s people in her comments constantly going, I’ve gone for this other team my whole entire life. And because of you, I’m going to, you know, follow your team from now on, because she’s just adorable. But she just posted that she started to put reels on Instagram, and she was actually in the comments saying, Oh, wow, Instagram’s not like you guys. Oh, it’s wild. And Instagram, yet, there’s people that love Instagram, and you know, they don’t have that experience. So you really need to know where your people are, but also where you love to create, where you love to hang out, because, again, it’s that mirror. If you don’t like to be there, it’s just not going to be the same.
Rachel Marie Martin 21:47
Right, right. I’ve seen that over and over again about people trying to create content in different spaces, and it doesn’t work. I have found, actually, that Threads has been a really great place for me to create the really short form content that, it’s more like a dialog. And I was surprised by it, but it kind of mirrored back when I used Twitter. It’s not the most giant platform that I have, but it’s been this place where I can connect with other authors. And I like that part is knowing even who’s on the platforms, is knowing, like, this is a place where I could connect with authors. If I spend 20 minutes there a day, it’s really valuable time. It’s really valuable time because there’s insights and connections that I can make there. And I have over and over, I was just on a podcast where they said, Well, do you think it’s a waste of time to be on social media? And I was like, Absolutely not, because social media, it’s where, that’s the business, that’s what I’m in is, yes, I have to create content. Yes, I have to do this. But if I’m thinking I’m going to create all this content and spend 20 minutes a day on social media, I’ve got it backwards. I need to spend the time there. Understand the content that I should create, and it will come to me when I’m there, and then it’s just that type of kind of, that kind of relationship versus I’m just going to throw it out there, hopefully someone sees it and then wonder, well, why are they not liking it? Well, they’re probably not liking it because you’re not there.
Samantha Riley 23:19
Totally. And when I think about how we’ve connected, we were connected by a friend of mine, Tamara, who I met over 10 years ago on Facebook. She came on my podcast. She came to my event in Santa Monica. I went to her event in San Diego, both of us, it’s led to multiple connections where I wouldn’t have had one of my other podcasts if I didn’t meet at her event, like it’s just and, you know, 10 years later, she’s reached out and said, hey, you need to meet someone, Rachel. She’s amazing, and I know that you two will hit it off, and that’ll happen, because one day we connected on Facebook, and instead of just hit connect, we actually had a conversation, and it’s turned into a friendship, where we can be across the other side of the world and we know each other extremely well.
So I think that people don’t understand the actual connection piece in social media, and this is where I want to go next, because I feel like a lot of people put themselves first. And what I mean is I’ll go on social media, and I’ll tell people this thing, or I’ll share my education, or I’ll talk about my business, and there’s no looking at it through the eyes of the people that you’re speaking with. Can you share some insights around that? Because I think it’s really and I could be wrong, so I’d love to hear your take on this. I think it’s really hard to build community if you’re just telling people all the time about your thing.
Rachel Marie Martin 24:47
Absolutely. I believe that they tune it out because, again, going back to the issue of time, everybody has 24 hours in the day and when they’re scrolling, let’s just say they’re on Instagram, Facebook. Generally, most people aren’t specifically going to your page. They’re seeing your content in a stream of content. And so if you’re just always like, just trying to say, buy this or do this and all that, it’s very easy to tune that out. So it really is about creating that connection. One of the best compliments I get, too, is when people say, How did you know what I was thinking? Or you are, you are writing what exactly what I was in my head, and that doesn’t just come because I’m like, I wonder what’s in their head? It’s because I’m taking the time to listen. It’s really, social media and creating community, it’s like a friendship. It’s you’re not always thinking of what is the next thing I’m going to say? It’s okay, What are they telling me right now? What are the words that they’re using? What, specifically? One of the first things that I ever had go viral was probably 2012 was I had written like 10 Tips Moms Need To Know, and I had a reader write back and say, I love what you write, but I feel like I’m failing. So then I thought, oh my gosh, I feel like I’m failing as a mom too, like it struck a chord. So I wrote her a letter back, Dear mom who feels like she’s failing. And what I found was, her email was anonymous. And so I read what I had written, and it was universal. It was like I was writing to myself. It was what I would tell you, and a friend is like, you have to get it published, and I did, and it’s gone. It went unbelievably viral. And people would say, How did you know what I was thinking? How did you know what I was feeling? And that was the reason they shared it. It wasn’t because I was like, Can you click like, share, comment, or all of that? It was because they thought, I feel this way, I bet my friends feel this way, and I want them to read it, and then their friends would read it, and they would think the same. And that’s how you create community. That’s how you create viral. It’s never, never, never by saying, you know, Can you click, like, comment, share? It’s really about creating some type of content that shares itself, that when somebody sees it, they think, I need to let my friends know about this right away.
Samantha Riley 27:13
I love that so much. We’ve talked a lot about the conversations that bring people into community. What are some of the things that will sustain that community or nurture that community? Because I think it’s one thing to say that letter resonated with me, but it’s a whole nother thing to say, I want to, I want to be here. I want to be part of this. And I almost think of community like a movement, like, what makes people lean in and go, this is where I’m meant to be, and I’m here. These are my people.
Rachel Marie Martin 27:43
Consistency, showing up, not being haphazard with it. There is this consistency where you have to show up in their feed, you know, if you think about touch points and all of that. But it’s also being very clear about what that community is about. I’ve often said, one of the reasons I rarely share content that’s not something that I’ve written or created. And I used to get a lot of people that would say, Well, how do you build your community that way? Because aren’t you relying on it showing to other people? And I said, Well, yes and no, because if I share something from CNN’s news feed here in the States, and I, that’s me, but then they’re sharing Fox’s news, which is the opposite end of the spectrum, then it’s inconsistent for their viewers. They, that’s, there’s a it’s like they’re antithetical to each other. And so I’ve become very clear that when you’re in this space, this community, you know what to expect. You know that it’s a place of love and respect and growth and encouragement, and we’re not going to stay stuck. And so the more clearly you can define what your place is, or what you stand for, it’s so much easier to create community versus I’m just going to be nebulous. Whatever it’s that, it’s that, that honoring of it and being okay with what you’ve created, and maybe it doesn’t look like what you read or what other people tell you to do. You know, a lot of people say to me, Well, can you tell me how to handle Facebook, like, what time I should post? And I’ll tell them, I can’t tell you that, because your community is different than my community. It’s understanding when your community shows up, I know that moms read my stuff or busy people, and if I share long form content in the morning, nobody has time to read it because we’re getting out the door. But if it’s nine at night, then we’ve sat down, we’re looking at it. We’re scrolling. It’s long form, it’s that, and it’s knowing that and being okay if how you create your community looks different than how somebody else creates it, and leaning into what you’re creating.
Samantha Riley 29:56
Now you’ve also just written a book, Get Your Spark Back. I would love, I mean, I love the title of this book. Like that sings to me already before I’ve even asked anything about it. What inspired you to begin to write this? Or where did your spark come from for writing this book?
Rachel Marie Martin 30:16
Well, I love that you love the title. I’m very proud of it. I’m going to tell you very quickly that the title was inspired by my community, because I went through my own spark finding journey where I kind of had lost it. I had reached that spot in life where I looked in the mirror and I knew the reflection, but I didn’t know myself anymore. I was like, Who is she now? And I didn’t know how to reconcile my divorce or my financial stuff with where I was going, and so I went on a personal journey of getting my spark back, and the readers of Finding Joy, they saw, they saw the change in me. They saw what had happened. And the number one email I would get was, how do I get my spark back? And so it’s so powerful, because nobody says a spark. It’s always my spark, like we each have it and back, you know, we want it. It’s there. And so I knew that it was the perfect title, because I knew the question had this beautiful vulnerability in it. When you’re willing to ask it, it means you’re willing to step out and say, I am going to fight for my own soul, my story and my heart.
Samantha Riley 31:27
Can you give us a bit of a context of what, I mean it makes obvious, it’s pretty obvious. Get my spark back, what it’s about, but who, who did you write it for when you were writing it? Who was top of mind?
Rachel Marie Martin 31:42
I wrote it for the person that looked in the mirror and goes, what’s next? Who am I now? I don’t know what to do, and whether a lot of us, when COVID and the pandemic hit, life came to a screeching halt, and we thought, I don’t want to go back to the way I was, but I don’t know what to do. Or there’s a whole lot of us that have these stories that are messy. I always say that nobody, when they’re 18, puts in their high school yearbook, it’ll be really fun when I’m 40 to go through a divorce, and yet you’ll have this stuff. And I wanted it to be this place of recognising we’ve got this stuff, but we have this beautiful gift of time in front of us, and what am I going to do now? And how am I going to do it? And, you know, people have worries like, what if I’m too old, or what if I don’t have enough money? And I thought, I’m going to take all the questions people ask and we’re going to talk about it. We’re going to have a dialog, and we’re going to celebrate taking the steps to living the time you have in front of you, fully alive and with joy.
Samantha Riley 32:43
I think there’s something very special in having the conversation that’s already going on in someone else’s head. That is the glue that brings us together. That’s the connection to go, oh my goodness, it’s not just me. I feel so alone. I’m struggling, and I know now that there are other people that are going through this thing, and it’s going to be okay, like, these are the special parts of life. So I think that this sounds like an amazing book that’s going to bring a lot of people together, a lot of people joy, a lot of people purpose to move forward. So for people that have listened to this conversation with us today, how do they stay connected with you, follow along, get a copy of your book, all the things?
Rachel Marie Martin 33:29
Alright. Well, most people, which you probably could guess, find me on Facebook at Finding Joy Blog, if you type it in, you’ll see my face. There’s a little blue check mark that Meta says that I’m real, and otherwise at finding joy.net. And the book Get Your Spark Back. It’s sold wherever books are sold, Amazon, Books a Million Book, Barnes and Noble, and Book Shop, and there’s a lot of international sellers as well. And I’m just, I’m just so grateful to be able to share it with the world, because I really, truly, truly believe that when we live alive and in congruence with who we are created to be, we inspire others to do the same. And you know, it’s amazing what we can do as a group of people when we live with that type of joy.
Samantha Riley 34:15
Absolutely, and congratulations. You know, people say, Oh, anyone can write a book. And I’m like, unless you’ve written one, don’t tell me that, because, so much work. It’s a journey, right? I feel like it’s a big personal development journey.
Rachel Marie Martin 34:29
It is, it is. There’s a section in the book where I say, you know, kudos to my family for when I signed the contract. They’re probably all making plans like, how are we going to survive this? Because it’s so much work.
Samantha Riley 34:42
Absolutely. I love to leave people with something that they can really noodle over or think about or say, you know, I’m going to do this, so if there was one thought you could leave our listeners with today, what would that parting thought be?
Rachel Marie Martin 34:58
It would be, don’t be afraid to be a beginner. It doesn’t matter how old you are. I think sometimes we’re like, oh, I don’t want to be the new person. I don’t want to try that. And you know, the only way you can ever get to the spot where you can share about your success or your story or what you’ve done is when you’re willing to say, I’m okay with being a beginner. So don’t let that stop you just like, I’m like, just go all in. Be that beginner, be the new kid, because amazing things can happen when you do that.
Samantha Riley 35:28
Rachel, thank you so much for joining us today. It’s been an absolute pleasure chatting with you.
Rachel Marie Martin 35:32
Thank you for having me.
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