How to use AI for Course Creation with Amy Porterfield

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Calan Breckon    00:00:50    Now, before jumping into today’s episode, I’d also like to ask you to hit that subscribe button and show your love and support on whatever platform you are listening from. Now let’s get into today’s episode. Welcome to the Business Gay podcast, where we talk about all things entrepreneurship, marketing, and business. I’m your host, Calan Breckon, and on today’s very first episode, I have a super special guest kicking things off with me here. I can’t even believe who it is. I’m so freaking excited. It is the queen of online course creation herself, Amy Porterfield. So for those of you who don’t know who Amy is, she’s an ex-corporate girl turned CEO of a multi-seven-figure business, which has now made over $82 million in revenue. Her top ranking podcast online marketing, made easy has over 54 million downloads. And in 2022, she released her first book two weeks notice, which teaches you how to find the courage to quit your job, make more money, work where you want and change the world. 

Calan Breckon    00:01:56    Amy’s been featured in notable publications like Forbes and in 2021 her company was listed on the Inc 5,000 list as one of the fastest growing private companies in America. I have been a huge fan of Amy since 2019 when I started my own entrepreneurial journey, and I am so beyond honored that she’s my very first guest on the Business Gay podcast. So with all of that said, let’s jump into my interview with Amy. I am super excited for all of you to listen. Alright, well welcome to the show. Amy. I’m so excited to have you on the podcast. How are you doing? 

Amy Porterfield    00:02:32    I am doing great. I’m thrilled to be here. Thanks for having me. 

Calan Breckon    00:02:35    I’m so excited to have you. So I am just gonna dive right into it in, uh, with it with you. Our first question that I have is, what was the big dream that led you to be becoming an entrepreneur and eventually creating your signature online course digital course academy? Because, you know, this didn’t just happen, it’s been going on for a while. 

Amy Porterfield    00:02:56    So true. So when I was still at my nine to five job, the big dream was more freedom. So I have had a boss for my whole life leading up to that. I always say my first big boss was my dad. It was like his way or the highway. And then I went into corporate and always had a boss, usually a male boss. And I found myself one day thinking, there’s gotta be a better way. There’s gotta be a way for that. I get to call the shots that I get to be more creative. And as a woman, I had knew I had hit that glass ceiling and I thought, there’s only so much money I’ll be able to make in this corporate job. I’ve gotta figure something out. So I went out on my own, but I did service-based work. I did social media for small businesses. 

Amy Porterfield    00:03:37    I did some coaching consulting, but I was still hitting that ceiling. There’s only one of me and so many hours in a day and I was always scared to lose a client. What if I can’t pay the bills kind of situation? So there’s a lot of desperate energy in my first two years of building my business. But that’s when I started to dabble with digital courses. And I knew from the get go that that was my ticket to freedom, more time freedom, creativity freedom, financial freedom. I had seen it with my peers. I had seen it inside of the Tony Robbins organization, which I worked for. So I knew it was possible. I just had no idea how I’d get there. So it was kind of a rocky road to figure it out, but it was always freedom. I wanted more freedom. And today, 14 years later, I feel as though I structure my day the way I want it. I do the kind of work I want to do. I spend time with the people I wanna spend time with. I spend my money how I wanna spend it. So I feel like I have it, but it definitely didn’t happen overnight.

Calan Breckon    00:04:32    Uh, yeah, you you’ve definitely been doing it for a while, if I’m correct. Yeah. It’s been about 14 years that you’ve been in business for and so, so, so that’s a 

Amy Porterfield    00:04:39    Long time. 

Calan Breckon    00:04:39    Yeah, yeah. It’s a really long time and, but it’s paid off because weren’t you just recently listed on the Inc 5,000 list for like one of the fastest growing private companies in America? Yes. 

Amy Porterfield    00:04:49    So we’ve gotten that for a few years now and I’m so proud of it. And we were recently listed as one of the best businesses to work for. And that’s, I think that one even means more to me than the money I’ve made to get on the other list because my employees enjoy the kind of work we do and who we serve and how we do the work. And I’m really proud of that. So it’s, you know, it, it’s been a struggle. I’ve had many, many bumps in the road. I hate to ever sound like someone who’s like, it’s all wonderful and great. Like just last week I was crying over something. Like, it’s just normal life, right? But I also think being able to create this foundation that allows me to have a lifestyle on my terms, I’m really, really proud of that. 

Calan Breckon    00:05:33    And that’s so huge, especially to be a woman and showing other women like, yes, you can do it, you can rock it. And I am all for it. I’m like, yes, please. It’s time for the women to teach everybody in the world how we should actually do things. ’cause it would be a much better place hands down. That’s 

Amy Porterfield    00:05:49    One of the reasons why I love you <laugh>, 

Calan Breckon    00:05:52    Right? Um, and I, it makes me so happy to hear that you have people who love working for you. You, I’ve talked to your team many times and like, I connect us, they 

Amy Porterfield    00:06:00    Love you. 

Calan Breckon    00:06:00    Oh, they 

Amy Porterfield    00:06:01    Just for the record, you are a celebrity in our, in our team, everyone says great things about you. 

Calan Breckon    00:06:06    Oh, stuff. Thank you. I’m gonna have to pay them later for their good stuff. Um, no, but I do know that so many of them love working for you. Like I see it all the time, like I see on Josh’s Instagram, he is like, oh, go into work with Amy and like when he had to fly out for D c A and all the things, he just like, I just see the joy of genuinely doing that work. And I love that because that’s what I want to see more of in the world. And that’s what I want. That’s why I’m so excited for you to help people bring that to the world. ’cause I think it’s almost like, this might sound weird, but it seems like almost like a diversification of how to work is happening in the world where it’s not just there’s one way to do it, it’s corporate and it’s this, that and the other. 

Calan Breckon    00:06:47    And entrepreneurship is becoming a lot more accessible, especially with online and especially with AI coming onto the market, it makes it so much easier for individuals who maybe aren’t tech savvy, like myself, I’m a tech nerd. Um, but for those who aren’t, maybe it’s a little easier for them to kind of jump in with that. So how is ai, you know, being the talk of the town these days, um, how is it working for you and your business with your team? How have you found ways for it to kind of help in regard to like course creation? 

Amy Porterfield    00:07:21    Yeah, so we’ve been exploring AI in all different departments of my company, from the community department to of course marketing to customer experience. And we’re all kind of finding our way with it. The great thing about AI is it’s new for everyone. So if anyone tells you they’re an absolute expert, I’d give them a little side eye because it is so brand new and it’s changing like that. But here’s what we have found. I wanted to embrace AI with digital course creation. And so I started to dabble with it and then really get into what could it do? And I started to see these headlines all over Facebook ads, like create a digital course in 30 minutes with ai. I’m like, Hmm, what’s that about? So I like challenge some of these, um, narratives that I’ve been seeing online about ai. So here’s what I feel really strong about. 

Amy Porterfield    00:08:09    Number one, AI is not going to create your digital course and help you launch it from start to finish. It’s not going to be the end all be all. And the reason for that is if you put in a little information into AI and it spits out a digital course for you, it will be watered down, it will be plain, it will be generic, it will be void of your, your voice, your stories, your examples, your grit, your personality, like that all is important because someone’s going to choose to learn from you, not just because of your content. And so if it’s watered down, it’s gonna get lost in the sea of noise online. However, my most favorite way to use ai, and this is what I teach my students, is to use it as your ultimate course creation assistant. Now you’ll have somebody in your corner that once you plug in your ideas, your experiences, your direction, it could give you ideas to round it out, to flesh it out so that you are not looking at a blank Google doc. 

Amy Porterfield    00:09:07    That was one of the biggest things that stopped my students in their tracks. They would get ready to outline their modules and their lessons and all the different things they wanna teach and they just would have writer’s block no more is that going to happen? So I created this free P D f I know you have a link to it so we could, um, put it in the show notes where I’m gonna teach people how to come up with their course topic and then how to flesh it out using AI with very specific prompts you can copy and paste and put it into chat G P t so that you can start to fast track your digital course experience. That’s my most favorite way to use it. 

Calan Breckon    00:09:43    Uh, I just wanna say I love all of that ’cause I’m a huge chat G p T user. I love ai, I use it for my business and it really, I’m glad you brought up the writer’s block because honestly that is the number one biggest thing that it, it has helped me with. Because yes, we all know building an email list is huge for what you need to do. Like you need to build an email list and have that connection with your people and just like, you know, building an AI course a hundred percent, it’s gonna take that personality away. You need to build your email list and give that personality there. But sometimes you get there and you’re just like, ah, I am out of ideas. Like I’ve talked about everything I think I could have talked about. And just going there and being able to kind of spitball some ideas and it’s spitting out these ideas for you, you go, ah, actually yes, that’s a really great idea. I’ve not thought of yet. That is so key. And I just want people to take that away from this is that it is so key to just have the access to that information because I mean, we are human, we’re not perfect. Our brains are only so utilizable, right? Why not? Why not use that little support? Um, what other tips and tricks, are there any that you’ve found that have really helped you personally in regard to ai? 

Amy Porterfield    00:10:51    Yeah. What we love it for in my business is for, uh, titles and subtitles. We love to give a good title to anything we create, whether it be podcast episodes or maybe, um, a subject line of an email or we do a lot of free p d F guides, so we need great titles for that. So it’s been amazing for titles and subtitles also really good for hooks. So hooks are, you know, if you’re gonna make a quick social media video and you start out your video and you say something to grab them, to hook them, well, hooks are sometimes hard to create. So if you know the right prompts to put into chat g p t to get the right hooks for whatever it is you’re creating content around, holy cow, that will fast track you so quickly. And what I love to do with AI is to give me five examples of X, Y, z so that I could see different examples, massage them, make them my own. 

Amy Porterfield    00:11:43    So let me give you an example. If I were to put into chat g p t give me a good idea for a mindset video I could make for my Instagram channel, and I might give it it some more information around what kind of mindset. And let’s say it’s spit out something about like, um, you have to take risks in order to grow your business. That’s one topic you can make a video about. So if I said give me a gimme a script, it would give me a watered down very bland script. I’ve seen it all over social. I know when people are using AI and not changing it or enhancing it, it’s very obvious and it’s not gonna work for them long term. So let’s say it spit out something about taking risks, becoming an entrepreneur, growing, well then I would look at that and think, do I have a story related to that? 

Amy Porterfield    00:12:25    And I do. Recently I was, um, I took my son, you and I were talking about this offline, but I took my son to Vegas for his 21st birthday. His girlfriend wanted my husband and I to surprise him there. And while I was there, I had two drinks in me. So I was a little bit cocky and I was trying to get the radio to work in this limo that we got in. And someone’s like, stop hitting all the channels. And I blurted out, listen, I take risks and that’s how I’m successful. I make things happen. And when I heard myself say it, I’m like, I sound so arrogant. So the next morning I’m like, listen, that comment I make about how, why I’m so successful, ’cause I take risks, it sounded arrogant. And the woman that was with us, she said, well, is it true? Do you take risks? And I said, I do every day. And she said, are you successful? I said, I am. And she said, it’s true, own it. And I loved that exchange between one woman to another to be like, own your stuff. So I could incorporate that story into the chat G p t suggestion to make it my own. That’s what I mean by don’t just use what it’s spitting out, use it as inspiration, but you’ve got to infuse your own personality stories and experiences. 

Calan Breckon    00:13:30    Yes. Oh my goodness, yes. Story is so important. And for those listening right now, I have another podcast episode coming up in the future all about entrepreneurs using their story as like a platform to get them ahead. Because honestly, it blew my mind how many entrepreneurs just have their thing and they’re pitching their idea and they completely leave it void of any personality or story. That’s not what humans are. We are storytellers. We used to gather around the fire and hang out and tell stories to each other. And that’s how we learned, that’s how we grew. So that hasn’t changed. And by utilizing chat, PT or AI and infusing it with that story, that is absolutely brilliant, Amy. And yes, that woman good on her for be like, yeah, own it sister. 

Amy Porterfield    00:14:20    Like, just do it. It felt good to be like, yeah, actually I was telling the truth a little cocky, but I was, and I got that dang radio to work. So there you go. 

Calan Breckon    00:14:29    Right? Amen. And I, I don’t like to think about it as cockiness. I like to think about it as confidence because there’s that line between cockiness is this energy of pretending that you are something that you’re not. And confidence is just knowing the truth in what it is. Hmm, 

Amy Porterfield    00:14:46    I love that. Yes. Knowing the truth of what it is. Yes. 

Calan Breckon    00:14:50    And it’s okay to own that truth, <laugh>. 

Amy Porterfield    00:14:53    Absolutely. I love that. 

Calan Breckon    00:14:55    Right, which you clearly clear. Were, um, so part of what I’m doing with this show is highlighting businesses and business owners that incorporate inclusivity into their businesses. Now I know you have a couple members of the L G B T Q community, um, on your team, but I’d like to talk to you a little bit about why it’s important to you and your company to be in inclusive space. 

Amy Porterfield    00:15:18    Hmm. Yes. Very, very important. Two reasons that really stick out. Number one, it’s important to me because those that are on my team, and we have several part of the community, I want to make sure they know they’re welcome and they feel safe. So if I have conversations on my podcast about L G B T I, I have to tell you, Callan, every time I say it, I get nervous. I’m gonna say it wrong, <laugh> every time, which is another thing I was gonna bring up, 

Calan Breckon    00:15:43    You know, I’m gonna 

Amy Porterfield    00:15:45    Help me. 

Calan Breckon    00:15:46    I was gonna say, I’m giving you permission, Amy, to screw it up as much as you want because the, the, the important part is that you are trying, not that you’re getting it perfect. 

Amy Porterfield    00:15:55    I so appreciate that. But every time I say it, I get so nervous and then I get nervous in my head that I mess it up. Say it, say the letters to me again. 

Calan Breckon    00:16:02    L G B T Q, 

Amy Porterfield    00:16:05    It’s the B that always throws me off. L G B T Q, 

Calan Breckon    00:16:09    Those damn bisexuals always throwing all of us off. It’s throwing us 

Amy Porterfield    00:16:12    Off <laugh>. But I I love that you said that because I know that I’m gonna mess it up. I know that I’m gonna have conversations where I, I trip over it. I get nervous because of the cancel culture about being people being called out. I see what has happened online and it just makes me scared, but at the same time, I know what I stand for and I know what I believe in and I’m gonna be willing to mess up and trip over it to have the conversations that need to be had by me. In my community, I have a very big audience and so I want them to know where I stand, whether they agree with me or not. It’s important to me, but I want the, the people on my team to feel safe and I want my students to know that they have a safe place to come as well. I have students creating courses in, um, so many different areas related to, um, L G B T Q community. And so with that, I wanna make sure that they know, Hey, you’re welcome here and I’m gonna encourage you to create those courses and I’m gonna help you do it. So that’s why it’s important to me. 

Calan Breckon    00:17:15    Yes, and it is important. And I wanna just point out that actually one of the biggest things when I, I did d C A your digital course academy back in, uh, 2020, and one of the biggest things that I noticed was that I did see a little bit of that visibility in there that I was like, ’cause I I think it was Braden lawyer. Yes, Braden, Uhhuh. <affirmative>, yeah, Braden. And he was one of the advisors. And that gave me the permission to then feel confident about what I was doing and stand out and to speak my truth in that space. Whereas if I didn’t see him, I may have been like, is this a safe space for me? Because, because we’re always analyzing those of us from the community. We’re always analyzing our safety in whatever, you know, wherever we are. It’s just, uh, I don’t know if I wanna equate it to this, but like, it’s like being a woman out at night, you’re constantly hyper aware in a way that men aren’t. 

Calan Breckon    00:18:03    And for the community that’s kind of, we’re always hyper aware in a way that like maybe the hetero, uh, community isn’t aware of. ’cause you just don’t think about it. But seeing him in that environment, being himself gave me permission to be myself. And I’ve just seen it explode and grow ever since then. And it just excites me so much. Yeah. And it makes me so happy. Um, one of the things that I did want to ask is that I did notice you did do an episode recently about, uh, L G B T Q Rights and one of your students who did put together a course. And I noticed that, you know, maybe there was a little pushback from that. And so I I just wanna ask you, how was that experience for you? 

Amy Porterfield    00:18:41    Yeah, so I did an episode with, uh, one of my students, Hank Paul, and I love him. And I thought it was such a beautiful conversation. I didn’t feel like it was really diversive. I felt like it was informative, I was really proud of it. And then it came out and all these negative comments were on Instagram below the video where I promoted it. I have to tell you, I’m, I wasn’t expecting that. I genuinely wasn’t expecting it. And when I first saw it, just to be really honest and transparent, it freaked me out a little bit. Like, uh, people were telling me, I’m no longer following you. Uh, you just ruined it. You are too woke. This is a ridiculous episode. I’m out of here. I bought your products, I’m never buying something from you again. There were several of those and it made me think about that one saying that I love, like, I’m not an airport, you don’t need to announce your departure. We’re good. Like, just go <laugh>. 

Calan Breckon    00:19:37    But I, I never heard that. Yes. And I, I love that, 

Amy Porterfield    00:19:42    But I know that I’m growing as a person because I saw him and it, and I’m sensitive, so I’m like, ooh. And then I thought, well this is the my truth. Like I support this community to my core. So if you do not, then I’m probably not your girl. And so that takes some time though. I know that’s not an easy place to go to when people are saying, I’m no longer going to buy from you, but okay, I wasn’t your girl in the first place and you probably would’ve never bought from me anyway, so just, it’s fine. But it was jarring. And you have to have thick skin and if you’re going to put out what you believe in, and I’ve been guilty of being vanilla online, you know, not really taking a big stand in a lot of things. And so pushing myself to take that stand and I’ve done it with a few other things, it feels scary and it feels right. 

Calan Breckon    00:20:31    Yeah. Because doing the right thing doesn’t always feel like it exciting thing because that’s what makes it the right thing sometimes. Yeah. Is that it’s like, it’s not what everybody else is doing. <laugh>. 

Amy Porterfield    00:20:42    So true. So true. So I think it was growth for me. Definitely. 

Calan Breckon    00:20:46    Good. And I wanted to ask, what did that teach you and your team moving forward? 

Amy Porterfield    00:20:52    Well, the first thing that was really eye-opening to me is I decided not to get into the comments. I thought, okay, these are a lot of negative comments. I’m not gonna argue with these people. But there was a lot, I’m glad you brought this up because there was a lot of beautiful comments. Amy, thank you for doing this episode. I feel seen, I feel supported. Uh, it, there was a lot of beautiful comments as well, but I just decided I’m not going to engage with any of ’em. And Hank actually sent me a message and he said, Amy, if I could suggest, and he has such a beautiful way of communicating so it doesn’t feel like he’s putting you down or shaming you, and he’s just kind of educating. And he said, your community that is supporting you needs to know that you support, um, people even when you’re getting negative comments. 

Amy Porterfield    00:21:35    So for some of the people leaving you negative comments, I really do think you should have a response back to them. Something like, thank you so much for sharing your insight. I do not agree with you, and the reason for that is X, y, Z, so I’m gonna continue to support this community. Something like that. And so he said, like, to be an ally, you need to respond to some things that won’t feel really great. And it made sense to me. So I didn’t get into every comment, but I did get into a few just saying, this is my belief, this is why I stand for it. And I said, this is why it’s important to me. And, um, then I just let it go. So, uh, what I learned is that I need to push myself a little bit more out of my comfort zone to stand up for what I believe and also that the negative comments aren’t going to kill me. Not everyone’s going to agree with me. It’s going to be okay. And the way Hank Paul responded to some of those people in such a beautiful, professional and heartfelt way, he probably will never change their mind, but at least he led with kindness. My mom used to always say, kill ’em with kindness, 

Calan Breckon    00:22:40    Just thinking it. 

Amy Porterfield    00:22:41    Right. I love that saying. And that’s what Hank Paul did. 

Calan Breckon    00:22:44    Good. Yeah. And I’m, I’m was gonna say, I was one of the people in the comments being like, I love this. This is amazing. Yes, <laugh>, because you just, you gotta, you gotta show your sport and your love. Um, what advice would you give to other maybe entrepreneurs or businesses who are navigating this? D e I work, which stands for diversity, equity, and inclusion in their business. What things have you learned around this topic and what are you doing that might help others who are listening? 

Amy Porterfield    00:23:09    Number one is you really do need to understand where you stand as a human being as a company. Just get really clear on where you stand with that, because that helped me, like, at the end of the day, I knew I wanted to vocally support and put myself out there, so then it was easier for me to make decisions around that. So first, get clear on that. Number two, get educated. We have spent a lot of money in our company with d e I consultants. I had one for an entire year. And then we’ve done different trainings with different people and that has been really fantastic for the company and just for me in general to invest in trainings that will help us understand more. So that was good. Number three, you’ve got to be willing to be humbled. Meaning like, I trip over the letters, I should know those letters by now. 

Amy Porterfield    00:24:00    I just get nervous that I’m going to make a wrong move. I have to be okay with making the wrong move. And knowing that so many beautiful people are out there to say like you, like it’s okay. I’d rather you mess up than not talk about it at all. And so being okay with looking silly or messing up is very important when you’re learning something new like this. Um, also hiring that has been one area that has been a struggle for us. I want more diversity on my team, not just in the community, but beyond. I want, uh, people of color. I want more people of color on my team. I think this is why though, not this is important, not so that my company looks diverse, which is where the cancel culture comes in. If, if my company looks diverse, I’m safe. I don’t believe that that is true. I’ve seen that that is not true, and I don’t wanna be that person performative. However, I believe that new different attitudes, personalities, uh, backgrounds, insights, experiences make my company more rich. And if everyone thinks like me and looks like me, I’m going to be very one dimensional and I’m not gonna be safe for other communities. And so I need different voices and I’ve had a hard time hiring for diversity. I, I, uh, I don’t know why exactly, but I’ve hired someone to help us figure that out. So it’s important to me. 

Calan Breckon    00:25:19    It, it is actually so important. This is one of my biggest beliefs in the world, is that you have to surround yourself with not just people who agree with you, but people who constantly disagree with you. Yes. On a very loving, caring way. Yes. Like in that nurturing way because people tend to silo themselves and kind of go with people who just agree with them. But all you’re gonna get is more of the exact same thing of like reaffirming your beliefs, but that doesn’t challenge you to grow as a person, that doesn’t challenge you to grow as a business. When you do that, you have to be able to sit with people in uncomfortable ways and say, oh, I really don’t like what you’re saying right now, but I’m willing to sit at the table and to listen and to understand. And just because I’m understanding doesn’t mean I’m agreeing. And I think people need to under learn to understand that understanding does not equate to agreeing, but having the capacity to understand is hugely, hugely important for your business and for diversity. 

Amy Porterfield    00:26:17    That’s huge. I hope that really sunk in for me. And I hope those listening, that really sinks in as well, because what you’re saying conceptually, I totally understand and you said it, but I wanna reiterate, I used to have someone on my team. She since left, she had a baby and didn’t wanna work anymore, but she was an activist, she was a woman of color and she was an activist. She made me uncomfortable because she would point out things in my business, like, my business is my baby. I’m very sensitive about my business. She’d point out things about lack of diversity in the business. She would point out, uh, lack of diversity, let’s say in our examples with our student testimonials. Like she was looking and it made me nervous and I needed it. I had to understand where she was coming from. And you’re right, I didn’t agree with everything she said, but a lot of it was right. 

Amy Porterfield    00:27:05    And I felt shame around some of it. Like I should have noticed that. I should have seen that that should have been fixed a long time ago. So I, I grew as a leader to just like, sit in the uncomfortable feeling of someone that I manage is kind of schooling me, but in a way that was not disrespectful. But as a leader in your company, you’re kind of not used to everyone challenging you. So when someone does, you need it, but it doesn’t feel good. So yeah, I didn’t feel good, but I needed all of it. And it really shaped the company in great ways. 

Calan Breckon    00:27:35    Yes. And it, it is just so important. I, I listened to this really amazing podcast called Pivot, um, and Kara Swer, who I absolutely love, she always talks about how these tech bros and these big companies just fill themselves with these silos of people who won’t say no to them or who won’t push back on them. And that it’s just so important for a business to be creatively innovative and to move forward. You need to have those interactions. So I’m glad you have that interaction and I’m glad that that’s part of the work that you’re doing. Um, I’m really curious what’s like the next, ’cause you’ve achieved a lot of things in the intro. I introduced you, you know, you have your book and courses and you’ve done very well for yourself in over the past, you know, 14 years. But I’m really curious with all of your accomplishments, what’s the next big, like Amy Porterfield a dream that’s starting to keep you up at night? Because there’s always, you know, life just keeps going and things just keep anteing up. Yeah. So what’s that next ante up? 

Amy Porterfield    00:28:31    So the next big thing that I want is I would like to move away from a personal brand and into a company brand. And the reason for that is I would like some more voices in my company. So talking about diversity in different communities, I would love some of my team members to start doing some of the trainings to start showing their faces, to start teaching the stuff that they know sometimes better than I do. And so I think over the next few years I’m exploring what would it look like to transition into a company brand, add more voices, and then continue to do what we do just in a bigger, better way. So it’s, um, it’s an ego hit, you know, I’ve always been a personal brand. It’s always been the spotlight on me. And although I love it, I also hate it. Like, you know, a little bit about me, probably more than your listeners, but I don’t particularly love being on video all the time. I, I don’t love being the center of attention. So, uh, it probably will be a nice, uh, welcomed, uh, di a pivot to allow other voices in. So I’m gonna explore it. It’s gonna take a few years, but that’s my next big initiative. 

Calan Breckon    00:29:36    Okay. And I, Hey, you know, that makes sense because like if any big company wants to grow to, to a certain degree, you’re gonna have to let those people come in in those other spots, you know, diversify. That’s really exciting. I’m really excited to ask that question. <laugh>. Yeah, I can’t wait. Alright, so obviously you’re the queen, or at least I call you the queen of online course creation and we’ve talked about course creation. Uh, today we talked about AI and generative, uh, ai. One of the things that I did forget to mention during that is one of the AI tools that I use is something called Harpa ai. And what it does is it actually, um, I can take my YouTube videos or you can take any YouTube video and it will spit out exactly the time that something is said and exactly like what the highlights are and it’ll summarize the video for you like instantly in seconds. 

Calan Breckon    00:30:20    So I need to talk to you and your team ’cause I’ll send it your way because I know that y’all do that. Um, but like using that after you’ve made like a podcast or an episode recording, it used to take hours to sift through and like go through. Um, so yeah, I just wanted to throw that out there ’cause that’s one of my favorite, favorite, favorite tools to use. Um, but we’ve very cool. Yeah, we’ve talked a lot about, you know, online digital course creation. So I want you to tell me more. You have currently right now something that’s called Course Confident Bootcamp. Yes. Um, can you tell me more about that? 

Amy Porterfield    00:30:51    Yeah. So when I talk about digital courses, some people will think, wait, our digital course is dead, or, or digital courses work for me, or I’ve got a service-based business, or I’m a coach or a consultant. How would I even use a digital course? How would I even get started? So I thought, I’m going to create a bootcamp, I do it once a year, so this is the one time this year I’m gonna do it. And it’s one of the cheapest things I offer. It’s only 47 bucks and you get to come in and I do live trainings all are recorded. If you can’t make it live, all about how to get started with a digital course from coming up with a good idea that will make you money to validating the idea, to figuring out what type of course you wanna create, what do you wanna charge for it, how much money could you make, how to use AI to get started, like we’re getting into all of it, you will walk away feeling very taken care of in terms of the first necessary steps to create your digital course. And so that’s what I’m gonna do in the bootcamp. It’s one of the best things we do all year and I’m really excited about it this year since I’m adding some new AI tools to it. 

Calan Breckon    00:31:53    That is very, very exciting. Uh, who would be perfect for taking this boot bootcamp? Because I know I’ve taken d C A and that was the big, the big course and that taught me everything I needed to know about online course creation. But who would be perfect for taking this bootcamp? 

Amy Porterfield    00:32:08    So anyone who’s either curious about digital courses or kind of suspect like, could this really work because I flood you with real stories of my students who have gone before you and what they’ve done. So you really see it in real time. Anyone who’s a coach consultant, you have a service-based business, you might wanna wor uh, move away from trading time for dollars. So if you meet with clients one-on-one and you know, there’s only so many hours in the day, what about supplementing that? So starting a business with a digital course, adding a digital course to your existing business and figuring out how to have recurring revenue, if any of that is of curiosity to you, you are a perfect fit for the bootcamp.

Calan Breckon    00:32:49    Okay. So anybody who’s, anybody who wants to learn about online course creation and is kind of been toying with it is like, you know what, maybe this could be my way out of the corporate world like Amy Porterfield, yes. Or maybe this is my way to gain a little bit more freedom. Or even just like start a side hustle on the side, kind of develop some classes around maybe a hobby that you love and then that eventually becomes your full-time gig. Who knows? Uh, I do believe that the doors of that close, so it’s open right now and the doors to that close on September 13th, correct? Correct. Yep. Okay, perfect. So we kick 

Amy Porterfield    00:33:20    Everything off. 

Calan Breckon    00:33:21    Okay, perfect. So you got a couple days. If you’re interested in getting into the bootcamp, you can go the show. Uh, the link to the bootcamp will be in the show notes, but you can also go to callen brecken.com/bootcamp. Uh, and you can find out all the information there if you’d like. Amy, this has been an absolutely magical interview. I’m so excited that you have officially been the first guest ever on the business gay podcast. I 

Amy Porterfield    00:33:48    Did not know that. Kalan, I’m so honored. Thank you so much. I’m such a fan of yours. I love everything about you. Your heart is humongous in the best possible way. So thank you so much for having me, and I feel so honored to be the first guest. 

Calan Breckon    00:34:02    Yes. Well, when everything was coming together, I was just so excited that this managed to come together and I was like, you know what, I’m gonna make Amy my first guest <laugh>, because it’s just, you’ve impacted Yeah, well you’ve impacted so much of my life and you know, your podcast is how I got into this world of entrepreneurship. The online marketing made z podcast back in 2019 when I started listening. And ever since then, you’ve just been such a huge influence. So I was like, there is no better way to kick off my amazing new podcast then to have Amy Porterfield and there’s lots of other guests coming up. Like I said, there’s storytelling guests and, and lots of other things. But yes, I just wanna thank you so much from the bottom of my heart for being the first guest for making this episode absolutely magical. And is there anything else you’d like to share with the people? Any links they should know about? 

Amy Porterfield    00:34:50    I think just really consider that bootcamp Callan will be in there and it’s so much fun and it’s live. So you get to see my teaching style and if I, you know, I’ll share all the examples with you so you could see yourself in the other examples, it’s definitely worth the opportunity. And for $47, you will get a lot more value than you think. So I’m excited about it. Thanks again for having me. 

Calan Breckon    00:35:13    Awesome. Well thanks so much for, uh, coming onto the Business gay podcast, Amy and I will see you inside of the bootcamp. See 

Amy Porterfield    00:35:20    You soon. 

Calan Breckon    00:35:21    Wow. What an absolutely amazing interview with Amy. I love how she kept it real about being afraid about getting it wrong. I think it’s really important that we just acknowledge that allies feel like this sometimes. And when they do feel like this, we need to reassure them that it’s not about being perfect, it’s about showing up and doing your best, which is exactly what Amy is doing if talking about creating an online course. Got you excited. Now you have to check out Amy’s course Confident Bootcamp. I’ll be in there with you sharing all my knowledge on how we can all start enjoying a little bit more freedom in our lives by creating an online course. Head on over to calanbreckon.com/bootcamp or click the link in the show notes for more information. I want to thank you all today for listening to this very first episode. It’s very exciting. I, and I very much appreciate all of the support that you are sending my way. Don’t forget to hit that subscribe button so that you can get reminded every Wednesday when new episodes come out. And if you really like this episode, please go ahead and give it a star rating. It needs all the love it can get when starting off here to tell all the algorithms. So thank you so much. Have the best day ever. Peace, love rainbows.