Episode 77Nov 7, 2025· 49:38

How a Psychiatric Nurse Practitioner Wrote 4 Books in 60 Hours Using AI (Without AI Writing a Single Word)

▸ Show notes from the creator

What if you could write a book in a weekend? Psychiatric nurse practitioner Andrew Hewitt did exactly that, creating four comprehensive business books in just 60 hours by using AI as an interview coach instead of a ghostwriter. In this game-changing episode, Andrew reveals his exact process for turning his expertise into published books without spending years writing or letting AI put words in his mouth. Ashley and Andrew dive deep into the ethical way to use AI for content creation, the difference between having AI write for you versus having it guide you, and why this method works brilliantly for experts who are too busy to write but have knowledge worth sharing. Andrew also shares his incredible journey from homelessness to running three successful companies, his philosophy on betting on yourself, and how he helps other healthcare practitioners break free from corporate jobs to build their own practices. Plus, hear the inspiring story of how he refused to let a colleague give up on her dreams, leading to a thriving practice and a lasting friendship built on collaboration over competition. Get Andrew's Books From Clinic to CEO: The Nurse Practitioner’s Blueprint to Building a Thriving Private Practice https://amzn.to/47FpGKc From Clinic to CEO – Book 2: Growth Mode https://amzn.to/3WJJvek From Clinic to CEO Book 3: Building a Thriving Multi-Provider Practice https://amzn.to/47PJT00 From Clinic to CEO Book 4: Prescription for Promotion: Marketing Tactics That Heal Your Bottom Line https://amzn.to/4nIwvjY Follow Andrew on social media https://www.instagram.com/andrewaprn/ This podcast is supported by affiliate partnerships. Please check out a few of our partners below: – Start a podcast today here: https://rss.com?via=famous – Create content from your own voice with Castmagic's Suite of AI Tools: https://get.castmagic.io/dcjy15cirnts – Want to help support our show? Buy a girl a drink perhaps? https://ko-fi.com/famousashleygrant – Need content for your podcast or blog? Check out Tools for Motivation! The links above are affiliate links. This means my podcast will receive a small commission if you order through any of them at no additional cost to you. Affiliate commissions are one of the ways my podcast makes money so that I can create episodes free of charge. If you do purchase anything from my links, I sincerely would like to thank you for your support!

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About this episode

What if you could write a book in a weekend? Psychiatric nurse practitioner Andrew Hewitt did exactly that, creating four comprehensive business books in just 60 hours by using AI as an interview coach instead of a ghostwriter. In this game-changing episode, Andrew reveals his exact process for turning his expertise into published books without spending years writing or letting AI put words in his mouth. Ashley and…

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Full transcript

00:03

The Bloggy Friends Show. What's up, my bloggy friends? Famous Ashley Grant here, and I just want to welcome you to the Bloggy Friends Show. We're so excited to have you join us on this journey of sharing our knowledge and experiences with you. Whether you're a blogger, a content creator, or just someone who's interested in learning more about the digital world, we've got something for you. So grab your notebook and a pen to take some notes or just sit back and take in all the amazing information and ideas we're about to share with you. Let's get into it. Well, welcome, Andrew, to the show. I was so excited that you were down to chat with me because you're releasing a book. So, let's kind of just jump in. Tell me a little bit about yourself, a little bit of background, and all the good things. So, my name is Andrew Hewitt. I am a psychiatric nurse practitioner, board certified.

01:06

I am located on the west coast of Florida in the Tampa Bay area, and I am licensed in 30 different states right now for telehealth. Oh, wow. I didn't even know that part. That's fun. So, what do you do? In your day to day, like as your day gig. All right. So I own and operate a mental health practice here in Newport, Ritchie, located in Pasco County. So I see patients for mental health issues as well as I am the chief nurse practitioner here. So all the other nurse practitioners and therapists, if they have a clinical problem, they come to me and I help them to address it.

01:48

Fascinating. OK, wow. So you do like a lot of things. And that's just here for Caliper. I have two other companies that I run. One of them is Excelsior Consulting, where I help nurse practitioners or PAs or even doctors leave their corporate job and expand out and branch out onto their own to start their own practice, which is where the books come from. Okay. Now, do you focus on virtual businesses for all the people you work with? So the thing with the books is there are four books in total. So the first book takes you from that idea. to a telepractice. The second book is a telepractice to a brick and mortar.

02:25

And then the third book is brick and mortar to multiple locations, multiple providers. And the fourth book is all about marketing and how I marketed the practice to get it to expand. Okay. And so that's kind of what I wanted to jam on today. I wanted to talk about how you created these books and how, like the process of you writing it. We recently had Robin Vaughn. We had her on talking about how she wrote her first book after it's a, it's a fiction book after many years of doing nonfiction, but you are doing a nonfiction book, but the way you did it is what got me so excited and what made me want to talk to you. So tell me a little bit about the process of you creating your book and how you went about it. For my type of book, which I guess is like a do it yourself type book. It was pretty easy. So I I'm going to be an I group, which is a networking group. It's international networking group. And someone had a guest come

03:15

in one time. She was teaching a class on how to use AI to write a book. And I was skeptical because I'm thinking AI is going to have AI write the book, which I would never would want to do. So I took the class, but I took the class because the person who does our marketing, my friend Ryan Thompson of Hydrus Connect, he does our website, all our marketing. He told me one day just in passing, hey, you know, I wrote a book like 10 years ago and I could never get the endings.

03:40

I just don't know how to get the ending. So I paid for the class for him. to see how AI would help him maybe come write the ending. So he comes to my office. I told him I just checked his class, and I sat here with him. He took it. So the class was over. He's like, that was awesome. I think I could do this. I was like, all right, awesome. So how much time do you need to get your book finished? He's like, no, I want to do this for you. I was like, what? He's like, I'm going to use their prompts that they gave me in the class.

04:06

I want to alter them for you, and then I'm going to interview you. based on the questions that the AI, that chat GPT professional that he uses gives me. So that is where the books came from. He had chat GPT come up with the questions for me for the book. And then he sat down and interviewed me for the book. And then he just typed out all my answers. And that's where the book came from. Each question is a chapter of the book. And the questions came from chat GPT, but I actually answered them. Okay, so basically, The difference between what some people are suggesting to do and what you did is instead of actually putting in your ideas and having AI write the stuff, you treated it as a almost like a book coach.

04:53

Yes, for sure. For sure. So, yeah, the chat GPT essentially interviewed me and then Ryan transcribed my my responses. And then we used chat GPT to format it all. And then I just went through and took out like any grammar. changes that they made uh that to your chat you begin automatically or how i just didn't like the way something was worded but sometimes it converts stuff for you without you wanting it to convert stuff and they were just formatting it you know to book form okay so if you had written it by yourself versus using ai what do you think that would have looked like i i never would have done it i never i know that i am way too busy with the three different companies i run to sit down and be like oh i'm gonna write a book i wouldn't have even known you know So how fast was it whenever you were using the program? So the interviews with Ryan were about two hours each time. And he sat down

05:47

with me for five different sessions of interviews. And then we just met a couple other times for about two or three hours at a time to just go over format and what I wanted for the artwork or the cover. And then I spent time just proofreading and editing, which really wasn't all that difficult because we were flying out to... Washington state a few times back and forth because I'm licensed out there and my oldest daughter lives out there so I went to see her and I saw the patients I need to see in person and on the flight I just sat there with a cocktail and and edited and it didn't feel like it took all that long you know so you did all four books already yes and it sounds like you did all four in less than like what would you give it 50 hours maybe yeah that sounds about 50 60 hours yeah yeah that's insane like i mean anybody who's listening to this they might immediately be like well i'm

06:39

gonna write my book this weekend you should you totally totally should please please if you have a a book in you do it so now the the next thing that's coming up which people are already asking because people are coming to like the book launch party that's that's soon i know this as after that so this will likely have people like oh my god now you're gonna tell the story of of where the journey of the journey i was like oh no Like, I don't know. Like, there's names in there that. Like, when do you stop with that?

07:08

Because it's like, oh, your story is so interesting. You know, you were homeless. And now this is what you did. And it's amazing. And it's like, yeah, I don't know. Do I mention people I dated? How does that work? I don't know. Where do you go with a book about, you know, that's essentially your story and about your life. So I was like, let's just keep it with these books for now. So basically what you're saying is your life story is coming. I never say no to anything.

07:35

It's just I don't know where the lines are, you know, what lines you draw to be like, this is out of bounds. But then it all factors in. Like, do I talk about my friend Susie, who I really cared about, who committed suicide? And that was one of the reasons I got into mental health. Do I not? Would that upset her family and her other friends? Like, I don't I don't know, like where the lines are for that stuff. So I don't know that's possible. I definitely get that because, I mean, especially when it's like touchy subjects, it's very it's very raw and real because, I mean, that's one of the things you and I connected on is my father committed suicide two days after Christmas in 2016. So so we both have that suicide survivor like nobody wants that title, but we both are. And so I definitely get that. And I've often joked that if I'm ever going to write a memoir, I'm going to title it as I remember it.

08:24

Because the reality is what did happen versus how I view it. That's for anyone's story. You know what I mean? But it's like, how do I talk about being homeless in 2010 and packing up my car that was getting repossessed and moved out to Florida because I was living in New York without talking about getting divorced from my ex -wife Regina? And how do I make it sound like I'm not still angry at her about talking about it at the time when I was angry at her? Now it's like, I'm not angry at her. We have a great friendship and we talk. all the time and I wouldn't want anything to upset her that I would talk about now because I'm looking at a different perspective, but I still would want to be truthful in that book for how I felt at the time, even though I don't feel like that now. I definitely get that. And I think with something that raw and real, it's just a matter of communication. And I mean, let's be honest, no matter what we put

09:16

out into the world, people are going to have their opinions on it anyway. But, yeah, I think you should write that story at some point. I've had a lot of pride conversations with a lot of different people to be like, listen, you're going to read this, but that's not how I feel now. Now everything's cool and, you know. Yeah. It's funny you say that because there's some things that I would like to write, but there are certain people that would have to not be alive anymore for it to go public. So what's funny is when people ask me the question, I'm like, some of these stories are really just for my therapist.

09:48

Yes. Exactly. That gives me a rerun that can hear some of these things. You know, and I often have said, you know, I think that all of us, we need to write our stories down, even if they never go public, simply because we want to remember it. We don't want to forget it. And it's really therapeutic. Like I personally went through something that kind of blew up my life a couple of years ago, and I've been writing it down just to get through it, just to heal from it. So and I call these sessions word vomits where I literally sit down and I'll have a Google Doc open and I just kind of word vomit onto the page. Everything that I'm thinking, everything I'm going through.

10:25

And it's it's like I said, it's very therapeutic. So journaling and journaling is a part of mental health care. Absolutely. So word vomit meets journaling. So, but yeah, I didn't know that background that, that it was Susie that led you into mental health field. It was one of the reasons. Yeah. Yeah. My other reason was my dad who had severe PTSD and being his primary caregiver while I was a primary school, a nursing school, I got to witness firsthand his flashbacks and to see how bad it was. And even my mom who lived, you know, lived with him, didn't know how bad it was. And I would tell her. And she would just be like, that's not what he does. I'm like, that's not what he's doing. Like, yeah, that's exactly what he's doing. Actually, no, he's reminiscing and just the memories are coming. I'm like, no, he's living it. He's in that moment. He's, you know, he's right there back in Vietnam in those

11:14

in those times, you know. So that was the other reason I got into mental health. That's I mean, that's really awesome, because I think that I truly believe that more people need to be talking about mental health. And I don't like that in so many cultures and so many places, it's still such a taboo subject. And it's like, dude, if we don't stop these cycles, people are still going to hurt people. So I'm in a networking group, like I mentioned, a BNI group and all the tradesmen in the group. No one will do a one to one with me, except like maybe one or two. Because the rest of it, the rest of the guys are too macho to talk about mental health.

11:51

And it's like. dude, we're having one -to -one to see how we can help each other's business. I'm not analyzing you. And I hate to say this. I don't care that much to analyze you in my free time. I'm trying to build my business. So you sitting in my office with me for an hour, I'm not analyzing you when we're here to discuss your business and my business. You know, they're just like, no, get out of here with that crap.

12:12

Yeah. And if you want to be honest, like, as far as I'm concerned, the most macho thing you can do is to actually get something. Yes. Like that is, that's where true strength lies. It really does. I tell people all the time, which is one of the side businesses that I have now, it's called Firebird Vitality, and it's meant to be a coaching for men to be better men. The archetypes of our dads, I'm a Gen Xer, so the archetypes of our fathers, they don't hold anymore.

12:37

That John Wayne type, that dirty Harry type, it had its time and place, and it's not anymore. Now we should be emulating Keanu Reeves, Ryan Reynolds. Hugh Jackman. These are the men that we should be emulating and looking up to. And the characters that they play in their movies. I mean, John Wick goes off because his dog was killed and his car wrecked. Who hasn't been distraught because their dog has passed? I think that's a better character than any John Wick character ever played. Facts. Absolute facts. So but getting back to the book, if someone came to you and they're like, OK, Andrew, I want to write a nonfiction book and I want it to be something that's actually going to help me in my business. Where do I begin?

13:28

What's the very first thing that you would say to them? You want to get a chat GPT business account because it gives you all that extra space and time. Right. Whereas the free account, you're limited and you just put in, you know, you start doing some blogs like on our website for all of our businesses. We have blogs to keep them updated and shows that they're active. And this way it starts to get a feel for who you are.

13:50

It starts to learn your voice, right? So then it's, hey, I want to write a book on how someone can, it doesn't matter, how someone can start a podcast, okay? Because here are my credentials and here are the steps I took. Come up with 10 questions, okay? And ChatGPT will give you those 10 questions and then those are your chapters, just like I did. Each chapter, each prompt will be. and each prompt now is what you write on.

14:17

And then you just sit and you answer the question honestly and genuinely. Now, when you started, I'm kind of curious as to what kind of prompts you used. I know you said you took a class, but are you comfortable sharing with me what some of your prompts look like? Oh, hold on. As I go to the book here, I could just tell you what the prompts are because you should have it here on the breakdown. I'll look for it's from prescription to promotion and marketing tactics that heal your bottom line. And it was just from survival marketing to strategic brand building. And that was one of my prompts. How did I go from basic marketing to building a brand? And it gave me back, it gave me a formal prompt of that. And the same thing, what are branding and first impressions?

15:08

And it gave me that question. I just answered honestly of what it meant to me. And then building your digital hub from your website and EMR integration. How did we build our digital hub? That was the question. Social media is presence without pressure. So I just put in there, what does social media mean to me? And it's just, you have to post on your social media pages to appease the algorithm, okay? And it just gets you out there and lets people know that you're out there, but it's not a sales pitch. It's just, this is what we do.

15:40

These are the services that we offer. If you need us, we're here for you. There's no pressure because it's mental health. I'm not selling anything other than access to mental health. How did I build local engagement? How did I build up on local engagement and sponsorships? Networking and professional partnerships. Each one kind of leads into the other. So there was a flow to it. What advertising did I pay for? So chapter seven is paid advertising is fuel, but not the engine. And it isn't. Advertising isn't meant to be what gets you. It's your fuel that gets you in front of people. What other tactics have we used for patient retention? Well, we use emails.

16:26

We just started doing email blasts, right? Or as a newsletter. So we just update patients and, hey, here's the latest blogs. Here's some latest articles that we've come across. And it's just a reminder of, hey, we're still out here. And more so for patients that fall off. Patients fall off in anything, any business. Your clients fall off, whether it's weight loss, whether it's advertising. They just fall off for whatever reason. With mental health, patients start to get stable and they get comfortable and they think, I don't need my medications anymore. And in many cases, they don't. But in the times that they do, It's like they feel bad to come back because they ghosted you. We take patients back, no questions asked. Because I want you to get the help. Because my goal with treatment is I want you to not need me anymore. I want you to come to me and say, hey, Andrew, I think this is our last appointment. Awesome. That's great.

17:26

Especially when they're going to therapy and they're doing the work. The medications are just meant to be a tool. not something that you live on. It's kind of my philosophy, which we can get at you if you want, or save that for another time. So when a patient falls off for whatever reason, or even just say, hey, Andrew, I don't need you anymore. I think I'm good. No problem. When, if you ever feel that you do, please come back. I'll get you right in. Okay. So now for a patient, let's just say they're one of my substance abuse patients and they're doing well. They have lots of boxing and then I titrate them down.

17:57

They don't need me anymore. They have a relapse. Which happens, we're all human beings, right? They go back, they get back on painkillers or opiates or whatever. They get that email blast of the newsletter and like, oh, this is the guy I went to, he helped me. Let me call him because he always said I could come back, no questions asked. As long as you don't have a balance, I'll get you in tomorrow. You know, any of the nurse practitioners, we have six nurse practitioners and four therapists. We'll get you in tomorrow with one of us, even if it's not with me. But if you reach out like, hey, Andrew, I need to be seen. No problem. I know Jesse has an opening tomorrow. We'll get you in with Jesse. No big deal. OK, so that's a chapter in the book because people don't realize it. And it worked really well for us. Reputation management and reviews.

18:42

One of the clients that I have found me on Google and only signed with. I've practiced signing with them as their exclusive mental health provider for their business because I had so many positive Google reviews. At the time, I think I had like 30 or 40. Now we have like 120. And of the 120, three or four of them are one star because you can't please everybody. But I still get angry when I see them because it's just like, oh, yeah.

19:11

But, you know, three of them say, you know, it was because of payments. Like, you know, Andrew stopped seeing me because I wouldn't pay for services. Yeah, it's a business. I still have to feed my children. You know, like I can't, if I could treat everyone for free and still feed my children, I'd be doing that too, you know, without question. And then it was like building your marketing plan and staying consistent because it's like, that's what you do, but you have to stay consistent. And it was, it was all really, I don't want to say easy to do, I guess just because we wanted to do it because I have classes coming out like that teach these things.

19:45

So the classes will coincide with each book. Okay. So going all the way back to book one, did you when you first sat down with ChatGPT, did you say like act as my book coach or what did you say? There's someone interviewing me for an interview on how to start your own telemedicine practice. OK. With 10 basic questions. OK, so if someone were to let's say they want to start a food blog, they would kind of just say to ChatGPT like. Pretend you're well -versed in food blogging.

20:19

Yes. And interview me as if, you know, that kind of... I am a world -renowned food taster. Yes. And reviewer. And it'll come up with the questions for you. And there it is. And you tell it how many questions you want. I just think 10 was a nice round number. And we could keep the book small because I don't want it to be too expensive. So, and that was it. Where it's like, I want it to be something someone can read and still refer back to pretty easily. So do you have plans for future books? Under our coaching consulting brand, yes. Under Excelsior Consulting, two of the therapists that work with us are really, really knowledgeable and they want to be able to teach nurse practitioners how to do therapy.

21:03

This way it gets people better at quicker access sometimes. Because for therapists, sometimes it's some practice. That was us. We see people say, you know, sometimes same day. The wait could be like three to four months. But for nerve cartissiers and med management, you might be able to get in even in a busy practice within a week. So if you can get in to see someone for therapy in a week, by all means, go for it. And now it's another service that you can offer. So we're going to help the two of them write books and come up with classes that'll go on our website for people to purchase and go from there. Awesome.

21:38

I love it. And, you know, one of the big reasons that I wanted to bring you on to talk about books, and I know that some people that are listening to this might wonder, you know, you had someone who's writing a nonfiction book and now you got someone who's writing a fiction book. But the reason why is because I kind of see the writing on the wall, man. Like everybody is going to chat GPT to ask questions now. They're not, they're not just going to bloggers anymore. And so the reality is if we still want to make money as bloggers or business owners or whatever, we need more than just a website. Right. For sure. It's, it's like, you know, the technology is there.

22:12

You have to advance with the times and use it to your advantage. You can use chat. If you're a blogger and you know, you aren't using chat GPT to the very least, Hey, come up with the. top 10 search words on Google for my blog, you know, now you can incorporate those keywords, those SEO words into your next post. So you could come up, you know, people find us sometimes not because they put in mental health near me or mental health in their zip code. They would put in substance abuse near me. Well, we have, we have blogs on substance abuse. You know, we have blogs on therapy where it's like on types of therapy where it's like, okay, couples counseling.

22:51

You don't just always look for couples counseling near me. You might look for the type of couples counseling that you need. And because we have a blog on that and, you know, but again, ChatGPT will tell us and they'll give us real time analytics that we don't have to wait for. Do you use ChatGPT for your blogging as well? Like not for actually writing it. Not for actually writing, but for coming up with the topics. Yes. I love it. I love it. So and the cool thing about it is like these these AI search engines, they can view things really quickly. Like I like Claude personally.

23:25

I prefer it over chat GPT just because, you know, it's just a thing I prefer. But I asked it a simple question and I did the research button and it literally said reading 572 websites. Yes. In less than 60 seconds. The blogs that I write have to be like an APA format and they have to have research associated with them. I will use chat GPT of find me the latest research within the last three years on whatever the topic is.

23:56

So now I'm not spending that time going on Google scholar, looking stuff up. It's boom. Here it is. Oh, cool. Here are 10 articles. I'll be able to, I'll read four of them or five of them. And of that, I should be able to pull three out that I can, that I can use something from without wasting that time. So now it just made my, my time. made me more efficient and time management skills have gone up. So I can get other stuff done rather than, you know, in all honesty, it could take you two hours to find the articles that you need sometimes, you know, for reference and make sure that they're viable. So now I just put it, no Wikipedia links, you know, whatever my parameters are, boom, boom, boom, here it is. Or I could tell it to look at Google Scholar only and come up with stuff. So it's like, okay, now this stuff's already filtered for me. That's absolutely awesome. And I'll leave in the show

24:43

notes. I actually wrote an article for GoDaddy titled How to Write a Blog Post Properly Using AI. And it's so important that we talk about how. You know, you can't just trust what comes to you as is. You need to go to every single website that it suggests as your references and and obviously fact check. But just the time savings. I mean, what used to take me 10 hours can sometimes take me as little as two now. And honestly, the biggest portion of that two hours is hunting for photos. Oh, yes. Yeah, of course. Yeah, of course. So another thing that you and I have in common, and this is completely like. not related to to chat gpt or or maybe it is like oh this might get spicy so another thing you and i have in common is fitness now yes and so i'm i well i gotta ask the question do you ever use chat gpt for fitness no um i i use instagram okay okay how do you use instagram for i've used instagram

25:45

by i'll just put in a search of latest kettlebell workouts or um What did I put in to find my hammer workouts? Unorthodox fitness training. That's where I found the hammers that you see me use. I'm a huge wrestling fan. Especially old school wrestling. I put in unorthodox workout routines and there's a video of the Iron Sheik doing his Persian Club Challenge on wrestling TV shows in the 70s and 80s. I did some research on it and I was like, Oh, this is a legit thing. The entire world uses kettlebells and clubs except for us here in America. And I was like, okay, let me find them. They're difficult at the time.

26:29

They were difficult to find here in America. But there's a company. They make these hammers. And I was like, I'll just get those. They look insane. Well, I got a 45 -pound, one 45 -pound hammer. And I was like, oh, yeah, I can't do anything with this. This was about two years ago. I was like, oh, let me go to the 25 pounds. And my goal last year on my birthday. was to be able to do the Iron Sheet Challenge with these hammers of doing these halos and doing 100. Well, I did that two or three weeks ago. So I do use, I use a search engine, essentially. I use, you know, Instagram to find the workouts. So any workout routine you see me doing on my social medias, I found on Instagram or TikTok. You know, there's a guy, Bill Nye. No, that's a science guy. Bill Need. Bill Needy. Okay. In Hawaiian.

27:17

He does all of these offset stance exercises and off -balance weight lifting. I know I can curl with a 100 -pound dumbbell because I've done it, like, 20 reps. It's crazy, but I can do it. But if you load a dumbbell, a barbell, with an uneven, disproportionate amount of weight and inverse your grip, like I'm showing right now for the camera, it's insanely difficult. So I took a weight. I took 25 pounds. I'll put 25 pounds on one side, nothing on the other side.

27:50

And I will do this inverse grip and I move slowly, but you feel it. Like it's, it's like doing a puck with a 20 and you're just like, Oh my God, but just 25 pounds. Like I can curl a hundred. Does it matter? Because your stance is off. Okay. And you make your stance off this way. Your core is engaged. Cause everything I do is just work my core. Cause I have a belly. No matter what I do, it's like to be 350 pounds at. Now at 225, 230, because it's muscle. When I get down to 210, my core, my belly is always going to be there. No matter what I do, unless I go get a tummy tuck, because now it's all stretched skin.

28:27

But I still work my core excessively. Everything I do is a staggered stance for that reason, and lunges. I do lunges every day because of, what's the guy's name? Corey Graves, I think is his name. He's a fitness guide. He's in Ohio. He talks, he preaches about how lunges help people as they get older to maintain quality of life. So it's like, okay, I will do lunges. Found some workout guy on TikTok where it says if you're doing front lunges and you're over the age of 45 and you're struggling, it's because after the age of 45, your center of gravity shifts, do back lunges. I was like, oh my goodness. Okay, this makes it a lot easier. No problem. Could do 250, 300 back lunges every day. And not fall.

29:14

Yeah, I was doing weighted lunges before we got on this call, and I've been being haunted by a 20 -pound dumbbell, but that's for another story. But Reader's Digest version, doing lunges with a 20 -pound dumbbell, I thought I was going to die. Oh, yes. I've done it with my 100 -pound sandbag, so it's rough. Oh, my God. And I even thought of you yesterday. I was doing Zumba at a local gym here, and they had sledgehammers on the wall, and I was like, oh, it made me think of you. yeah so now i have the hammers i have a weighted club i have a weighted mace and then i have weighted what's the other one no yeah i have two weight of the hammers two maces two clubs at a mace yeah so like but the each club i have different weights on one's really heavy at 25 pounds and now the 25 pound hammer is a lot lighter than the 25 pound mace because the handle's longer so now the the balance on it is more so i could only if you get that around

30:10

like 30 times But the hammers in one each hand, I could get, you know, 50 times each each one. But that that mace, because that longer handle 25 or 30 times is all I can get it for right now. Wow. Yeah. The reason I was asking you about the chat GPT and I won't call him out, even though he knows who he is, because I know he sometimes listens to the show. There's a guy he my bloggy friend. He puts in chat GPT, like, give me a really good workout for blah, blah, blah. And, you know, it's fascinating how you can literally ask these AI agents anything. It's absolutely fascinating. And I got to say, in the beginning, I was so anti -AI. I was pissed off. We're all thinking Skynet. Well, it's not just that, but it's also like, you know, watching clients let you go because, oh, well, ChatGPT can do that faster than you. It's like, yeah, it could do it faster than me. But does it also fact check?

31:06

Does it also do all the things I do to make it better? No. There's always going to be a human element. And there has to be. Yes. Even with the book. Yes. Yeah. So what was your favorite part about writing your book? I see you smiling. No, I'm trying not to get choked up. was asking the four people who wrote the forwards to write the forwards for me. Actually, five people. I had five people. One book has two forwards. Asking them was my absolute favorite part. It really was. And the time I got to spend with Ryan, because here it is, you're sitting around with your buddy bullshitting, which we do anyway, even though it's supposed to be working. And it's like, now we had a purpose for bullshitting rather than, you know, just business business. It was this totally different. thing to experience. I can't even... But the forwards were definitely my favorite.

32:06

My favorite. To ask the four people what it was. And then when they said the back to me, you're like, oh my god, you know, these people putting into words what you actually mean to them and what you've done for them. Well, I have to know, did you use ChatGPT to figure out how to promote the books now that they are going live? No, we didn't. We are kind of using some old school methods. I guess one way is, because it came to us, someone told us, so maybe they found it out from ChatDVT, I can't say, but we're doing a book launch and a book signing, which is kind of old school. And then what we're doing is, and again, this podcast is coming out after the party, because the launch party is November 5th.

32:52

So what we're doing is, or what we did for the sake of the show, put a QR code up at the night of the event. And we're like, now the book is officially live. Everyone goes at once and gets it. And it comes up on a heavy traffic book, you know, on the algorithm. So then Amazon will then push it more. Well, speaking of books, how are you publishing it? Like, how is this happening? Did you get a date? It's all self -published.

33:20

It's all on Amazon. It's on Amazon. Favorite way. Absolute favorite way. It's a physical and a Kindle. So whatever you want, the option is there for you. Oh, so you're doing a physical too. How did that work? I wish I brought it today. I forgot. It looks really good. It's actually sick when it came in the mail. I was like, what the hell is this? I didn't buy a book. Because I read comic books, but I read comic books on the Marvel Unlimited app. So I'm not ever expecting a book. I'm like, I don't get a book. And I open it up. I was like, oh, it's my book. Look at that. And it's like... It's definitely, it was a moment for sure. So they sent you a proof then?

33:57

Yeah, they sent me like, because we ordered an author copy. You could do that. They'll send you author copies. I think at the house, I think I have 10 that we're going to like sign that night, personalize and then sell for whatever and give them right to a local charity. So now with actually printing a physical copy, how does that work with Amazon? I'm genuinely curious. They do it and they ship it to you. Okay. But you see that, like I could still go in right now and even though book one is. done and completed and live i can go in and add a page to book one for the next person to buy it you know they'll get this new and this updated version now does it have an isbn number yes it's all efficient yes okay so you can put it on like barnes and noble if you yes i could do anything with it yes right now see this is right there that is why i prefer self -publishing over waiting for a publisher because you don't need anybody for

34:47

you in the chat yeah Sounds great. Cause you don't need anybody to validate you. You need to validate yourself. Yeah. Which is like when people say to me, Hey, are you going to go for your PhD? And I think about it and put the link for you. And it's like, well, why? Like who does where you can get published? I I'm public. I'm published now. I have a blog that we, you know, that I update every, every day on my website.

35:11

People interviewing, I've written articles for local magazines. I have a book now. We have four books. We have classes that are going to come out. It's like, do I really need the PhD now? It would be great. It's an ego thing. And at the end of the day, my real ego stroke is, can I feed my family and not have to kill myself and work 80 hours a week? Because once I don't have to work 80 hours a week anymore, that's all I really, that's my goal. Yeah. Absolutely.

35:39

And I mean, running three businesses, I'm sure you work an insane amount of hours. Yes. Yeah. It's six days a week, about 15, 16 hours a day. I can't even imagine. Oh, my goodness. So even more reason that I'm so thankful that you took the time out to talk to me. So now you are releasing the first one. You said November, I know October 6th is the first one. The first book is already out for purchase, but we're not telling anyone to publicize it until the book party on November 5th. Okay, well, then it's a good thing this doesn't come out until two days later. Yes, yes.

36:12

I remember you telling me that. So I was like, you know, before, I was like, oh, that's perfect. The timing was perfect. Yeah, so if you're listening to this, it's already live. It'll be in the show notes. So when can we anticipate two, three, and four to come out? By November 5th, they will all be out. All four will be on Amazon, yes. Oh, that's exciting. Okay, cool. So now I'm curious. I can see your cover art and your back cover art. How did you? Make your cover art happen.

36:38

The cover art, really, Ryan came to my office one day. He said, we've got to do cover art. And I just kept telling him, just do whatever. Leave me alone. I can't be bothered. So what he did, because he's a friend who knows me really well, he came up with the worst looking thing possible. Just so that I can say, this is, wait, can I curse? I don't want to curse if I can. Yes, you can curse. I don't care. This looks like shit. What the actual fuck are you doing?

37:01

He's like, well, just sit here and do it. So I was like, where? So he showed me. It was all on Canva. We did it. And I was like, here, this is better than what the fuck you did. He's like, that's what I wanted. Yes. It's funny you say that. It's so funny you say that. Do you ever go on Reddit? No. So this girl on Reddit, what she does is if she wants an answer to a question that's technology related, she will go to a fake account and answer her question incorrectly.

37:33

just so she can get the answer she's looking for. Because people don't want to help, but they'll tell you why you did it wrong. Yes, they'll tell you why you did it wrong. I love it so much. So November 5th, all the books will be live. Okay, so what's next after that? You said you were going to be teaching classes. I think it'll be online in person. No, they'll be online. So I'll do the class once. We upload it and it'll just like pretty much. So what the book is now, because it's in a book form, we can then put that into PowerPoint form. I can then talk about it in each slide in detail and then that will record it. And there's a class like each book will be a class. Wow. So you basically just took one asset and turned it into multiple forms of content. Yes. And the book is. Price cheap enough where if you have to pay for the class, at least you have the book, too, because it's going to be like a textbook for the class. OK, so what's

38:34

next for that? Like, are you going to do an audio book? Are you going to start a podcast? What's happening next? So because we do coaching and consulting, what I might do is have some of my coaching clients sit down for a session and I'll record that as a podcast. And now the podcast will be a means of promoting. the classes, and I'll stop charging them for coaching at that point, if they're willing to be recorded. If they're not recorded, pay for this coaching, but if they are willing to be recorded, I'll do it for free, and it'll be an hour, hour and a half, and then we'll edit it to be 45 minutes for a podcast episode. I dig it, and if you want to do it with RSS .com, I can hook you up with 613. Yes, very cool. Yeah, we'll leave a link in the show notes for that as well. I can get everybody six months free because I am a brand ambassador for the company. Very proud of RSS.com. So what else do you want to tell me about

39:29

these books? How do you see them working into your grand scheme of things with feeding your children? I think they're going to be beneficial to anyone who's sick of their corporate medicine job, who sits there and is like, I can do this better on my own. Well, you can. You can't. If I can, and I firmly believe this, if I could do this, you can. And the hardest part is getting started. The hardest part is saying, I'm walking away from a six -figure salary to make maybe nothing. And it was a hard sell. And I know.

40:03

I had to have the conversation with my wife. And in the book, I talk about that, where having that supportive partner matters because you're going to have those moments of, I can't do this. What am I doing? And if they are not your biggest cheerleader, they have to be a bigger cheerleader than you are for yourself. And I have this in the book, so I'm not giving anything away. If they're not, and only because I've seen it with other friends of mine who are nurse practitioners and their spouse, you're going to have those moments of doubt where you say out loud to your partner, because he's your best friend, I don't think I can do this. And if they are not 1 ,000 % behind you, if they say, yeah, maybe you can't, you're screwed. And if they are really against you, you're doing this thing like, yeah, I told you you can't do it. You're absolutely right.

40:53

And it's like, that's not what you want. That's the last thing you need, because that doubt will now go from a little seed of doubt to an oak tree of doubt. And you don't need that. You need it where it's like a weed of doubt. And it comes up out of the cracks of the sidewalk. And you're like, yes, my doubt. And you need your partner to rip that out and throw it. Now, it sounds like it sounds like based on what you just described.

41:15

Though this book is intended for nurse practitioners, it sounds like a lot of the philosophies in there are for everybody. It really is. I have a friend of mine. He is a financial planner. And when I put it, I put the idea of the book launch party. He mentions me. He's like, I want to come to your, I want to come and I want to buy your book. And I was like, okay. He's like, I think, I think with the right guidance, I can mimic what you did for my, for my finance company. And I was like, okay, you probably can. There's nothing to say that you can't, you know, because like you said, the philosophies are pretty universal.

41:48

You have to get out of that mindset of being the worker bee and being the owner bee, you know. I'm in the same boat. I mean, I want to mimic it for how to start a podcast, how to start a blog, how to start a YouTube channel, all the things. Because, I mean, if nothing else, I'm a content creator. That is my jam. And now you're just taking your expertise that you have on that topic. And putting it in a different format so other people could emulate it. They're just having a bot ask you how you do what you do. Yes. Yes.

42:19

Yeah. Well, any last minute advice that you can offer to everybody who's listening? Bet on yourself. Oh, I love that. Are you familiar with James Altucher? No. He has a book. It's called Choose Yourself. And it literally, like, this is not exaggeration. It changed my life. like bet on yourself is definitely sorry yes so i i mentioned i mentioned this person in book two and book four my good friend jennifer copper she came to me i had just started i had just gotten into like a physical location i just got an office and she she was working for a uh a corporate you know uh a minute clinic type deal that's inside of a chain of drug stores um And she's like, I think I want to. And she's dual certified.

43:09

She could do medical and mental health. And she's like, I think I want to start my own mental health practice. I was like, do it. And I gave her some steps to follow. And, you know, we started talking. Now, she was a stranger at the time. I didn't know her really from anywhere other than she was in the area. And she was like, I want to say that was like May, June. She came back like a month later and was like, hey, my company found out I have my practice and they want to, they tell me I have to get rid of it or else I'm going to lose my job. I was like, how much time do they give you? She gave me 90 days. I was like, okay, so milk it for 90 days and collect your paycheck. And so build up. She's like, I think I have to close. I was like, don't. Don't do it. She came back two or three weeks before the deadline to pretty much ask me to take her patients.

43:53

And I was like, I'm not taking your patients. And she said, what? What are they going to do? I was like, you're treating your patients. She's like, what do you mean? I was like, you're not quitting your job. You're doing this. And she's like, I can't. I can't walk away from this paycheck. It's too good. I was like, I don't care. I said, I'm not taking your patience. So the deadline was like, I want to say it was the last Friday of November before Thanksgiving. So she sent me a text that Monday. And it was the middle of the day. She's like, what are you and Jenny?

44:23

Jenny's my wife. She's like, what are you and Jenny doing tonight? I was like, I don't know, nothing. Why? She said, meet me and my wife for dinner. I want to talk to you. I was like, okay, whatever. We'll be good. We're friends at this point. Yeah, of course. So we get to dinner. I was like, what? She's like, they're closing the clinic. I was like, what? She's like, everyone's last day is Friday. I said, okay. And she's like, I am so glad that you said no and you did not take my patients. She's like, because I'd be screwed. And now on Monday, Thanksgiving week, I'd be starting all over again. And those patients would not come back to me. Even if you gave them to me, they wouldn't trust me. I was like, yeah, you would have lost them. So now her clinic is really nice size. She has two offices. It's grown.

45:04

She has multiple providers. She's following my model of how I add my providers here. She's doing the same. And she wrote the foreword for book two. And in book four, I talk about collaboration versus competition. And I just wrote that whole thing. And I just told her, I wrote that down and put that there. And if I would have said no to her. The first day she came in and asked for help because she's competition. She's opened a mental health clinic in Newport Ritchie where I am. I would rob myself of of a good friendship.

45:34

But at the same time, all she did was bet on herself, which is what I told her to do. The worst that happens is you fail. You go get another job. I know it's not easy, but we have letters after I name and those letters make us employable. Recession, depression, terrible time, riots, plagues. I did not miss a day of work just as an RN during the pandemic. I was fortunate. That was why I got into medicine because I was in construction management when the economy crashed in 2007 and eight and nine and 10. And I was out of work, which led me to be homeless, which led me to move down to Florida. So it's like, what is bulletproof to get a paycheck? The medical field. And that was all I said to her is the worst that happens is you fail, you'll get another job. It'll be tough for six months. It will.

46:25

Through a year. It will. But you'll get a job. Just bet on yourself. And to this day, she, you know, I sent a drug rep to her office that she needed to talk to about a month ago. And the drug rep came back here. He was like, oh, my God, Jennifer Cochran talked about you for like an hour about how she owes everything to you. I was like, she really does it. She owes it to herself because she bet on herself. All I was was the messenger. So, yes, my last bit of advice to anyone, please bet on yourself. Please. Well, I have to ask. Is that part of your philosophy on mental health is to bet on yourself or what is your philosophy? As you if you come in here for help, whether it's with me or one of the other nurse practitioners or therapists, you already did the hardest part. You realize you needed help and you picked up the phone and found help. So you've already bet on yourself, whether you realize it or not. You already said, I need

47:17

help. I can't do this on my own. I need help from someone. It's just like if you were carrying something heavy and you're like, why am I going to carry my furniture to a moving truck? I'm going to hire a moving company. That's the smartest thing to do for yourself because now you're not going to get hurt. You're going to get it done and there's going to be no damage to any of your stuff. Yeah, you just bet on it. You bet on it.

47:38

You invested in yourself by hiring a moving company. Coming from mental health, help is no different. You're investing in yourself. Yeah, we worry so much about our own physical health. The fact that people don't think about their mental health as well is like, what are you doing? It's just as important. Well, where can people find you online? Well, you can get me on Facebook. Just look up Andrew Hewitt. You can get me on Instagram, Andrew APRN. TikTok is the practice account now.

48:08

That's Caliper Wellness, caliperwellness .com, firebirdvitality .com. That's all us. But you just message me on any of the social medias. I'll help you. I'll talk to you. You know, the reason the books came about and the classes came about is because my mentor was just like, don't you add, you have to take coaching clients. I'm like, yes. He's like, you're answering the same 10 questions or 20 questions. Every, every family.

48:30

Yeah. He's like, that's class. Now you did it once. And that's it. I'm like, Oh, that's smart. Yes, I love it. So we're going to put all the links in the show notes. And Andrew, I just want to thank you again for taking the time to chat with me about all the things. Thank you. This was awesome. Thank you so much. It was so nice to talk to you. And once I start the fitness podcast, we're going to have to talk again. Oh, I would love to. I would. I would love to. Love to, love to. All right. Thank you so much. Well, my bloggy friends, I hope you enjoyed all the insights our guests had to share with you. To get the show notes for this and all episodes, go over to famousashleygrant .com backslash podcast.

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And until next time, may your page views be high and your bounce rate be low.