Episode 111: Passion has no expiration date – with Grandmapreneur Connie Inukai

Is it ever too late to find and follow your passion? According to Connie Inukai, passion has no expiration date. At age 72, she calls herself a “Grandmapreneur.”

After retiring from her teaching career at the University of Maryland and Johns Hopkins University, Connie invented a product called Tip ‘n Split, a handheld device with magnifier, light, tip calculator, and bill splitter. Her book, “How I Got My Product on QVC, The Today Show, The View, and More…in Retirement” has helped inventors get publicity for their inventions. During the COVID-19 pandemic, she has used the time in lockdown to chronicle her life story for her grandchildren, and now helps others write their stories through her latest project, “Write Your Selfie.”

During this episode, you will hear Connie talk about:

• The story behind the creation of the Tip ‘n Split
• How she learned about inventing, and the challenges she faced with manufacturing
• How she got on QVC’s radar before she even had a prototype of the Tip ‘n Split
• Her family connection to a major historical event, and how she discovered she wasn’t the only inventor in the family
• Why she believes that everyone should be able to tell their story

To find out more about Connie and her work, you can check out her website Grandmapreneurinventor.com and the websites for Tip ‘n Split and Write Your Selfie. Follow her on Instagram at @grandmapreneurinventor and she will follow you back!

You can also request a free PDF of Connie’s book by visiting the Write Your Selfie website and clicking the Contact menu. Be sure to mention that you are a Beyond 6 Seconds listener!

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A full episode transcript is available below.

Carolyn Kiel:

Today on Beyond 6 Seconds,

Connie Inukai:

Passion has no expiration date. You know, we can be passionate at any age. And sometimes I think that, you know, young kids have all the wonder in them, but there’s nothing that says that we can’t also at any age.

Carolyn Kiel:

Welcome to Beyond 6 Seconds, the podcast that goes beyond the six-second first impression to share the extraordinary stories and achievements of everyday people. I’m your host, Carolyn Kiel.

Carolyn Kiel:

Hey, I just wanted to let you know about something new that’s happening here at the Beyond 6 Seconds podcast. Starting with this episode, I’m going to be publishing videos of all my guest interviews on the Beyond 6 Seconds YouTube channel. If you’d like to watch this interview, just go to YouTube and search for Beyond 6 Seconds. You’ll find the video there. Also while you’re there, I would love it if you could click the red subscribe button under the video and then click the little bell icon next to that. So you never miss a video. The video is a new thing I’m trying out with the podcast and I really appreciate your viewership and subscriptions to my YouTube channel. Okay, and now here’s my interview with Connie.

Carolyn Kiel:

On today’s episode I’m speaking with Connie Inukai. After retiring from teaching writing at the University of Maryland and Johns Hopkins University, Connie invented a product called Tip ‘n Split, a handheld device with magnifier, light, tip calculator and bill splitter. Her book, “How I got my Product on QVC, the Today Show, The View and More in Retirement” has helped inventors get publicity for their inventions. When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, she used the time in lockdown to do something positive. She chronicled her life story so her grandchildren would know about her. She now helps others write their stories. So during this pandemic, Write Your Selfie was born. Connie, welcome to the podcast.

Connie Inukai:

Thank you so much, Carolyn. It’s so nice to meet you.

Carolyn Kiel:

It’s great to meet you too. I’m really interested to learn about your journey from being a professor to becoming an inventor and pivoting so many times, even in retirement. So I guess to start off, what inspired you to become an inventor?

Connie Inukai:

You know, I was a college professor and I taught engineers and computer scientists how to write reports and I tried to inspire them to write something that was going to get them well known in the field. I worked really hard with each student because they had to write reports. So I had them write reports that were meaningful and I loved inspiring the students. One of the reasons I loved teaching that course is because students dreaded it. They usually took it their last semester at college because it was a required course. And most of them, you know, when I started with the first day, how many of you are graduating seniors? All the hands went up and I said, well, you couldn’t put it off any longer. Could you? Uh, at the end of the semester, they all loved it. And I, I got so many emails from them telling me how it was the most valuable course.

Connie Inukai:

So that’s why I liked it, taking a very boring subject and making it interesting, but I worked very hard at it. And if you know, college, you go four or five years and you pull all nighters to do all your work. Okay. I don’t know if you can relate to that, but I know when I was in college, I did that, but I had to pull all nighters as a teacher. So I was a teacher for 40 years. And for 40 years I was pulling all nighters, usually about once or twice a month. I would stay up all night and grade their reports. And, um, it was really hard also because as I was inspiring my students, I was inspiring myself. So I got this idea right before I retired and I had to retire. I retired at age 68 and I retired because I was just so full of ideas about what to do with my life. And so I decided, you know, rather than just always inspire my students, why don’t I inspire myself.

Connie Inukai:

So as I got older, I would go out to eat with friends. And I really had a problem going to restaurants because sometimes I just could not read the menu or the bill because the print was too small and the restaurant was too dark. So that’s something that will happen to you when you get older. You know, usually when you hit 55, the eyes start going. So I would have a hard time. So we would pass around reading glasses. I usually forgot to bring mine or sometimes I would just ask the server, what’s good on the menu? What’s good? Because then I didn’t have to read it. So I thought, you know what, there’s gotta be a solution.

Connie Inukai:

So then I invented this product and it’s called Tip ‘n Split. What it is, it has a magnifier so you can read the small print. And if the restaurant is dark, it has a light that shines in the back. It’s not really so distracting, like the iPhone light. And then if you turn it on, it’s sort of like a calculator and you just type in the amount of the bill. You push enter, it’ll ask you tip amount and you can put in like 15, 20, 21, 22, whatever you want, you push enter. And then it’ll ask if you want to split it. So if there are five people, you just type in five, you push enter, and then it’ll tell you what each person pays and you pass it around. So it’s kind of fun. You know, it’s like, Oh my God, that’s really easy. Now we can all add. We can all do it. But sometimes after a few drinks, it’s a little bit harder to put on your math cap.

Carolyn Kiel:

Right.

Connie Inukai:

So I started inventing this while I was still teaching and I told my students about it. And they said, you know, Mrs. Inukai, this is not just for old people because when we go out with our friends and we go out drinking, we can’t see anything.

Carolyn Kiel:

Right.

Connie Inukai:

So I started doing that. And as I was teaching, because I taught technical writing, I actually would assign my students little parts of their final report. One part was like an instruction manual, whatever they were going to do, they had to write an instruction manual. So I wrote an instruction manual for myself, for my Tip ‘n Split. And then they had to do like describing something. So I was working right with them. They didn’t know it, but I was working right with them. Then I had them make brochures, I put them in teams. And I had them create fantastic brochures for their report. And so I made my brochure for myself and then I couldn’t do it anymore. I had to quit and just devote myself full time to my product.

Carolyn Kiel:

Wow. So you really used the time in class to help design this product. And it’s great to have that feedback from people like in the early stages.

Connie Inukai:

It was absolutely wonderful. And they kind of inspired me and I was having them produce such good work, incredible work because, um, they were brilliant. They just needed a little help with their writing. So I invented that. And then I know a lot of inventors now because I am one. And so I wrote a book to help other inventors. And you mentioned it, “How I got my Product on QVC, the Today Show, The View and More in Retirement.” And so I just had so much fun because I taught writing. So why not use it? So I wrote that book and it became a very good vehicle for speaking. Usually when people retire, they start their second act. So my second act was inventing. Then my third act was to become a speaker. And then actually now I’m in my fourth act.

Carolyn Kiel:

And author was probably in there somewhere.

Connie Inukai:

Right. Well, I’ve had so much fun with it and I can send you one, if you want, if any of your guests want it, they can contact me. You’ll give them my email address and I can just give them the PDF of this book.

Carolyn Kiel:

That would be fantastic. Yeah. Thank you. I’ll put that information at the end of the show again, to remind everyone. Thank you for that. That’s wonderful.

Connie Inukai:

So I actually love the name of your show called Beyond 6 Seconds, because that’s basically what life is all about. You know, you get your six seconds that people find out about you and that’s it. But, um, when COVID hit us, I became inspired again for my, actually my fourth act because I don’t go any place because I’m 72 years old and I’m in the high risk category. So I don’t want anything coming near me. So I decided this was a great time to go through all my photo albums and I’m of the age where we have photo albums. Right now, young people just have the smartphone and all the photos on there, but I had like 20 photo albums and lots of shoe boxes filled with pictures. So I gathered them and I actually made a different kind of life story.

Connie Inukai:

A lot of people write a memoir, but they don’t know how to get started. And, you know, I’ve had a few people contact me to help them with their memoir. And they said, it’s a thousand pages, Connie, can you help me? And I don’t really want to do that because I kind of invented a different kind of photo album. It’s not really new. Shutterfly does it all the time. You know, these photo albums. And the good thing about it is it’s almost all pictures and words, captions, pictures, and captions. So it was very fun to create. And it’s so much fun to read it because you don’t have to go reading through like page after page of boring stuff. So this one is I highlighted the most important things of my life that my kids were really eating it up.

Connie Inukai:

And one of my favorite things that I found, because I had to do a little research on this, and my grandparents are not alive, so I couldn’t ask them. And my parents are actually not alive, but I found this picture. That’s a picture of my grandparents. And they immigrated to the U S from Poland in 1912. And they actually had to cancel their trip, postpone their trip because my grandma had morning sickness. And the trip that they canceled was on the Titanic!

Carolyn Kiel:

Wow.

Connie Inukai:

So that I’ll tell you my grandson who’s eight absolutely loves that story, because before he heard about my grandparents, he watches everything Titanic on TV, everything Titanic. So I have like so many incredible stories to pass down to my children and grandchildren. And, Oh, let me tell you why I started writing my book because I believe it was in January or February that, uh, Kobe Bryant died. I’m sure you know that. It was so sad because he died with his daughter on the helicopter. And I was thinking about it, his kids he’s got two other kids or something, other children, everybody’s going to know everything about him because he was all over the media, but who’s going to know anything about me? Like the average person, unless we tell them. So that’s when I started getting inspired. And then we got COVID. So that’s when I actually decided to, uh, to actually sit down and write it because I had a lot of time on my hands. Well, not really, but I wasn’t going any place. So that’s when I decided to do it. And uh, now what I’m doing is I’m helping other people write their story. Because a lot of people, everybody has a story to tell, you know, everyone has a story. They just don’t know where to start.

Carolyn Kiel:

Right. And this is your business called Write Your Selfie?

Connie Inukai:

Yeah. Because I’m an inventor, I’m into patents and trademarks. And I was trying to think of a good name. So I chose the name Write Your Selfie and I actually trademarked the name. And I chose that because mainly the people who are going to be writing this are older people, and people my age are really not into selfies that much, but this will give, make us feel like we’re young again. Right? So I actually just filed for the trademark and uh, you know, because I’m an inventor, they all work together. I also filed the trademark for my business name, which is Grandmapreneur. And so after I filed it, I get so many letters from lawyers trying to help me get the trademark. Cause I filed an initial trademark. And then, then once it got past that you have to pay some money and then, then you have to like do a few other things. And I got about 15 lawyers trying to charge me like a thousand dollars and they’ll do it for me, but I already did it myself. So it’s sort of like inventing, I knew nothing about inventing, zero. What did I know about it? But I can learn. Same thing as Zoom. We know nothing about it but we can learn.

Carolyn Kiel:

Right. And we’ve all been learning new things, especially since COVID just learning new ways of life and new tools.

Connie Inukai:

Everything is new. And it’s my weakness because I grew up way before computers, way, way, way before computers. So it’s not as easy for me as it is for other people, but you know, I’m working around it.

Carolyn Kiel:

Well. That’s amazing. And I’m curious, since you said you had to teach yourself around the world of inventing when you had this idea and wanted to bring it to life. I’m not an inventor myself, but I’ll see advertisements for, you know, here work with us for your invention and we’ll make it happen. And I often wonder if those are even legit or if that’s how people do it. So how did you research the safest, the best way to invent and patent and bring something to the market?

Connie Inukai:

You know, I did find that most of those companies are rip offs. I looked them up, you know, there’s a website called ripoffs. So I looked up companies, but, uh, I’ll tell you, how did I do it? I did it by myself, but actually I have to give a little credit to my ex husband who’s a brilliant mathematician and engineer and Japanese. That’s how I got my name Inukai, from my ex husband. And when I decided to invent something, I asked him, I told him my idea and he actually developed all the algorithms for this to make it run smoothly. And, uh, what he used to do, he’s retired now too. But what he used to do is he used to figure out where to put satellites on earth and on space to make the best reception. And he was a really well known engineer and mathematician. So this has incredible experience behind my little simple thing. So I was very lucky, you know, that, uh, he was able to help me all along the way. Cause I could have never done that.

Carolyn Kiel:

And then in terms of the production, like how do you find a place to create a product?

Connie Inukai:

That’s been actually my biggest pitfall because, um, it’s very hard to find a manufacturer. And when you’re starting out, you don’t know that. You don’t know that you have to be, get somebody, you have to be recommended. So my first manufacturer, I went to an inventor’s trade show with supposedly with my product and they hadn’t even done it yet. So I already had a booth and I actually brought pictures of it. And what I did was QVC was there at this inventors trade show and they picked about 15 people to pitch a product. And I signed up for it and I said, I’m sorry, I don’t have my product yet because of my manufacturer. And they all, I showed them pictures. I explained it, they loved it. And they said, please come back next when you have the product.

Connie Inukai:

So the next year I went back and I said to them, do you remember me? I was here last year. I waited a year. And they said, yes. And they said, well, you told me to come back with my product. So here it is. So they immediately put me on QVC.

Carolyn Kiel:

Wow.

Connie Inukai:

So, um, I think what I do is one of my things going for me is I don’t take no very well because every time you hear a no, you have to turn that around to a well later, you know? So, um, then I ran into another bad manufacturer and uh, I met him at the, uh, at the trade show where I was at and this man was a speaker about manufacturing. So I said, Oh, do you think you can help me out? And he looked at my pictures and said that is engineering 101. It took them one and a half years to mess it up. So I now am with my third manufacturer, but I actually put it on hold because of COVID because this is a product to eat in restaurants and I don’t want to encourage people to go to restaurants yet. Just outdoor ones, but you can still use the outdoor, at outdoor restaurants.

Carolyn Kiel:

That’s true.

Connie Inukai:

But now I have some very good news and I’m going to be in two other places for Christmas.

Carolyn Kiel:

Nice! That’s fantastic.

Connie Inukai:

So, you know, so I’m really, really excited.

Carolyn Kiel:

That’s great. Well, I’m glad that Tip ‘n Split is still moving along and finding success. Even in these challenging times where the one place you use it, it’s not as, we’re not there as much right now.

Connie Inukai:

Well, more and more people are going to get bad eyes and they’re gonna need it, you know, uh, as we get older. And um, so I, uh, actually have terrible vision. I had LASIK surgery about 10 years ago, but it doesn’t help me with the closeups. It doesn’t help me with those things. So you just have to like, think about, you know, when you get older, a lot of things, you lose a lot of things. Like a lot of people lose their hearing. A lot of people lose their vision. People lose other things. People whose friends, you know, when you get older, we lose an awful lot. But what you have to do is you have to get over it and keep moving forward.

Carolyn Kiel:

Yeah absolutely, and find ways to bring solutions to the problems that well you’re having. And that other people are having as well, like Tip ‘n Split. Absolutely. I could see how that really helps people.

Connie Inukai:

Right. Right. Well, I have a few other ideas in my head, but right now I’m concentrating on Write Your Selfie. But as I get older, I constantly get inspired by breaking the myths of getting old. Because when I was 40 years old, when I was 20, I thought 40 was like middle age and 50 was sitting in a rocking chair and 60 was dying, but that’s not the case anymore! So I kind of get inspired by other people.

Carolyn Kiel:

I mean, it’s something that I’m, I’m thinking about and reflecting on my own attitudes about it’s like the older that I get, all those ages that just seemed so old and far away it’s like, that doesn’t seem so old anymore. Right?

Connie Inukai:

Yeah. So, so it was, I do a little bit of research about aging and I found this story. I doubt that any of your viewers have heard of Satchel Paige, have you ever heard of him?

Carolyn Kiel:

The name sounds vaguely familiar, but no I’m not familiar with the work.

Connie Inukai:

Well, he was a baseball player and he was not allowed to play baseball because he was Black. So he was on a, they called it the Negro baseball league, but he never gave up, and at age 48, he became a rookie baseball player.

Carolyn Kiel:

Wow.

Connie Inukai:

They finally let him in. And at age 59, he was pitching in the major leagues.

Carolyn Kiel:

Wow!

Connie Inukai:

And I thought, Oh my God, what a story! Even if people don’t never heard of him. Satchel Paige. He didn’t realize he was too old to be a rookie baseball player. You know, it’s just like, I don’t realize I’m too old to do some of the things I’m doing. And so I, you know, I get inspired by people like George Foreman who was a boxer and now everybody knows him for his grill. So he just completely pivoted because he was too old to box. And then I think about other older people and I think about Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who’s a total inspiration to me and she doesn’t let even cancer deter her from anything, you know? And so it makes me feel young. And then my favorite one is, um, Dr. Fauci. You know, he’s this really like old, I guess he’s about 79, but you wouldn’t feel that when he talks, he talks like a young kid, you know, he talks like a 40 year old, a smart 40, 50 year old with experience. So a lot of times, you know, people who are older are sort of like 40 year olds with 40 years more experience. So I get kind of inspired by that.

Connie Inukai:

And I’m no longer, when I turned 50, I was dreading it. And when I turned 60, I was kind of like, Oh my gosh, because those were my, the myths that I had heard. And when I turned 70, I kind of feel good! So I can say it, you know, because I’m still reinventing myself. So I think that, um, you know, what the message I would like to give to your viewers is no matter what age you are, passion has no expiration date. You know, we can be passionate at any age. And sometimes I think that, you know, young kids have all the wonder in them, but there’s nothing that says that we can’t also at any age, it keeps me young.

Connie Inukai:

I have two grandchildren who live with me. And so I like this nighttime because I usually do all my creative thoughts early in the morning or late at night because during the daytime I love to play with them. Oh, that’s great. I absolutely love having kids except that my 4 year old granddaughter knows now she can’t ask me to play on the floor with her, with her baby dolls, because I can’t get back up. It’s a little problem. You know, I can play with her, but she now knows she’s trained when she wants to play with me. She has to bring the stuff to the table or to the couch. So that kind of keeps me young too.

Carolyn Kiel:

And that’s wonderful. Because your idea for Write Your Selfie was, as you said, to help your grandchildren get to know you and really get to know who you are as a person and the whole history of not just you, but the whole family it seems like.

Connie Inukai:

Right. Exactly. Well, I have a large family. I have four brothers and one sister and I’m the second oldest. And so when I did it, they all loved it. And I actually went to them for some of the, some of the facts that were, I wanted to make sure that they were correct. Of course I was the second oldest. So, you know, I know more than everyone, except my older sister she’s one year older than me, but my, one of my brothers did correct me because I have a picture of our house. I grew up in Cleveland and my dad built a family room on to our house, like a, because there were six kids. So he built a sunken family room. And one day my brother took a hose to it and we were trying to make it into a swimming pool. So I told that little story in my book and my kids like it because you know, they liked the fact that we were kids once too. And what I got from my brother when he read my book is Connie, you got it wrong. I’m the one who got the idea and brought in the hose!

Carolyn Kiel:

He wants credit for it.

Connie Inukai:

So anyway, so, but they’re all enjoying it.

Carolyn Kiel:

That’s great. And when you work with other people as part of Write Your Selfie to help them write their own stories, what’s the process? Like, do you have them bring a collection of pictures and then go through it and make and get the story that way or how do you work with people?

Connie Inukai:

Well, usually, usually what people, everybody can do this, gather their pictures. So usually what I do is I tell them, okay, now start gathering your pictures. And then I have a private Facebook group where we can share them and we can think about, Oh, maybe this is a better caption. So we just share ideas. But if anybody wants to do it all the reason that I’m doing it, anybody can write it themselves. They don’t need me. Okay. I’m just going to say that nobody needs me, but I’m there for accountability. So they have to check in, they have to show what they’ve done and they can get feedback. I was a writing teacher. So if they have any kind of grammar errors, I can fix that for them. So that’s why I decided to do it. But if anybody wants to look at it, I have my book on my website, which I actually developed. I’m still working on making some improvements, but it’s called www.WriteYourSelfie.com. And if you subscribe to it, I give like little tips about what to do with writing a book. You don’t even have to buy my course.

Connie Inukai:

I try to make it affordable, but you can get my tips without even joining, you know, without even taking my course. So how do I help them? It’s mainly just to share. And when you’re my age, you love to share pictures. And some people say, which one do you think is better? Well, because I am impartial, I could probably say, this one!

Carolyn Kiel:

And that’s helpful sometimes just to have someone there to kind of coach you and guide you through it because I’d imagine a lot of people are not maybe, as you said, don’t really know where to start and don’t even know how to research it. So having someone who’s done it is helpful.

Connie Inukai:

Well, what I’d really like to do is get a sponsor, ancestry.com. Because I think that, uh, I refer people to that. It doesn’t cost a lot to join, but they also have a free membership. Yeah. I think they might like to work with me cause I could send people to them except I might send them to them and say, you don’t have to pay. But you know, I think that people should use their money wisely. Like people don’t have to pay for my course. They can. My goal is not to make a lot of money. It’s really to help people. Because I think that everybody who hears about my Write Your Selfie says, Oh my God, I wish my parents had done this, or I wish my grandparents had done this because they’re no longer here. And now they don’t know those stories. Well I say, well, good, you’re writing yours. So your grandchildren will know. Your siblings or your friends will know. So, um, yeah, so I had a lot of fun doing it and it was a perfect project to do during COVID.

Carolyn Kiel:

Definitely. Yeah, and I think sharing your story is one of the most powerful things that you can do because you said everyone has a story and it’s something that people especially close to you really need to know.

Connie Inukai:

Do you have a good story?

Carolyn Kiel:

You know, as I do podcasts and as I guest on other people’s podcasts, I do kind of work through my own story and I probably have several, depending on which parts of it I want to highlight for whom.

Connie Inukai:

Right. Right. Exactly. So you have a lot of stories. So I did basically is sort of like chronological order of my life. You know? I mean I could do so many other stories. I just wanted to let my kids know, but you probably have so many stories. So as you’re doing these, write them down and then you can take pictures of them. For mine, sometimes I don’t have a picture. So for example, when I just finished high school, right before college, I worked at an amusement park in Ohio called Cedar Point. I don’t know if you ever heard about it, but they have oldest and the biggest roller coaster in the country. It was like a very fun job, a summer job that I did two summers. And I wanted to put that in my book and imagine my age, like having pictures back then.

Connie Inukai:

But I found like two pictures of me at Cedar Point. But then I did a Google search and I found the big sign for Cedar Point so I put that in my book too. You know, you can always Google. Like you can Google you, you can put a picture of your podcast. I have in my book, I have one page with my inventions on it. And in doing my research, I realized I knew this, but I never saw the connection. My dad was an inventor and I didn’t realize where I got it from, but my dad was a barber in World War Two. When he came home, this was like a long time ago. This is older than me. He took this metal comb and connected it with a heating element. You could comb your hair and dry it at the same time. Now imagine this is like, this is about 70 years. I remember it when I was a little girl. So this is about 65 years ago, way before they had curling irons and all that kind of stuff. My dad invented it, but he never got a patent. But I did.

Carolyn Kiel:

Fantastic.

Connie Inukai:

So I, I like, as I was reminiscing, I was thinking about all these interesting stories. And I was going through pictures and I found out that one of my aunts was an inventor. Which is really something because that’s old, you know? And they didn’t have female inventors in those days. Well, I guess they did, but we just never heard about them.

Carolyn Kiel:

Wow. That’s amazing.

Connie Inukai:

The thing I really like talking about is have a positive attitude. Always have a smile on your face, wake up with a smile and your life will be happier. Ageism should not be a problem. You know, everybody dies at some point, but it’s not how you die. It’s how you live. So I have a, I’ve had a very, very interesting and fun life and I’ve got a lot more to go.

Carolyn Kiel:

Fantastic. Wow. So if people want to get in touch with you to learn more about Write Your Selfie or learn more about your book, where’s the best place for them to, to find you online?

Connie Inukai:

Well, I have a website now for Write Your Selfie, it’s WriteYourSelfie.com, and I have a website for Tip ‘n Split, but I made one other website and it’s Grandmapreneurinventor.com and it has all of those sites on it. So you can find Tip ‘n Split on there and you can find Write Your Selfie at the top, you know, on the menu. So I thought that’s the easiest way to do it. So it’s actually, when I was doing that website, I wanted to be just called grandmapreneur dot com, but GoDaddy wanted me to pay $1,500 for that domain name. Ridiculous. So I just did Grandmapreneurinventor.com, because that was free.

Carolyn Kiel:

Yeah. That’s a better price. Yeah, absolutely. So yeah, I’ll put your website, I’ll put Grandmapreneurinventor.com in the show notes so that people can click on it really easily. And then if people want to get a free PDF of your book, can they reach you through that website?

Connie Inukai:

The best way to do it is I don’t think I have a subscribe menu on Grandmapreneurinventor.com, but I do have it on Write Your Selfie. So they can also go to Write Your Selfie, right from the menu of Grandmapreneur and subscribe to it. And I think if they say that they watched your podcast, I will immediately send them. They can subscribe to Write Your Selfie and I will send them my book.

Carolyn Kiel:

Fantastic. So I’ll put that information in the show notes as well, so that it’s there for easy reference.

Connie Inukai:

Oh, very lovely.

Carolyn Kiel:

Thank you. Thank you so much, Connie, for being a guest on my show. As we close out, is there anything else you’d like our guests to know or any other ways they can help or support you with your projects?

Connie Inukai:

Well, I’m trying to learn all about social media. So if anybody wants to go to Instagram, they can like me on Instagram. I’m there, GrandmapreneurInventor.

Carolyn Kiel:

Cool. Alright. I’ll put that link in there too. So they can come follow you.

Connie Inukai:

Thank you. Because I’m trying to grow. I’m trying to grow to get some followers. I’m not really sure why. Why do I need followers?

Carolyn Kiel:

Instagram? I’m you know, I’m on there too, which is odd for a podcast because it’s all pictures, but there’s just different people there. So it’s all about where your audience is and where your customers might be I guess.

Connie Inukai:

Uh huh. I’ll tell you, one of the reasons you need an Instagram following is because I’m going to be a speaker at a women’s event in October, unless it’s canceled or maybe they change it to virtual probably in October still. They asked me what’s my Instagram following. So I only had about a hundred people. So I asked all my friends to please follow me on Instagram. Now I have 2000 followers. Yeah. And so I think it’s good if you want to ever be a speaker, they ask you who’s your following. I don’t know yet what to do with it, but I think it’s important.

Carolyn Kiel:

Well, that’s a great tip. I never even thought of it.

Connie Inukai:

I’ll follow you.

Carolyn Kiel:

Thank you. I’ll make sure I’m following you. I don’t know if I am, but I will as soon as we stop recording this interview.

Connie Inukai:

GrandmapreneurInventor, and anyone who follows me, I’ll follow them right back.

Carolyn Kiel:

Fantastic.

Connie Inukai:

In case we need this for something, for some unknown reason that they’ll find it out later.

Carolyn Kiel:

We could all help each other with that.

Connie Inukai:

Yeah. It doesn’t cost any money. Right?

Carolyn Kiel:

That’s true. Absolutely. All right, well thanks again, Connie, for being on my show. I really appreciate you sharing your story today.

Connie Inukai:

Okay. Thank you very much too Carolyn.

Carolyn Kiel:

Thanks for listening to Beyond 6 Seconds. Please help us spread the word about this podcast. Share it with a friend. Give us a shout out on your social media or write a review on Apple Podcasts or your favorite podcast player. You can find all of our episodes on our website and sign up for our free newsletter at www.beyond6seconds.com. Until next time!