Timmy Bauer On Leaving Your Entrepreneurial Legacy Through Kid’s Books
Imagine using kid's storybooks as your business and having joy and monetization in the process. We are so focused on engaging in the grown-up life that we didn't even consider a kid's book for business. There will always be a kid no matter what era, and those kids will always love good storytelling. But what transpires when you tell a story about entrepreneurs, and you didn't exclude all those jargons away? You watch as your young readers throw aside your book. Timmy Bauer understands the exact emotion. In this episode, author and host of The Purpose-Driven Entrepreneur Timmy shares his story on growing enthusiasm to touch kids' hearts while storytelling exciting and unique topics like entrepreneurship. If you want to learn and incorporate his knowledgeable experience, hop in the conversation.
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Timmy Bauer On Leaving Your Entrepreneurial Legacy Through Kid’s Books
I’m here with someone who’s amazing. Timmy Bauer is the Founder of Dinosaur House.
At Dinosaur House, we turn industry leaders into kids’ book authors.
Not only does Timmy run a company that helps entrepreneurs become child’s book authors, but also, he runs four different shows. The Purpose-Driven Entrepreneur, which is how we met originally, The Literacy Advocate, and then you said two more. What are the names of those?
Billy the Dragon
Writing Better and the Up-And-Coming Illustrator. I’ve started a show for every area where I’m trying to build relationships. It’s building relationships with entrepreneurs on The Purpose-Driven Entrepreneur. It’s building relationships with teachers so that I can present books in classrooms on The Literacy Advocate. Writing Better connects me with writers, and The Up-and-Coming Illustrator connects me with illustrators.
This guy, Timmy, mark my word, will be a force to reckon with when it comes to kids’ books. Let’s dig in a little bit. Think of the exercise from Utah, the Living A Better Story Executive Retreat, when you stepped on those squares. When you were back to the 5 or 6 range where you first start to have memories, what did you love to do when you were that age?
I loved playing outside, building forts out of branches and stuff. I loved Legos. I love building stuff, building anything.
If I remember right, when did your brother came along, and you started reading books to him?
I was seventeen when that happened. There’s a big age gap between me and Tristan. Tristan was four when I was seventeen.
My little sister was born about a twelve-year gap. I have a brother who’s two years younger, and then a sister that has that gap. It’s a totally different experience because you almost feel you’re on the border of you could have been a parent to that child.
It felt like I was halfway brother, halfway babysitter, doing some of the things a parent does. It was an interesting thing.
From recollection, that was what inspired you to create this business. Tell us a little bit more about that.
Arjun helped me with clarity on this because he thought it was powerful when I said, “This all started when I was making a kids’ book for my little brother who was four.” He was like, “That’s your story. Everything about your brand is you were that older brother who wanted to connect with his younger brother.” That unlocked a lot of things for me. To tell the story, I was seventeen years old. I had always known that I wanted to grow up and be a cartoonist ever since I was ten. At ten, I was drawing pictures and making comics. I knew that I wanted to be what I later recognized as a story artist, a broad category of type of artists. I had always known that I wanted to do that.
When I was seventeen, I was reading kids’ books because I have a little brother who is young. I was reading Dr. Seuss’ books and going, “I could probably make something like this.” I started working on a book, Billy the Dragon. I just titled it Billy the Dragon because I was like, “I love dragons. I think Tristan loves dragons. I can draw them easily.” You can draw a dragon however you want to draw one. My goal was every night before bed, I wanted to read Tristan a part of the story that I had worked on that day and try to make him laugh, gross him out, or scare him. I gave him some reaction. What that did was it started to build a relationship with my little brother that I still have. There’s a level of closeness that we have because of the way that our relationship got going.
How do you tie that love of your brother, love of drawing, and writing the books to nowadays’ environment in what you’re doing? What’s that secret thread from then to now? I think it’s obvious. You launched Dinosaur House.
It was interesting the things that I developed that I use now that I didn’t realize I was tapping into when I was seventeen. Most people, when they go to write a kids’ book, have some idea of a thing that they want to impart to a kid or maybe to their kids or kids in general, and they’re writing it from that perspective. They’re going, “Here’s the thing I want these kids to think about. I’m going to teach it to them.” It ends up being something that is like, “I’m the adult up here. I’m giving this to you down there,” kind of an experience. The kids who read those books smell it right away. They’re not shy about saying that they don’t like those kinds of books. They’ll toss them to the side.
Something I’ve been saying for a while is, “One of the worst feelings in the world is pouring your heart and soul into a kids’ book and seeing a kid toss it to the side and not want to read it.” What I realized when I was seventeen writing for my little brother is this thing that I now call reaction triggers. Every kid is looking to react to the book. There are reaction triggers that cause kids to react to the pages. My philosophy on making kids’ books is it’s okay to go, “Here’s a thought that I want kids to chew on.” Let’s make a story that is loaded with reaction triggers so that every page is something that the kid is reacting to. They’re either rolling on the floor laughing or going, “That’s gross.” They’re freaking out. They’re scared. They’re feeling this feeling of suspense. The page is all dark, and they don’t know what the main character is walking into. As they turn the page, they’re like, “What is about to happen?” Those kinds of experiences when you cause a kid to feel that, they want to read that book every single night.
What I’m thinking about is you serve entrepreneurs who want to write a kids’ book. If you were to go into a room of 100 entrepreneurs and say, “Who wants to write a kids’ book?” there might only be 1 or 2 people who raised their hands. However, if you can share with them why it’s a good idea to write a book, I bet you, 20 to 50 of those people would say, “I want to write a book.” Let’s talk about that. I’m happy to share my story that I shared with you when we were in Utah.
Kid’s Book: Anyone can't leave a legacy without reaching the hearts of kids.
I can identify three main reasons why an entrepreneur or industry leader because you don’t have to have an entrepreneur. If you have a sense of career ownership and you want to develop thought leadership in a field, you fall into the category of an ideal customer of Dinosaur House. I don’t want to turn this into a big, old ad pitch. I want to talk about Living A Better Story.
I think people may not have thought about this and the age of personal brand being important. There’s a person on the East Coast we talked about who wrote a book about selling. It’s a good branding thing. It’s a kids’ book. It’s in the vein of what they do. I have a feeling that one is probably more of a telling versus reactionary.
The business model is heavily inspired by what this nameless soul did. I was grateful that I got to pick his brain. What he did would fall under the category of thought leadership or personal brand. The biggest reason that I can see is leaving a legacy. I believe that you can’t leave a legacy without reaching the hearts of kids. Leaving a legacy is taking something that you’re passionate about and passing it onto the younger generation. That includes kids at 6, 7, 8 years old. If you can inspire a kid to think about an idea, that is a big part of what it means to leave a legacy. Legacy is one. The other one is thought leadership. Einstein said, “If you can’t explain it to a six-year-old, you don’t understand it yourself.” There’s something powerful about being the guy in a category who was able to explain it to kids, such that kids are excited to read that book.
For example, I’m working on a book called I Want to be a Marketer When I Grew Up with a friend of mine named Dan Sanchez. He has kids, but his kids aren’t interested in what he does for a living. I was like, “I want to pull out of your head what are the essential parts of being a marketer. It’s creativity, psychology, and strategy. Those are the three components of being a marketer. You go to problems that you care to solve. You solve them with creativity, strategy, and psychology. We are going to make a story where it is loaded with reaction triggers that kids are going to love, that puts on display how being a marketer is approaching problems with creativity, psychology, and strategy.”
I tested this out on a group of 2nd and 3rd graders. They were rolling on the floor laughing. We had this awesome stimulating conversation afterward. I shared that with him. He was like, “I am excited for a bunch of reasons. One of them is, I feel like I’m finally going to get to have conversations with my kids about what I do for a living where they’re interested in learning about it. If they don’t grow up to become a marketer, that’s no big deal, but I want to be able to connect with them about this thing that I’m passionate about.” That, to me, is a big unlock. I was like, “I’m the seventeen-year-old who wanted to connect with my four-year-old brother.”
On the Living A Better Story trip, I got to the end of the trip and was like, “I had a hard time.” I have a show called The Purpose-Driven Entrepreneur, where I ask entrepreneurs how they want to be remembered when they die. Part of the fun of that show is I’m digging into purpose with people who are like me, but I have not figured out my sense of purpose. I got to the end of this Living A Better Story Retreat and was like, “Unless I come up with something better, that’s it. I want to help adults connect deeply with their kids about the things that they are passionate about in a medium that kid is passionate about.” That’s a wordy way. I’ll probably have to figure out a simpler way to say it.
The last thing, number three, and I’ve had several customers who are doing this, which is standing out in your category to your ideal buyers. I have a friend who runs a podcast production company. There is no surprise there. I’ve got several shows. He’s going to give to his either current customers or potential future customers a book that celebritizes the dad who starts a show. It’s for the dad or the mom who is a customer to share with their kids like, “I want to have a show when I grow up.” It’s a funny book. I’ve read it to classrooms, and they laughed a lot. What it does is it positions you in a very interesting way to your market because often, especially in B2B, brands come off very boring. I think that a kids’ book is one of the ways that you cannot be boring to your customers.
My personal story is that when we were talking at the Executive Retreat. My son, when he was 6 or 7 years old, we were fishing in Northern California, where the big redwood trees are where it’s 30 feet around in some cases. You could drive a truck through the middle of them. It was neat. We were fishing in the day. All of a sudden, he has to go to the bathroom. He went to the bathroom, then backed up, and stepped in it. He went, “I stepped in my poop.” The title of the book will be that. How can it be relevant to kids?
Here’s an interesting piece of this. It’s not for my kids. He’ll read it and laugh because he’s nineteen. My daughter is eighteen. They’ll go, “Dad, you built the book after me.” What I want to articulate is when you make certain decisions in life, or sometimes things just happen to you out of no planning, and it’s, “I stepped in my poop. Now, what?” With Rich Blakeman, Arjun and Robert, we’re planning a book called God-Centered Choices. You have multiple choices you can make. It’s usually not binary, 1 or 0. There are hundreds. How do you make those choices with God behind you when you make those choices? On the left page, “This is what happened.” Maybe it’s even a choose-your-own-adventure kind of book. How do you pass these concepts onto someone in a way living through the life experiences you’ve lived through so that the kids can take that and go, “I get it. I got to make choice A and not B, C, or D?”
My philosophy on that is you come up with the idea that you want to share. You share it as best you can in an interesting story. The goal is to incept the idea into your kid rather than preaching to them. Many kids’ books preach. What’s powerful is when you can make it to the kid and it’s their idea. They’re the ones through reading the story that has come up with the main idea of the story.
What’s funny is what you said is exactly what it’s like to lead a sales team because if it’s their idea or in a negotiation, sharing is caring.
Kid’s Book: Leaving a legacy is taking something that he/she is passionate about and passing it on to the younger generation.
I’m happy I have met many skilled salespeople that love Jesus because I can’t wait to learn from you, guys.
We all learn together every day. We’ve talked a lot about all the positive things and everything going on in your business. Sometimes it’s good to expose the painful stuff that happens in our lives. When we do, then that helps people understand when they’re going through something that’s painful that there’s a light at the end of the tunnel. If you were to share with the readers, what was something that was painful for you, and then how did it become a gift later in life?
There were three painful things that I shared on the retreat. The first one when Robert White was doing his opening presentation, and he was saying what it means to trust somebody. He was like, “What are the six ways that cause somebody to trust somebody?” One of them is when you know a secret about that person that hurts that person. He was like, “I’m getting nervous because I know I have to model this now.” He shared with us a secret that hurts him to this day still. He was like, “I want you to group up in pairs, and each in your pair share a secret with the other person that hurts you to this day.”
Everybody paired up, and I didn’t have a buddy. We were an odd number unless you count Robert White. Robert came over to me. He was like, “I’ll be your buddy.” I was like, “Here it comes.” I shared with him the first thing, and this is very painful to talk about. It’s not the divorce. To the best of my understanding, my dad does not believe in me or what I do. It’s very painful. I might start crying. I’ve sent him letters and text messages. I’ve tried to talk to him about it. It hasn’t gone very well. I was trying to figure out what to do with it. Anytime I’ve talked to my dad about what I’m passionate about or what I’m doing, he doesn’t have anything encouraging to say. He’s never taken the time to read any of the books that I’ve made. He’s never told me that I’m doing a good job.
In 2019, I was touring, and it one of the most successful months of my life. Hopefully, I’ll be able to look back on that and chuckle at it in terms of what God grows his business to become. I had made $20,000 in sales in five weeks. This was off of Billy the Dragon. I was touring with that book. I told my dad about it, and he said, “Hmm.” That’s it. Later on that day, he asked me when I thought I would be quitting this hobby and pursuing getting a real job. I said something like, “When I’m not able to monetize this hobby anymore, I’ll go get a job.” COVID hit, touring wiped out. I had to figure out how I was going to make money again.
It was a huge blessing because it was what opened up my mind to ghost-writing services. People are paying a considerable amount of money to have a ghost-writing service create a thought leadership book out of their content in a way that is very compelling, beautiful, and professionally done. I’ve spent six years monetizing being a kids’ book author. I’ve read to thousands of kids, and there’s nobody that I can see that’s doing this with kids’ books. There are many components of it that are hard. I was like, “This is how I’ll make money.” All I’m trying to say here is every opportunity I’ve had to quit my day job and focus on being a successful entrepreneur, I’ve done it. I was a performer at Disney. As soon as I could quit that and go full-time as a kids’ book author, I did and toured the US as a kids’ book author.
When it comes to the pain there, like you just shared, my dad grew up in the Midwest. When I was younger, he never says, “I love you.” He didn’t come to my soccer games and swim meets. I was like, “Dad didn’t love me.” That was my consideration. Over the years, he flew to every house I ever bought and helped me build a workbench. The way he showed love to me was different. Very similar to you, my dad was always like, “Chad, entrepreneur. That’s cool, but you got to get somewhere where you’re there for twenty years.” I was like, “Dad, the average tenure of a VP of sales is 18 to 24 months.” I was like, “If I’m making it three years in companies where it’s normally 18 to 24, I’m doing better.”
It took time and repetition for him to see that I’d written four books, one of them became a bestseller and that I got an MBA. It took all that time, but now I can sit down and look at my dad in the eye. He does show that he is proud of me, and he does love me. My simple two cents would be to keep doing what you’re doing. There are these things called border busters and border breakers. People like me who are going to tell you, “Yes, keep doing it. You expand your universe and don’t take no for an answer.” There are other people who come from their perspectives. They’re not right or wrong. They look at it differently. Maybe they’re not the creator type. You’ve got to surround yourself with the creator type.
I agree with you, and it’s been helpful. When I pray about this, the thing that I hear from the Lord is to stop trying to prove it to my dad and try to make it real, try to make it a thing. The other thing is I believe that God believes in me. By that, I mean he’s the one that gave me the desires, passions, skills, ability to learn, and natural gifts that I have. I believe that he is the one that’s ultimately going to establish me as an entrepreneur, but I have to work my ass off for that to work.
You’ve created a lot of fans on your shows. It’s many years out, so now we’re going future state on the stairstep. By the time you did that exercise, you were glowing and knew exactly what was going to happen 3 or 5 years from now. When you’re looking back, and you say, “Chad, I had the most incredible three years of my life.” What happened over those three years?
Over those three years, I would say I took over the niche of ghost-writing and illustrating kids’ books for business leaders. The more purposeful way to say it that gives me a high is I have helped hundreds of adults connect deeply with their kids over things that they’re passionate about. That’s a big reality. The reality is I want to get towards the end of my life and be able to look back and go, “I’ve either helped make or produce over a thousand kids’ books that are good at connecting parents deeply with their kids over topics that they’re passionate about.”
There’s a teacher who’s at my son’s school, ThunderRidge High School. When we first went in and learned about what he does, he does this one hour. It’s like homeroom, but now they call it something different. He said, “When I retire in 10 or 15 years, I’m going to get a hot air balloon and go to a park. Everyone is invited, all the parents, all the kids. I want you to bring $1. If one person shows up with $1, then I know I will have done my job. It will be interesting to see how many people show up to that park.” Then he’s going to take off in a hot air balloon like The Wizard of Oz. I was like, “That’s a neat idea.” If you think about what that looks like for you 3, 5, 20 years from now and then work towards that, you can do whatever you want to do.
I have struggled for the longest time with self-doubt and believing in myself about this stuff. It’s weird to say it because it’s new to say it, but I genuinely believe that I will do this.
You’ve got somebody else that believes in you from up above. Like you said, knowing that there’s belief there and believing in yourself. Belief is the most important thing in anything that we set out to do. If you believe you can do it, then you can. Sometimes it feels like life is just a video game. I’m like, “$1 million, I want it right there in the corner.” It didn’t happen right there, but if I wanted it in a year from now, I could have a duffel bag with $1 million in it. I promise 100%, 0% out. That’s not a goal to me. I don’t want a duffel bag with $1 million. If it was, I could do it. It’s that easy. What role does faith play in your journey?
It plays every role in my journey. I have to start my days with gratitude or I am going to be a disgruntled person. Anytime I feel a sense of disgruntledness, I start thinking through like, “I’m going to choose to be grateful. What am I grateful for?” I start thinking of things like this laptop. The majority of the world doesn’t have this. This microphone, the majority of the world, doesn’t have that. My phone, my table with my Apple Pencil on it, the ability to hire people and reach potential customers. All of these different things that I have, the majority of people don’t have. There comes gratefulness. There also comes a sense of responsibility. If God has given me stuff, then he wants to see me be faithful with that stuff. I’m not in charge of the outcomes. I’m just in charge of being faithful to what God has given me. There is that. The uncertainty, I got to go on walks and say, “God, where are the customers? If this is what you want me to be doing, I need you to provide the outcomes because I can’t control the outcomes.”
Every person has 60,000 to 80,000 thoughts per day. For most people, 2/3 of those thoughts are negative. When you can use some of the tactics that you were sharing, like focusing on the positives, “I’ve got this computer,” you can change it so that it’s 2/3 positive and 1/3 negative or less. It’s amazing. Think of it like a river. It’s going down, negative. All it takes is a couple of those things where you focus, and you can completely shift that mindset. You’re well on your path there. I can feel it.
Thanks, Chad.
You do need to send me a contract for $2,000. I was on the last $2,000 option to write a kids’ book, which the price is going to $5,000 effective immediately. Maybe we could reach out to our readers. If they sign up within fourteen days of the time they read this blog, then maybe you could grandfather them in on the $2,000 rate.
When this episode goes live, if you go to the website, which is DinosaurHouse.com, there’s a big button that says, Schedule a Story Design Call. You schedule that call within two weeks of this blog going live. I will honor that $2,000 price.
I appreciate you being on the show, Timmy. It’s great to talk to you again. I will see you at the top.
Thanks, Chad. I appreciate it.
Thank you.
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About Timmy Bauer
Timmy Bauer lives in Orlando, Florida. He is the author and illustrator of the 5 star children’s book Billy the Dragon and its upcoming sequel The Poisonous Woods. When not writing, illustrating, or visiting schools, he works for the Walt Disney Company as a puppeteer and actor. He also teaches classes regularly at the Disney University.
Timmy has been writing and illustrating stories since he was ten years old, and it has always been a passion of his. His dream is to make kid’s books that motivate kids to want to read more and to challenge them with bigger words and complex sentences while at the same time maintaining their interest. Two very influential authors for him are Brian Jacques of the Redwall series and Dr. Seuss.
Check out Timmy’s children’s books podcast on Listen Notes, “Books For Kids“!
