It Has to Be Me

Audiobook fans and narrators: Paul Alan Ruben, Grammy-winning director, walks us through the process of working with actors to deliver riveting performances that make us feel like we’re living inside the story. Tracking Paul’s journey from acting with Second City to directing and writing, he recalls why he stopped chasing laughs, and the moment that cemented his decision to direct actors. To collaborate with authors and publishers, he started an audio production company, and became a go-to director for high-profile titles with celebrities. Diving into what makes a compelling audiobook, Paul looks at why we lean into some narrators and not others. It’s not about the genre, a savvy reader, or a “golden” voice. It’s about a great actor intuiting the feelings of the character, and not only delivering the subtext with the words, but breathing life into the silence—what’s not being said. Takeaway: Turn up the playback speed and you'll miss the nuances of the performance. Paul imparts key lessons from directing Meryl Streep, Burt Reynolds, Michael J. Fox, Lynn Redgrave, Johnny Depp, senators and cabinet members, and his insights on working productively with people, regardless of status or star power. Paul says to the actor and the listener alike: Understanding a story has zero to do with position or intellect. Give yourself the time to listen, feel, believe, and experience, and go on a magic carpet ride. TESS’S TAKEAWAYS: What makes great audiobooks is great acting, not just clear reading or vocal tone. Great audiobook narrators don’t “try to sound like” the characters; they become them. Structure and technique matter; it’s more important to connect with the emotional core. The truth of a story exists in the silent “white” spaces—what is not spoken. An actor who conveys the emotional subtext behind the words captivate the listener. Narrators who use vocal tricks in place of emotional connection lose the listener. Audiobook listeners want to be ahead of the actor, to anticipate what they don’t know. As an actor, be emotionally connected to your world, and the worlds you want to inhabit. ABOUT PAUL Paul Alan Ruben has produced and directed audiobooks since 1990, winning numerous awards, including Grammys for Al Franken's Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them, and Always Looking Up by Michael J. Fox. Teaching and coaching professional actors in the United States, Paul has cast and directed many first-time audiobook performers who’ve become celebrated narrators. In his earlier career, Paul worked writing TV and theater, and has contributed features to Audiofile and Dadcentric magazines and The Washington Post. His short story collection, Terms of Engagement: Stories of the father and son was published in 2018, and narrated by a stellar multi-cast including George Guidall and Scott Brick. Paul lives in Brooklyn with fellow audiobook director, his wife Paula. CONNECT WITH PAUL Paul Alan Ruben: http://www.paulalanruben.com/ Terms Of Engagement: https://www.amazon.com/Terms-of-Engagement-audiobook/dp/B07JHYGW9H/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/paul-alan-ruben-8235276/ MEET TESS MASTERS: Tess Masters is...

Are you sitting on a story you have to tell? Jess Taylor, editor and former literary agent, spills the tea about what makes compelling writing, and why people will be drawn to your unique voice. Starting with Jess’s early love of stories, he recalls how at age 6 he broke his leg, and books became an escape and imagination a survival tool. Reading with his mother and watching classic movies at the revival house where he worked fueled a passion for analyzing how stories come together. But, the academic approach to literature he found at Harvard and Columbia wasn’t as much fun as reading manuscripts for studios and agencies. Working with writers was even more rewarding, so Jess became an agent. Developing and selling material over ten years at Curtis Brown in New York and Endeavor in LA, he found his calling as an editor. Together, we explore crafting narrative, developing plot and character, relishing language, and leveraging our curiosity. Jess brings in “incidentation”—a concept he learned from a great TV writer—and why sometimes “telling” over “showing” is the way to go. Then walks us through how to live in a story so it's real to you, to get to the place where your characters make choices before you do. That's how your story takes on its own internal drive. You’ll hear about the power of the zero draft (just talk it out!), the best way to test-drive your ideas, when it’s time to work with an editor and how to find the right one, and the evolving role of AI in the writing process. The key takeaway: Have fun realizing your story. What's not fun to write isn't fun to read. TESS’S TAKEAWAYS: Begin by beginning. You can only understand your story fully by writing it. The art of storytelling is deciding what to include and what to omit. Great stories are not about words and themes, they’re about experiences. Writing is a process of successive approximations. Trust your instincts, but verify. The match between story and storyteller is essential. That's how you test your story. Character and plot develop together when people act and reveal who they are. Cast your characters and imagine the dialogue performed to construct your world. Finding your voice is an experimental process. Writing can be learned, but not taught. ABOUT JESS TAYLOR Jess Taylor is an editor collaborating with novelists, biographers, memoirists, screenwriters, and journalists. After graduating from Harvard, Jess got a masters in English and Comparative Lit at Columbia, then launched into a PhD. Academia and narrative studies wasn’t about the nuts and bolts of storytelling, so he shifted to a career as a literary agent, at Curtis Brown, Ltd. in New York, and then at Endeavor in Los Angeles. Representing writers for publishing, film and TV, he focused on working with clients in the development of their projects. Bookending his ten-year run were Peter Hedges’s What’s Eating Gilbert Grape and Rex Pickett’s Sideways, and the movie adaptations of those first novels. Since making the move to independent editing, he’s worked closely with fiction and non-fiction writers from Gregg Hurwitz and Nicole Galland to Nancy Stout, Cyrus Copeland, and Tess Masters. CONNECT WITH JESS Website: https://www.revizion.net/ LinkedIn:

This year, avoid the holiday bloat, food coma, and weight gain—without depriving yourself. Enjoy your favorite festive foods and stay on track with your health goals using some basic strategies. I’ll walk you through how to prepare for the holiday season, planning ahead for catered events, what to do at parties, how to order at restaurants, best practices for travel, and tricks for entertaining with the healthy recipes that are always a hit. We’ll also cover the 80/20 approach—the best way to eat during the holidays. Then, the number-one way to prevent blood sugar spikes and crashes, foods and supplements to keep on hand, what to do after meals. and the fastest way to recover when you’ve overdone it. The key takeaways: Stop stressing about what’s on your plate, go with your gut, and find a balance of self-care and fun. TESS’S TAKEAWAYS: Your secret weapon for avoiding the holiday food hangover: Better gut health. Offset holiday treats with vegetables, fermented foods, and lots of water. Show up to holiday parties with a flexible mindset having eaten something. To minimize gas, bloating, and feeling stuffed: Eat until you’re satisfied, not full. Take in healthy fats and protein with carbs to avoid blood sugar spikes and crashes. Support better body balance with probiotics, enzymes, glutamine, and magnesium. After a meal, go for a walk to aid digestion and burn off some calories. Celebrate the holidays as a data-gathering mission, not a pass/fail test. MEET TESS MASTERS: Tess Masters is an actor, presenter, health coach, cook, and author of The Blender Girl, The Blender Girl Smoothies, and The Perfect Blend, published by Penguin Random House. She is also the creator of the Skinny60® health programs. Health tips and recipes by Tess have been featured in the LA Times, Washington Post, InStyle, Prevention, Shape, Glamour, Real Simple, Yoga Journal, Yahoo Health, Hallmark Channel, The Today Show, and many others. Tess’s magnetic personality, infectious enthusiasm, and down-to-earth approach have made her a go-to personality for people of all dietary stripes who share her conviction that healthy living can be easy and fun. Get delicious recipes at TheBlenderGirl.com. CONNECT WITH TESS: Website:  https://tessmasters.com/ Podcast:  https://ithastobeme.com/  Health Programs: https://www.skinny60.com/ Delicious Recipes: https://www.theblendergirl.com/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/theblendergirl/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theblendergirl/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/theblendergirl LinkedIn: ...

Life coach and business mentor Amanda Leigh Walker gives us the lowdown on Human Design. We then get into how this self-awareness tool can help us celebrate our natural energy and desires, and stop fighting who we are and what we want simply to please others. We track Amanda’s journey from studying filmmaking in Canada, to teaching English in Taiwan, to meeting her Aussie husband and moving to Australia. Committed and creative vegetarians, they founded Lord Of The Fries. Their humble plant-based food truck grew into a national restaurant franchise. On that wave of success, Amanda began strategizing for other female entrepreneurs. When covid hit, putting the restaurant business in turmoil, she left the food business. At the same time, her marriage ended. Leaning into self-care and spiritual practices to navigate these changes, she made coaching her vocation. Human Design helped Amanda lead from alignment instead of conditioning, and she began using the system with her clients. She unpacks what Human Design is, and how we can leverage our strengths, use our energy more efficiently, make clearer decisions, and attract people and opportunities that are the right fit. Amanda gives experience-based examples of how Human Design supports more ease and flow in our relationships, and better parenting. To wrap up, Amanda does a basic reading of my Human Design. Her insights were bang on, and raised questions that will be provocative for you. TESS’S TAKEAWAYS Human Design reveals your energetic blueprint and how you make decisions. Human Design combines astrology, the I Ching, Kabbalah, and Chakras. Like fingerprints, no two Human Design charts are the same. Human Design can help us stop fighting our nature and work with it. Burnout happens when we say yes to what’s not aligned. Intuition is a muscle, and Human Design is a map that helps strengthen it. Celebrating your nature helps you see blocks and make clearer choices. Understanding our design and that of others creates more ease in relationships. MEET AMANDA Amanda Leigh Walker uses Human Design in her work as a life coach and business mentor. She has developed signature frameworks—Decode & Design™, The Success Map, and The Heart Sanctuary to guide women and entrepreneurs. Co-founder of the plant-based Australian restaurant chain Lord Of The Fries, Amanda spent two decades building an iconic fast-food franchise. Combining practical strategies with intuitive energy work, Amanda mentors others to create conscious lives and businesses, for growth and purpose, in alignment with who they are. CONNECT WITH AMANDA Website: https://www.amandaleighwalker.com/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/amanda.leigh.walker/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/amanda-leigh-walker-73305613/ MEET TESS MASTERS: Tess Masters is an actor, presenter, health coach, cook, and author of The Blender Girl, The Blender Girl Smoothies, and The Perfect Blend, published by Penguin Random House. She is also the creator of the Skinny60® health programs. Health tips and recipes by Tess have been featured in the LA Times, Washington Post, InStyle, Prevention, Shape,...

Are you sharing your superpowers? Or exiling huge parts of yourself to please others? Amy Stanton, PR trailblazer and author of The Feminine Revolution, insists that our greatest assets are the qualities we’ve been told to hide. Growing up as the responsible first child in a values-driven family, Amy felt she had to be “the good girl,” and spent her childhood perpetually stressed. Destined to follow in the footsteps of her entrepreneurial grandfather, she was making and selling hair barrettes before she was 10, dreaming of building companies, and chalking up the next achievement. We track Amy’s career trajectory, from working in advertising, to running communications for New York City’s Olympic bid, and serving as Chief Marketing Officer for Martha Stewart. Then, changing the game for women’s sports agents, and on to launching her company to promote positive female role models and change makers. Through it all, she struggled to balance the badass boss persona with the sensitivity, vulnerability, and other “soft traits” she prized in her personal life. Figuring out how to make these qualities strengths, not liabilities, Amy incorporated them into her leadership style, approach to business, and core company values. Walking us through how to leverage other feminine qualities that are conventionally dismissed as weaknesses, she shares her check-in questions and secret weapon for decision making, the mistake that makes everything harder, and the best way to reshape our perspective on success and failure. Amy says: You don’t need to prove your worth, it’s already there. Unleash your full power. Run with your wolf. Show up as your full, feeling, and sometimes-messy self. TESS’S TAKEAWAYS Use challenging moments as training opportunities to learn and build resilience. Emotional awareness and sensitivity allows you to read people and feel before you speak. Trusting your gut is a practice. Start with the little things, then level up to the big ones. Againstness—kneejerk opposition—gets in the way of productivity and team building. Agreeability—the antidote to againstness—isn’t playing small. It’s choosing collaboration. Surrender isn’t giving up. It’s letting go of the need to put yourself at the center. Vulnerability is a superpower—the bridge between being seen and known. It will all work out in the end, and if it hasn't worked out, it's not the end. ABOUT AMY STANTON Amy Stanton has built a leading boutique PR and marketing agency by championing impact-oriented people and brands. She founded Stanton & Company in 2006 exclusively to promote positive female role models. S&Co has grown to represent men and companies as well. Clients include top medical practitioners and authors, elite athletes, and philosophy-driven businesses. Recognized as an industry leader in health and wellness, women’s sports, and female entrepreneurship and empowerment, S&Co has been on the Inc. 5000 list of Fastest Growing Companies in America for the past three years. Beginning her career with global advertising agencies including BBDO and JWT, Amy also served as the head of marketing and communications for NYC2012 (New York City's Olympic bid), and as Chief Marketing Officer for Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia. Drawing on her personal and professional experience, she co-authored The Feminine Revolution with Catherine Connors, and speaks regularly about female leadership and entrepreneurship, business and marketing, and women in sports. CONNECT WITH AMY Website: