February 19, 2026 – Human Potential Activator Maria Martinez and NYTimes Bestselling Author Steve Berry

0:04 Intro 2 : Broadcasting from am and FM stations around the country. Welcome to the Small Business Administration award winning school for startups radio where we talk all things small business and entrepreneurship. Now here is your host, the guy that believes anyone can be a successful entrepreneur, because entrepreneurship is not about creativity, risk or passion. Jim Beach,

0:26 Jim Beach : hello everyone. Welcome to another exciting edition of School for startups radio. I hope you’re having a great day out there, making some money, losing some money, getting some new loans, getting some venture capital, finding a new marketing plan, tweeting and posting every day, keeping up with payroll and cleaning the bathroom at the end of the day. That is what US entrepreneurs do. We do everything to keep our businesses and our lives afloat. We are the heroes of America. I’m excited to introduce you to one of those heroes. First up, we have Maria Martinez, she is an expert on energy flow and abundance. There is so much wealth and happiness out there that we all deserve it. And then multiple New York Time Best selling author Steve berry will be with us to talk about writing, how to get published, how to find a agent, all of it, we’re gonna get started right now. You know, we all want things. We want to be able to have what we want. We want to be able to have a nice business that helps satisfy all of our material and normal needs in life. And sometimes we feel like there’s something wrong about that, that we don’t deserve it, or we don’t know how to get it. And I’m very excited to introduce a guest who can help us figure all this out. Please welcome Maria Martinez to the show. She is a human potential activator and a wealth consciousness activator as well. She has expertise as a human potential activator, wealth consciousness and multi dimensional healer. She uses functional medical medical principles, sorry about that, to help identify the root causes of a client’s challenges and stagnation. Maria, welcome to the show. How are you doing?

2:13 Maria Martinez : I’m doing great. Thank you. Thank you for having me to be here.

2:17 Jim Beach : I like this topic because I know so little about it just the idea of abundance and the idea that we deserve things, right? Talk to me about abundance, please.

2:31 Maria Martinez : Yeah, absolutely. You know, earlier you you talked about creating a business and creating a business that maybe we feel is not in alignment with it, or we feel unworthy of it. So the core of creation is abundance. We are abundant beings naturally, or we are naturally flowing in the energy abundance. We are the breath. You know, the air we breathe is abundance. So when we talk about abundance, we’re talking about an overflow that keeps expanding. It’s an expensive energy. It’s a beingness that allows more and more and more of whatever we’re placing our attention to. When I think about abundance in relationship with our business, we want to be in the alignment of whatever we create, expands whatever we put an attention to, expands to the highest good to be good for us and good for the world. And I can go deeper into that, please.

3:37 Jim Beach : We want to figure this out. So deep dive go. I’ll tell you when you’re getting too deep.

3:42 Maria Martinez : Okay, great, thank you. So I would I’m gonna back up a little bit, because I want to talk about creation and alignment in relationship to abundance and the relationship to creating success and fulfillment in our life. Okay, so just stepping back a little bit, when we think about starting a new business, or we think about being in service to others. What we want to look at is our alignment with it, and our alignment comes from our belief about ourselves, who we are, being enough, and coming from a place of abundance. So abundance is the expansion there’s more of a of us, or there’s enough of us to share with others, if we’re coming from a place of lack, fear, not enough, unworthiness, understanding this, that same energy, thought form, way of relating to the world, is going to create the foundation of our business. So we’re going to create struggle, we’re going to create hardship, we’re going to create stop and go. We’re going to create ups and downs in our business. Instead of a nice, slow moving forward, everything outside of us, it’s a reflection of what’s inside of us, because we’re the center of it. We’re the creators. We’re feeling everything, and we’re bringing things into reality. So when we think about what’s happening in our business, what’s happening in our health, what’s happening in our relationships, and especially if it’s something that feels constraining, feels like it’s depleting, feels like it’s taking from us, feels like it’s too hard feel so overwhelming, overwhelming, and we feel like there isn’t enough of us. Then we get to look inside and we get to recalibrate our knowing or awareness or embodiment of abundance. We want to come back to our inner stillness and remember that abundance, first of all, is a frequency. Is creation itself, its source, its universe. It’s an amplified field that cannot be limited unless we limit it, or cannot be kept unless we put a cap on it, because we’re creating it. It’s it’s a frequency and energy that we use and we mold and we manipulate into whatever we want it to be in the highest good. So if the environment, and especially our business is not reflecting the success, the abundance, the wealth, the prosperity, we get to reset who we are internally, and we get to come back to them knowing that we are abundant beings in abundance. It’s an expansive energy, meaning that it continues to expand into more and more and more, and especially if our environment is constricting, one thing after another not going well, it’s constricting. So that’s a good indication of flowing and lack and scarcity instead of abundance. So when we come back to who we are, to the light of who we are, to the essence of who we are, to that overflowing light that is expansive, we can recalibrate how we’re relating to the world from a place of there’s enough for me and everyone else. I don’t need to be in competition. I don’t need to be in me or them in separation. I don’t need to be in I could only give so much because they want I won’t have enough for myself or others, my loved ones. We can delete and then create. We can remove those stop and go barriers or energies, or putting in the breaks in the flow of our business and the flow of our life, and we can expand to holding the energy and frequency of abundance within ourselves, recognizing that there’s more than enough for everyone in the world. There’s more than enough for everyone in the world, and that includes us. So we go back to giving ourselves more than enough whatever we want, whatever we want, more than enough joy, more than enough happiness, more than enough money, more than enough wealth, more than enough health, vitality. There’s more than enough. What keeps us from realizing that it’s the programming, it’s what we learn from society, from our parents having to prove ourselves in order to deserve or in order to receive. That is that the paradigm, the mental models, the programming that keeps us from being in flow, keeps us from living in there’s more than enough for everybody, because when we live in there’s more than enough, we’re not fighting, we’re not creating separation. We’re not, you know, stepping over people, or we’re not sacrificing anything. We’re just moving knowing that if we live in this idea, this possibility of, there’s more than enough, we’re bringing that possibility into reality. Because everything is that right? It’s an idea that first maybe was impossible, until we made it possible. So if we live in the possibility of, there’s more than enough, and we live in the possibility, all good things happen. For me, if we live in the possibility of, I create a reality that is fulfilling. If we live in the possibility of, I create legacy, impact, contribution, service, influence, to uplift humanity, then that is our reality. There’s more than enough for everyone of everything in the world to live a fulfilled life and to have it all. But it’s a shift, it’s an awareness, and it’s letting go of everything that we know and everything that we were given and everything that we accepted that created the story and the life that we’re living, which is really not our life. It’s something that we put together, patched together from everything that was handed to us. If we let go of that and reset and restart and and decide, well, what I want my life to look like? Who do I want to be in the world that is authentic, that is fulfilling, that brings me joy? I. Where I know that I’m being true to myself and I’m doing good in the world. What does that look like for me, and how do I do that? What kind of service do I offer? What kind of product do I create that is living in alignment, that is creating from alignment, that is creating from abundance.

10:23 Jim Beach : All right, so totally the abundance part that makes sense to me and is very easy. I believe there’s an infinite supply of gasoline in the world. I don’t think we’re going to ever run out of gas. I don’t think that there’s a limit to energy. We just need to bake more of it. There’s a lot of energy we could be making that we’re not. So I totally get abundance. There’s more than enough money for all of us, more than enough food, everything. So is

10:53 Maria Martinez : this and it’s also a mindset? Okay? Yes. So it’s a mindset as well. It’s a state of consciousness, the state of being so it’s it’s one like knowing that there’s material out there that I know that it’s available, but also within ourselves, it’s a calibration with the way we think the belief systems that we accepted early on is changing. It’s up leveling those belief systems to moving forward in creating our life and speaking abundantly. So it’s a state of consciousness that we move into as well.

11:33 Jim Beach : Okay, I get that. That makes sense. So the next step is the problem? Is Us, right?

11:45 Maria Martinez : Well, I wouldn’t say that we are the problem. I would say that we are in a state of realization, because there’s no right and it’s wrong, it’s just what is right. Where am I? So we want to move away from judgment, because judgment is crazy, reset, memory, grade, all these other emotions that then anchor that, especially if we are really good at blaming ourselves, right? So we want to move away from I am the problems, to what to what is the possibility? If this is what it is now, what is the next highest possibility? And then we focus on what is the next highest possibility, and and living into that. So living into that is reframing, reprogramming, recalibrating our thoughts, our feelings, our emotions, our behaviors or way of being, how we show up in the world, how we speak into the world, how we speak creation into being in the world. Okay, so that may sound like, Well, how do I do that? Or too difficult, but it’s really not. It’s starting with the awareness. It’s starting with the awareness where. So as an example, let’s say that currently, business is slowing down, and you’re feeling like burned out. You feel like you’ve done everything that you can, instead of feeling there’s nothing else I can do, or I’m overwhelmed. This is as good as it gets. It’s taking a deep breath and stepping back and looking at yourself first. What is? What is really creating this level of overwhelm? Is it that I haven’t been taking care of myself, creating balance within myself, putting myself first? Is it that I am really not aligned with this business anymore, or is it that other things have created other levels of emotions, maybe a level of unhappiness outside the business that is now spilling into the business. How am I show up? Showing up for my business? Am I fully present with my clients or with my team? So we want to find the opportunity that we can up level and reset and reboot. It’s almost like starting over, but from a different place. We’re not going stepping back and starting over. From wherever we are, we look at, well, where is the opportunity here that we can upgrade and calibrate, and then from there we start over, but it’s a step forward, not a step back.

14:18 Jim Beach : All right? Does it make sense? Yeah, it does all right, Maria, so I think I understand now the ideas. Now, let’s sort of switch topics and talk about this is an entrepreneurial endeavor, so you have to make money, right? You have a business to tell us about this business and how you got started with this, and what services you offer your clients, and what a typical client would look like and what you would do to help them. We do that. Yes. Thank you. All right. Business. How’d you get started?

14:50 Maria Martinez : I started in 2014 in coaching, but I’m naturally a psychic. I was born with my psychic abilities, the ability to see energy and to hear and feel and tap into the unconscious mind around actually, it was a little bit earlier I went through a transition in my life, and I moved out of corporate America into entrepreneurship, and as I started connecting with different areas, one of them was real estate Tech, I realized that, yes, I want to do this. This is what I’m called to do, to be of service to others. But this, this specific niche, doesn’t feel quite in alignment with me. I want to transform people so that they can create the technology in a way that serves humanity. So shortly after that, I went through a deep transformation myself, and also a training, not necessarily to train myself to do what I do, but to create the processes around the transformation and the quantum leaps. And I started my business as a business coach, which then evolved into a health coach, a spiritual coach, a human potential expert. Currently, what I help people do is create a life by design, where they can have it all, where they’re not sacrificing any part of their life. They’re living into their highest potential. Their body health is optimized. They’re living in alignment with what they’re creating in their life, service contributions, their products or services, and they’re fully present with their loved ones, so they’re creating beautiful memories. This is the idea of having it all where you’re you know every part of your life is working. As I moved into my business, I recognized some of the baseline belief systems that it didn’t matter what industry you’re in or what level of wealth you were in, you were running. So some of those were not being good enough. I have to prove myself not feeling worthy of having so a lot of times there was big success. Other times there was no success at all. So these ups and downs I deserve. So I deserve to create a life that I desire. I am lovable, so I can love myself instead of sacrificing my health, and I am the master of my destiny, so I can create a life by design. So I started working with these different elements and bringing them all together and helping people create a life by design, a life that they love, a life that is fulfilling, and in doing so, activating their human potential. For some of them, activating their gifts, their Claires, bringing those online and bringing in the technology that they were here to express as spiritual coaches or holistic coaches, and also aligning them with the level of wealth that is available. So moving away from lack and scarcity to I am open to receive everything that is available to me now, and creating that frequency, or embedding that frequency in their business and in their communication with others, to move others into that level of freedom as well removing all mindset relationship programming around money while prospering abundance, so that that also became natural to them, a natural way of being. I am naturally abundant. I am naturally wealthy. I’m naturally prosper, prosperous. And in doing so, they also created a frequency, almost a container that they, you know, they collaborate in, they bring people into that container. And what that does is that also elevates the business itself, attracting ideal clients, attracting new opportunities, fueling the revenue and also the impact being aligned with their mission and their purpose. So this, for me, has been really amazing, because, again, especially in my earlier years, when I was going through those transitions from leaving corporate America to divorce to going into partnership with others and starting different businesses, I realized, well, what’s the word? Some of the elements, belief, systems programming that creates this initial stop and go, or early on failures until you get it right. What if we could avoid that? What if we could bypass the trial and error and move into full alignment and create wealth and create prosperity and. And fulfillment.

20:02 Jim Beach : So that’s what brought me to

20:05 Maria Martinez : becoming the, you know, the human potential, expert and architect of the Divine blueprint to help people calibrate

20:14 Jim Beach : their abilities, their mindset, their energy, their health, their focus and their alignment with everything that they’re creating, all right? And when the client comes to you, how do they start off by telling you what their problem is? Because I have a huge feeling they they don’t know about what we’ve been talking about, all of these theories, all of this, these ideas. So how do they come and tell you, and then what do you see past the words they say, I have a feeling that you’re really good at seeing a lot more than someone says, yes, yes.

20:54 Maria Martinez : So when somebody comes to me, they either they don’t always know what what they’re challenged with what they know is that life is not quite working for them the way they want it to work. So when they come to me, they tell me about wealth not being available to them, or their health not being optimal, or not knowing what their mission and purpose is, and they feel frustrated, they feel even depressed, they feel sad, because they feel like they’ve been living their life and it doesn’t feel like it’s their life, they feel disconnected from it. So I asked them, well, what do you want your life to look like? If everything was perfect. What would you like your life to look like? And what I’m looking at is the gap between where they are and where they want to be, and I can see and identify the blockages in their mindset, their blockages in their emotions, and the blockages in their energy when they move into or describe what that potential, their highest potential would be. And I let them spend time on it, like really go into it, and to give themselves permission to grow big. And then I identify, first of all, why they’re not there, what programming they’re running, what belief systems they’re running. I identify from what age they accepted those belief systems, because a lot of our trauma is in our childhood, which created an identity or an idea of lack and scarcity or not enough, that is playing out in the adulthood. So basically, the children, or inner children, are running our life. So when we can identify the age, then I can help them go back to that age and upgrade level up, or age up, that part of themselves, and give them the skills that they need to move past wherever they they’re stuck. So I look at again that gap between where they are and where they want to be, because a lot of people don’t always know what, and I’ll say the word wrong, but again, I don’t look at it this Wrong is Right. It’s just what information is. They’re not allowing you to live the life that you want to live. And then again, I decide for a move out, look deeper into the mental, the emotional, the physical, the energetic, the spiritual, that is in the way of them having the life that they desire. Some of it is internal. Some of it is how they relate to the world, and some of it is how they’re being in the world that taking action or not taking action. So when we basically organize all of that, and we create a plan of, you know, what’s what we’re going to clear we’re working to reorganize what new way of thinking we’re going to adopt, what actions they’re going to take, and aligning them with their desire, true desire, mission and purpose, then it’s easier for people to create what they want. It’s easier for people to take action. It’s easier people to stay inspired, because they’re connected to that life that they truly desire. So that fuels them to move forward, and it’s easier to move forward when we’ve cleared what’s in the way.

24:26 Jim Beach : Let me ask. We only have a couple minutes left. I want to get one more topic in before we wrap it up. Maria, what about imposter syndrome? Do you find a lot of that and how do you handle it?

24:38 Maria Martinez : Yeah, the imposter syndrome is connected to living a life that is not yours, or pretending to be somebody who you authentically don’t feel connected to, or feeling like I’m trying to be this person, but I’m still running insecurities, doubt, fears, I’m still not feeling enough so we collapsed. That feeling of imposter syndrome by identify. This is the area that you don’t feel enough in, and this is why you created again, to go back to the trauma, go back to the childhood ages, go back to the areas where you accepted belief systems that created that identity of the imposter. And we again up level and bringing we bring other ways of being, other frequencies, other qualities, and release that imposter syndrome. And part of it is accepting yourself as you are, being at peace with who you are, loving yourself as you are, and forgiving yourself for things that you did or didn’t do, decisions, events that you perceive as failure. So again, letting go of the past so that you can fully stand in the present moment and start moving forward, giving yourself a clean slate, but now creating your life and choosing who you want to be in the world, instead of living from the past and living who others said you were. So you become the master of your destiny. You become the authority of your life. And again, that starts with being at peace with who you are, self love, self forgiveness, self belief, self trust, which are the pillars of who you are, of the foundation of creating. And the imposter syndrome is common for a lot of people, because we’re pretending to be somebody, and sometimes, sometimes we’re told fake it until you make it. And that is there. So I say, embody who you are. So if you want to become a millionaire, embody the millionaire mindset, embody the millionaire habits, embody the millionaire behavior. Speak Like a millionaire, think like a millionaire. So that’s different than fake it until you make it that is embodying the qualities of the higher version of you. So it’s a different way of creating. Instead of feeling like I’m pretending to be, then be, be, be who you want to become in the world, through the actions, through the thoughts, through the behaviors. Speak that new version of you from the new version of you from confidence, from self, love, from compassion, from creation. Very different. That is very powerful.

27:19 Jim Beach : That is very powerful, and I love the distinction you’re making between the fake it before you make it. Yes, Maria, unfortunately, we’re out of time. How do we continue to learn from you? Get in touch with you find out more.

27:33 Maria Martinez : Thank you. You can connect with me at 360 prosperity.com or evolve 360 dot online. Both of those websites have an opportunity for you to set up a discovery call. We can look at your current situation and how we can create a plan to move you forward into abundance, while prosperity creating a life by design having it all. You can also connect with me on Instagram, evolve 360 prosperity. Tiktok, Maria Martinez, 360 prosperity and on YouTube, are you? Martinez, 360 prosperity, thank you. Thank you for having me.

28:07 Jim Beach : That was fantastic. I really appreciate it. I’m on your website, and there’s some really great things on here, some really great resources. And one of the things I see is that you have your niacs codes, the number codes for the industries that’s really helpful, you’ll find, I think that’ll have some really good SEO benefits too, to include all of the services you offer with the SEC code that goes with it. I’ve never seen anyone do that, and I like it.

28:36 Unknown Speaker : Thank you. All right. Thank

28:38 Jim Beach : you so much for being with us, and we’d love to have

28:43 Unknown Speaker : thank you so much, and

28:45 Jim Beach : we will be right back. Intro 2 28:58 Oh my gosh, I’d love the opportunity to do this. Thank you, Jim, wow, that’s, that’s, that’s a great one. You know, that is a phenomenal question. That’s a great question. And, and I don’t have a great answer. That’s a great question. Oh, that is such a loaded question. And that’s actually a really good question.

29:15 Unknown Speaker : School for startups radio,

29:18 Jim Beach : we are back and again. Thank you so much for being with us. I’m very excited and honored someone that you have probably encountered at the airport most recently, or you maybe you didn’t run into them, but you saw their books at the airport. Please welcome Steve Berry. He is a New York Times number one international best selling author of 17 cotton Malone adventures, five standalone thrillers and some short fiction as well. He has sold some 25 million books in 41 languages and 52 countries, and they’re constantly at the top of the best sellers list. And here’s an amazing statistic every 30 seconds. Steve Barry sells a book and an angel gets its wings. He has been very good about giving back. He is part of the history matters Foundation which is dedicated to actually remembering what happened, and he has dedicated millions of dollars to it. He has been recognized with all sorts of awards, the Barnes and Nobles writers award, etc, all of the big awards that you may have heard of, including both the Florida and Georgia writer of the year. And he is an emeritus member of the Smithsonian’s advisory board. Pretty cool. Wow. One of his book was named one of the top 100 thrillers of all time. Steve, welcome. How you doing? Oh, good to be here.

30:45 Unknown Speaker : You’re making me blush.

30:47 Jim Beach : We offer a service while I will do that exact intro every time you go into a new room.

30:53 Steve Berry : That’d be great. It’d be right. Just bring you around with me a little fanfare.

30:56 Jim Beach : Yes, so have you earned your soul back yet as a hopefully retiring lawyer.

31:05 Steve Berry : I practiced for 30 years. It was great. I enjoyed it, but I probably don’t want to do it again. No, I was a trial lawyer for 30 years, so I saw people at their worst. I did divorces, criminal defense, all kinds of things in the courtroom. So just one of those things that is from the past, but I don’t really want to do it again. No.

31:24 Jim Beach : And did you always want to write thrillers? Was that your childhood dream or did that come?

36:56 Jim Beach : Well, adding the new piece is a definite twist, isn’t it?

31:31 Steve Berry : Oh, no, I didn’t write my first word. I was 35 years old, and from the time I wrote my first word to the time I sold my first word was 12 years. And I wrote eight manuscripts during that time, and five went to New York publishing houses. They were rejected 85 times, so I didn’t make it to the 86th time 12 years after I started.

31:55 Jim Beach : Wow. Why? Why didn’t you stop and give up. I mean, the normal person would have stopped and said, Well, I give up.

32:05 Steve Berry : I did kind of I did about three times during that period. I did, but something that keeps a writer going. And I didn’t understand it then, but I understand it now. All writers are born with a little voice in their head, and it’s not a voice that says, Write a bestseller and sell a bunch of books and be on radio and TV. It doesn’t say that. It just says, I need you to sit down and write. If you’ll sit down and write, I will hush and I will not nag you. But if you don’t, I’m going to nag you till you do. And I had that voice all during the 80s. 1980s I didn’t listen to it until 1990 so during that next 12 years is when I began to understand that little voice. And when I would quit a little voice after a few days, would say, okay, the pity party is over. Let’s get back to work now. And the little voice kept me going until one day, one day, Lady Luck said, Well, you’ve you’ve taken your hard knocks. Today. I’m going to give you a break.

32:55 Jim Beach : All right. Was that book, that manuscript, sold better than the others before it? No, no,

33:03 Steve Berry : it was the same manuscript. Basically. It was the Amber Room. It was the fourth manuscript I ever wrote. It was basically the same story. I did a little edit on it, I did a little cleanup on it, but I didn’t change much in it at all. It’s basically the same story of the eight manuscripts that I wrote and the five that went to New York houses, four of those made it to made it to publication, eventually as the Amber Room, the Roman off prophecy, the third secret and the Kaiser’s web. So four of them made it into print. The rest have made it. Bits and pieces of those manuscripts have made it into other stories. So I just hung with it. For me, it was a matter of the world changing. You know when, when the Cold War ended and the Berlin Wall fell, the spy thriller kind of went away. It died. The genre died. Really, if you were la carre or Cussler Ludlow, you’re fine, but if you were trying to break in, publishers weren’t buying them. And then in 2003 da Vincent code came along, and da Vincent changed everything. And Da Vinci brought the spy thriller back, but not as a spy thriller, but as action history secrets, conspiracies. And that’s exactly what I was writing, action history secrets, conspiracy. So for me, nothing changed from the books I was writing, but the world changed around me, and there was now a market for those thrillers. And I got I got bought, and now here I am, 23 books later.

34:30 Jim Beach : Amazing, amazing. Tell us about your newest the last kingdom.

34:37 Steve Berry : It deals with two things that I really like, Bavaria, which is one of my favorite places in the world, in southern Germany, which has a fascinating history, and Ludwig, the second the ruler of Bavaria in the mid to latter part of the 19th century. One right? Some call him that, yes, I don’t look at him as Mad King Ludwig. I think he was troubled at. Absolutely he probably suffered from depression or bipolar, you know, something like that. Today we would treat him with medications and all, he’d probably be fine. But in that time, there was nothing available, so he sort of languished in his own delusional reality. But in that reality, he created some astounding things, the three castles, Aaron Kim say, linderhoff and, yeah, which is still there, still there today. Are magnificent creations that came out of his mind. And I’ve always wanted to do a thriller with him. So I sent my recurring character cotton Malone, my hero. I’ve done 17 cotton Malone books, he is headed to Bavaria to deal with something fascinating from the time of Ludwig the second that is real. That’s the hook of my books. I take something real from history, something that you may not know a lot about, and I weave a modern day thriller around it. And in this case, it deals with Ludwig the second.

36:00 Unknown Speaker : All right, so

36:02 Jim Beach : the ideation process. How does that work for you? So you start off with and I just want to let you know this, that I don’t think I’ve ever been as disappointed as I was when I was 15 and we made it to Castle. Nuance, I don’t know how to say it correctly. Juan steinstein, something like that. The one that supposedly Disney Cinderella Castle maybe is moderate after it’s the one, it’s just amazing. And I guess I had a language classroom in high school that had a poster of it, and the poster is taken, I now know from a helicopter well above, and you can see the beautiful lake in the background. You can’t see that view from anywhere except the helicopter. You go there, and you’re staring up at the castle, and it’s just not like what you plan on experiencing. It’s not majestic from anywhere that a human being can get and I was just blown away, Steven, it was the first time that I was like, well, that’s some fake advertising. I feel really gypped, you know. So anyway, there’s my little story about that.

37:15 Steve Berry : Well, I mean, there’s, there’s angles of it. I mean, I don’t know how you came upon the castle. There are angles of it, where it sits up on the Mount. It’s quite beautiful, particularly in wintertime when it sits up there. It’s very magical. Now you’re talking about the picture where you look get up to the castle, you look down at Hohenschwangau, which is the castle next door, which was where Ludwig was born and raised. And you do have to be up there to get that view, and in a particular angle to see the lake and all together. But these Feinstein’s magical. I mean, Walt Disney went there in the 1930s and that’s where he got that’s where Sleeping beauty’s Castle came from. And Disney, it’s, it is news Feinstein, that’s where it was

37:52 Jim Beach : all right, how does that become a cotton Malone book? So what’s the ideation that goes on? Describe where the idea describe the whole process?

38:05 Steve Berry : Well, you have to come up. I have to find that thing from history and that thing that’s real. And I came across something with Ludwig that was real. Ludwig was very disillusioned with being king of Bavaria. He didn’t like the restraints that were put on him. He wanted to be a mythical King, like in the Middle Ages and in a Wagner opera, which he adored, and he wanted to be this mythical ruler, to do as he wished, spend as he wished, whatever. And he was not a cruel man at all. He just wanted to build his castles and have fun and enjoy himself. And so he sent a man around the world to find him a new kingdom. And this is actually true. And a guy went all over the world trying to find Ludwig a new kingdom. In real life, they never found it, but in the novel, they do. And now China and Russia, I mean China, Germany and the United States, are now after this last kingdom, but for three entirely different reasons. And that’s what I do. I weave this modern day tail around it. And when I came across all that and put it together, I said, this will be great. So Ludwig’s three castles figure into it. The reader is going to get a full appreciation of those, get to see them inside and get to experience them. And Bavaria itself, which is a very magical, mystical place. And so that’s what I like to do with my novels. I like to bring a place alive that the reader can feel a

39:21 Jim Beach : part of, and is there a nuclear war that cotton prevents? I’m sorry, Steve, I have not read that I remember, and I’m the guy who reads a book and just leaves it on the airplane seat when I’m done, you know, and passes on to the next guy. I don’t know, the character, you know. So does he save us from nuclear war, or get all the girls, or what’s the stereotypical cotton experience in my novels

39:49 Steve Berry : I don’t deal with like the world is at stake, kind of things, because, frankly, it’s hard to put the entire world at stake, and then it requires too much of a suspension of belief by the reader. I did one book with that, but most of my books deal with a localized problem that could have wide ranging implications. And in this case, this particular problem, this last kingdom, can affect the United States, Germany and China in a very adverse way, one that could send them into a collision course with each other, so I keep my conflicts sort of localized, but they still have global impact if they reach their full potential, and that’s what I like to do with my thrillers. So in this case, yes, there’s something that Germany, China and the United States have in common, and they’re after this. And I don’t want to say what it is, because it’ll give away something from the novel, but it’s a from the novel, but it’s real, and the reader who’s never read one of my books, in the back of my book, and there’s a writer’s note, and the writer’s note will tell you everything that’s true and false, so you’ll be able to get a full appreciation everything after you’re over.

40:56 Jim Beach : I like that. That’s nice of you to do. I don’t

40:59 Steve Berry : want the reader to read it and think, Well, that’s true, or that’s false, whatever. I want to tell you exactly what it is, but I keep my books about 90% to reality, so I keep them as close as I can. So the writer’s note deals with that 10%

41:12 Jim Beach : all right, and is it outlined in your head before you write a single page? What? How long does it take you to do it? We’ll talk to you about process.

41:26 Steve Berry : Start to finish for me for one of my novels, about 18 months. The first six months are done. While I’m writing the novel, before I’m doing my preliminary research and I’m getting a rough outline together of where I want to go when I finish that novel, I start the next novel. I’m ready to go, and I’ve already done my six months of preliminary work, so I go to work, and then there’s 12 more months now of research and writing. It takes, actually 12 months to write the novel. I use about three to 400 sources for every novel. All, most of almost all of those are physical books. I don’t read three to 400 books, but I do read large chunks of 303 to 400 books, and I I’m looking for my notes. I’m looking for my information, things that I can incorporate in so I try to keep as close as I can, because I want, I want to entertain that’s my number one function, is to entertain you. But if I can inform you as well, so much the better.

42:18 Jim Beach : And advice on getting a publishing contract,

42:22 Steve Berry : just you got to write a good book. You got to work hard. You got to hang with it. You got to stay to it and and just keep plowing along. If you get rejected, you write another book, and you just keep going until you find a story that they like. And it’s really a game of perseverance. Here he is. I tell people all the time. I may not know anything about writing, but I consider myself a world class expert on rejection. I understand that very well, and you’ve got to get yourself in the mood in to understand that and to work hard with it. There’s no magic, there’s no formula, there’s no gimmick. It’s just write the books. See if you can sell it. Write another one. See if you can sell it. Just keep going.

43:05 Jim Beach : And when you’re selling a book, what is the bullet points? What are what? What do you sell? Are you selling your particularly in the beginning? Oh, yeah. What are the type things that you say? I mean, do you claim you have a large platform, or do you know,

43:25 Steve Berry : first off, you write the best book you can. You have to write the best book you can. And I tell people all the time, don’t write what you know. That’s very bad advice to me. Instead, write what you love. If what you know and what you love are the same thing, fine, but if not, pick what you love. I was a lawyer. I understood that. I knew all that, but I wanted, I loved action, history, secrets, conspiracies, and so that’s what I wrote. So you write books you love. You try to find something fresh, something new, something different. You certainly don’t want to repeat what somebody’s already done. In my case, you know, I had the Amber Room was my first published novel. So at that point, da Vincent was coming, and it was changing everything. And we were shifting back from a spy novel to action history, secrets, conspiracies, which is what I was writing. Eventually, I’d started the cotton Malone series, and with the Templer legacy, and you find a hero, somebody different, something new. My guy was a retired Justice Department agent who lives in Copenhagen, who runs an old book shop and gets himself into trouble all the time. And that was relatively fresh at that time, and it still remains that way today, that cotton is very unique. He’s not a Daniel Craig superhero. He’s an ordinary guy who can rise up and do extraordinary things, if necessary, and you you just try to be fresh different, write the best you can, and just keep plowing away until you find an editor who says, I like that. That’s what I want, and that’s what I did. It took me 12 years, but I found one

44:57 Jim Beach : and how. Do you do character development? Who is cotton? Is cotton really you with you you wish existed? Is it part your brother and part your uncle? No, no. It feeds me.

45:12 Steve Berry : He is my personality, pretty much, because when I created him in the Templar legacy, I was not arrogant enough to think I was going to get to write 17 more books with him. I just want to do one, maybe two, if we’re lucky. So I just used my personality, and a lot of degree is in there with him, and cassiope, of it, who’s his love interest, is my wife, Elizabeth, basically her personality. So I did kind of incorporate those and use those. I felt those were safe to use, and we didn’t have any problem with them. And they develop well, cotton has changed a lot over the years. He caught Malone from the Templar legacy and the cotton Malone in the last kingdom are two different people, very much, two different people. And so David, he’s changed. He’s adapted, he’s modified. He’s he’s not, you know, you don’t want your characters to stay static. That would be terrible. So I wanted him to evolve, and he certainly has.

46:03 Jim Beach : Who do you consider the best of the genre? Do you respect Dan Brown? Are you a Clancy or do you Clive Cussler? Who do you respect?

46:16 Steve Berry : I’m a Dan Brown. I’m a Dan Brown guy because I wouldn’t be here without Dan. I mean, Da Vinci Code gave me my chance to, gave me, gave me that chance to make this happen. And I was, you know, I couldn’t have done it without that. So, yes, I bow down every time I see a DA Vincent code, I stop and I bow my head and thinks he is the king of our genre. And so he is the he’s the guy in my genre that we all look up to. I certainly I learned a lot from Ludlum, Robert Ludlow Cussler. I learned a lot from these, these folks. I’m pretty much a thriller junkie, that’s what I read. But those guys are kind of my heroes, right?

47:00 Jim Beach : And what is it about Disney that you love imagination?

47:04 Steve Berry : That’s what it’s all about. Disney is imagination. Walt Disney was an incredible imaginative individual, and he was amazing, and he he did incredible things that are still 60 plus years after he’s gone, is still going and still working, and still doing what he envisioned. That’s that’s incredible accomplishment from from someone who just just dared to dream.

47:29 Jim Beach : And are you particularly fascinated with the Templar Knights and the Masons?

47:35 Steve Berry : Not, not the Masons so much. They’re just a social organization. The poor guys get blamed for everything in the world and that they really never bothered anybody.

47:44 Jim Beach : Charity in Georgia. They’re

47:47 Steve Berry : there. They don’t like I said. They do their job. Yeah, they there’s, it’s a social club. It’s a, it’s a, it’s a club for folks enjoy themselves. They’re not designed to take over the world and destroy, you know, the human race, or whatever. You know, it’s not, it’s not there. I don’t I don’t go there with them. The Templars have been gone for a long time, but they are a fascinating organization, which I explored in the Templar legacy. There they they were in many ways, innovators. There are many ways they changed things. They’re interesting. My Templars and the Templar legacy are not the Hollywood Templars. I dealt with the real Templars the way they actually were. And basically that’s a book was published in 2006 and it remains my largest selling book. It still remains to this day, my largest selling book.

48:32 Jim Beach : I would love to see a Disney, a Walt Disney, Mason book, a thriller about Walt Disney, and like, for example, the 33 club in the middle of Disneyland, I think that would make a wonderful thriller.

48:52 Steve Berry : I would love to have Disney in one of, one of the thrills I did have it in the bishop’s pawn. In the bishop’s pawn, which is a cock Malone origin story the Magic Kingdom is in, is in there. In fact, the climax of the novel takes place at the Magic Kingdom. And that was fun to write, but I’d like to incorporate it some more. And I might, you might see it again, and particularly in the Luke Daniels book, the secondary series I was telling you about, the Starks in June might be, might be a good place for a for a Disney

49:20 Jim Beach : to be involved in it. You also served as a politician, I think for a decade and a half. Are today’s politicians broken? Is our political system broken? Seems to me, it’s obvious America is in decline right now, and you know, we’re doing the standard rearranging the deck chairs. I don’t even think we’re doing that. I think we’re arguing about the fringe on the pattern, on the cushion on the deck chair as the boat sinks around us. Your thoughts?

49:57 Steve Berry : Well, I mean, it’s a. To each individual citizen of this country to educate themselves and to be aware of things, good, bad, whatever. You need to be aware of it, and you need to make up your own mind to where we are. Certainly, people in office today are tend to we do seem to gravitate to the extremes, left and right. We’ve always been a country of the center, and that’s where we’ve been. And the center always comes back into play, and it will come back into play next year. We’ll come back into play in the presidential race, because you you know you have your extremes on the left and the right, but you cannot win a presidential race unless you win the center. So everyone’s got to come back into there and deal with that. And that’s where the vast majority of America is, is in the center. And, you know, I have faith in America. I have faith in the Constitution. It’s a magnificent system. I think it will survive and it can’t survive, and it’s designed to survive. And I think we’re going to be just fine, excellent.

50:59 Jim Beach : I love the positive attitude. I hope so.

51:02 Steve Berry : I We have a great system in this country. It’s probably the greatest political system in the world, maybe the greatest one ever concocted by human mind. It survived 200 and what, 70 years, and it’s going to keep going, and we’ll do fine. We go through cycles. Everything goes through cycles, and we’re in a cycle now, but it’ll cycle back, and our Constitution as it has, it will prevail.

51:29 Jim Beach : We need to wrap it up. Steve, are you hopeful for a movie? Do we see a cotton Malone movie, and if who plays cotton,

51:37 Steve Berry : that’d be great. I love it. Been a lot of talk, a lot of options, a lot of producers asking questions, but no one’s done anything yet as to who would play him. I really don’t know. There’s a wide variety of people that could play the character I would be. I’d be open to anybody. And I think it make a great these big, great films be a great film franchise. I think Indiana Jones is winding down with his last movie here, it’d be great to start the cotton Malone franchise.

52:03 Jim Beach : I think it’d be cool. I would love to see it. Steve, congratulations, 25 million books sold. Have you had the airplane moment where you’re sitting on the airplane of the guy next to you is reading you?

52:18 Steve Berry : That has happened? I would say count. Doesn’t have as much now, because people don’t read physical books anymore, but in the early days, you know, the first 10 books or so, yeah, we would see it constantly. It was when, strictly, when we’re on tour and the new book was out, it was really, it never gets old, believe me, never.

52:38 Jim Beach : Steve, how do we find out more? Follow you online and get a copy of the last kingdom.

52:43 Steve Berry : They’re in bookstores everywhere right now. All Formats, hardcover, audio, downloads, e format, whatever you want. It’s out there, and you can learn more about that book and all of my books at Steve berry.org fantastic.

52:59 Jim Beach : You’ve been on the neutron ride yet.

53:02 Steve Berry : I have not done it yet. I’ve been it opened up while we were on tour and all, but I plan to do that soon.

53:10 Jim Beach : Make sure you let them know that you’re coming, and they’ll give you the special pass. I think special. I don’t know

53:18 Steve Berry : if they’ll do that. I’ll probably have to stand in line, but it seems like it’d be a pretty cool a pretty cool roller coaster, so I’m looking forward to

53:25 Jim Beach : trying it. I can’t wait. Steve, thanks a lot for being with us. Great stuff, an amazing career, and thanks for your advice. Thank you. We’ll be back in just a second to talk about my favorite topic, divorce. We’ll be right back. I’m sorry I am incorrect. We are out of time for today, but back tomorrow. Be safe, take care and go make a million dollars and Sydney half. Have a great day. Everyone. You.